Universal Quest Newsletter
EQUINOX EDITION
Issue #12 - Wednesday 21 March 2001

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"The most beautiful and most profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the source of all true science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms, this knowledge, this feeling is the center of true experience."
~Albert Einstein

Dear fellow Questors,

Happy Spring. Happy Equinox.

In 1905, at the Spring Equinox and a week after his 26th birthday, Albert Einstein presented his Special Theory of Relativity to the World, single-handedly changing the future course of science, mathematics, philosophy, art, psychology and spirituality. For the first time in modernity, Einstein showed us that the entire universe was a play on our limited perceptions, our relative position and speed in the fabric of space and time. As we moved closer to the speed of light these realities became less certain and the universe changed, allowing us to potentially distort space-time. This was a profound thesis. It removed the absolute from Physics and Mathematics and opened up the doors for the birth of Quantum Mechanics, uncertainty principles and the age of chaos. Nothing would be certain again. But, it also opened up a new mysticism, a new understanding of the way in which the universe works and our place in it. We are witnesses to a divine comedy, a wonderful movie - players in a stage-play of space and time. Our perception is what makes the movie real, our participation makes it feel real. Perhaps if we close our eyes and turn inwards, we might catch a glimpse of the real director pulling quantum strings behind the stage set.

Two thousand five hundred years ago, seers all over the world would watch the Sun at the Equinox and stare with awe and wonder at the workings of the universe. They would go on to create philosophies and architecture that would increase and reinforce their sense of awe, measuring the Sun's every movement, celebrating the change of seasons and developing the principle of "as above, so below" - trying to imitate heavenly principles here on earth. We have been trying to capture the magic of the Sun and the Stars ever since. The Mayans built an entire Pyramid at Chichen Itza in order to celebrate the Spring Equinox and the mysticism hidden therein. Ever year thousands of people gather to watch the shadow of the serpent god Quetzcoatl dance up the stairs along the side of the Pyramid. What wonder must have existed in the minds of the Mayan architects to lead to such creativity.

Today, we need the same wonder, and because of Einstein, we can look at the Sun on the Equinox, at the birth of Spring, and celebrate a new mysticism, one that shares the same wonder our ancient ancestors enjoyed but with a completely new perspective, a new language and a new understanding of the workings of the universe. Thank you Albert Einstein.

Enjoy the quest.

Raja Choudhury
Founder
Raja@universalquest.com

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Spring Equinox
Tuesday March 20, 3:32 am HT, 1:32 pm UT

Spring Equinox is one of the four great cardinal festivals of the solar year. The spring season begins as the Sun enters Aries, and as James Joyce put it, the Ram has power. The festival period that begins now, and lasts for nearly a week, marks the return of Light, and of Mother Earth's vitality, from winter's long darkness and cold. The ancient Celtic and other central European peoples called the Spring Equinox Alban Eilir, or Ostara (source of the word "Easter"). It marked the day when the Earth goddess Bride, who had married the sky god at Imbolc time in early February, conceived the Sun Child who would be born nine months later at the Winter Solstice.

Like the Winter Solstice festival cycle that runs from Dec. 21 to 25, the Spring Equinox festival cycle extends over several days, from March 21 to 25. The reason for this is simply that in very ancient times, millennia before the rise of civilizations in Mesopotamia and Egypt, the Spring Equinox fell on March 25 and thus was celebrated on that day. It has moved back, in the time since, from the Precession of the Equinoxes, to March 21. Thus the closer the equinox festival is to March 21, the more recent its origin; the closer it is to March 25, the more likely that it is very ancient; or, as in the case of Christian festivals, superseded an older "pagan" festival.

Among the many festivals of this season: In many Native American calendars, Month of the Hawk begins. In Japan this day is Shubun, the Buddhist day of contemplation on hakanai, the impermanence of things. This day is ideally placed, not long before the start of one of nature's most glorious spectacles of impermanence, the Japanese cherry blossom season. This day begins the annual Taoist festival honoring the Shen, or deity of Spring, the Water element, and the East, with all that these imply as principles of origin and growth.

From the Universal Festival Calendar by Dan Furst

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Extracts from the Universal Festival Calendar

Sunday 25th March
One of the major festival days of the year, because was the day of the Spring Equinox in ancient times, and is positioned nine months before the great festival of 12/25. Its importance doubles this year because it comes right on the New Moon, and thus coincides with major lunar calendar festivals on the first New Moon of the solar year. Some of the feasts held now:

This year the Jewish month of Nisan begins on this day. Nisan is especially important not just because it's New Year's day, and not even because it's the Month of Redemption, during which the Exodus from Egypt began. Nisan has extreme gravitas because it commemorates the remarkable commandment that God issued to the Jews when He required that from now on they take on the responsibility of determining for themselves when the year's first month begins. This idea of God deciding to challenge and empower humankind by transferring to us the job of reckoning time itself is wonderfully elegant and profound, implying as it does that human beings are not only capable of, but are specifically designed for, mental and spiritual growth toward greater capacity - in short, the Nisan imperative means that we were built to evolve and ascend. The moment when those who had received God's edict really understood what it meant must be one of the prime candidates for the first time human beings ever used the expression "What a concept!" The ancient Greeks and Romans celebrated this day as the festival of Artemis/Diana, protector of woodlands and animals.

