The Seven Sages

by Patricia Anne Dye

Overview

Many world legends suggest that at any given time, seven sages walk the Earth, tasked with the responsibility to anchor wisdom on behalf of humanity. Each one stands as the personification of a different rung of human consciousness. Together, they represent humanity’s innate ability to save itself—or doom itself.

• Earthwhisperer knows the secrets of the Earth, its pleasures, and its pains.
• Lila understands the nature and workings of sacred pleasure.
• Solomon has learned how to wield both moral and ethical power.
• Philomel has captured the art of immaculate loving and heartfelt joy.
• Dattatreya lives out his version of crazy wisdom with his innovative family.
• Marianina is fey, with a vast and accurate perspective on the human soul and its cosmic context.
• Horus is a human sun, the indicator of human destiny, well above normal human consciousness.

At this time, the sages have the profound challenge to help humanity reclaim balance, compassion, and hope—when these qualities seem lost forever. Through a whirling cascade of shifts in perception, can the sages inspire each person to embrace his or her unique brand of wisdom in time?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781475976779
Publisher:	iUniverse, Incorporated
Publication date:	04/22/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	478
File size:	1 MB

Read an Excerpt

The Seven Sages

---

By Patricia Anne Dye, Tui Johnson

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2013 Patricia Anne Dye
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4759-7675-5

---

Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

THE COMMON GROUND

The lives of all great saints and sages have one thing in common, and that is their love and infinite understanding towards their fellow man.

Selvarajan Yesudian

No two meetings were the same, and yet they shared common features.

Each encounter caught me napping; regardless of careful preparation, I was too often slammed into an acute, often miserable, awareness of my own shortcomings. Like a canoeist on the verge of terrifying rapids, at the intitial encounter, I would have done almost anything to escape my destiny. Fortunately, this did not last long enough for me to succumb to pressure. The discomfort always dissipated, expanding, so long as I hung in there, to a sunny, all-is-well feeling, a just-so certainty in the validity of my venture, an almost childlike trust in the innate goodness of each sage and the significant outcome of my project.

I think now that each meeting involved an adjustment of resonances—mine, that is—so that our minds could meet correctly on the right level. This, perhaps, is why so many saints have been killed in the past; no one recognised the sloughing off of their own darkness as a necessary preamble to making friends with the light of our being as well as theirs. We therefore slaughtered what we mistakenly felt to be the author of our misery. Thus, we hold ourselves in patterns of pain which persist to this day. We 'turn on the wheels' of our misthinks, wounding ourselves compulsively on our 'spokes of agony'.

I now understand the process. I have thrown away my 'wheels of torment', the lasting bliss of each encounter continues to nourish and inform.

All sages operated from a much larger frame of reference than the average worldling; they were far more concerned with giving and economising than they were with 'getting and spending'. The world was very much with them, but in transpersonal terms of global unity.

Their ordinary surface, common sense lives, flowed on against a backdrop of breathtaking vision for the future of humanity. They lived outside the shadowed boxes where most humans live, dancing freely, exuberantly, tirelessly in the Light.

And yet, they defied clear-cut categorisation. Each presented a unique face and viewpoint; together they added up to a colourful garden of surreal and star-like beauty.

They had affinities with the shamans of old who were probably responsible for the first stirrings of awe and reverence in the human heart. This they did by putting into 'digestible' form—art, story, dance, rhythm, ritual—their extreme and ecstatic adventures in the Otherworld.

If, as Joseph Cambell points out, 'the shaman is the person, male or female who ... has had an overwhelming psychological experience that turns him totally inward', forcing him into an initially frightening exploration of the unconscious, then most qualified. Most had had some kind of early-life 'accident' or circumstance which had torn him open to new and ravishing possibilities. And like the ancient shamans, they had shared with their communities the Good News and healing prospects of enchanting worlds and realities beyond this one.

But now the community is the entire world. And the visions they express embrace the totality of Life.

The world groans under a surfeit of information. And yet, one important item is missing; the Essential Message of our potential glory is not getting through. We do not need any more hearsay about the Kingdom of Heaven. What we do need is the sun-soaked witness of those who have lived in It and know how to take us there singly and en masse. The sages could well turn out to be the world saviours our hearts have longed for.

They were neither proactive or reactive—or perhaps they were both, and more. Action arose quite naturally out of what they were, in the same way that trees, flowers and animals know exactly how, when and where to bloom. They never agonised over what kind of result they might be producing, so sure were they of their entelechy, their place in the bringing together of the world. They did not 'seek answers, but lived the questions'.

But they were far from wishy-washy. A controlled fire may burn quietly in its hearthplace, but it is nevertheless fire and carries with it the qualities of the sun: life-sponsoring warmth, searing heat, blinding light.

Not one proclaimed himself as 'anything out of the ordinary.' When discussing vocation, each was careful in some way to place his status as human being ahead of all else.

I had the same delightful feeling many times that I felt when playing with children: that extraordinary feeling of being engaged with fresh, spontaneous, often zany, minds.

They wore the 'faces they had before they were born'. It did not surprise me to find that they viewed the universe as a kind of cosmic joke, much like the ancient Indians who gave the name 'Lila' to what they saw as divine play all around them.

