Tara

 

In the pantheon of Mahayana Buddhism, Tara (pronounced TAH-RAH) is a Universal Mother Goddess whose compassion and mercy for all living things radiates through out our world and into infinite space.  With maternal love, She nurtures, guides and protects all living things like a mother for an only child.  To help ease the pain and suffering endured by all living things, Tara is able to manifest Herself in a variety of forms and/or aspects that demonstrate the range of Her powers and Her never ending devotion to bringing relief to the suffering.  In order to connect with these different aspects, Tara is known by one hundred and eight names and is the bearer of twenty-one titles (example; Tara, the Giver of Prosperity / Tara, the Supplier of Happiness).  In fact, the most important canonical text in the worship of Tara is titled the ‘Hymns to the twenty-one Taras’.  In iconography, these aspects of Tara are distinguishable by their different poses including hand positions or mudras and the number of arms, legs and eyes they have.  Tara is also represented in one of five colors Green, White, Yellow, Blue or Red.  In Tibetan Buddhism (also known as Lamaism), Tara is the most revered and worshipped of all the Gods/Goddesses, especially in Tibet, Mongolia and Nepal.  Most scholars today believe Tara’s popularity is due to the ability of the layperson to appeal/pray to Her directly without the mediation of a Lama which is needed when appealing to other Deities in the Tibetan Buddhism pantheon.
 There are numerous myths pertaining to the origins of Tara.  The following two examples though similar, point out the progression of Tara from a single Deity into Her two most popular aspects, Green Tara and White Tara.  This first myth is from the seventh century CE and is thought to have originated in India.  ‘Though he tried and tried, Lord Avalokitesvara (a bodhisattva or enlightenment being) could not stop nor could He sufficiently reduce the suffering of all living beings and so he began to weep tears of compassion for the misery he could not prevent until his flowing tears formed a lake and from this lake, a lotus blossom appeared.  From the blossom, Tara emerged more beautiful than a million-lotus blossoms combined.  She made a vow to Lord Avalokitesvara that she would help him to liberate all living things from suffering.’
The second myth originated in Tibet around the thirteen century CE.  ‘Overwhelmed by compassion, Avalokitesvara began to shed tears of sympathy for the suffering He saw upon the Earth.  From the tears falling from His left eye, the Goddess sGrol-ljan (Green Tara) was born and from the tears falling from his right eye, the Goddess sGrol-dkar (White Tara) was born.’
 Green Tara symbolizes the divine energy found in all living things and this aspect of Her best depicts Her kinship and bond with the plant kingdom. 
Green Tara is the most popular Deity worshipped in Tibet today.  She is considered the original Tara by the Tibetan people.  Green Tara is usually depicted setting upon a lotus with right leg extending out and Her right foot resting on a small lotus blossom.  Her right hand is on Her right knee with the palm facing up in a gesture of blessing.  In Her left hand, She holds the stem of a blue lotus.
 White Tara is the second most worshipped aspect of the Goddess Tara, especially in Mongolia where Her popularity rivals that of Green Tara.  White Tara represents transcendent wisdom and symbolizes perfect purity.  She is also known as a Deity of longevity and as such is prayed to for healing and to prolong life.  The most common depiction of White Tara is of Her sitting with Her legs crossed in a meditative pose with the sole of Her feet turned upward.  Her right arm is extended down, palm facing out in a gesture of charity (varada mudra).  In Her left hand, She holds the stem of a lotus too.
 As with most of the Mahayana Deities, the worship of Tara is divided into seven steps:
                    1. The Invocation
                    2. Presentation of offerings (such as rice, water, 
                        flowers, incenses or a Mandala)
                    3. Recite hymns in Her praise
                    4. Repetition of Her Mantra
                    5. Prayers for present benefits
                    6. Prayers for benefits to come
                    7. Benediction

Sources

1. The Cult of Tara by Stephen Beyer

2. Buddhist Goddesses of India by Miranda Shaw Pages 306 - 
     354
3. The Gods of Northern Buddhism by Alice Getty pages 119 -
      127
4. from an article in ‘The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, January 1894 entitled: ‘The Indian Buddhist Cult of Avalokita and his Consort Tara the Saviouress’ by L.A. Waddell Downloaded from Google book search

 

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During the past 33 years, Dame Nimue's portraits of archtypal interstellar beings, nature spirits and extraterrestrials have received international attention. Sixteen of her portraits have been published in the book “The Adventure Of Self Discovery”, by transpersonal psychologist Stanislav Grof, M.D., Ph.D. (State University of New York Press, 1988). Two of her portraits have been published in the book “Sacred Places - How The Living Earth Seeks Our Friendship” by environnmental psychologist James Swan, PhD. (Bear and Company Publishing, 1990) See more at www.anglamarke.com

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This is an exploration of the Welsh Goddess Arianrhod focusing on her story in the Mabinogion. This is an academic paper--be warned! If you want to use the information anywhere off-site (whether on your own website or in a paper), please PM me to ask about citation.

