- McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 1
- McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 2
- McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 3
- McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 4
- McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 5
- McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 6
- McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 7
- McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 8
- McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 9
- McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 10
- McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 11
- McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 12
- McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 13
- McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 14
- McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 15
- McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 16
- McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 17
- McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 18
- McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 19
- McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 20
- McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 21
- McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 22
- McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 23
- McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 24
- McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 25
- McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 26
- McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 27
- McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 28
- McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 29
- McCall Gathering 2007 Part 30
- McCall Gathering 2007, Part 31
- McCall Gathering 2007, Part 32
- McCall Gathering 2007, Part 33
- McCall Gathering 2007, Part 34
- McCall Gathering 2007, Part 35
- McCall Gathering 2007, Part 36
- McCall Gathering 2007, Part 37
- McCall Gathering 2007, Part 38
- McCall Gathering 2007, Part 39
- McCall Gathering 2007, Part 40
- McCall Gathering 2007, Part 41
- McCall Gathering 2007, Part 42
- McCall Gathering 2007, Part 43
- McCall Gathering 2007, Part 44
- McCall Gathering 2007, Part 45
- McCall Gathering 2007, Part 46
- McCall Gathering 2007, Part 47
- McCall Gathering 2007, Part 48
- McCall Gathering 2007, Part 49
- McCall Gathering 2007, Part 50
- McCall Gathering 2007, Part 51
- McCall Gathering 2007, Part 52
- McCall Gathering 2007, Part 53
- McCall Gathering 2007, Part 54
Mastering the Bull
The next lesson is the lesson of Taurus and the second lesson of Taurus is the capture the Cretan Bull. The gods said, well the last time you messed it up a bit and lets see if you do better this time Hercules. We want you to go capture this bull that is on the island of Crete and take it over to the mainland and give it to the one eyed Cyclops. The bull is to be dedicated to the gods so they need that bull in their possession. This time and labor and all that follow he has to perform alone. The first labor he has a sidekick with him. Remember that TV series he always had that sidekick with him that was like his lower self. In all the rest of the labors he has to perform them pretty much all alone.
And so he did a search and finally he found this bull which had a shining star on its head. He captured the bull and he managed to ride it through the ocean and took it to the mainland and gave it to the one eyed race that was there. Three leaders represented the one eyed race and they all had one eye. Can anyone guess what this symbolism is about?
Audience: Silence
JJ: Capturing the bull and taking it to the mainland, what would that mean? And what does it mean that we have a bull on an island?
Audience: Isolated
JJ: Right, the bull is symbolic of the lower self again and it is symbolic of our lower desires and also our sex urge. Lower psychism, lower desire and the sex urge – these are what the bull represents.
The star on the bull represents the light in the forehead which is a light from the soul that guides us through these energies so that they can be controlled accurately. Now we each see ourselves as an isolated unit and in making decisions about our lower nature we see ourselves as making decisions from a point of isolation. That is why the bull is isolated. We say that what I do only affects me but actually what we do has a ripple effect and affects many people.
So Hercules was told to take the bull to the mainland. In other words, take the lower part of our nature and realize that it is not isolated. The lower part of our nature affects the higher part of our nature and they are all intertwined.
This is continuation of the lesson when he worked with his friend Abduras. They were supposed to work together and they ended up working separately and the labor almost ended up getting bungled. So he is supposed to take the bull to the mainland, which symbolizes unity, the unity of the lower and the higher self. We say the lower self and the lower self does not mean bad self. The lower self is still part of the whole and the lower self needs directed in such a way that it is useful for it is a tool.
All of our bodies are merely vehicles. If you have a car, it is a vehicle to take you from one place to another. We have seven vehicles all together – three vehicles of form, which are most important from our point of view. The first form is the form of the mind, which is thought. The second, desire, and then the third, the physical form that we are in right now.
There are worlds that are composed of emotional matter that are just controlled by feeling and this is called the astral world. Then the next world up is the world of thought. All form is manipulated by what you think. Now thought and emotion or feeling and physical activity are all brought together at this lowest point that we are at. Our lower urges need to be ridden or mastered for riding the bull symbolizes taking control of our lower nature and directing it in a harmless way so that it becomes a sacrifice, so to speak, for the gods. These three one eyed men symbolize enlightened beings of the higher self and the three aspects of the Trinity – the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, or the aspects of power, love and will.