I offered to each sage the same set of seven questions. It did not surprise me that their responses were so different, and yet seemed to add up to a new and exciting global paradigm that could lift humanity into a Better Place.

Before offering my questions, I spent time with each sage, observing them, so that I might flesh out their soul-stances and better understand their responses to the questions. Even though I was with them for a brief time, the richness of each life could have filled a large book. I have had to be content with the most significant bio-details.

All sages baulked, to some extent, at the questions. The world was already labouring under a surfeit of words; the cacophony was deafening. People had stopped their ears out of sheer self-defence; they no longer listened to anything but the shallow and expedient information relating to their immediate comfort.

They made valid points.

In the end they allowed me to carry out my mission, on the grounds that I stay always in step with my own soul-dictates, and true to theirs. This, in the good faith that a manuscript would result, so magnetic and light-drenched that the usual tendency of letters to 'kill' the spirit would be reversed in favour of the gift of life.

In this glamour-contaminated world, where dividedness, both within and without, is more real to us than a sense of personal unity and global togetherness, the idea of a Common Ground has figment-status. Religion, which purports to bind us back to the One Source, has probably done more than any other institution to keep us away from It.

There is a Ground, common to all people and all things; this is the forgotten foundation stone of all religions and life itself.

The sages, many of whom had probably not heard of the perennial philosophy in fact, or bothered with it overmuch if they had, nevertheless lived it energetically. They did not seem to think overmuch; their 'talk' was intimately and economically connected to their 'walk'.

Nor were they conspicuously humble; it was as though they were too busy happily riding the waves of now-being—sometimes up, sometimes down, and occasionally being dumped—to categorise experience into triumph and disaster, and how these vagaries might effect their status.

It was unnecessary, and would have been a revelation of my ignorance to put the question, "Who are you?" A work of art explains itself in its beauty, and these were artists of life. The One Radiance, flaring out differentially, was common to all. One does not usually ask questions of beauty, merely drinks it in hungrily, like a child at the breast.

But I had a mission that involved questions; it was a matter of standing back a little, shifting perspective, squinting through the eyes of urgent world-need, as I perceived it. The responses I elicited spelled out their unique perspectives. But their common ground was the greater part of their being. If the Otherworld could be likened to a diamond of infinite facets, then the precious stone itself is an Inclusive Love or agape. This appreciation of a profound Love that holds the universe together was evidenced in the sages in their personal relationships and their Weltanschauungen (world views). It in no way impaired their sharpness of vision, but they had the uncanny knack of cutting through surface dross to the soul-music beneath it. They assumed mastery in the other, if only in potential, and addressed them 'as if their day were here'.

The fact that they loved the world in no way blinded them to its dangerous 'villainies'. While making the most of the opportunities for new growth offered by the current crisis, usually behind the scenes, they were sorrowfully aware of humankind's lemming-like scuttle towards extinction. This they wore lightly but convincingly.

Like unsmudged windows, light poured through them effortlessly. This registered as a direct and comfortable translucency; what I 'saw' in their sun-blest bio-fields corresponded exactly with what I got in terms of response and observation of their conduct. By contrast, much of human communication involves nervous navigation through ego minefields and the narrow straits of political correctness.

Almost any topic I cared to broach with the sages would have been met with a gracious return of some kind. But if I ever strayed towards glamour or frivol, a warning bell rang clearly in my psyche; they had little truck with petty ego issues.

How, one might ask, did they become such elegant spirits in a world so contorted by its own shortcomings? This I cannot say, and I did not ask. There are, however, plenty of theories.

They could be old souls, perhaps evolved from stones and trees, graduated through many animal forms, then having occupied many human bodies. With this background, they would come into this life, replete with learnings from the past, where over aeons, they had sifted out real from unreal. In this life, they might be called 'one-cloud saints', early connections with their status having sloughed off the cloud of forgetfulness and rapidly brought them up to soul-speed.

They might be star-visitors from more evolved civilisations, who have been 'heaven-sent' to assist the birthing process of a New Earth. Though they move through the veils of density and forgetting common to all human life, they nevertheless reclaim their resonances and their mission.

Or they are perfected souls, avatars, who have elected to return to earth at this portentous time to assist earthsouls in their struggle towards the light, thereby initiating upon the planet the dawning of a New Age of 'permanence and beauty'.

It is said that the Otherworld is populated by a multitude of invisible entities, hierarchically arranged according to levels of consciousness and resonance. Some of these angelic beings are called to watch over and monitor earth affairs. It may be that these affairs have reached the point of such a dangerous urgency that embodiment has been felt necessary to swing the planet away from disaster.

They could have been rendered soul-full by the energy transfers of mysterious star-beings who patrol the skies in mysterious and hitherto unidentified spaceships, who abduct, interrogate and instruct sensitive earthlings for short periods of time, to understand better the human psyche.

Or they could just be ordinary mortals who, through the happenstance of moral shock or extreme stress, have struck soul-gold, stumbled on the precious pearl of Otherworld Knowledge and Being, tucked it away tenderly in their heart-closets, turning away forever from the lesser glories of earthlife.