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            Most people today know and understand how to avoid becoming victims of fraud when it comes to obtaining goods or services. For example, if a plumbing problem occurs in a home, and it is above and beyond the skills or know-how of the homeowner, they begin to shop for a plumber. They may contact friends and or family who live in the area. Maybe a friend or family-member might even know how to repair the problem. If friends and family do not know of a good plumber, the homeowner may then turn to the internet. There are numerous websites that offer reviews and ratings for service people and businesses. The homeowner jots down a few phone numbers, gets a few quotes, compares rates and things like hours of operation, free consultations and the cost of parts. In the end, they have a plumber who can fix the problem during hours that are convenient to the homeowner and at a reasonable price. Not too many people would pick up their local phone book, flip through the pages, pick the first plumber they see and hire him or her. However, when it comes to obtaining more intangible services, this is exactly what people seem to do.

 

            If a person finds him or her self in a position where they would like to gain some spiritual advice or have a psychic consultation, all too often a lack of knowledge or a sense of embarrassment cause him or her to throw caution to the wind. Unless they belong to an open-minded family or circle of friends or acquaintances, the person who desires these types of services often finds him or her self in a position of taking risks with their money, time and well-being.

 

            There are many testimonials on the internet regarding these types of circumstances. One of the most common scams involves a psychic or spiritual consultant who initiates contact with a customer by offering a free service – maybe a general horoscope interpretation or a sample psychic reading (such as Tarot, tea-leaf or aura reading); once the customer has had this tease, the ‘full’ service is then offered for a price. This in and of itself is not necessarily fraudulent. Many places offer free samples of their goods and services, and want the customer to pay for something afterwards. However, with the psychic scam, the buck does not stop at the full horoscope interpretation or the one-hour psychic reading. The psychic may find something troubling in the reading. Bad news is surely on its way. Maybe, horror of all horrors, the customer has been hexed or cursed. Fortunately, for the customer, their psychic has experience with these things and can allay the bad news or better yet, break the hex or remove the curse – for a fee, of course. The customer is frightened by the negative reading and the implications of a curse or hex being on him or her self, so they hand over more money. This can keep up for some time, because not only is the customer relieved at having the hex broken; now they are curious as to who is the hex-caster. Suddenly he or she has a host of unseen enemies, and the only thing standing between them and that unseen host is their friendly, helpful, costly psychic advisor.

 

            If this customer had gone to see a medical doctor, and was given bad news, his or her first instinct would probably be to panic, but once they calmed down they would usually seek a second opinion. When it comes to psychic services, few people think to do this and instead invest all their trust in their new psychic advisor. It is the nature of a con artist to be able to gain the trust of their customers quickly and easily. The con artist knows how much concern to show, the right words to use to plant seeds of doubt and fear, and how to lure their clients into pouring more and more money onto non-existent problems. Advertisements for spiritual services often have large headlines stating claims such as “Find your lost love today!”, "Get all the answers – health, money, love and more!”, Why isn’t your business a success?”, “Is he or she cheating on you? Find out now!” These words are geared towards anyone who feels insecure, unsuccessful, and lonely or as though bad luck follows him or her around constantly.

 

            Not all psychic practitioners out there are frauds or con artists. There are genuine psychic readers, spiritual advisors and even professional spell crafters that make their services available to the public for a price. Finding a good psychic practitioner is just like finding any other professional service person, but the search does have some added difficulties because of the sheer number of potential con artists that have set up shop as spiritual advisors.

