By Robert Wilkinson
Today we continue to explore "the Ring Pass Not," and how it is related to Saturn. The Ring Pass Not is the binding force that prevents us from avoiding certain key lessons and responsibilities directly related to our Dharma, or “truth of Being.” This binding force that teaches us reasonable limits, as well as when we can pierce through those limits into more eternal realms.
As I noted in the first article in this series, certain limits are necessary so we learn whatever we must learn before seeking other fields of exploration, realization, application, and expertise. It is the means by which our quest for Truth becomes coherent. Sometimes these make sense to us, and other times these seem meaningless, frustrating, and heavier than iron chains.
As I noted yesterday, this often results in us feeling caught in "holding patterns," practicing skills and coming to realizations about things that may seem meaningless or futile in the moment. However, as I noted, these set the stage for abilities we'll have to demonstrate in future life experiences and chapters.
As I also noted, overcoming limitations (and impatience!) as we slowly and surely master what we have to master ensures our Higher Self opportunities to show itself in the future. All of our realizations and skills we develop through applying these realizations in our lives show us our Dharma, or Higher Truth of Self, related directly to what is called “The Ring Pass Not.”
Saturn symbolizes the Universal binding force, the limits of our fear, our responsibility, and our Dharmaseva, "the Great Work." In the Wisdom Tradition, Saturn also rules what is known as the "Ring-Pass-Not." It is where we meet the fear that separates us from our own divinity, dominion, and perfection. As we grow, our Ring-Pass-Not also grows.
The "Ring-Pass-Not" defines what is and is not "permitted," from the angle of your own Soul's growth, both in terms of skills as well as comprehension. That's why we're learning about different "Rings-Pass-Not," both personally and collectively.
As we easily see through contemplating the teachings of Sages and true Spiritual Teachers, there are many limitations of ego and matter to master. Doing this effectively requires both imagination, acceptance that in fact we do have limits we need to examine, and willingness to try to grow beyond our inabilities.
Our attachments and aversions define our Ring Pass Not at any given point in our evolution. Also, since illusions are everywhere, we must learn how to navigate occasional “disillusionment.” Since our mind and feelings can easily fall prey to illusions, suppositions, superstitions, and unreal perceptions, we also must learn how to overcome the tendency to fall into these mental traps.
We define the field of our "dis-illusionment" by the nature of our predisposing patterns of attachments to perceptions and interpretations about life. Everything that is subject to our perceptions and minds becomes a temporary form we can learn from, both by its appearance and its eventual disappearance. How much fear, enslavement, and disempowerment we experience around the comings and goings of phenomena in our lives shows us our Ring-Pass-Not.
Glamor often plays a big part in how we limit our possibilities unnecessarily, since glamor is fundamentally unreal and we're told it is a world problem. However, it is a useful tool so that we may come out of our delusions around the nature of self, Self and our relationship to Truth and Community, however these are defined in their ever-changing nature, as well as changeless nature.
Through the inevitable contrasts in the ever-necessary polarizations between the worlds of Soul and matter, we master moving through duality, and learn how to antidote the various doubts, illusions, and superstitions which we have created as a result of ego suppositions based on the perceptions of the 5 senses and the mind.
This is where timing (Saturn) is everything. We cannot solve tomorrow's problems today, nor can we move beyond the inherent limits of the immediate moment. The beauty in this is that Higher Awareness is absolute, yet relative.
There are limits to what we are able to understand and utilize skillfully at any given moment in our personal, interpersonal, and transpersonal evolution. This is where, as we master how to lift the chains of mental slavery off our shoulders, we come to both understanding and wisdom about form and process. Those are the keys to mastering our Higher Destiny.
The Ring-Pass-Not is comprised of what we are and what we are not, the limit set by our own response to the edge of our fear, as well as the Threshold of Revelation. Another important aspect of our Ring-Pass-Not are our self-created blind spots and limited ego-mind hindering or needlessly limiting what we are willing to accept and become as Spirits in the material world.
