Lord Sakka's Restraint

As we contemplate the heavenworld, four essential qualities emerge for our consideration--commitment on the line of the Father, earnestness on the line of the Son, devotion to life on the line of the Mother, and graciousness on the line of the Holy Spirit.

We are shifting from Pisces to Aquarius, and the feminine qualities of the Mother and the Holy Spirit Girlchild are coming to the fore. Graciousness is an extraordinary quality that all of the heavenly beings embody, and through which they relate to one another. True graciousness says, “I value you, not for what you bring to me, but simply because I love you. The God in me loves the God in you.”

The same divine graciousness that gave us free will, frees us through the Holy Spirit initiation that is coming upon Terra. It will help us to love our enemies, to forsake negative competition, our calculating human agendas and all of our dislikes and resentments.

The initiation is described in Lord Sakka's Restraint, a story Gautama Buddha taught his disciples about an ancient battle between the angels of light who are the devas, and the fallen angels or asuras. The devas are victorious and the asura king Vepacitti is captured and imprisoned. Then Lord Sakka, the ruler of the gods, visits Vepacitti in prison, and Vepacitti abuses and reviles him with rude, harsh words, to which Sakka does not respond in kind. Afterwards, Sakka's charioteer questions Sakka about this, expressing concern that some would see Sakka's response as indicative of fear or weakness. Sakka replies:

It is neither through fear nor weakness
That I am patient with Vepacitti.
How can a wise person
Engage in combat with one who is foolish and deluded?
... Of goals that culminate in one's own good
None is found better than patience.
...One who repays an angry man with anger
Thereby makes things worse for himself.
Not repaying an angry man with anger,
One wins a battle hard to win.
He practices for the welfare of both,
His own and the other's,
When, knowing that his foe is angry,
He mindfully maintains his peace.
When he achieves the cure of both —
His own and the other's —
The people who consider him a fool
Are unskilled in the Dharma.

Though paradoxical to our human ego, it is through the seeming weakness of patience, gentleness, forgiveness, forbearance, compassion, tenderness and graciousness that the meek do inherit the earth and that we can change in the twinkling of an eye.

Lord Sakka, the incarnation of Brahman, is our beloved Sanat Kumara. He brings us this Kshanti initiation of patient endurance, which, like a sparkling stream, polishes, smooths and wears down the rocks of our pride, our ambition and our deified sense of separateness. He reveals to us the holy mystery sealed as the gift of the Girlchild within us, that lifts our consciousness through the doorway of the heart.