Invisibility, Jeff Sharlet’s The Family, and the goddess Kubjikaa

It’s like a waterfall: you stumble on an idea that comes from the mouth of Doug Coe, describing the principle behind the influence of The Family, of which he was the long-time leader —

— and it turns out the same principle is referenced in an article on surveillance in Defense One

— only to re-emerge in Dr Mark SG Dyczkowski‘s work on the tradition, philosophy and practice of the goddess Kubjikaa.

**

There’s clearly a principle at work here that could find application in many fields, contexts, silos — and the concatenation of such instances is itself a demonstration of the value of silo-breaking thinking.

FWIW, I wouldn’t have so much as heard of the Goddess Kubjikaa were it not for my half-century friendship with Mark Dyczkowski, to whom I owe so much, and into the waters of whose scholarship so deep I have dipped no more than a toe.

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Charles Cameron

I've mostly been blogging at Zenpundit.com, a strategy & creativity focused site where I'm managing editor, and am honored and delighted to have been invited to contribute here at BrownPundits. My degree is in Theology (Christian) from Oxford, I'm interested in religions generally and apocalyptic weirdness and religiously oriented violence in particular, but ah, music is like a breath of fresh air after that, and my love of Bach has tgranslated into an i nquiry: How can we hold contrasting concepts and worldviews in mind at the same time, the way Bach' hold contrasting melodies together in musical counterpoint? This is obviously a useful trait to develop in social setting, for diplomats, intelligence analysts and national security wonks -- and for anyone interested in a sophisticated understanding of our complex world. My own approach to the mapping of simultaneous but contrasting ideas is based in my understanding of Hermann Hesse's great game, described in his Nobel-winning novel The Glass Bead Game. I hope to begin my posting here by introducing Hesse's Game, and my own attempt to make it playable -- on a napkin in a cafe, preferably, with dappled sunshine, a cool breeze, and a curious , openmind..

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AnAn
4 years ago

Beautiful.

Please share more about Goddess Kubjikaa. And more about your dear friend Mark Dyczkowski.

What traditions did he study and/or follow? Assume he was a mediator?

Charles Cameron
4 years ago
Reply to  AnAn

I met Mark when he was 17 and I was 25, and when he returned from a visit to India with a meditation teacher, I was one of the first few people he invited to meet him. Bingo. They he went back to India and I didn’t see him for years, until one day he was talking at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. Wonderful talk, wonderful reunion.

His life in his own words:

https://www.anuttaratrikakula.org/in-his-own-words/

The goddess Kubjika:

Kubjikā is a goddess with immense metaphysical depth, a large varieties of forms, forms of yoga (especially those linked with the movement of vital breath) multiple associations with many other divine forms, and an extensive and complex cult. Worshipped in her Tantras along with Bhairava, her consort, she is endowed with all the theological and metaphysical attributes of a Supreme Deity and Absolute Being. Kubjikā is also a very secret goddess. Indeed, she is so secret that the extent of her cult was discovered less than forty years ago when manuscripts kept hidden by Newar potentates and initiates in the Kathmandu Valley for centuries, began to be photographed on a large scale. Arguably, Kubjikā has been the best kept secret on the subcontinent and, for that reason, her Newar devotees would say, the most powerful one. Thus, it is not despite her obscurity and isolation from the world, but rather because of it, that Kubjikā is one of the Great Goddesses of Hinduism.

Detailed account:

http://www.anuttaratrikakula.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Kubjikaa_the_Erotic_Goddess.pdf

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