It does not matter in the end; all had become, one way or another, 'supply lines' to a sustainable wisdom, ever present to the deeper needs of humanity, ever ready to meet them.

They were like snow crystals, expressing through a variety of forms, but with many qualities in common. Embodiment of Nature in all her moods and cadences, they were no different in feel from their surroundings. They lived in easy accord with rhythm and purpose, much as a plant pulses confidently towards the light, and knows without qualm or question what kind of flower or fruit it is destined to produce. As god-seed, they foresaw enlightened outcomes; as earthlings, they lived and grew in accord with Nature. They were in no hurry. Their angel and animal energies merged into a living dance. I was reminded many times of the lotus which has its roots in the mud, but blooms exquisitely and easily above it.

Children were charmed by them. Not surprising, since they were open, free-spirited, playful, creative and spontaneous, as all unspoiled children are. An early undifferentiated innocence had entered the crucible of adult life and experience, and emerged with all its early trappings, intensified and honed by soul-literacy.

Like children, they were emotionally uncomplicated. Their many-hued feelings scudded across their faces like clouds across the sun; but they never let go of their deeper tethering to the radiant constants of the soul.

If most of humanity live in the basements of their own palaces, these enjoyed consummate ease and delight in the sunlit rooms of their entire castles.

Of this I was reasonably sure, as far as the first six were concerned. As for the seventh, he appeared to live in the sun itself.

CHAPTER 2

EARTH WHISPERER

This blue planet, endlessly circling the sun, with its oceans, mountains, prairies, and deserts, is both my mother and my home ... It is we, rather than the earth, who need to be healed.

David N. Elkins

Why simplicity?

We are running out of non-renewable resources ... We need to deliberately conserve rather than wastefully squander ...

We are polluting ourselves into oblivion with massive discharges of wastes from industrial pollution ... Common sense suggests that we voluntarily simplify our material demands ... to minimise environmental polluition.

We need to share the world's resources more equitably so that the poor of the world are given adequate health care and quality of life. This will be best achieved by reducing the material wants of the more affluent nations.

As energy resources become scarcer, nations will compete more and more aggressively for water, oil, food.

Increased riches do not make for happiness, instead an emphasis on material gains crowds out spiritual richness. Simplifying one's life gives opportunity for creating a balance between the material and the spiritual.

'Inflationary psychology' encourages a high-demand, live-for-today attitude which encourages people to go out and buy too soon and too much. Simplicity of living modifies inflationary pressures.

Duane Elgin 'Voluntary Simplicity' (adapted)

He was thickset and muscular, clad casually in jeans and nondescript shirt—someone you might dismiss in a crowd as closer to earth than heaven. It was only when I caught his eye, or rather, his eye caught me, that his true status became magnificently apparent.

Breaking naturally, almost casually, on my consciousness as genuine miracles do, I looked through the eye-veil to a rich Summerland of trees, rivers, verdant pastures, marbled skies.

All this in a matter of seconds. Then an unexpected lurch of mind threw me back on myself, as though some forgotten or overlooked aspect of my soul hit an urgent veil of longing it had to let me know about. For one frozen moment, I hung in a desolate awareness of lost connections with earth largesse, my utter thanklessness for it. Not now—I pushed it away; but I knew it would haunt me like a deeply dissatisfied ghost.

"Welcome to my world," he said, and the Good Earth embraced me.

With effort, I externalised. His physical form seemed to dissolve and he became a vision of the earth clothed in breathtaking beauty, indistinguishable from the world around him. He seemed suddenly everywhere as though he wore his 'skin-encapsulated' ego like a loose, easily discarded mantle

There was something exuberantly Viking about him, as though adventure coloured his blood. Juicy, as though the Green Man sought him as refuge and apologist in aworld of diminishing green force.

If the earth had a voice, it would be his ... he was an Earthwhisperer ...

As the relationship settled, I found him to be at home in any register of conversation, from the most mundane exchange about the weather, the price of vegetables, the state of the plumbing—to the most complex concepts around the nature of Man and God.

His chosen career was in the earth sciences, mainly geology, but he had wide-ranging interests and involvements: the arts, poetry in particular, globalisation as it related to earthcare, permaculture principles, which governed his lifestyle, mountaineering, earthkind architecture in cities. In fact, anything which lived and breathed could engage his interests; this took in green life, the spirits of ancestors and even stones, which he felt all had some kind of meaningful engagement with life.

Anyone of Icelandic lineage is of necessity finely attuned to the nuances of weather behaviour and its impact on land and lifestyle. They can't help but be poetic because Truth is always leaning on them; putting its vagaries into words helps them to objectify it, and to deal with it subjectively, appreciatively.
(Continues...)

---

Excerpted from The Seven Sages by Patricia Anne Dye. Copyright © 2013 by Patricia Anne Dye. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Table of Contents

Contents

INTRODUCTION....................     ix     

THE COMMON GROUND....................     1     

EARTH WHISPERER....................     10     

LILA....................     71     

SOLOMON....................     120     

PHILOMEL....................     177     

DATTATREYA....................     245     

MARIANINA....................     323     

HORUS....................     405