Verities of Being, Part IV: Spanda

“Spanda” is Part IV of a series of talks for the Theosophical Society of San Francisco, and the final in the series.

In this Substack post, I have included the full text and accompanying slides for Part IV. You will also find YouTube video of the talk itself at the end of this post.

As part of my plan for 2025, I just knew I had to do a series of four talks.

Sometime later, many weeks, the titles of the talks came to me all together.

Sometime later, many weeks, the title of the series arose.

I didn’t know much more than that. Of course, I knew the individual elements, and I knew how they could fit together thematically, but I didn’t have any feeling for the organic structure of this series of talks, although I knew with certainty there was an organic structure, it just hadn’t revealed itself to me yet.

Preparing the third talk, I could finally see the grand architecture of it, how it all flowed

This process involved in this series of talks was different and challenging.

Previously my books had evolved out of my talks, I would design a talk and then the finished product would flow into the structure of a book, but in this instance, I realize now, I have been pulling pieces out of some fully built edifice that was slowly emerging from the dark of psyche, and then organizing these pulled parts into talks.

Hard to explain, but very different.

And now, here we are. The fourth and final talk in the series.

When I choose the date for the fourth and final talk in this series, I choose it because it’s the day after my birthday and a powerful time, I wasn’t thinking about anything, I just felt that was the date. I chose it because it was the day after my birthday, selfishly, and that is a time that is very powerful for me personally.

I didn’t realize that this was the day of the September New Moon (along with a partial solar eclipse in Virgo), literally in these last couple of hours. I didn’t realize that the Autumnal Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere would occur tomorrow. I didn’t realize that the Navratri would start tomorrow. Nine nights of Durga. That’s something very important to me. I just wasn’t thinking that way when I chose the date. I didn’t realize that the Rosh Hashanah would start tomorrow.

Yes indeed, the Great Wheel turns, and we turn with it

It is meaningful that we are all here together tonight.

This is a statue of the Goddess Sophia. I have returned to this image again and again throughout these four talks. Sophia, as in Theosophia, the Divine Wisdom. This statue towers over a main thoroughfare in Sofia, Bulgaria. I stood before it. It was a very powerful experience. I was in Sofia, at that time, to deliver a briefing on cyber war and cyber terror at a NATO Conference being held there.

Merriam-Webster Definition:

1. the quality or state of being true or real

2. something (such as a statement) that is true especially: a fundamental and inevitably true value

3. the quality or state of being truthful or honest

Plural: Verities

20,000 + words

21, 27, 20, 17 – 85 PowerPoint slides

10 Goddesses - Shakti, Nyx, Gaia, Pachamama, Sophia, Kali, Hecate, Yemoja, Isis, Astarte, plus Ardhanari

6 women mystics, occultists, saints - Lakshmincara, Mother Krishnabai, Mirabai, Lalla Devi, Vak Ambhrini, HP Blavatsky

14 writers, philosophers, performers - Lana Del Ray, Walt Whitman, Alice Coltrane, Toni Morrison, Audrey Lorde, Joan Didion, Clarissa Pinkole Estes, Anne Lamont, Sally Kempton, Margaret Atwood, Phillip Pullman, Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Søren Kierkegaard

The work of 6 artists (5 of them women) - Hilma af Klint, Tamara de Lempicka, Remedios Varo, Dorothea Tanning, Frida Kahlo, and Anish Kapoor

20+ cultural artifacts - books, movies, TV series, Touching, Between Heaven & Earth, Red Book, Memories Dreams and Reflections, Siva Sutras, Vijnanabhairava, Spandakarika, Legends of the Mahasiddhas, Guru’s Grace, Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic As Power, His Dark Materials, Secret Doctrine, Handmaid’s Tale, Man in the High Castle, Wheel of Time, Baraka, Golden Compass, Andor, Rogue One, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Marvel Multiverse, Maleficent, a radio show, The Shadow, and a Tarot Card, #8 “Strength”

Meanings – Shadow

• “How can I be substantial if I do not cast a shadow? I must have a dark side also If I am to be whole.” - C.G. Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul

Meanings – Siddha

• Siddhis = Powers

• Siddha = A Powerful Being, A Being w/ Power

Siddha, not Siddhi, to emphasize you, us, this, incarnate being as a conduit, an embodiment.

