From the Introduction

When my daughter, Hira, was seven months old we rented a house in Arlington, Vermont for the summer. I was still on my first sabbatical leave from teaching. It had begun three weeks after Hira was born. It was a period that consisted largely of the care and nurturing of an infant, something with which few fathers are blessed.

The day after our arrival we all went to see an old friend of mine, his wife and two apple-cheeked children. They lived in a house with a white picket fence and the whole scene seemed to have been plucked from a Norman Rockwell painting.

Everything was wholesome. The family smiled to greet us. We were all set for a peaceful and relaxing day with friends. It was not to be so.

I carried Hira across the threshold into the house. As soon as we entered the house, she began to scream. Her mom and I were quite amazed. She was a good tempered baby. Rarely did she scream. And this time she would not stop.

Hira has always been a strong-willed person. It has always been useless to attempt to convince her out of her feelings. So it was useless this time. Rocking, cooing, coaxing-no method was effective in stopping her screaming. What was effective was borne out of necessity. I fled outside with Hira.

As soon as we stepped out of the house Hira stopped crying immediately. I then turned around with her and went back in. Once again, Hira began to scream. I then turned around and went out. She stopped crying. I repeated this about four or five more times until it became quite clear that we would have to leave. We did.

The next day I phoned my friend to check in. After all, I had about three minutes of conversation with him the day before. It was during that phone call that the reason for Hira's screaming became apparent.

The day of our visit-the day of Hira's screaming-my friend and his wife had decided to get a divorce. Their marriage was on the rocks. Rather than postpone our social visit, my friend and his wife had decided to put on a happy face and entertain us. This fooled me. This fooled my wife. But it did not fool Hira.

There was pain in that house. There was agony. It filled up the house, it overflowed from the bedroom. It crawled along the floor. It shivered along the window panes. And only Hira felt it.

All seven month old babies feel. And all seven month old babies are endowed by their Creator with the ability to communicate pain. It's very simple. When something hurts, they cry. When it stops hurting they stop crying. There was enough pain in that household in Arlington, Vermont to make my baby daughter scream. She knew nothing of marriage or divorce, of body language or innuendo, of hypocrisy. She only knew that it hurt in there. She was in tune with her surroundings.

Babies see things that we no longer allow ourselves to see. Babies feel things that we insulate ourselves against feeling. There is so much of the world of the child that is lost as she gets older. We learn to look at the world in certain prescribed ways. That is, after all, one of the goals of education. We learn to put away childish things. We learn to put away the visions that we had as children.

But the longing for our childhood sight still haunts us. The word "nostalgia" comes up which means a longing for the past. But the word finds its origin in the Greek. There, its meaning is simply "homesickness". Part of our nostalgia is a longing, or homesickness, for that quality we had as children. It is a quality of exploration. It is the innocence of wonder.

Story from

Chapter 2:
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
(And Plate and Pool and Crystal Ball)

The Crystal Tribe Instructs the Others

The animal tribes were concerned. One tribe, that of the Human Beings, was killing without sense. That tribe of two feet and standing up was cutting down forest-homes and destroying other animal tribes not even for food.

The Bear tribe, chief among animals, had called the meeting. All animals knew that the Bears were slow to anger but sharp when their wrath was sparked. The Bears were brave and suggested that they, the Bear tribe shoot back when attacked by the two legs. Sadly, it was clear that a bear would have to die to provide the bowstrings of each bow. Even then the claws of the bear would become entangled .

The Deer tribe knew not the strength of the Bear nor even its courage. For the Deer tribe, the idea of fighting the two legs with their own weapon, was unclear. The Deer tribe was gentle and clear and offered to bring disease into the world. The human tribe was destroying the balance of food and shelter. The human beings were living out of balance with the land, the sea, the air and all other creatures.

The Deer tribe, long familiar with how to evade and confuse an enemy volunteered to bring disease into the world. The humans, they said, were living out of balance with the earth, the air and the water. As the humans lived out of balance so they would become sick. The Deer tribe brought rheumatism and arthritis. With rheumatism the humans would be struck in their heart. For only in heartlessness could the humans slay another animal not even for food. With arthritis would the very limbs become painful so that the two leggeds would have to reflect upon their actions.

After the Deer Tribe, the other animals took heed. Each of the tribes of Nature followed the Deer Tribe . Each saw disease as the lesson for the two legs. Each animal tribe created a new disease.
The Plant tribe, vast and varied, had suffered much with the Humans. But the Plant tribe was far older than the Deer and far wiser than the Bear. When the Deer and the Bear were still spinning in the stars, the Plant tribe lifted its face to the sun and sucked nourishment from the earth mother.

