After the schizoid energy/crescendo peak, building up through the 2nd and 3rd heavens, of the 4th heaven crisis, the grail astro-knights ascend into the heaven of a peaceful, single and simple mind. There is a quiet drum of victory. Pure running water evokes the final cleansing of the shit creek of Hell Mouth.
The ghazal of the main track is spoken over an OM chant and is mainly a contemplative and mentally detached 'meditation' on the fifth heaven but there are also glimpses of the 'turbulent bliss' of the Thought world, the danger of disturbing one who is absorbed in its divine song and divine plan. The grail knights are now pure Mind, unconscious of their gross bodies or the subtle powers of Heaven 001-003, or in danger of the mind being seduced by these powers, which peaked in Heaven 004. They know what's God for you but they won't be gentle about it, in the way a Christ might be.
In this heaven the grail knights have "the sight of God" - a triumphant shift in the whole narrative arc. The false excitement of the crisis of Heaven 004 is resolved in a deeper calm, a truer climax ( and one which will be absolutely realised in 'Grail Accomplished".)
Form and technique
The Hafiz guide couplet at the start is a quiet paradox. The annihilation of self-interest is not a negative but a replacement by the positive presence of one's real self, God. (Fear or despair or lack of self-confidence, for example, is the absence of faith; hate the absence of love; anger the absence of compassion, humility or real fulfilment.)
An opening dialogue describes the joy and infinite relief of this heaven, where M sounds resonate. The mmm sound made with closed lips is supposed to be capable of expressing any emotion and this is explored repeatedly on this album (e.g. in evoking the OMnipotent power of the fourth heaven) but most consciously on this track, its mental home. OM is said to be the sound from which the Universe sprang (or continues to spring). So it rings through this heavenly soundscape.
The allegory
The astro-knights of inner space have now mastered 4 of the 7 heavens: dreamland; the afterlife; the enormous and competing energies represented by the gods and angels and the most dangerous of all- omnipotence without gnosis. Now the pilgrim, finally safe from the dangers of power, begins to master the mind itself. The fifth heaven is that aspect of the mind represented by thoughts. (The sixth that of feelings). The chanting of Tibetan monks ( as of that in Christian medieval monastery) searching for the heaven of a stilled mind.
The YES at the end of the ghazal (after 'Love's certainty') answers the 'NO' of Lucifer at the end of Heaven 003: that God-denying pride before a Fall (No-ing) counteracted by this complete assent to the divine. (Gnosis)
lyrics
Huzuri gar hami khvalu
Azu ghayib mashu (Hafiz)
'O Hafiz, if you desire the divine presence, then do not allow yourself to be absent'.
I can feel my mind emptying, all the blind alleys and false starts and ends clearing. It’s wonderful.
At last – I think I know who I am-m-m-m.
And how to get there. All those ideas we had to act out in a hostile universe-
Now we just think them-m-m-m! Back to the Source.
Mmm. Is that divine humming you or m-m-me?
Mm?
Don’t stop!
It’s Buddha under a banyan tree, high as the sky but rooted.
Buddha with your face? M-m-my face.
Shh. Don’t m-m-make a sound – except...
Every sound, the prim-m-mal sound.
Every feeling expressed in that one sound.
OMMM…
MMMM…
Fiery Light, uneclipsed, fills the sky
Thought unclouded now fixes my Eye.
Realisation, the sight of Bliss, (God)
Unchecked and fall-free once divined.
Even Lucifer out-thought by this:
Power’s weakness is blown in the mind.
Mysteries are explained in a flash,
Let Omega be Alpha, X, Y!
Conceiving the First in the Last,
God’s endless beginning and why.
Not the Gnosis itself, the Gnostic:
All that’s thought, bad and good, low and high.
Not the Infinite singer, the music:
Dis this turbulent Bliss and you’ll fry.
The original OMMMMM MY GOD torch song
For a First Grand Mort that can’t die.
Cruising Mind Control, seer of signs,
Math magician, the sky in the Pi.
Meeting parallel universe lines:
Sin agreement: keep Kuber Ji High!
OMtorway to a vast city-plane;
Mind consumed in Soul’s melody.
Heaven science's Ivory Towers,
Angels' High Ed laboratory.
Keeping God's Eye on wayward minds;
Zapped ignosis, profanity.
Shining Eye you’re half closed to the shadow
Half unblinded by love’s certainty.
The picture shows the statue of Perseus holding the gorgon's head - an illustration of mastery of the squirming mind? - in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence.
Source books for all seven heavens are "God Speaks" by Meher Baba; "The Nothing and the Everything" by Bhau Kalchuri/ Meher Baba.
See garethcalway.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/6-degrees-of-separation-7-degrees-of.html
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