These three one eyed Cyclops symbolizes the higher aspect of the Holy Trinity that the lower nature must be delivered by riding the bull so to speak to the one God. So we can use the lower nature to full fill the purpose of God rather than against them.
Audience: You mentioned something about thought and desire and physical activity.
JJ: The three worlds of form are desire, and then mind and thought, and then the lowest world is the physical world. The physical world is really two because the physical world that we see is composed of what we call the dense physical which is really not built upon what is called a real principle. What really sustains form is we call the etheric body. Has anyone ever showed you how to see the etheric body?
Audience: No
JJ: Okay it is much easier to see than the aura and I will show you how to see it. We need a white or light background. Now put your thumbs together and touch them and then pull them apart so they are about a quarter inch from each other and look at that space in between them against this white background. Stare only at the empty space with the white wall in the background . You will see kind of a blue film around your thumbs stretching about a millimeter from the skin.
How many of you can see it? Okay just about everybody. It is pretty easy to see. When I was a younger kid I taught a class in the church to a bunch of young kids and I showed them how to see this and I said that is your spirit. (Chuckling) They went home and told their parents and boy I got in a lot of trouble.
Okay now I want everyone to stare at my third eye in my forehead. I guess I had better think good thoughts. (60 seconds later) Okay I am going to move away but I want you to keep your eyes fixed on that spot and imagine I am still there. (45 seconds later) Okay what do you see? Does anybody see any colors?
Audience: Blue
Audience: I saw yellow.
Audience: Blue and orange.
JJ: I am just recovering from a cold and there may be some interference there. Anyone see any dark spots?
Audience: Yes
JJ: If you are getting over a cold or something when you look at the whole body you can often see the areas where there is a congestion of energy.
Audience: Now when you were standing up there you just a few more seconds and then you decided to step away, how did you sense when it was the appropriate time for us to see that?
JJ: Any time around a minute it begins to work and there is nothing magical about an exact time. Next, to see your aura you have to concentrate on looking a little bit farther out. The etheric body is really easy to see and almost everybody can see that, but not too many can see the aura naturally. This is something that has to be learned by experimenting and continuing to practice and then when you first see it you will think it was your imagination because it is so fleeting. You will see it and then it will disappear and then look and it will disappear or go away.
The process of seeing the aura is the process I call “not seeing.” You have to be in mode to not see to be able to see. In other words it is a little bit like chasing your girlfriend when you are young. If she knew you were chasing her then she avoided you but if you act like you do not care then she thinks, “since he does not care then I am going to make him care.” So it is a little bit like that in the fact that when you begin to see the aura that you have to have the mindset that you do not care if you see it or not and you have to put yourself in a mindset where are not really trying to look but you are trying.
This is kind of an interesting mindset that you have to put yourself in and when you finally get in that mindset you cannot be enamored by it because as soon as you think, oh boy, its working, then it disappears. You have to keep your emotions at bay and then finally you will get to the point to where you can see it and look at it for a while.
Now out farther than the aura is the film that covers the aura. You are actually fairly egg shaped. If you notice that when you break an egg there is a film on the outer part of the egg. Well there is a film on the outer part of the aura and on this outer film part of the aura is projected your thoughts and they are projected in all kinds of geometric forms. A Master can look at these geometric forms you are projecting and tell what you are thinking.
When Christ approached the woman at well and read her mind he was merely looking at the projection of thought and He was very sensitive to that. These outer images are much harder to see than the aura, just like the aura is much harder to see than the etheric body. They are very elusive. I find sometimes they are easiest to see just when you are waking up in the morning when you are in between being awake and asleep and sometimes for a short period of time I will see them really easy.
I used to practice quite a bit in seeing the aura but I have not done it much in recent years. I find that by just using the intuitive nature that you can pick up what you need on other individuals but seeing the aura does have its use and sometimes an aura may just stand out, and out of the blue for some reason my soul wants me to see the aura and it will just be real easy to see. So if you tune into the soul when you are supposed to know something about somebody then you will get some kind of impression one way or another and you may pick up something about their aura also.
