Da Vinci Code on Sacred Feminine - VII - Adoration of the Magi

Da Vinci’s famed Adoration of the Magi was hiding a dark secret beneath its layers of paint. Italian art diagnosticien Maurizio Seracini had unveiled the unsettling truth, which the New York Times Magazine carried prominently in a story titled “The Leonardo Cover-Up.”

Seracini had revealed beyond any doubt that while the Adoration’s gray-green sketched under drawing was indeed Da Vinci’s work, the painting itself was not. The truth was that some anonymous painter had filled in Da Vinci’s sketch like a paint-by-numbers years after Da Vinci’s death. Far more troubling, however, was what lay beneath the impostor’s paint. Photographs taken with infrared reflectography and X ray suggested that this rogue painter, while filling in Da Vinci’s sketched study, had made suspicious departures from the under drawing… as if to subvert Da Vinci’s true intention. Whatever the true nature of the under drawing, it had yet to be made public. Even so, embarrassed officials at Florence‘s Uffizi Gallery immediately banished the painting to a warehouse across the street. Visitors at the gallery’s Leonardo Room now found a misleading and unapologetic plaque where the Adoration once hung.

THIS WORK IS UNDERGOING

DIAGNOSTIC TESTS IN PREPARATION

FOR RESTORATION.

Leonardo da Vinci remained a great enigma. His artwork seemed bursting to tell a secret, and yet whatever it was remained hidden, perhaps beneath a layer of paint, perhaps enciphered in plain view, or perhaps nowhere at all. Maybe Da Vinci’s plethora of tantalizing clues was nothing but an empty promise left behind to frustrate the curious and bring a smirk to the face of his knowing Mona Lisa.

[The series continues]

Da Vinci Code on Sacred Feminine - VI The Vitruvian Man

Considered the most anatomically correct drawing of its day, Da Vinci’s The Vitruvian Man had become a modern-day icon of culture, appearing on posters, mouse pads, and T-shirts around the world. The celebrated sketch consisted of a perfect circle in which was inscribed a nude male… his arms and legs outstretched in a naked spread eagle.

A feminine symbol of protection, the circle around the naked man’s body completed Da Vinci’s intended message male and female harmony.

[The series continues]

Da Vinci Code on Sacred Feminine - V Madonna of the Rocks

Da Vinci’s original commission for Madonna of the Rocks had come from an organization known as the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception, which needed a painting for the centrepiece of an altar triptych in their church of San Francesco in Milan. The nuns gave Leonardo specific dimensions, and the desired theme for the painting the Virgin Mary, baby John the Baptist, Uriel, and Baby Jesus sheltering in a cave. Although Da Vinci did as they requested, when he delivered the work, the group reacted with horror. He had filled the painting with explosive and disturbing details.

The painting showed a blue-robed Virgin Mary sitting with her arm around an infant child, presumably Baby Jesus. Opposite Mary sat Uriel, also with an infant, presumably baby John the Baptist. Oddly, though, rather than the usual Jesus-blessing-John scenario, it was baby John who was blessing Jesus… and Jesus was submitting to his authority! More troubling still, Mary was holding one hand high above the head of infant John and making a decidedly threatening gesture her fingers looking like eagle’s talons, gripping an invisible head. Finally, the most obvious and frightening image: Just below Mary’s curled fingers, Uriel was making a cutting gesture with his hand as if slicing the neck of the invisible head gripped by Mary’s claw-like hand.

Da Vinci eventually mollified the confraternity by painting them a second, “watered-down” version of Madonna of the Rocks in which everyone was arranged in a more orthodox manner. The second version now hung in London‘s National Gallery under the name Virgin of the Rocks, although many still preferred the Louvre’s more intriguing original.

[The series continues]

Da Vinci Code on Sacred Feminine - IV Mona Lisa

The Painting: 

Despite her monumental reputation, the Mona Lisa is a mere thirty-one inches by twenty-one inches smaller even than the posters of her sold in the gift shops. Painted on a poplar wood panel, her ethereal, mist-filled atmosphere is attributed to Da Vinci’s mastery of the sfumato style, in which forms appear to evaporate into one another.