Meanings – Shakta

• Shakti = Divine Power, Cosmic Energy,
  THE Goddess

• Shakta = A Being Whose Practice Centers on the Divine Power

Again, Shakta, not Shakti, to emphasize you, us, this, incarnate being as a conduit, an embodiment.

Meanings – Spanda

• Spanda = The Divine Pulsation

Lol quoting the King James again, “be still and know” but turning it upside and inside out, it’s not stillness, really, it’s more like a hummingbird wings

• Jaideva Singh on What is Spanda? The Supreme transcends all notions of space and time. Spanda, therefore, in the case of the Supreme is neither physical motion, nor psychological activity like pain and pleasure, nor pranic activity like hunger or thirst. It is the throb of the ecstasy of the Divine I-consciousness (vimarsa). The Divine I-consciousness is spiritual dynamism. It is the Divine creative pulsation.

But there’s more, another dimension, or another angle on this …

• ‘Sound’ (nāda) is the name given to the pulse (spanda) of the supreme level of Speech (parā vāc), which animates the highest reality. The Netratantra refers to it as a form of sound that pervades the universe. - Wisdom Library

Siddha

• Laughter

• Sleep

• Touch

• Conscience

• Voice

• Creativity

• Sexuality

• Free Will

That’s my list of eight inborn, plug and play, hard-wired siddhis that we celebrated in Part 2; all eight are integral aspects of our primal reality. This was the focus of “Part 2: Siddha.”

Here, I will just briefly touch on three of the eight.

• “Laughter is carbonated holiness.” - Anne Lamont

• “The relationship between the individual and God, the God-relationship, is the conscience." - Søren Kierkegaard, Works of Love (1847)

Of course, we draw a distinction between two kinds of humor in our exploration of the Laughter siddhi, the Belly Laugh or the Full-Body Verge of Tears Laugh is what we’re naming as a siddhi here, not the mean-spirited laugh, and you can feel how different that laugh inside your own body, how small the mean-spirit laugh is, how twisted and unnatural. Likewise, we also draw a distinction between two kinds of conscience, Conscience with a capital “C” versus lower-case c conscience. But of course, for millennia, a lower-case “c” model of conscience predicated on patriarchal values has been superimposed over of this portal into our primal reality. In this era of the Great Shift, we are breaking through that rigid, skewed frame, to re-establish a mainline to the “celestial fire” of the Capital “C” Conscience.

The third of these unrecognized, taken for granted siddhis I touch on tonight is Sleep

Consider this provocative insight from Ramana -

• Sleep is not ignorance, it is one’s pure state; wakefulness is not knowledge, it is ignorance. There is full awareness in sleep and total ignorance in waking. - Ramana Maharshi, Ramana’s Gospel]

From “Wyrds of Power” -

• So, I want to leave you with that idea of what sleep is, of its multidimensional nature, and of its mystical nature, and the fact that no one taught you to do this ... This is something that's natural to you. It is something that puts you directly in touch with the divine reality. The human reality and the divine reality meet [merge really, are absorbed into each other] within the cycle of every 24 hours. They meet in deep sleep. On your way to deep sleep, you're going to get information from various sources … various virtual computers that have been working on various problems and various agendas some of which you haven't even seen with your conscious mind … This is direct. This is immediate. This is our life. This is not somebody else's. And don't ever let anybody tell “you can't meditate,” or “that's not the right way to mediate.” Don’t ever tell yourself … “I can't meditate” …

Shakta

In “Shakta,” the third talk in this series, I touched on a range of subjects:

• Prana

• Chi

• Fohat

• The Force

• Tantra

• Bhakti

• Baraka

Consider this –

• · I am the Queen, the gatherer-up of treasures … They know it not, yet I reside in the essence of the Universe … I rouse and order battle for the people, I created Earth and Heaven and reside as their Inner Controller. On the world's summit I bring forth sky the Father: my home is in the waters, in the ocean as Mother. Thence I pervade all existing creatures, as their Inner Supreme Self, and manifest them with my body. I created all worlds at my will, without any higher being, and permeate and dwell within them. The eternal and infinite consciousness is I, it is my greatness dwelling in everything.
  - Devi Sukta, Rigveda 10.125.3 – 10.125.8

And the author of this particular Vedic text?

