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I took this at the Self-Realization Fellowship center is in Eninitas California.
The Self-Realization Fellowship Meditation Gardens are open to all that seek to come here to relax their mind, body, and spirit. Walking the grounds here is so tranquil, you can look out over the open waters of the mighty Pacific Ocean or you can find a spot nested in the gardens that gives you shade and floral fragrance as you rest your mind.
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The limiting factor is me - not the camera, also - There's no bad camera, just a bad user ! No face in this photo pal...so that you can send it to your lover...its your hand - not mine ;-)
Phase I: Realization of architectural instances in the Delhi Gate, Walled City was done through sketches imagined and recreated of the space. The unplanned agglomeration of space can also be seen through the disintegration of the building systems. The subtleness of the roof level parapets meeting the other roof can be seen directly accessible physically and visually. Urban courtyards are a usual instance present in the Delhi Gate. Amalgamation and overlaying of form can be seen through the entire space
Dimensions in cm: 14.8 x 21.0 each
I took this at the Self-Realization Fellowship center is in Eninitas California.
The Self-Realization Fellowship Meditation Gardens are open to all that seek to come here to relax their mind, body, and spirit. Walking the grounds here is so tranquil, you can look out over the open waters of the mighty Pacific Ocean or you can find a spot nested in the gardens that gives you shade and floral fragrance as you rest your mind.
I took this at the Self-Realization Fellowship center is in Eninitas California.
The Self-Realization Fellowship Meditation Gardens are open to all that seek to come here to relax their mind, body, and spirit. Walking the grounds here is so tranquil, you can look out over the open waters of the mighty Pacific Ocean or you can find a spot nested in the gardens that gives you shade and floral fragrance as you rest your mind.
If we know the goal of life and what is real happiness then we can stay happy for whole life. If we get this knowledge of the Soul at an early age, it can help to solve our relationship or worldly problems and makes us experience real happiness for long time.
To know more please click on:-
In English: www.dadabhagwan.org/self-realization/
In Gujarati: www.dadabhagwan.in/self-realization/
In Hindi: hindi.dadabhagwan.org/self-realization/
In the garden of the Self-Realization Fellowship Hermitage and Retreat Center in Encinitas, California founded by Paramahansa Yogananda (Autobiography of a Yogi)
The realization that the summer is over and school is beginning hit me today.
The first of the interns will be leaving on Sunday.
As a child, a ten minute trip into a store seemed an eternity...now the time slips by when I blink my eyes.
Time just slips by...
hope is the struggle of the soul, breaking loose from what is perishable, and attesting her eternity..
-herman melville
When the clouds of the Earth break those of the Heavens are revealed, along with one of the most human emotions: wonder. There was a time when I wanted to know, to analyze, to get to the bottom of everything, but I realized this was an empty road. I already had all I needed to marvel at the beauty of nature and found more value in accepting it as incomprehensible (in the absolute respect), loving it for its beauty and wonder, and using it as a canvas to ponder and imagine, than being able to sum it up in a system of equations. Sometimes (most of the time) its best to just sit back and soak it in.
🌙 The 5 Degrees of the Path (The Hierarchy of Realization)
1 - Sharia – The Discipline of Form (Outer Law)
Sharia is the sacred architecture of the path, the disciplined framework that shapes the seeker’s outer life so the inner life may awaken in purity and stability. In Sufism, Sharia is not a cage of rules but a divine scaffolding, an ordered structure that protects the heart, aligns conduct with higher truth, and prepares the soul for deeper spiritual unveiling.
It teaches that form and essence are not opposites: form is the vessel, essence is the wine. Without the vessel, the wine spills and is lost. Sharia provides this vessel through its clarity, boundaries, and rhythm. Prayer, ethical conduct, honesty, humility, lawful sustenance, compassion, these are the steady pillars that anchor the seeker in integrity.
To the Sufi, Sharia is the discipline that purifies intention, refines action, and guards the heart from chaos. It trains the ego, tempers impulses, and cultivates responsibility. Through it, mundane life becomes a field of spiritual training, where every gesture carries weight, every choice is deliberate, and every moment is a testament to devotion.
But Sharia is not rigidity; it is alignment. Its purpose is not limitation but liberation, creating a life so harmonized with divine order that the inner journey can unfold unhindered. The seeker who walks with Sharia moves with balance, dignity, and clarity, building a foundation strong enough to support the heights of spiritual realization. Through the discipline of form, the heart becomes ready for the mysteries of essence. Sharia is the doorway; the inner path is what lies beyond.
2 - Tariqa – The Path, the Discipline of Practice, and the Companionship That Shapes the Seeker
At its heart, Tariqa is the craft of shaping the soul through discipline. Spiritual exercises, dhikr, meditation, silence, vigilance are not rituals for the surface. They are chisels that sculpt the inner stone. They awaken what sleeps, purify what obscures, and strengthen what trembles. Every repetition is a blow of light against the roughness of the self.
But no path is walked alone. Companionship is part of the alchemy. A true guide, a sincere brother or sister on the journey, reflects your blind spots, steadies your steps, and protects you from the illusions you weave for yourself. You learn from their presence as much as from their words. Their sincerity becomes a mirror in which you cannot lie to yourself.
Tariqa teaches you to move forward even when the night is dense, to endure, and to polish your heart until it becomes a lamp for others. It shows you that the road is not linear but spiral: each lesson returns, deeper, sharper, more demanding. And every stage asks for more truth, more humility, more courage.