The Islamic New Year 1422 begins on this day with the ten-day festival of Muharram. On this day the martyrdom of the Prophet's son Husain is also commemorated.

Among the Christians of ancient Rome in the centuries immediately following the life of Jesus, this day was called Mors Christi ("death of Christ"), mourning the martyrdom of Jesus. In later centuries, after Constantine the Great (d. 337) had designated Christianity the state religion of the empire - thereby solving some messy problems of competition among religions -- the triumph, passion and resurrection of Jesus were celebrated at the same time as the ancient festival of Adonis -- that is, the festival week began the Sunday before the first Full Moon after the Spring Equinox, and climaxed with the rebirth of the god on the following Sunday. This left 3/25 to become what it has been in the Roman Catholic calendar ever since: the Feast of the Annunciation, the moment when the angel revealed to Mary that she was now carrying the Divine Child who was to be born 9 months later, on 12/25.

Finally, one of the world's great Goddess festivals, the Navaratri (also called Gangaur) is held in India. On each of the festival's nine days - equal to the number of months in the human birth cycle - Hindus celebrate one of the major Goddess emanations of the primal Great Goddess, the Maha Devi.

Monday 26th March
In the ancient Persian calendar, this day was celebrated as the birthday of Zarathushtra (Zoroaster), who is said to have been born to a 15-year old virgin in 660 BCE.

Birthday of mythologist and "Follow Your Bliss" teacher Joseph Campbell (1904).

Wednesday 28 March
A day of mystery in many ancient calendars. It was widely believed in the Hellenistic and early Christian periods that God created the Sun and the Moon on this day. Third-century Christians accordingly chose 3/28 as the day of Christ's nativity, and observed it as such until the December feast of Christmas was created in the 4th century. On this day the ancient Romans held ceremonies of purification and sacrifice, including, in later Roman times, gladiatorial combats at the tombs of their ancestors. Birthday of Kwan Yin, bodhisattva of compassion, in the Chinese calendar.

The complete Universal Festival Calendar. Including graphics and listings for the months ahead, is at http://www.hermes3.net/ufc.

©Copyright 2001 Dan Furst.
Direct replies or comments please send to Dan Furst <hermes3@lava.net>

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Taliban destroy world's tallest Buddhas

In two separate acts of vandalism, Afghanistan's ruling Taliban party have destroyed four ancient Buddhist statues that had survived over 1500 years of invasions, occupations, wars and natural disasters. Museums and governments around the world had hoped to save two of the Buddhas, the earliest of which is thought to have been carved into the sandstone cliffs of Bamiyan in the third century AD. At 175 feet and 120 feet, the statues were the tallest standing Buddhas in the world. A third statue, the 16-metre long reclining Buddha at the temple in Tape-Sardar in Ghazni province was reportedly destroyed last week alongside another famous statue depicting Buddha with his foot on a calf. These statues reflect the Gandhara style of Buddhist art that many scholars believe to be the most prolific and beautiful period of Buddhist expression ever seen.

The Taliban claimed that the statues were anti-Islamic and had threatened to destroy them for many weeks. Afghanistan received many offers from museums and governments around the world offering to pay for their rescue, removal and maintenance. In addition, most Islamic nations around the world asked the Taliban to show restraint and not destroy their own legacy. The Taliban responded to this global pressure by destroying the statues and claiming that the world had shown it was more interested in saving idols rather than feeding the hundreds of thousands of starving Afghan children. In another act of anger, the Taliban ordered the slaughter of 100 cows as sacrifice for the delay caused in destroying the statues. According to the BBC, most Afghans were opposed to the destruction of their heritage. The Taliban responded to this report by expelling Kate Clark, the BBC correspondent in Afghanistan.

The Director-General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, has condemned the Taliban’s destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan and described it as a "crime against culture." He also added that it was "abominable to witness the cold and calculated destruction of cultural properties which were the heritage of the Afghan people, and, indeed, of the whole of humanity."

To find out more or to register a protest against the Taliban visit the UNESCO Web site at http://www.unesco.org/opi2/afghan-crisis/

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Megalithic Equinoxes Create the World
By A T Mann

As most early megalithic sacred centers represented places where heaven and earth meet, one of first issues to be solved was their alignment. Early monuments and temples were aligned to the sun or moon, a planet or star representing the deity to be worshipped. The rising, setting and other movements of the moon governed the orientation of lunar cult places and temples, while the correspondent positions of the sun determined solar places.