Since taking up residence in the Louvre, the Mona Lisa or La Jaconde as they call her in France had been stolen twice, most recently in 1911, when she disappeared from the Louvre’s “satte imp n trable” Le Salon Carre. Parisians wept in the streets and wrote newspaper articles begging the thieves for the painting’s return. Two years later, the Mona Lisa was discovered hidden in the false bottom of a trunk in a Florence hotel room.

Fame:

The Mona Lisa’s status as the most famous piece of art in the world has nothing to do with her enigmatic smile. Nor was it due to the mysterious interpretations attributed her by many art historians and conspiracy buffs. Quite simply, the Mona Lisa was famous because Leonardo da Vinci claimed she was his finest accomplishment. He carried the painting with him whenever he travelled and, if asked why, would reply that he found it hard to part with his most sublime ex-pression of female beauty.

Da Vinci's Reverence:

Even so, many art historians suspected Da Vinci’s reverence for the Mona Lisa had nothing to do with its artistic mastery. In actuality, the painting was a surprisingly ordinary sfumato portrait. Da Vinci’s veneration for this work, many claimed, stemmed from something far deeper: a hidden message in the layers of paint. The Mona Lisa was, in fact, one of the world’s most documented inside jokes. The painting’s well-documented collage of double entendres and playful allusions had been revealed in most art history tomes, and yet, incredibly, the public at large still considered her smile a great mystery.

The Mystery:

You may notice “that the background behind her face is uneven. Da Vinci painted the horizon line on the left significantly lower than the right. Da Vinci didn’t do that too often. Actually, this is a little trick Da Vinci played. By lowering the countryside on the left, Da Vinci made Mona Lisa look much larger from the left side than from the right side; a little Da Vinci inside joke. Historically, the concepts of male and female have assigned sides left is female, and right is male. Because Da Vinci was a big fan of feminine principles, he made Mona Lisa look more majestic from the left than the right.

Androgynous?

Da Vinci was a homosexual. Actually, Da Vinci was in tune with the balance between male and female. He believed that a human soul could not be enlightened unless it had both male and female elements.

Da Vinci was a prankster, and computerized analysis of the Mona Lisa and Da Vinci’s self-portraits confirm some startling points of congruency in their faces. Whatever Da Vinci was up to, his Mona Lisa is neither male nor female. It carries a subtle message of androgyny. It is a fusing of both.

What is in a name?

Actually Da Vinci left a big clue that the painting was supposed to be androgynous. Has anyone here ever heard of an Egyptian god named Amon? Amon is indeed represented as a man with a ram’s head, and his promiscuity and curved horns are related to our modern sexual slang ‘horny.’ And do you know who Amon’s counterpart was? The Egyptian goddess of fertility?” It was Isis. So we have the male god, Amon. And the female goddess, Isis, whose ancient pictogram was once called L’ISA.

AMON L’ISA

Not only does the face of Mona Lisa look androgynous, but her name is an anagram of the divine union of male and female. And that, my friends, is Da Vinci’s little secret, and the reason for Mona Lisa’s knowing smile.

[The series continues]

Da Vinci Code on Sacred Feminine - III - Status of Women "from Sacred to Scared"

The dangers of freethinking women!

The history of horrific cleansing: 5 million of them!

Have they succeeded?

Nobody could deny the enormous good the modern Church did in today’s troubled world, and yet the Church had a deceitful and violent history. Their brutal crusade to “re-educate” the pagan and feminine-worshipping religions spanned three centuries, employing methods as inspired as they were horrific.