Walk this path with discipline but also with tenderness toward yourself. Let the practices sharpen your awareness, let the companionship soften your ego, and let the journey open your future like a horizon after the storm.
3 - Haqiqa – Truth, the Unveiling of the Real
Haqiqa is the moment when the seeker stops dreaming about truth and begins seeing it. It is the unveiling, the lifting of the final curtain that hides the Divine Reality. It is not reached by cleverness nor claimed by pride. It descends when the heart becomes transparent enough to reflect what has always been there. The Real does not change; you change. When the dust settles, the mirror shows what was always shining.
On this stage of the path, the seeker confronts the deepest paradox: everything you believed to be separate melts into unity. The world stops being a collection of scattered forms and becomes a single breath, a single presence. You feel the Divine not as an idea but as the pulse within every atom.
But understand this with clarity and courage: Haqiqa does not comfort the ego, it dissolves it. It does not offer prestige, it demands surrender. It does not reveal itself to the curious, it reveals itself to the sincere.
This unveiling is not sudden for most. It arrives in flashes, in storms, in silent illuminations that change the way you see everything. And once the veil tears even a little, it never fully repairs. You cannot return to blindness without betraying your own soul.
Walk toward Haqiqa with steadiness. Let discipline refine you. Let sincerity protect you. Let longing pull you forward. When your heart becomes clear enough, the Truth appears, not as something distant, but as the essence of who you have always been.
4 - Ma‘rifa – Direct Knowledge, Union Through Consciousness
Ma‘rifa is the knowledge that cannot be studied, memorized, or debated. It is not learned with the mind, it is recognized with the soul. This is the stage where knowing becomes being, where truth is no longer something you pursue but something you embody.
Ma‘rifa is the moment when the seeker stops looking at God from afar and begins to see through the eyes of the Real. It is an inner unveiling where consciousness melts into divine presence, not as a metaphor but as a lived reality. Here, the separation between the knower and the Known dissolves like mist under the sun.
This knowledge is alive. It whispers, it burns, it rearranges the inner world. It is not information; it is transformation. In Ma‘rifa, the heart becomes the true instrument of perception. You begin to taste meanings directly, without intermediaries. A single breath can teach you more than a library. A moment of clarity can contain an entire cosmos. The subtle becomes louder than the visible, and the invisible more real than the physical.
But understand this with lucidity: Ma‘rifa requires courage. It exposes everything false within you, every mask, every illusion, every self-deception. Direct knowledge allows no hiding. It strips the ego of its pretensions, leaving only what is authentic, humble, and luminous. And in that nakedness, the soul recognizes its origin.
Union through consciousness is not an escape from the world; it is waking up within it. Seeing the Divine in every form. Hearing the Divine in every silence. Feeling the Divine in every heartbeat.
Walk toward Ma‘rifa with honesty. Sharpen your awareness. Purify your intention. Let your heart become a mirror polished by truth. When the veils fall, knowledge becomes light, and that light becomes you.
5 - Insan al-Kamil – The Perfect Human, Mirror of God
Insan al-Kamil represents the highest realization of human potential in Sufism, the complete unfolding of the soul into its divine origin. It is not worldly perfection, but spiritual wholeness: the state in which the human being becomes a polished mirror reflecting the attributes of the Divine without distortion.
In this condition, the ego has been purified, desires refined, and consciousness awakened to its true nature. The Perfect Human stands as a bridge between the seen and the unseen, embodying balance, harmony, and inner illumination. Strength is softened by compassion, humility is elevated by wisdom, and every action arises from a deep alignment with the Real.
Insan al-Kamil is the manifestation of full remembrance. It is the human who has realized unity, who perceives God in every form and expresses divine qualities through character, thought, and conduct. Such a person does not withdraw from the world but moves through it with clarity, presence, and purpose, transforming ordinary life into a living expression of truth.
This ideal is not reserved for a few; it is a latent potential within every soul. Through purification, discipline, knowledge, and love, the human being gradually polishes the heart until it becomes transparent to the Light. Insan al-Kamil is the culmination of the path: a consciousness fully awakened, a heart fully purified, and a being fully aligned with divine reality.
Painting by ?
Illustration by Laurent guidali
Work by eDition Etoile
Coming upon this cemetery in an out-of-the-way place in rural Missouri and realizing that the cemetery sat on the backside land of what was a church intrigued me. What did the church look like? Most likely this was a Lutheran cemetery since many of the stones were in German and this is a very German-Lutheran area still today.
I walked in the gate under the sign that read, "St. John's Cemetery" and passed by this arrow not thinking much about it. But when I exited the cemetery and shut the gate, I looked up and started to realize that the arrow pointed upward; very significant in that all of the bodies who rested here had souls that migrated "up to" heaven.
But I also realized that this piece was part of what was probably a wind vane on the original church steeple, now long gone.
Ingenuity in its finest hour. I loved the simplistic reference to heaven and I pondered the story behind the church and its beautiful steeple, as well as its congregants.
Just one arrow pointed upward to a place brimming with souls; souls with stories to tell, if we only dig deep enough and take time to listen.
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Between Cole Camp and Versailles, Missouri
The Lady To Lady Show at the Little Modern theater in Los Angeles, CA.
10.25.12
© Atrossity Photography