We are limited by our ability to act or not act skillfully in situations. This also applies to our emotions and mind set. As we become more skillful in surmounting limitations, or find new ways to do something needed by us or our world, we will become the teacher we seek, since there is no true separation between the Teacher, the Teaching, and we who are Taught.
In reality there is no limit to the growth of the Soul, but there are limitations of form, different ones required at different seasons of the life. This teaches us a well-rounded Wisdom, and offers textures to our understanding through knowing when to stop, when to go, when to work, and when to play, whether in the physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual realms of experience.
We all have limitations. We all have the power to grow beyond them. As we learn not to take certain lessons personally, we can examine how we all have been limited by various aspects of our understanding that set up certain lessons, both individual and interactive, unique as well as recurring.
As we extend the scope of how our lessons relate to our personality growth as well as what we are to do in the world, those patterns of our lives show us clues toward a larger perspective about things, resources, the players and their roles, and our own relationship to expectations. It is leading each of us, you and me and humanity, beyond old limitations and roles. Since each of us is a seed within the greater Life of humanity as a whole, each lesson we master aids the progress of all.
Welcome to the school all of us are subjected to, by nature of our life in a three dimensional form in an impermanent world. Begin to frame everything that presents itself to you with an eye to opening your heart to an ever-greater group recognition, effective service, and self-forgetfulness, coupled to an ever-greater expression of Goodwill. That way your expressions of Love will become more consistent, you'll know your connectedness with other beings, and you'll drop your fears very quickly.
By generating goodwill and positivity, you're using spiritual magnetic material in a loving and wise way, and all limitations of form can be seen in the light of a greater spiritual understanding, with all things redeemed in good fashion. Then the Ring-Pass-Not becomes the defining limit of your own spirituality in your world, according to the level of your effectiveness and the specific function you are occupying within the larger One Life in which we live and breathe and have our being.
Though much of this sounds difficult to achieve, it's really an inevitability once you get in the groove and stay on track through time and experience. Keep synthesizing your awareness as you move from realization to application to further realizations and applications. The fantastic goal of perfecting our consciousness through practices of self-realization is within reach for us all, if we simply come to the right point of view and show up, ready to play!
Here are the previous articles in this series:
Saturn - Binding Force, Timekeeper, and Guardian of the Ring Pass Not
Saturn, Dharma, Destiny, and the Ring Pass Not – Pt. 2
© Copyright 2006, 2013 Robert Wilkinson
'Begin to frame everything that presents itself to you with an eye to opening your heart to an ever-greater group recognition, effective service, and self-forgetfulness, coupled to an ever-greater expression of Goodwill. That way your expressions of Love will become more consistent, you'll know your connectedness with other beings, and you'll drop your fears very quickly.
By generating goodwill and positivity, you're using spiritual magnetic material in a loving and wise way, and all limitations of form can be seen in the light of a greater spiritual understanding, with all things redeemed in good fashion"
Robert, what you've just written here I think reflects the dawn of a new realisation we're all just beginning to awaken to. No more false prophets. No more dividing our loyalties between this and that, our good intentions dissipated to a whisper of what we tried to voice. Just an awareness of the infinite and eternal Loving Light that calls for us to unite and become One again.
In the state of I AM we are all-powerful and the architects of our own creation. We CAN create a world which mirrrors our unconditional love and joy. No one can take this from us. No one can cause us to turn away from our true path.
The Dalia Lama said not so long ago 'Each one of us is the center of our own universe' Let us each awaken to this, and in doing so, create the world we want for ourselves and others.
In Loving Light,
Zephyr
Posted by: Zephyr | August 27, 2013 at 12:26 PM
Robert, this is a magnificent post, a treasure chest that gets to the heart of things - why we are here, how to make it the best possible for us and others. Thank you so much for you wisdom and clarity and guidance!
Love & Peace to you!
Posted by: Sara | August 27, 2013 at 08:35 PM