The Catholic Inquisition published the book that arguably could be called the most blood-soaked publication in human history. Malleus Maleficarum or The Witches’ Hammer indoctrinated the world to “the dangers of freethinking women” and instructed the clergy how to locate, torture, and destroy them. Those deemed “witches” by the Church included all female scholars, priestesses, gypsies, mystics, nature lovers, herb gatherers, and any women “suspiciously attuned to the natural world.” Midwives also were killed for their heretical practice of using medical knowledge to ease the pain of childbirth a suffering, the Church claimed, that was God’s rightful punishment for Eve’s partaking of the Apple of Knowledge, thus giving birth to the idea of Original Sin. During three hundred years of witch hunts, the Church burned at the stake an astounding five million women.

The propaganda and bloodshed had worked.

Today’s world was living proof. 

Women, once celebrated as an essential half of spiritual enlightenment, had been banished from the temples of the world. There were no female Orthodox rabbis, Catholic priests, nor Islamic clerics. The once hallowed act of Hieros Gamos the natural sexual union between man and woman through which each became spiritually whole had been recast as a shameful act. Holy men who had once required sexual union with their female counterparts to commune with God now feared their natural sexual urges as the work of the devil, collaborating with his favourite accomplice… woman.

Not even the feminine association with the left-hand side could escape the Church’s defamation. In France and Italy, the words for “left” gauche and sinistra came to have deeply negative overtones, while their right-hand counterparts rang of righteousness, dexterity, and correctness. To this day, radical thought was considered left wing, irrational thought was left brain, and anything evil, sinister.

The days of the goddess were over. The pendulum had swung. Mother Earth had become a man’s world, and the gods of destruction and war were taking their toll. The male ego had spent two millennia running unchecked by its female counterpart. The Priory of Sion believed that it was this obliteration of the sacred feminine in modern life that had caused what the Hopi Native Americans called koyanisquatsi ”life out of balance” an unstable situation marked by testosterone-fuelled wars, a plethora of misogynistic societies, and a growing disrespect for Mother Earth.

[The Series continues]

Da Vinci Code on Sacred Feminine - II The Pentacle

The Pentacle: 

It is one of the oldest symbols on earth, used over four thousand years before Christ.

Symbols carry different meanings in different settings. Primarily, the pentacle is a pagan religious symbol.

Who are Pagans?

Nowadays, the term pagan had become almost synonymous with devil worship a gross misconception.

The word’s roots actually reached back to the Latin paganus, meaning country-dwellers. “Pagans” were literally unindoctrinated country-folk who clung to the old, rural religions of Nature worship. In fact, so strong was the Church’s fear of those who lived in the rural villes that the once innocuous word for “villager” villain came to mean a wicked soul.

What is Pentacle then?  

The pentacle is a pre-Christian symbol that relates to Nature worship. The ancients envisioned their world in two halves - masculine and feminine. Their gods and goddesses worked to keep a balance of power. Yin and yang. When male and female were balanced, there was harmony in the world. When they were unbalanced, there was chaos.

This pentacle is representative of the female half of all things a concept religious historians call the ‘sacred feminine’ or the ‘divine goddess.’ 

The pentacle symbolizes Venus the goddess of female sexual love and beauty. Early religion was based on the divine order of Nature. The goddess Venus and the planet Venus were one and the same. The goddess had a place in the night time sky and was known by many names Venus, the Eastern Star, Ishtar, Astarte all of them powerful female concepts with ties to Nature and Mother Earth. 

Pentacle’s most astonishing property is the graphic origin of its ties to Venus. The planet Venus traced a perfect pentacle across the ecliptic sky every four years. So astonished were the ancients to observe this phenomenon, that Venus and her pentacle became symbols of perfection, beauty, and the cyclic qualities of sexual love. As a tribute to the magic of Venus, the Greeks used her four-year cycle to organize their Olympiads. Nowadays, few people realized that the four-year schedule of modern Olympic Games still followed the cycles of Venus. Even fewer people knew that the five-pointed star had almost become the official Olympic seal but was modified at the last moment its five points exchanged for five intersecting rings to better reflect the games’ spirit of inclusion and harmony. 