Vak Ambhrini, a woman sage, a Rishika.

And why have I included this image of the Aurora Borealis alongside HP.B.?

The first book of Phillip Pullman’s brilliant His Dark Materials trilogy was originally entitled “Northern Lights.” And, indeed, the Aurora Borealis is integral to understanding the nature of the mystical “substance” (for lack of a more apt word) that Pullman calls “Dust.”

• · “The sight filled the northern sky; the immensity of it was scarcely conceivable. As if from Heaven itself, great curtains of delicate light hung and trembled. Pale green and rose-pink, and as transparent as the most fragile fabric, and at the bottom edge a profound and fiery crimson like the fires of Hell, they swung and shimmered loosely with more grace than the most skillful dancer.” – Phillip Pullman, The Subtle Knife

Well, I say, although seen and articulated from different vantage points, and different levels of consciousness, Blavatsky’s Fohat and Pullman’s Dust are one.

And both H.P.B. and Pullman end up invoking the Aurora Borealis.

In S.D., Vol. I, H.P.B. calls the North and South Poles, “the two ends of the Egg of Matter.” And she goes on to say –

• · “The agitation of the Fohatic Forces at the two cold ends (North and South Poles) of the Earth which resulted in a multicoloured radiance at night, have in them several of the properties of Akâsa (Ether) colour and sound as well.” . . . . . . “Sound is the characteristic of Akâsa (Ether) : it generates air, the property of which is Touch; which (by friction) becomes productive of Colour and Light.”
  – H.P.B., S.D. Vol. I

So, to be cryptic, poetical, and literal, all at once – at the Poles, above the Earth, but within our atmosphere, the veils slip, and we glimpse the naked beauty of Shakti.

In Part 3, I also touched on Bhakti and Tantra, in my view, the two most direct paths to an embodied enlightenment, not one without the other, both essential, embodiment and enlightenment, now some people are more comfortable with “enlifenment,” that works, but you can’t blanketly dismiss whole bodies of teaching that are built are some version of “enlightenment” or one of its synonyms. I myself, now, prefer to simply say “Shaktahood.”

In Part 3, I also touched on Baraka, Divine Grace, Divine Blessing, as another medium through which we access Shakti and through which Shakti accesses us.

Baraka has many delivery systems - satsang (presence), shaktipat, darshan (even in photos, e.g., Ramana’s glance or Sivananda’s signature), Baraka-infused artifacts, Baraka-drench spaces, this room, for example, it has been a place of satsang and a portal, for DECADES now, and down the hill at the Native Sons Building for many decades before that, a container, still blessed, still blessing, the furniture, the books, the artifacts, the archives, steeped and seeping, it’s not dormant, it’s a SILENT, ABIDING POWER, it’s palpable.

Spanda

• “The first verse of this section describes Spanda-sakti represented by the unmesa (emergence) and nimesa (submergence) of the Sakti (primal energy) of Siva … the essential nature of Siva and also that of the empirical individual (sphurattasara-spandasaktimaya-svasvabhava).”
  “Unmesa and Nimesa are only figuratively spoken of as occurring one after another. As a matter of fact, that occur simultaneously.”
  “In activity, there is no depletion of Spandasakti, as there is of physical energy.”
  “Unmesa and Nimesa are only figuratively spoken of as occurring one after another. As a matter of fact, that occur simultaneously.”
  “In activity, there is no depletion of Spandasakti, as there is of physical energy.”

  - Jaideva Singh, Spadakarikas

The 3 Fundamental Propositions of the S.D. fall into an exquisite alignment -

• An Omnipresent, Eternal, Boundless, and Immutable Principle on which all speculation is impossible, since it transcends the power of human conception and could only be dwarfed by any human expression or similitude. It is beyond the range and reach of thought—in the words of Mandukya, “ unthinkable and unspeakable.” “The Supreme transcends all notions of space and time. Spanda, therefore, in the case of the Supreme is neither physical motion, nor psychological activity like pain and pleasure, nor pranic activity like hunger or thirst. It is the throb of the ecstasy of the Divine I-consciousness (vimarsa). The Divine I-consciousness is spiritual dynamism. It is the Divine creative pulsation. It is the throb of Siva's sätantrya or absolute Freedom.”