The animal tribes had meted out harsh punishment to the Humans. Diseases would fly down among the two legs like grasshoppers, sand in the wind, poison in a stream. They would live with pain.

The Plant tribe felt the need of balancing the other animal tribes. The Plant members were skillful. They had traveled to the depths of the deepest waters and lived just below the bowl of heaven.

The Plant tribe offered that, for every disease a human suffered, a plant would be present to cure it. All the humans would have to do to cure their ailments is to use their eyes, their noses, their ears--their intelligence.

All of Nature supported the Plants. It was then that the Rock and Mineral tribe agreed to help.

They were the oldest, the members of the Rock and Mineral tribe. They were the oldest and often the clearest. They were a close friend of the Plant tribe.
Each mineral spoke for the power that it would give the two legs to regain health. The Ruby, the color of blood itself, declared that it would heal the heart of the stricken Humans. The Emerald, green as the rolling fields volunteered to heal the liver and the eyes.

When Quartz, the chief of the mineral tribe, spoke all tribes took heed. For Quartz was as clear as frozen light and Quartz was the oldest and the most patient.
"I will be the sacred mineral," spoke Quartz. "I will heal the mind and help the humans see the origin of their diseases. I will help to bring wisdom and clarity in dreams. And I will record the spiritual history, including our meeting today, so that in the future if the Humans gaze into me, they may see their origin and the way of harmony."

So it was.

....Cherokee legend

[Drawings by Raphael Abrams]

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Sarv's Newsletter Step right in. You will find Sarv's Newsletter. Provocative? I hope so.Interesting? It had better be.

The World Dream Book People have been dreaming as long as there have been people. For millions of years, all over the globe, people have dreamed. We all dream all the time. We all dream, whether we remember or not. We even dream before we are born....[more]

Divination with a Difference Some people call it psychic reading. Others call it intuitive reading. A lot of folks call it divination. That means finding the divine all around you. I like that one the best. But one thing is certain: it's not fortune telling....[more]

Woodstock Radio Theater Let your imagination rule. The Woodstock Radio Theater Ensemble revives the lost art of radio drama...[more]

.....Going Home We would love to hear from you. If you want to get in touch simply write to sarvananda@sarvananda.com. .

From Chapter 8:
Pendulums, Hickory Sticks, Dowsing and Daisies:
Computers of the Psychic World

Varieties of Dowsing

There is a buzz of excitement. It is 1959. The room is filled with naval officers. The highest ranking officer is a Vice-Admiral of the United States Navy.

A civilian stands in front of a large table. On the table are maps of the oceans of the world. The man pulls out a small metal object at the end of a string and lets it fall just above the surface of the table. The object swings back and forth as the naval officials watch with amusement. Some ask themselves why they are here. This just seems to be another fruitless exercise.

Time goes by. The civilian steps back. He calls the Vice-Admiral to the table and proceeds to point out the location of the entire U.S. submarine fleet by means of his little object on a string. He then follows this up by locating every Soviet submarine in the world.

Deep in the jungles of northern Nigeria a man takes out a shell of a tortoise. The shell has been dried and hollowed out. Another man sits before him and asks whether his daughter will bear children. She has been having difficulty and the man has no other children. The diviner takes the tortoise shell and puts a string through it. He then closes his eyes and lets the shell slide down the taut string. The shell swiftly slides down the string. The diviner turns to the man and gives him the happy news: it appears that his daughter will indeed have children.

It is 1931 in the more remote parts of British Columbia, Canada. There is homestead land for sale. It is government land and it is cheap. However, the presence of water is crucial. It would be a folly to build a home in the wilderness without an adequate and accessible supply of water.

The British Columbian provincial government and the potential homesteaders needed assistance. They found it. The British Columbian government called in men with forked sticks. These men traveled over the homestead lands with their sticks. A water source was indicated when the sticks would point downward. The men with the sticks had done their jobs. The sticks pointed down and a source was indicated.

Cut to the late 1940's, high in the Himalayas. The Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, is forced to flee from his homeland with the advance of the Chinese. His advisers have told him that the best plan was to head for the state of Bhutan, only two miles away. The other choice was to go to India down the Chumbi Valley and then face a rough climb.

The Tibetan spiritual leader closes his eyes and puts his hands at the level of his shut eyes. He then puts the tips of his forefingers together. The tips of the fingers met and the Dalai Lama decided, against the advice of his ministers, to face the forty miles climb to India.

Near the Arctic Circle a Kaskan Indian hunter prepares to go to sleep. He has set out traps for the fur bearing animals that he hunts. But, as always, in this rigorous and fierce wilderness, the results are never certain. He winds a string around a smooth round stick. The method has been taught to him by his father to his father down through all the generations of his family. The hunter then places the stick and the string under his pillow.