Thank you, Hollywood:

The five-pointed star was now a virtual cliche in Satanic serial killer movies, usually scrawled on the wall of some Satanist’s apartment along with other alleged demonic symbology. Despite what you see in the movies, the pentacle’s demonic interpretation is historically inaccurate. The original feminine meaning is correct, but the symbolism of the pentacle has been distorted over the millennia. In this case, through bloodshed. 

Role of the Church: 

Symbols are very resilient, but the pentacle was altered by the early Roman Catholic Church. As part of the Vatican‘s campaign to eradicate pagan religions and convert the masses to Christianity, the Church launched a smear campaign against the pagan gods and goddesses, recasting their divine symbols as evil. 

This is very common in times of turmoil. A newly emerging power will take over the existing symbols and degrade them over time in an attempt to erase their meaning. In the battle between the pagan symbols and Christian symbols, the pagans lost; Poseidon’s trident became the devil’s pitchfork, the wise crone’s pointed hat became the symbol of a witch, and Venus’s pentacle became a sign of the devil. 

Latest perversion: 

Unfortunately, the United States military has also perverted the pentacle; it’s now our foremost symbol of war. We paint it on all our fighter jets and hang it on the shoulders of all our generals.” So much for the goddess of love and beauty. 

[The Series continues...]

Da Vinci Code on Sacred Feminine - I (The Facts)

Women in Dan Brown's life:

The Da Vinci Code has drawn very heavily on the sacred feminine. So it is interesting to take this little peek into the life of author Dan Brown. The author, in his acknowledgements before the novel, mentions the contribution of his mother and his wife, in this order. He terms his mother as his 'role model', and his wife as "the most astonishingly talented woman he had ever known", along with many other adjectives. In fact, he has dedicated this book to his wife Blythe Brown. 

Facts (presented at the beginning of the novel):

The Priory of Sion – a European secret society founded in 1099 – is a real organization. In 1975 Paris‘s Biblioth que Nationale discovered parchments known as Les Dossiers Secrets, identifying numerous members of the Priory of Sion, including Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Leonardo da Vinci.

The Vatican prelature known as Opus Dei is a deeply devout Catholic sect that has been the topic of recent controversy due to reports of brainwashing, coercion, and a dangerous practice known as “corporal mortification.” Opus Dei has just completed construction of a $47 million World Headquarters at 243 Lexington Avenue in New York City.

All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.

About state of women at Opus Dei:

Their views on women were medieval at best. Female luminaries were forced to clean the men’s residence halls for no pay while the men were at mass; women slept on hardwood floors, while the men had straw mats; and women were forced to endure additional requirements of corporal mortification… all as added penance for original sin. It seemed Eve’s bite from the apple of knowledge was a debt women were doomed to pay for eternity. Sadly, while most of the Catholic Church was gradually moving in the right direction with respect to women’s rights, Opus Dei threatened to reverse the progress. 

[The series continues... ]

Decoding Da Vinci Code (Introduction)

Dan Brown: 

Dan Brown is the author of numerous bestselling novels, including the bestseller, The Da Vinci Code. Dan Brown has been named one of the World’s 100 Most Influential People by TIME Magazine. His novels have been translated and published in more than 40 languages around the world.

The son of a Presidential Award winning math professor and of a professional sacred musician, Dan Brown grew up surrounded by the paradoxical philosophies of science and religion. He was an English teacher at Phillips Exeter Academy, before turning his efforts fully to writing. In 1996, his interest in code-breaking and covert government agencies led him to write his first novel, Digital Fortress, which quickly became national best seller. His other famous novel is Angels & Demons – a science vs. religion thriller.

The Da Vinci Code

The Da Vinci Code has been New York Times bestseller # 1, and one of the best selling novels of all time. The novel The Da Vinci Code raised a storm because it commented and shook the foundation and fundamental beliefs of the Catholic Church and popular religion.

The novel was adapted for a film by Columbia Pictures, which became controversial as orthodox population protested against it across the world.