 

            Word-of-mouth is usually the best way to get referred to any service-oriented business, and spiritual businesses are no different. Casually mentioning something like, “Have you ever gotten a Tarot reading?” to a friend or acquaintance may open a few doors without causing undue stress. Just as there are review and rating sites for more traditional professions, these same ratings can be found for psychic services as well. It is always best to seek independent business rating sites than to trust the testimonials on a business’s self-operated website – these testimonials could be loaded (or even be paid testimonials) by the business itself. A good resource is the Better Business Bureau’s list of accredited businesses. Checking with the local business licensing agency can help a consumer determine if a business is at least licensed, and some licensing agencies may even have a public complaint record available. If the psychic’s business is a brick-and-mortar storefront, asking nearby businesses if they’ve received any complaints about the psychic’s business practices might yield some results as well.

 

Many psychic practitioners bill themselves with titles like ‘Lord’ or ‘Lady’, ‘Fifth-Generation Priestess’, ‘Ascended’, ‘Enlightened’, etc. These titles are essentially meaningless unless the practitioner is an initiated member of a hierarchical religion such as Wicca, Vodou or Santeria or are ordained within a church. The average person shopping for a psychic service is not going to know that, so having a fancy title or an exotic name lends an air of authority to the psychic. For some it serves as a stage name, and they may even have different names or titles depending on what type of service they are offering. If the practitioner does claim to be a member of a hierarchical religion or official church, checking the validity of their titles is nearly impossible. If the person is saying they are a doctor or holder of degrees, they may be listed in the alumni of a college or university, or be a member of a professional organization.

 

A concern of anyone seeking psychic or spiritual advice is the information being relayed. One thing to be wary of is if a psychic practitioner asks for personal information before the first appointment. All they really need is a customer’s name and possibly a phone number or e-mail address to confirm an appointment. Casually asking for other details, such as where the customer is from, how old they are, what their family is like, or if they have children or pets, can give a con artist all they really need to convince a person that they are an above-average psychic. Many psychic scams involve leading questions. A leading question is a question that suggests an answer or contains the information the asker is seeking. It is usually not allowed in legal settings, and is highly suspect in psychic readings. In the same vein as a psychic asking for personal information when setting an appointment is one that is willing to come to the customer’s home for the initial reading. By inviting a stranger into one’s home, not only is there the potential for personal harm to occur, but a great deal of personal information can be gleaned from the home environment, even on someone’s first visit.

 

Most spiritual practitioners would be less-than-welcoming of having a second party along for the reading (unless the customer was willing to pay for two people), but when shopping for a psychic consultant, the customer should always ask if the psychic would mind having the reading recorded, possibly by a tape recorder or digital audio recorder, especially for the first reading. If the psychic is hesitant, the customer should have the psychic clarify why a recording device would not be allowable, and if it would still be okay to take notes. If the psychic reveals something potentially troublesome, the customer then has information they could take to a different practitioner and get a second opinion – just like visiting a doctor. It also gives the customer something to go by to see how accurate any of the psychic’s advice or information turns out to be. An honest psychic or spiritual practitioner should not be too reluctant to answer questions about their knowledge, experience and gifts. They should also not mind being tactfully tested in their area of expertise. For a psychic this might mean the customer would ask questions about their own past, something the psychic could not easily guess. For other services, the customer might have to do some research into their chosen professional’s field of expertise.

 

            When faced with a situation beyond the mundane, anything from wanting to know what the future holds, to blessing a new home or business, to wanting to know about a past life, it is usually preferable to learn how to do it for oneself than it is to seek an outside agent. Sometimes, though, time and circumstances do not allow the average person to embark on a course of Occult Sciences 101. Even when working under the premise that all people have the potential to become psychic or spiritual practitioners, maybe someone’s chose religion forbids him or her from performing this type of activity, or maybe a person does not feel capable and talented enough to take care of a spiritual problem him or her self. In these cases, there is nothing wrong with wanting to hire someone who is experienced as a psychic or spell crafter. The customer should always go about carefully and thoroughly researching the person to whom he or she is about to hand money. Unlike other professions, the psychic and spiritual arts are not ones that have self-governing bodies or peer review boards – the only thing most customers have to go by is their own business savvy and common sense.

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Just my personal beliefs about evil.

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Also known as "I have to check 'Other' on any form that asks about religion"

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                This definition of Reiki was shared with me, through the act of trance channeling, in 1995 by Wei Chi.  Wei Chi, a Tibetan shaman, who walked the earth plane 5,000 years ago.

