Bruce Michael
Well-Known Member
Hello Friends,
I didn't mention that Herzeleide, Parsifal's Mother was reckoned by Dr. Steiner to be the reincarnated Julian the Apostate.
So again we have the connection of the old Mysteries (Julian) melded with Christianity. As discussed before, there is a close connection between Buddhism and Christianity in "Parsifal". This as we know, is also a hallmark of Manichaeism.
Wagner was very well read on Buddhism.
The name "Tristan" means sorrow and sadness (The world of Samsara). It is the sadness of separation from God:
Wagner's Nirvana: the Land of Non-Being
"It might also be argued that there are no specifically Buddhist ideas in Tristan.....The subject of his Tristan und Isolde is not salvation but the suffering caused by the desire for extinction.
Whether that deliverance or extinction takes the form of absorption into Brahman or transition into nirvana is unimportant, in the context of the drama. From a remark that Wagner made to Cosima many years later, that Kundry had undergone Isolde's transfiguration a thousand times, it would appear that he had reached the view that Isolde had not yet escaped from samsara, which in notes in the Brown Book he equated to the realm of day; in contrast, nirvana was the realm of night. So there is sufficient evidence from which to conclude that, if not during the composition of Tristan und Isolde then at least in reflecting on it later, Wagner thought of Tristan yearning for nirvana, the realm of night.
Monsalvat Index (version for all current popular browsers)
Swans and Geese
In the Wagnerian Parsifal, he shoots a swan. "Much later, in Parzival's wanderings, he comes across a goose that has been wounded by King Arthur's falcon. Three drops of blood fall on the snow; the red on white reminds Parzival of his distant wife, Condwiramurs. In contemplation of the blood on the snow, he falls into a trance."
The geese represent the senses.
The three drops of blood on the snow is also scene from the beginning of Snow White. The young Queen pricks her finger while sewing and three drops of blood fall onto the snow.
There is the expression "swan song" which means death. This expression comes from the thought (Middle Ages) that Swans sung before they died.
This is a clue to the Swan level of initiation.
In the writings of Basil Valentinus the Swan represents the third level of initiation- Raven and Peacock being 1st and 2nd. In this level Inspiration as the Divine Word, the harmony of the Spheres, sounds forth.
"In the third degree he meets death and must sing the Swan's song. He
then dies to everything earthly."
Notes from Walter Stein's The Ninth Century.
More on the Swan as the Aum, taken from:
The Voice of the Silence by H. P. Blavatsky
The Voice of the Silence by H. P. Blavatsky - 1
I found this interesting, that the parts of the bird were "parts" of the AUM. I wondered if this was pictured in meditation?:
Kala Hamsa, the "Bird" or Swan (Vide No. 11). Says the Nada-Bindu Upanishad (Rig Veda) translated by the Kumbakonam Theos. Society --
"The syllable A is considered to be its (the bird Hamsa's) right
wing, u, its left, M, its tail, and the Ardha-matra (half metre) is said to be
its head."
-Br.Bruce
I didn't mention that Herzeleide, Parsifal's Mother was reckoned by Dr. Steiner to be the reincarnated Julian the Apostate.
So again we have the connection of the old Mysteries (Julian) melded with Christianity. As discussed before, there is a close connection between Buddhism and Christianity in "Parsifal". This as we know, is also a hallmark of Manichaeism.
Wagner was very well read on Buddhism.
The name "Tristan" means sorrow and sadness (The world of Samsara). It is the sadness of separation from God:
Wagner's Nirvana: the Land of Non-Being
"It might also be argued that there are no specifically Buddhist ideas in Tristan.....The subject of his Tristan und Isolde is not salvation but the suffering caused by the desire for extinction.
Whether that deliverance or extinction takes the form of absorption into Brahman or transition into nirvana is unimportant, in the context of the drama. From a remark that Wagner made to Cosima many years later, that Kundry had undergone Isolde's transfiguration a thousand times, it would appear that he had reached the view that Isolde had not yet escaped from samsara, which in notes in the Brown Book he equated to the realm of day; in contrast, nirvana was the realm of night. So there is sufficient evidence from which to conclude that, if not during the composition of Tristan und Isolde then at least in reflecting on it later, Wagner thought of Tristan yearning for nirvana, the realm of night.
Monsalvat Index (version for all current popular browsers)
Swans and Geese
In the Wagnerian Parsifal, he shoots a swan. "Much later, in Parzival's wanderings, he comes across a goose that has been wounded by King Arthur's falcon. Three drops of blood fall on the snow; the red on white reminds Parzival of his distant wife, Condwiramurs. In contemplation of the blood on the snow, he falls into a trance."
These are all important scenes. The swan is the AUM. Through contemplation on the AUM the student passes from the world of images to the world of God- the Archetypes.
The geese represent the senses.
The three drops of blood on the snow is also scene from the beginning of Snow White. The young Queen pricks her finger while sewing and three drops of blood fall onto the snow.
There is the expression "swan song" which means death. This expression comes from the thought (Middle Ages) that Swans sung before they died.
This is a clue to the Swan level of initiation.
In the writings of Basil Valentinus the Swan represents the third level of initiation- Raven and Peacock being 1st and 2nd. In this level Inspiration as the Divine Word, the harmony of the Spheres, sounds forth.
"In the third degree he meets death and must sing the Swan's song. He
then dies to everything earthly."
Notes from Walter Stein's The Ninth Century.
More on the Swan as the Aum, taken from:
The Voice of the Silence by H. P. Blavatsky
The Voice of the Silence by H. P. Blavatsky - 1
I found this interesting, that the parts of the bird were "parts" of the AUM. I wondered if this was pictured in meditation?:
Kala Hamsa, the "Bird" or Swan (Vide No. 11). Says the Nada-Bindu Upanishad (Rig Veda) translated by the Kumbakonam Theos. Society --
"The syllable A is considered to be its (the bird Hamsa's) right
wing, u, its left, M, its tail, and the Ardha-matra (half metre) is said to be
its head."
-Br.Bruce