-Blog Series- 

The novel reveals many hidden codes, across the world, which when interpreted properly, will tell secrets. These secrets were not acceptable by the popular governments and the prevailing societies. In this series of blog articles, this blog is trying to uncover some of these secrets, for the benefit of all. If you have not read this novel, these posts will open a new world in front of you; and if you have already, you may debate better than others. In any case, you should read the series. All texts are from the novel, only classification and arrangements are done by yours in peace.

US in Iran?

I find this laughable. Perhaps some people don't believe in credibility. US to attack Iran within next 6 months? Unlikely, after seeing their burnt hands in Iraq. I shall get back to confirm on 23rd February, 2008.

US ready to strike Iran: Former CIA man

WASHINGTON: The US could deliver a military strike against Iran within the next six months, a former CIA officer told Fox News. In an interview on Tuesday, the US TV channel asked Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer assigned to the Middle East, whether the US was preparing for military action against Iran, citing Baer's column for Time Magazine on August 18, where he suggested that Washington officials expect an attack within the next six months. I've taken an informal poll inside the government, Baer told Fox. The feeling is we will hit the Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRGC). He said the George W Bush administration is convinced that the Iranians are interfering in Iraq and the rest of the Gulf, but what his sources anticipate is not exactly a war. We won't see American troops cross the border, said Baer. If this is going to happen, it is going to happen very quickly and it is going to surprise a lot of people. There were recent reports that Washington would put Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard the largest branch of Iran's military, separate from the rest of the army on the terrorism list. Baer said the US military suspects that the Revolutionary Guard is the main supplier of sophisticated improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to insurgents killing coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. He also said there is a belief among neo-conservative elements in the Bush administration that the Revolutionary Guard is an obstacle to democratic and a friendly Iran.

Ref: ET, 23 August 2007

China as I know

Here are some real life stories that I heard from my friends and colleagues who have first hand experiences with China: 

1. Managers know all:

In Indian factories, we often take feedback from our fellow workers. Managers regard the experiential knowledge of the shop-floor workers. But in China, the manager is expected to know all.

One person from India was deputed to China, and when he tried the same approach there, it was a disaster. When he asked something from the workers, they thought that he didn't know! His image suffered a lot. After some time, he came to know the realities.

In India, even a rag picker will give you tips on your car, or a worker will know much more than a manager on the technicalities. But it is different in China.

2. Look-alikes: 

Chinese are very good in replicating. One of our technical experts saw a bizarre practice. For industrial fans, there are inbuilt vein anemometers installed in the fans so that they can send the feedback to the CCR. That looks like a vein on the periphery of the face of the fan. In China, there is very less automation in the cement plants. The fans are locally manufactured. The manufacturer fabricates a vein like arrangement on the faces of the fans, so as to look like that from international companies! They don't know or don't need the feedback of gas velocity, but they want their fans to look like the international fans. Therefore, they fabricate a similar structure in industrial fans! Nothing can be funnier than this!

3. No English:

Some of my friends were taking training in a Chinese cement plant. This local plant was taken over by our (MNC) company. The language problem was so chronic there that they suffered a lot. Forget the workers and technicians, even the engineers and managers were not able to either speak or understand in English. All plant manuals were in their local language.

4. Anything that moves:

Chinese eat a lot of creatures. You can spend your entire life if you start listing them. In general, we can say that Chinese eat anything that moves! Nothing can be creepier than this.

A MOTHER’S LOVE

Here is a poem, borrowed for this occasion:

A MOTHER’S LOVE

A Mother’s love is something

that no on can explain,

It is made of deep devotion

and of sacrifice and pain,

It is endless and unselfish

and enduring come what may

For nothing can destroy it

or take that love away . . .

It is patient and forgiving

when all others are forsaking,

And it never fails or falters

even though the heart is breaking . . .

It believes beyond believing

when the world around condemns,

And it glows with all the beauty

of the rarest, brightest gems . . .

