\# -- 12025-07-29--12thhouse2--Uttara-Phalguni--BoiseUSAWest ----

I think I made another breakthrough --
I've been reflecting a lot more on my Moon in Pisces and my Sun in Virgo --
youtube.com/live/wktWFuU_21g?s… --
I just listened to the whole Rishabha story again (avatara of Vishnu who as a king taught karma and jnana yoga's and then as a renunciate taught ascetic bhakti yoga) --
Vic makes a really interesting point that I must have heard before, but relistening to it again this time, it really connected with me powerfully --
about the interrelation between the Mind and intellect, between Moon and Mercury (it's somewhere that he mentions in the Rishabha story, I forget this morning though, maybe it's not in the above video link I shared. It's worth listening to the whole story though anyway for it to really sink in) --
"the Moon is way brighter than Mercury". --

feelings and emotions affect our actions way more than knowledge --
when our desires are caught in material pleasures, like sex, physical health, drinks and food, having a home, having expensive things -- we're bound to feel overworked, distressed, and depressed --
because either we don't have those things yet -- or we just got some of the things, but we just had to work really really hard to get them -- and the pleasure wasn't even that much -- or even if it was, it's not lasting. and 'tomorrow' we have to wake up and go back to working for it all again --
sometimes when people get so depressed and exasperated and burnt out, they can barely even move --
what is the common-sense advice that all parents, psychologists, therapists, people wanting to be helpful give? to just 'do something'. 'just do anything' --
'move your hands'. 'make some food'. 'take a shower'. 'drink some water'. --
some of these cost less and are healthier and more sustainable than others, --
but ---- this is the important point ---- _**the senses weaken the Mind**_ --
by 'moving', the 'No-Mind' comes back in. --
which is good for a person, if they're depressed, --
but it's also bad without sacred knowledge, because if they 'just do' (Nike) the same perpetual things that end up costing them, taxing them with time and sweat and work and frustration and disappointment and expectation -- on more and more of the external -- then they end up right back in the same darkness. --
but the sacred knowledge of the yogi's is genius. --
Vic's explanation just gave me a whole new appreciation for asceticism and restraint, even though I already basically knew this, but somehow the way he phrased it instantly suddenly finally made so much sense for me. --
restraint and discipline _**also**_ activates the senses. --
restraint and discipline _**also**_ weakens the mind. --
but it does it in a way that costs way less materially -- it only costs your spiritual effort of your will, your unbending intent, your consciousness. --
it's **being a strong bull**. --
so when the Mind comes back and says, '*Mommy*, *Daddy*, *I'm hungry*.', --
the effort is to not give in to the yummy external temptations. --
with a little patience, and with a little knowledge -- the sacred wisdom passed down to meditate on Hari -- or, the way I've been thinking of phrasing it to new pupils, '_seeing the **magic** in things_', --
the Mind, with its same power and brilliance and effortlessness, can find that magic --
and that's the breakthrough point. --
that's when, as Vic says it, the student sees the 'essence' of it all. --
and very quickly, and with guidance, the student will immediately see how that magic is within everything they have been loving this whole time. --
They can go back to those same external things with a brand new appreciation. Or they may no longer even need those things anymore. The work for them simply no longer is worth it. Now they might be interested in securing, in protecting, or in teaching. --
,, --

^[attached image] I've been thinking so much about this too that I posted weeks ago, remember that I combined some of Vic's commentary about the zodiac of the universal body and places of earth with my own poetics of the elements and the aging/maturing process through the quadruplicities (cardinal fixed dual). I've been seeing if my poetics matches the insights of the planet exaltation signs. And I'm becoming convinced it all does match --
there are some really interesting counterintuitive takeaways that I think possibly really resonate, --

Sun and Mars exalt when they are like children -- loyal to their mother and nature, and fully aware of their surroundings always in an unknown not taking anything for granted --
Saturn exalts when they use the Shambhala warrior path weapons of Compassion and Seeing the Two-Sidedness of Things to restrain their own life and body, making them exemplary in not being special (like Rishabha's death, stumbling in a common forest fire with no final words or ostentatious ceremony) --
Jupiter and Venus exalt in simplicity and omnipresence, finding abundance in opportunities, abundance in timelessness: _true beauty_ --
Moon and Mercury exalt in limitation. staying in the real gives a deeper honor and solidity. --
☯️🕉️☦️ --
be a wish-fulfiller today. --

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blossom.primal.net/1a1ebc15e6a…