Copyright 2010 by J J Dewey
. Great site here. Many blogs like this cover subjects that can’t be found in magazines and newspapers. I don’t know how we got by 10 years ago with just newspapers and magazines.effwwwwwwwww
4. I just added this weblog to my feed reader, great stuff. Can’t get enough!sds
Larry Woods says,
On the subject of “taking the bull by the horns” rather than killing the bull, one of my favorite authors, Robert Monroe, talked about his personal challenge with sex when he first began cruising the spirit world. He discovered that his spirit body was very powerful and could respond to his thoughts instantly. So when the thought of sex entered his mind and he happened to be near another willing individual, his spirit body went zero-to-sixty in a split second and he found himself having sex when he had not planned to do so. This happened to Robert several times. He felt totally out of control and overwhelmed. As Robert explored the spirit world, he read what others had to say about it. He ran across a European spirit world explorer from the 18th century who remarked that if there had been two challenges as great as sex in exploring the spirit world, then he would never have succeeded as a mystic.
Sex is a big challenge whether we explore the spirit world or our physical world. Robert finally mastered himself and left a bit of sage advice. Robert found he could not tell his spirit body, “No sex.” His powerful spirit simply blew right past that. But he could shunt the energy to an appropriate time and place saying, “That is a great idea but right now I’m focused on this other mission.” His spirit seemed OK to accept that and would calm right down. So it seems, from Robert’s experience, that our spirits will not accept the idea of zero sex. But sex expressed appropriately is acceptable. Perhaps this dynamic plays into the Catholic priest difficulties we see in the news where sex pops out inappropriately contradicting their purpose as priests. They might do better to avoid “no” but, instead, choose “appropriate”. What do I mean when I say appropriate? Consistent with the purposes of unselfish service, harmlessness, and love. Robert’s experience seems to fit nicely with Hercules’ mission from his teacher instructing him not to “kill” the bull but to master it. And with water representing emotions in all the esoteric writings, riding the bull on top of the water to the mainland represents operating “above” our emotions. The “mainland” seems to represent function serving the higher purpose of love rather than selfishness. I very much like the idea that we are not expected to deny any of our natural functions but, rather, to integrate them appropriately into a life of service and higher purposes of love.
I believe that operating “above” our emotions does not mean we no longer feel them nor that we deny them. Denying emotion is a formula for great pain and suffering. Take care to avoid that or suffer terrible consequences. Our emotions well serve the unselfish-service-harmless-love purpose by providing motivating fuel. We just gotta learn how to channel our emotions for higher purpose rather than letting our spirit body do the driving. Each of our bodies (physical, emotional, and mental) provides a vehicle for our higher self. Using our bodies as vehicles means we do not let those bodies do the driving but we keep our higher self in the “driver seat” at all times. Yet we do use and enjoy those vehicles to the fullest. I say enjoy because, “If you are not happy then you are not doing it right.” This whole theme boils down to living from our higher center of being or, as JJ often expresses it, “Live up to the highest you know.” When we do that, all the power provided by our vehicles gets channeled correctly. This one law of love then dictates rather than needing a complex system of laws and hedges externally defining our every action. Jesus expressed this in teaching that love (higher purpose) forms the basis of all good law and of all wisdom teachings. Living from our higher self automatically “writes” higher law in our hearts.
This Hercules story seems perfect to instruct youth. I thrill to imagine the powerful scene of a parent discussing these issues from Hercules’ example as the child discovers these meanings illustrated by the great depth of these Hercules stories. How about a super-hero whose story illustrates timeless wisdom and offers a vocabulary for life success?!! Parents could well incorporate these stories and wisdom examples into teaching children. As a child I loved the Samson story . Later I realized the guy failed big because he used his power for selfishness. Disappointing. But now we see a hero who both succeeds and fails but who wins in the end and whose stories cover the gamut of success principles for a disciple of truth and wisdom and love. When I get the privilege to be a dad again (my kids are all grown – but maybe in the next life), I plan to use these Hercules stories for instruction and to create a common background or archetype for all my children. Think of it, as children get these teachings, it forms a universal basis for communication and instruction which is full of wisdom. This super-hero certainly belongs in the curriculum for the gathering New Age community.