It is far beyond defining,

it defies all explanation,

And it still remains a secret

like the mysteries of creation . . .

A many splendoured miracle

man cannot understand

And another wondrous evidence

of God’s tender guiding hand.

~Helen Steiner Rice~

Once she asked us, what would be our ultimate desires in our lives? What if we have earned crores of money? This was when the eldest of us was about 15. All three of us talked about the material wishes and all. Then she told us about her dream: All she wanted was to set up a big educational institute, which adopts poor girl children from their childhood, supports them, and takes care of them, till they pass out as graduates, get jobs and become independent. So noble; even at that time we were touched to hear that.

Some good blogs in Hindi

Here I want to list some good blogs in Hindi. Language doesn't matter much; it is the content that is the king. But many posts and many writings are so good in Hindi that translating makes them no better.

Here are some such Hindi blogs. I wish to extend this list. You can also contribute by sending me some links.

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आवारा बंजारा

https://sanjeettripathi.blogspot.com/

By Sanjeet Tripathi:

Sanjeet can write better than most of what we get to see in our Hindi press. Some times his sense of humor is too good! He writes on the current events too. His blog also sports several links which are good for any Bharatiya who love India and our intellectual heritage.

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Book: India Remembered by Pamela Mountbatten

Pamela Mountbatten, 78, the younger daughter of the Mountbattens (Louis and wife Edwina), has co-authored a book titled “India Remembered.” Pamela accompanied her parents to India at the age of 17 and spent 15 months here. This book is her personal memoir of the time she had in India, in the corridor of power. The co-author of the book is Pamela's daughter named India Hicks (Interesting first name!) Ms. Hicks is an ex-model and author of two other books.

India Remembered

Category:       Non-Fiction 

Author:           Pamela Mountbatten, India Hicks 

Publisher:       Roli Books 

Price:              Rs 1495 

ISBN :             9781862057593

To purchase:  [Link]

�        The book is extracted out of the personal diary that Pamela maintained.

�        It includes some letters by prominent leaders like Gandhiji and Clement Atlee.

�        It includes her father's deliberations of the Indian leaders and kings.

�        Pamela writes that although her mothers had many lovers, her affair with Nehru had no physical dimensions.

�        The book projects her mother Edwina a heroine and describes how she loved India and helped Indians during partition riots.

Excerpt from the back cover of the book:

India Remembered is a pure evocation of this key period of India and Pakistan‘s history. Using diary entries and extracts from the meticulously kept family photo albums as documentary evidence, this book is a brilliantly informative read and a chance to witness first hand a generation of characters whose actions were to change the fate of two nations. 

Some interesting facts which I came across:

1. Title of the Book: 

There is another book with the same title. ‘India Remembered’: an account written in 1982 by Barbara Donaldson of her life in the UP, first as a child and later as the wife of an I.C.S. Officer (J.C. Donaldson, C.I.E., M.C.). [Ref] 

2. Pamela’s views about Gandhi, Nehru and Patel:

"Gandhiji was such a marvellous person that the moment you met him, he had such a twinkle but he was so simple with people that you know one was just delighted to meet him."

When Nehru, the urbane idealist, would go off at a passionate tangent, Patel would say, "don't go ahead of the people so far; come back, take them with you."

3. The way the Mountbattens died:

Lady Mountbatten died at age of 58 on February 21, 1960, while in sleep. She had just returned from a visit to India. To the surprise of many, a packet of letters from Nehru was found by her bedside!!! 

Lord Mountbatten was holidaying at his summer home in Republic of Ireland. Members of the IRA (Irish Republican Army) were aware of Mountbatten’s movements. Despite security warnings, on 27 August 1979, Mountbatten decided to go sailing in his pleasure craft. The IRA had earlier fitted a radio controlled bomb which was detonated, killing Luis and some other family members; a sad end to an eventful life. 

Some references: Amazon [Link], Indian Express Review [Link], NDTV Review [Link], etc.