The spiraling of the earthÕs polar axis, which creates the phenomenon of the equinoxes and solstices, is expressed in many creation myths. In the Aztec culture the axis is a fire stick, in Scandinavian myths it is AmlodhiÕs spinning top, and Egyptian stone carvings depict Horus and Set in the act of drilling, thereby creating the gods of the Nile. The Egyptians often represented the Nile as a circle, where its source and mouth meet like the ouruburos. The mill relates common mythological themes with the movements of the cosmos above, a central heritage of ancient philosophy. Coincidentally, the spiraling millstone and its cap containing hieroglyphs looks very much like human sperm containing the genetic code DNA. The central element of the mill is a pillar that grinds out reality. The mill tree is also the axis around which the world itself is created. The form of the mill is central to the structure of eastern temples as described in the famous books of the East such as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Santillana also sees similar symbolism in illustrated Mayan Codices and in architectural friezes that depict churning objects that look like hourglasses to measure time.

Newgrange was a featureless mound in Ireland, south of Dublin, when its opening was discovered in 1699 by the British General Charles Vallancey. He also found that it had an astronomical orientation, and called it the ÔCave of the SunÕ. The interior contained a cross-shaped passage lined with large flat stones. At the winter solstice the sun's rays penetrated all the way into the monument and shone on the back wall almost 30 meters within. Due to the details of the construction the light enters through a roof-box above the doorway.

Nearby Newgrange, at Dowth and Knowth, are smaller mounds which exhibit similar properties, but are oriented to other phenomena. Knowth received the sun's rays on the Equinox sunset and cast strange patterns on two curbstones at the base of the passage mound, as well as having passages facing both east and west and sundials engraved on nearby stones. The western passage was built 500 years before Newgrange and the light beam extends much further into its centre, along a narrower passage. What is intriguing is that at maximum depth, the passage veers to the right. This is assumed to be the remains of a much earlier and smaller mound, but could be accounted for by understanding the shift in alignment caused by the precession of the equinoxes.

What is most interesting about these Boyne Valley mounds is the carvings on the stones outside and within these mounds. Some are symbols of the sun and moon ascribing to archetypal images of concentric circles, radiating lines from a central circle or a dot within a circle. Others are crosses within circles, within squares, within diamonds or outside circles. It is important that we celebrate the equinox, especially the spring equinox, at one of these sacred "crossing times" on the path of the sun from the darkness of winter to the new light of summer. Enjoy the increase in light!

Visit Tad's site at http://www.atmann.net

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Flash in the pan may be messages from outer space
By Richard Macey

A Sydney astronomer is watching the skies for aliens he suspects may be flashing at us. Since 1960, scientists involved in the now international Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) have been using radio-telescopes to listen for signals that will tell us we are not alone. But so far the hunt has been fruitless, turning up just occasional false alarms triggered by stray radio interference from man-made gadgets.

An astrophysicist at the Campbelltown campus of the University of Western Sydney, Dr Ragbir Bhathal, believes the problem is that alien civilizations may be so advanced they have abandoned radio in favor of more sophisticated forms of communication.

"On Earth, we are already moving away from communicating by radio to optical communication with fibre optics and lasers," he said. "By 2050 most of our communications will use light which can carry hundreds of thousands of times more information than a radio signal."

He said that during US President Reagan's failed Star Wars military program of the 1980s scientists designed high energy lasers which could produce nanosecond light pulses. Studies showed that pulses from extremely powerful lasers placed 100 to 1,000 light years away could be easily detected by a telescope and sensitive detectors. "The flashes would outshine a sun-like star," said Dr Bhathal, who believes aliens could already be using lasers to signal their position.

So, whenever Campbelltown's nights are clear, Dr Bhathal, director of the Australian Optical SETI project, or Oz Oseti, is in the university observatory using its twin telescopes to scan the skies for flashing stars. He has chosen 200 sun-like stars within 100 light years of Earth to watch. He spends up to five hours a night, observing from five to 10 stars. "So far we have looked at 20 stars," he said."We haven't found anything at all." He hopes to have examined all 200 within six months, before expanding his search to include 10,000 stars out to 1,000 light years.

He was confident any light signal should be unmistakable. If one telescope spots a flash he will check what the second saw. If both record a flash he will be confident it was a real event, not a technical glitch. Dr Bhathal believes intelligent civilizations must be out there, despite being hard to find. "Look at how many millions of stars there are in the universe. It is unreasonable to expect there is no life on any of them."

Even if he spots a flashing star, he has no plans to flash back. "It's a search strategy," he said. "Not a reply strategy.''