Your brother,
Larry Woods
I agree with you Larry. The Labours of Hercules is also one of my favorites amongst JJ’S work, and I undertook now to rereead the book again because there seems to be more I understand than before. I’ve noticed too that I am able to integrate the story of Hercules believe it or not in my daily conversations with people. I was not ale to do that before and I have a sense that JJ was right about to keep on reading even if we do not understand and by the time we are on our second and third round of reading, it really sinks in to the point you integrate and can apply. It makes it practical for people around us come to understand these complex yet simple principles in life.
On another note, I was curious about something regarding the Bull. The story of Hercules tells us we are not to kill the bull BUT rather take it by the horns. Could there be a deeper reason why so many out there are against Bullfighting (Corrida) which ”kills” the bull (besides the whole animal cruelty part) rather than mastering it and controlling it? When you go to animal shows, lions and elephants are mastered and controlled but they somehow don’t apply that to the Bulls during a bullfighting show. They kill them instead. Yet you had people like Hemingway and Picasso passionately follow the Corrida on a regular basis.
Seems the killing of the bull is not representative at all of the labours in Taurus.
Yes, the fact that we kill the bull is a symbol of our mislead handling of the desire nature.
JJ
I listened to this Hercules stuff from JJ on CD several times. I must say this is my very favorite of all JJ’s many writings and talks out there. It’s a huge task to subdue the bull (our sexual temptations that wont to control our lives rather than let our higher selves control – exactly like a bull who must be shown who is boss) and ride it across the water (above our emotions) to the mainland (to be of constructive service in our communities rather than to create burdens for our communities). The clean and consistent use of metaphor in the Hercules stories provides an unforgetable teaching tool. I find myself refering to these Hercules story mentle-handles often and in many situations. I also think these stories can create a wonderful teaching tool for parents to relate to their kids. As their kids grow they will understand these stories on ever increasing levels of complexity. They provide a common archetype structure for us all to enhance our communications. I decided to begin using them in my writing as if everyone learned them from the beginning in grade-school and in home-school.
As for solar gazing, it has become one of my favorite things. I find it much harder in the winter as the sun is often obscured by clouds and rain and, sometimes, it’s extremely cold out there (Oklahoma). Yet I persist because it feels like a spiritual highlight to my day each time. Thank you, JJ, for this solar-gazing tip.
Finally, at the risk of sounding either “me-too” or crazy, I occasionally see these very things you describe also, Judy.
I have had this experience of seeing auras or energy around someone only by accident and when I am engaged with a person who has high energy or who is speaking while in his higher-self. I will be watching them speak at a conference and they are indeed standing in front of a light background like a whitish wall or whiteboard. . I am staring at them talk and then I start to see a rim around their form that is glowing color and then if they move then the where they stood leaves an impression of their form in a color I experienced this with JJ at a Gathering while JJ was teaching. The color I saw around him and the lingering colors were purplish.. I experienced this with a Lakota Indian story-teller and even saw him transfigure into several past-life images (old Indian sage/chief)..
I have also seen light shining from the eyes of people who I consider to be enlightened. Anyone else see these types of things?
That is pretty interesting I never thought of that story of Hercules and the Bull like that but it makes sense. So it seems we need to “take the bull by the horns” so to speak
That bull can be pretty unruly and hard to subdue. Some might say it takes superhuman strength such as Hercules had to bring him to the mainland.
On another note I have done some sun gazing I noticed as I was able to do it for longer periods I could see the etheric outlines of nearby trees and even houses etc. I have never tried seeing auras but may give it a try. I do see the geometric shapes during meditations sometimes. The are usually a neon violet color but sometimes a neon blue. Maybe I will try focusing on them as i normally just kind of observe them as the float by so to speak.
Glad you are having a positive effect from sun gazing. If you look at the sun for any length of time be sure to so it as close to sunset or sunrise as possible. A couple seconds in the middle of the day can be okay.
the fact that you are seeing a neon violet is a good sign. That’s a color that follows a sincere seeker. Blue is the color of mental activity. When I look at the sun I see an atomic looking symbol that changes shape. Have you ever seen that?
I am not sure what you mean by Atomic symbol can you describe it? I find myself sort of drifting off the sun not with my eyes but my mind into a bit of an altered state. I haven’t been able to gaze for awhile do to time constraints and of course cloud cover lately. I miss it because my mind always seems very sharp after gazing.