The next morning the Kaskan hunter takes the stick out. Instead of falling free, the string is looped around the stick four times. The hunter now knows that he will find four animals in his traps.

Tortoise shells, string on a stick, swinging objects, the forefingers of the hand, and forked sticks-how disparate these objects seem. Yet, they all have one thing in common. They are all techniques of dowsing

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From Chapter 1:

Ides and Tides or a Wind that Comes--Non-Ominous Omens

Originally, omens were quite natural. Human beings have always used omens to figure out the world around them. When would the rains come? When would winter's ice and snow cover the land? Where were the animals necessary for food? It was only through generations of observation and perception that people came to know the world around them and the signs that helped them to decipher it.

On land or at sea, all activities of people were affected by nature. On land, people sought signs to find the best time to raise the seasonal crops. At sea, they sought the signs that could take them home to firm land.

Red sky at night, sailor's delight. Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning. Now a children's chant, this was once part of a sailor's oral guide to the sea.

The sea is awesome. To be surrounded by, and suspended upon, water, is one of the most humbling experiences known to man. Yet people have gone down to the sea in ships for as long as there is memory.

Our ship-faring ancestors needed all the help they could get. They deciphered every sign to find meaning and the way home. Birds were probably among the first omens, the first signs. For the people who navigated the sea, the appearance of birds indicated the approach of a land mass. For the people of the land, birds were often the harbingers of the impending rains.

We learn to pick up signs when we are very young. As babies our mothers communicate to us with a host of signs. There is the smell of tension or love or fear. There is the quality of touch. There is the taste of mother, of home and the milk of life.

The Earth Mother gives us signs all the time. Nowhere was this more evident than among the people of the New World. For the Native Americans, the Earth Mother and Nature have been the guiding force in all divination. From the dawn of the rich oral tradition to the present, Native American people have looked to Nature for signs, omens and guidance. This has always been more of a way of life than a philosophy or religion. It has been born out of the experience of the natural world.

This tradition of natural omens continues to this day. The people of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico trace their ancestry back to the ancient civilizations of the Maya. They have some very ancient views of the signs in the weather.

Experience has told these people that if it is very cold at night the next day will be very hot. If the wind blows hard for several days they say that the sky is full and that it will rain hard for many days. It is then that the men go to plant. Or, when the Pleiades appear to be 'half lying-down,' it is a sign of rain. When the ceiba, plums and other fruit trees bear much fruit, then they know that the maize harvest will be good. If turkeys take baths in the dust or if the soot drops from the ceiling, rain is coming. When the leaf-cutting ants are seen to be carrying many bits of leaf into their houses, then the season will be rainy.

Some of these signs sound really weird. Interestingly, all of these observations have proven true over the millenia of watching and living. All of these signs are natural omens.

Game

Auto Diagnosis

"Moose" was my 1976 Plymouth Gran Fury station wagon. It was reliable, solid and gigantic. But once Moose did something very strange.

I had put myself under great pressure. I was trying to do ten thing at once and be in ten different places at the same time. I was running all over the place with Moose trying to do everything.

I was coming back on the New York State Thruway from one of my errands (leaving and picking up cartons at my mother's house further upstate). The rear tire blew with a bang. I got even more pressured and flustered, messed up the jack, ruined the rear light and fortunately had some help putting on the spare.

Moose was limping into Woodstock one hour later when the second tire blew. Fortunately, we were near a garage. We replaced both tires and set out for about a mile when the third tire blew.

Three blowouts in less than three hours. The odds are astronomical. It was almost as if Moose was taking some of my pressure and blowing his tires. My car had become my mirror.

Omens are not always the unusual or strange. Very often an omen is simply a sign that one sees in the everyday. For a hunter of Lapland this might be seen in the configuration of the clouds.

The Navaho, Apache and Chinese have looked to the body as a source of signs. At the end of the Twentieth Century, technology has often become an extension of our bodies. For us, in this age of the communications highway and magic pictures in little boxes, the omens can be a bit more technological.

One of the most common instruments of technology is the automobile. We can see signs in our autos.

I. First relax. Take a few deep breaths through your nose and exhale through your mouth.

II. Think of your automobile. Is there anything that needs fixing at this time? If there is nothing that needs fixing, think of your most recent repairs.

III. Think of what human qualities relate to these parts and functions. For example,
what do we do in our lives that is similar to the function of a brake in a car?

IV. See if you can find a connection between the ailments of your car and what
is going on in your life at this time.

V. See a good mechanic.

A variation of this game would involve looking at problems with your house. You can play this game by yourself or in a group where people write down their experiences and then share them with each other.

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