Spanda

• ”The second verse says that the world is contained in the spanda principle, and comes out of it. The world being contained in spanda and coming out of it does not mean that the world is anything different from Siva as a walnut si different from the bag in which it is contained. Being contained in and coming out of, are only limitations of the human language. The world is Siva as reflections in a mirror are the mirror itself. The world consisting of the subject, object and means of knowledge cannot really conceal Siva, because without the light of Siva, they themselves cannot appear.” - Jaideva Singh, Spadakarikas

• (b.) The Eternity of the Universe in toto as a boundless plane; periodically “ the playground of numberless Universes incessantly manifesting and disappearing,” called “ the manifesting stars,” and the “ sparks of Eternity.” “ The Eternity of the Pilgrim ”† is like a wink of the Eye of Self-Existence (Book of Dzyan.) “ The appearance and disappearance of Worlds is like a regular tidal ebb of flux and reflux.” This second assertion of the Secret Doctrine is the absolute universality of that law of periodicity, of flux and reflux, ebb and flow, which physical science has observed and recorded in all departments of nature. – Theosophy World

Spanda

• 3. The third verse maintains that even in the differing states viz., waking, dream, and deep sleep, the spanda principle remains the same, viz., as the invariable of Experient of all the states.

  4. While states of experience like pleasure, pain, etc. differ, the Experient cannot change; for it is the Experient that connects the differing states as the experience of the identical Experient.

  5. Reality is neither psychological subject nor the psycho- physical experience, nor si it mere void. Reality or Spanda si the underlying basis of the psychological subject, ti is the eternal Experient that can never be reduced to an object.

  6. & 7. It is from the Spanda principle that the group of senses acquires its power of going forth towards the objects, maintaining them ni perception for a while and then withdrawing them towards the centre.

  8. It is not the wil or desire of the empirical individual that moves the senses towards their objects. He derives this power from the spanda principle-the dynamism of Siva.

  9. It is on account of anava, mayiya and karma mala that the empirical individual is unable to realize the spanda principle. - Jaideva Singh, Spadakarikas

(c) The fundamental identity of all Souls with the Universal Over- Soul, the latter being itself an aspect of the Unknown Root; and the obligatory pilgrimage for every Soul—a spark of the former—through the Cycle of Incarnation (or “ Necessity ”) in accordance with Cyclic and Karmic law, during the whole term.

In other words, as Joe used to say, “You’ve got to do it for yourself, no one can do it for you.”

Every one of us has to walk the path for ourselves.

So this is Kahlo’s “Love Embrace of the Universe”

She is holding poor old Diego. I don’t know if that’s a bullet hole or a bindi or both on his forehead. She is holding him, and she is being held by the one I call the Dark Green Goddess, call her Gaia, call her Pachamama, and this Dark Green Goddess is being held by an even vaster, greater Goddess, who , in turn, is being held by … who, in turn, is being held by … who, in turn, is being held by …

Do you get it? Can you feel it?

Siva-Sakti Spanda is the Universe

Gaia is Life on Earth

Do you see how these three images taken together epitomize what is articulated in the first section of the Spandakarika and Three Fundamental Propositions of the Secret Doctrine?

Verities of Being

Primal Reality. The Pathless Path. The Lineage of No-Lineage.

The emerging Global Wisdom Tradition. Gaian Politics. Gaian Poetics.

The Ascendancy of the Feminine.

Altruism and Sustainability as Spiritual (& Existential) Imperatives.

These are the themes my work has focused for over the last thirty years, by one counting from 1992 on, from another counting from 2001 on …

This, right here, right now, this moment, this year, this decade, and the decade, is a time of great trial and tribulation for my country, our country, and for our world.

Life-affirming. Celebratory. Empowering.

I hope that’s the experience you take away from this current series of talks.

This series of 4 talks offer new perspective, new framing, new language, a new vision

I have tried to show you how you are right here right now a Siddha a powerful being

I have tried to show you how you are right here right now a Shakta a being whose life is brimming with Shakti, with the Cosmic Energy of the Universe Herself

My intention is that this series of talks endure as an artifact of the Ancient Future, highlighting what it means to be truly human in the 21^st Century

• What you are

• What you are part of

• How you have been provisioned for this journey

• What you are capable of

VIDEO: Richard Power - Verities of Being, Part IV: Spanda (9/21/25)

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