                Wei Chi brought forth a much more interactive, client participatory and extensive form of the healing art that we call Reiki.  Over a four month time period, my life was dominated by Wei Chi channeling through me, from which came the book The Lost Steps Of Reiki – The Channeled Teachings of Wei Chi.

                Since 1996, Wei Chi has been working with me to help bring, as fully as possible, the modern version of what was given to him by Master which today we call, “Wei Chi Tibetan Reiki”.

                For the first few years, the process was interwoven with traveling around the country, speaking to Reiki groups, through dialogues, and visiting healing centers and stores.  In that part of the process, I was sharing from Wei Chi, both the additional things that never came forward in Usui Reiki, as well as, some philosophical differences.  Wei Chi’s commentary only used the most consistent form of Reiki at that time, the Reiki Alliance Reiki, as the reference point.  

               As disdainful as he was of certain ways in which he felt the Reiki Alliance version of Reiki was an improper representation of the healing art, he was equally disdainful of the way in which renegade Reiki practitioners inconsistently added, subtracted, and sometimes, even misrepresented the Reiki they had originally learned.  He felt the lack of oversight and standards of any kind was leading to the dilution and destruction of the credibility of Reiki, in general.  

                Wei Chi was also cautious about any healing system in which clients were not asked to acknowledge their responsibility or even agree to participate in their own process of healing.  He expressed concern that, at best, it seemed as if the client’s symptoms might be alleviated in the process but no time or energy was spent addressing the cause of the imbalances within the client’s life. 

For over two years, I traveled fulltime sharing the information Wei Chi had given me.  In my travels, I met a wide variety of Reiki students and teachers, from the strictest of Reiki Alliance students and teachers to students who had received all three levels in one day, some of whom couldn’t even tell me who Usui was or demonstrate a hand position.  The inconsistencies and various representations of Reiki was mind boggling.

During my travels, a transitional training was created, with Wei Chi’s help, to help people who were at least at a Reiki level 2, to join Wei Chi’s form of Reiki at the Apprentice Level.  In that training, one explored Wei Chi’s definition of Reiki and learned about the differences in such things as hand positions, long distance healing, client interaction, symbols, and the overarching goal of Reiki itself.  The student that was attuned into the Wei Chi Tibetan Reiki was opened to a line of intuitive messaging that helped clients move towards a more empowered and self-healing place in their lives. 

                Also, the student was introduced to what the next level (Practitioner) of Wei Chi’s Reiki looked like.  The practitioner Level includes an overview of the Wei Chi Tibetan Reiki Treatment Series, which consists of seven, two-hour sessions.  It is within this treatment series that Wei Chi’s original offering takes the client on the journey of becoming more empowered, self-healing, and self-aware.

                Additionally, in the Practitioner Level, students learn from their participation, how to elevate their intuitive messaging, learn to create powerful “homework” for the client, perform in-session assessments, and to effortlessly shift from intellectual to intuitive and back again. 

                The responses I received from the sharing of this information went from people being very excited  and telling me, “I have always know there was more!” to borderline death threats where they exclaimed, “You’re a heretic and you should be shot for trying to ruin Reiki like this!”.  I have had all kinds of responses to the messages from Wei Chi.

                Over the past 14 years, Wei Chi has continued to work with me to structure and grow the system to better fit this day and age.  He has added a Three, and Five Session Treatment Series, as well as a single modified treatment to the original Seven Session Treatment Series.  The work has also expanded to include a Medical Intuitive Level and a Counseling Level.  The beauty of a living system is that it grows and evolves with the needs of the people who are receiving it.

                In my travels, it was sad for me to discover that in the explosive growth that took place as a result of the proliferation of renegade Reiki Masters Wei Chi had been correct in his assessments.

                Everything has its place.  For some the more passive form of Reiki, like Usui, is made to order.  For others, a more active, interactive form of Reiki  like Wei Chi Tibetan Reiki, where one “gets into the trenches with the client”, seems to be a better fit, and of course, as in all things, some people like to have both abilities in their tool belt. 

Dr. Kevin Ross Emery is a popular author, psychic, coach, consultant and teacher. Dr. Kevin travels internationally, offering lectures and workshops to empower people from all walks of life. He's also available for phone (and Skype) consultations. Dr. Kevin's primary practices are in Portland, Maine and Haverhill, Massachusetts.

For additional articles and Dr Kevin's weekly radio show: "Outside the Box with Dr Kevin," please visit his website, http://www.weboflight.com

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