The Elven Star Interpretations

Mystery 2: Expanding Horizons of Knowledge and Experience

Course Introduction
Use your second Sabian Symbol
​to study the word Hello
​​Our essential life purpose is to experience ourselves as widely and deeply as possible. This occurs as a result of exploration, or ‘trial and error’. Our path of exploration is both created by, and assimilated by, our power and attitude of attention.
Elven Star Mystery 2

How to Use the Mind

We tune in to the 2nd Sabian Symbol in the Elven Star to understand ourselves more fully - in this case specifically to do with how we use the mind. It is the mind that governs our perceptions and our imagination, so it is the cutting edge agency by which we create our life experiences and our assimilation of them - our lives.

A great deal of attention is given to training the physical body and keeping fit, and yet we need to do the same thing with the mind; we need to train it and exercise it, continuously until we die. It has two distinct modes of operation, associated with the left brain and the right brain.
Check out your own bias and get more info here.

Ideally we will be able to use both sides of the brain when appropriate, and also be able to bring them into balance on occasion.  Studying the 7 Sabian Symbols of your Elven Star is a way to learn how to bring them into balance, especially when you try to get the sense of how all of them collectively describe your soul atmosphere.

How to Use Words
The correct use of grammar and the elegant structuring of presentation is a training for the mind. Many people today use incorrect grammar to avoid the bother of thinking of expressive adjectives and adverbs, for example the repeated use of exclamation marks, or words written entirely in uppercase, using hyperbole to overstate their case: it was TOTALLY amazing! or I was absolutely horrified!!!! Such practices incline the mind towards emotionalism and rob it of clarity, and the tongue of authenticity.  How we speak is how we think; how we think governs what we do; what we do controls what we experience as life itself. 

Contemplation
​

The right brain and left brain work in different ways, and if we can get them working together in harmony, something happens and we receive a better depth of understanding.

Find a suggested aphorism by clicking below and spend time to get an intuitive, and yet rational comprehension of the subject.

It is suggested that you read the aphorism slowly, saying it aloud, three times; consider each word, remember that the author (these are mostly from Hazrat Inayat Khan) was accepted as a very advanced being of light. Then contemplate how your life could become different if this wisdom were fully embodied and practised as a life principle.

Primary Word: Hello 

Are you truly interested in the views and attitudes of others?
People can feel whether our interest in them is genuine, and if it is then they respond positively and open up. Such an exchange can lead to a mutual expansion of opportunity and understanding, and of course allows us to express more of our own ideas and experiences. Without such opportunities then there is a tendency to let life go by without keeping abreast of the changing nature of reality. And be aware…it’s not enough to respond to our feelings of interest – we may need to do work to cultivate those feelings.

Do you make opportunities to meet new people?
Travel broadens the mind. It expands our awareness of everything in life by showing us new ways to do things, new things to do and different perceptions. Spiritual and personal growth is measured by whether our perceptions are constantly shifting: it’s good to change our minds. Meeting new people makes us engage with the part of us that yearns to travel because we need a similar attitude of attention – one that acknowledges unknowingness and responds with healthy curiosity.

Do you make friends and contacts if you go to new place?
A casual encounter may change our point of view for a while, yet the integration of a permanent change of awareness requires something of more substance. To absorb into our life new people and the new ideas they bring is to make solid a shift of perception which then forms an aspect of our new mind-set. From this is born new plans and new circumstances, a breath of fresh air that invigorates and sustains openness. It supports a healthy mental attitude and all that goes with it
The mind is a powerful tool, the most powerful we have. Like any device of power it is dangerous if misused and requires training to use properly. If properly applied, then the mind can fulfil the desire of will, and answer the appetites of curiosity.
Whenever two living things meet there is an exchange of some kind. Living is exchange. Between people, this interactivity is a complex affair having many components on all planes of body, mind and feelings. Even on the basic animal level without any acknowledgement required, we influence and are influenced by those in physical proximity to us, because of our breathing, chemical releases, a tendency to match body language and so on. Also without much awareness of it, we are subject to a moderation of the atmosphere of feelings that arises naturally when two people are near each other. Exchange is central and inevitable as a condition of life.
Openness is our willingness to modify our perceptions and beliefs. In one sense it is the opposite inclination to that required to firm up Identity. We are examined at each choice-point whether to expand or contract. Both attitudes are necessary in their season, and there is always a fluctuation between the these two directions of self-realisation; fluctuation is inevitable and healthy, and actually one requirement of optimal growth is that it is enthusiastically sponsored.
Linguistically the word is re-cognition, ‘again knowing’. It carries resonance with such ideas as understanding, empathy, communion and remembrance; it suggests a state of re-connection with an aspect of self that has been forgotten. This is the universal aspect. So, there is a part of us as individuals that touches Unity, and this can identify itself as universal; if we can but remember it then we know Unity. It is this that motivates the mind towards spiritual practice. The forgetting itself is an inevitable result of incarnation since the separation that established individuality necessarily precludes our identification with Unity. We cannot be both lost in transcendence and committed to corporeal existence; they are mutually exclusive by their very essence. Yet even as we are bound by physicality, the universal aspect of self knows of itself and yearns to be recognised. The yearning is both a feeling and a perception.
The Sabian Images on this site are by Ruby Fumizki