To find out more visit http://www.smh.com.au/news/0103/07/text/national9.html

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Living Our Equinoxes and Solstices
By A T Mann

Due to the orientation of the earth, sun, moon and planets when we were born, we all tend to favor certain seasons of the year and not others. Why is this? The "shape" of your planetary distribution is the way astrologers can see this orientation. For example, in my horoscope all ten planets are in the Western half of the horoscope and the signs from Aries to Libra, the first half of the zodiac. I donÕt have any planets at all in the other half, but for my Ascendant in Sagittarius. For me, as the Sun works its way through the signs, I experience the opposite of all my planets from September to March, but their positive and more active qualities from March to September. For me, the autumn and winter is like a time of hibernation when my mind and psyche goes inward. This is great for meditative opportunities and is also a time for discovering my inner needs.

When the Spring Equinox happens my planetary sequence, starting with my Moon in early Aries, starts its majestic progressÑit is as though I return to life again after having been away. Things hot up, get more interesting and intense and my focus shifts to outer expressions of my being. This is why, for different reasons, I anticipate the spring and feel a sense of loss in the autumn. In this sense I suppose I can identify with the solar religions, which makes the Leo in me proud and strong. I celebrate both occasions and know that they are much more than just abstract times in a cosmic year.

Visit Tad's site at http://www.atmann.net

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A Cosmic Chill
The Galactic Times for March 20, 2001
by Philip Sedgwick

Today, being the first day of spring (the Vernal Equinox) and all, you might expect Spring Fever to be itching just beneath your skin. While eagerness successfully disguises itself as irritation and tension, it might be good to get a grasp on the nature of the energy at hand. I am heading out for a couple of long distance trips with minimal time at home. But today I received one of my e-mail alerts that I would be remiss in not reporting.

Again within the apex of the Sun's 11.08 cycle we frequently receive blasts of solar energy. Since last weekend we've been receiving such amplified radiation. And early on Monday (GMT) another CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) left the Sun. This energy presumes to heighten our awareness by activating our receptivity to more subtle energy fields. This is a good presumption, however, reality speaks a slightly different history.

Over the past year or so when the solar emanations have surrounded Earth and its inhabitants, the tendency seems to be a little more worse case than the above assumption. Most folks experience extreme tiredness within energetic hyperactivity. Feelings of uncertainty, insecurity and fear tend to come out of nowhere. Often panic-like episodes prevail. This is simply the influx of all this energy with no place to go. The solution actually is simple. Ground yourself and stay connected to your support system, soul and spiritual drill.

Today is the first day of Spring. Over the next two days we can expect increased solar energy bringing with it the need for all of us to cosmically chill. Be cool. Know your center and pause in the face of intensified reactions. Do a ceremony connecting yourself to Mother Earth. Experience nature (sorry, watching the Nature and Discovery Channels on TV does not count). Meanwhile, remember that everyone else might not have this heads up. Use a trifle more patience with such folks. We are the models of insight, after all, since we know this stuff, right?

I also find it amusing that business folks are trying to find funds to keep Mir aloft. Funny, how it goes: economics trying to avert Peace returning to Earth. I don't really think that means anything (but I might be kidding). I just found it amusing. But not as amusing as the target placed in the Pacific by fast food taco company daring Mir to come down on it.

Well, we all know our jobs. While you're trying to make an egg stand on end (and it will during the Equinox and here I'm not kidding) remember the fertility of your energy and its feed from the Sun. To activate and intensify your energy to its height, chill - it's a cool Cosmic Contradiction.

Happy Spring.

Philip Sedgwick
galastro@aol.com

Astrology for the 21st Century - Bringing Heaven to Earth. For scheduling consultations (standard, Centaur, Galactic or Heliocentric) please contact me directly. For information on ceremonial work please e-mail for details. And don't forget you can order my books, "The Sun at the Center" and "The Astrology of Deep Space" (numbers are limited) from me. I also have The Centaur Ephemeris, Varuna Ephemeris, New Trans-Pluto Ephemeris and The Galactic Ephemeris for sale. E-mail for costs and shipping. You can always join in on the exciting Galactic Study Course at any time. If you want the leading edge in astrology, this is it! Exciting, free, enlightening astrology listed below: Don't forget to sign up for your personal e-mail horoscopes (some of which I wrote) and other good astrology at: www.stariq.com My galactic based horoscopes change every Monday at www.scifi.com/spacescopes/ Enjoy You are welcome to send this e-mail to others or to reproduce it on-line given that you provide notation of authorship.

© 2001, Philip Sedgwick, All Rights Reserved

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Raja Choudhury : Founder
A T Mann : Cofounder/Contributing Editor
Contributors: Dan Furst , Philip Sedgwick and Richard Macey

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All rights reserved ©copyright February 2001 Raja Choudhury Universal Quest