I thought it would be help­ful to have the tran­script from my radio show. If you want to lis­ten the pod­cast, here is the link to that: Pod­cast on the Full Moon.

Today we will con­sid­er the mean­ing of the Full Moon in Scor­pio which is also known as the Bud­dha Full Moon. The rea­son for this name comes from the sto­ry of the Bud­dha, who was said to have been born in the month of Tau­rus at the Full Moon of Scor­pio, and who after much striv­ing achieved enlight­en­ment or Cos­mic Con­scious­ness at anoth­er Full Moon in Scor­pio, and final­ly, when his work was done, laid aside his phys­i­cal vehi­cle at yet anoth­er Full Moon in Scor­pio. The essence of these Teach­ings of the Bud­dha is won­der­ful­ly illus­trat­ed for us in this dynam­ic inte­gral rela­tion­ship between the Sun in Tau­rus and the Moon in Scorpio.

The Lunar Cycle

The cycle of the Sun and Moon, (from New Moon, to Wax­ing Square, to Full Moon, to Wan­ing Square, to the next New Moon), forms the arche­typ­al pat­tern of all the plan­e­tary cycles we expe­ri­ence here on Earth. Through reflec­tion and cor­re­spond­ing appli­ca­tion, we can obtain a deep­er under­stand­ing about our jour­ney offered by this lan­guage of the stars. I have often called these plan­e­tary cycles “a dance of the plan­ets”, and it is like the weav­ing of mean­ing­ful­ness offered by the spir­i­tu­al hier­ar­chies of our broth­ers and sis­ters, the beau­ti­ful plan­e­tary hier­ar­chy that is our home among the stars.

The Twelve Signs of the Zodi­ac hold the arche­typ­al myths and mean­ings to guide our jour­ney. The reflec­tive com­par­i­son of signs that are oppo­site to one anoth­er, helps to inform and illu­mi­nate the mean­ings of them both. Life or Spir­it is formed by this jour­ney through the Signs, each res­onat­ing with its own mes­sages, but these indi­vid­ual mean­ings can only be tru­ly under­stood by con­sid­er­ing each one in their rela­tion­ship with its oppo­site, and then ulti­mate­ly with every oth­er sign too. Each Sign is formed and informed by the oth­er, as we do much the same in our rela­tion­ships with one anoth­er here on Earth too. Think of it this way, almost all your thoughts, sen­si­bil­i­ties, tastes and truths that you hold as your own, they were brought to you, woven into you, through the intri­cate web of life that you have shared with all with whom you trav­el now, and by the count­less hosts who came this way before us in our col­lec­tive jour­ney in Spirit.

Taurus/Scorpio

We are now in the time of Tau­rus, and it is the most earthy or mate­ri­al­iz­ing moment in the Zodi­ac. This is the time that you rel­ish, cel­e­brate and enjoy your own phys­i­cal expe­ri­ences, which for you is most cer­tain­ly being in your human body. But the Full Moon of Scor­pio posits the oth­er side of this, noth­ing in this world is per­ma­nent. All things are born, live and pass on. The Ques­tion of the Taurus/Scorpio is: How do you do this, how do you cope with the joys of being alive and the ever-present threat that it all will end some­day? This ques­tion, tru­ly, is the source of all Reli­gions, Phi­los­o­phy and Sci­ence. We know that we are alive; and we know that we are going to die.

But you should know, that you are rel­a­tive­ly Immor­tal, as you are at your core a unique mon­ad of Spir­it-Life-Con­scious­ness. This inner­most of you is what you would call the Self, which is the aware­ness that per­vades all of Cre­ation, and this is in fact at the core of one and All. For all of Cre­ation, from atoms, through min­er­als, onto plants, ani­mals, humans and beyond, all of Cre­ation is alive and conscious.

This Self or Atman is your spir­i­tu­al self who is direct­ing, guid­ing and inspir­ing and lift­ing your low­er vehi­cles upward, as you move from World to World, and through Form after Form, and into each Life after Life. In all these forms you are a com­pos­ite, formed into bod­ies of var­i­ous degrees of sub­stance. You descend and extend down from the most sub­lime realms into the low­er men­tal realms, down into the emo­tion­al realms and final­ly arrive in your phys­i­cal form that you enjoy so much now, the human body.

As you move into these realms of the mate­r­i­al, you are here quite sim­ply to learn to be a bet­ter human, to be a com­plete human, to mas­ter your­self and your pow­ers of cre­ation. But you will, time and time again, become too enam­ored by and attached to some par­tic­u­lar expe­ri­ence, you will wish to pro­long and main­tain some thing. And because this is so, you will expe­ri­ence pain.

For this is the tick­et you punched in com­ing to Earth, you walk in mor­tal forms and upon a mor­tal world. This is the deal on Earth, if you expe­ri­ence joy you will also have pain, if you find love you will also expe­ri­ence loss, for this is the price of being an immor­tal in a mor­tal world. How can you live with this, know­ing and feel­ing so much pain?

Remem­ber, there is one imper­a­tive dri­ving all of this, an unceas­ing force aris­ing from with­in you, and that one irre­sistible light is Spir­it whose only dri­ve is to be and to become. Spir­it is Growth; Spir­it is Life and there­fore Change. You (and every part of Cre­ation) are this Spir­it which equals Life ever becom­ing some­thing more. That is why the great injunc­tion in all spir­i­tu­al dis­ci­plines is that you are nev­er done, that you must always “walk on”. This means that in each of your lives you must con­tin­u­ous­ly strive to “let go and grow”. This is the fun­da­men­tal teach­ing that the Bud­dha offers, and this is one of the core prin­ci­ples of the Ancient Teach­ings, which are found in all cul­tures and exists at that liv­ing heart of all reli­gion, phi­los­o­phy and science.

There is noth­ing per­ma­nent ulti­mate­ly, there is noth­ing per­ma­nent or “last­ing” in these mate­r­i­al realms or high­er realms because they are all com­pos­ites, held togeth­er by the Intel­li­gence, Love and Will that form the heart of every mote and speck of this Uni­verse. It is that Spir­i­tu­al Core or Essence which moves from World to World, through Life after Life. All these vehi­cles or bod­ies must be free to evolve into new forms, but so do their Spir­i­tu­al Cen­ters who like­wise grow into an ever-greater splen­dor. Both the Spir­i­tu­al Heart and the Mate­r­i­al Body will grow and become and be re-formed again and again into ever more mean­ing­ful forms of spir­i­tu­al self-realization.

This is what you need to con­sid­er today at the Full Moon in the time of Tau­rus, the Scor­pio Full Moon, and though I am fond of say­ing, “you are an Immor­tal in a mor­tal frame”, the truth is that noth­ing is ulti­mate­ly Immor­tal, for that would mean that even the most sub­lime part of you was fin­ished, not capa­ble of growth and change. And that is just not so. For this cos­mic cycle, your inner­most, most Sub­lime Self is “rel­a­tive­ly” Immor­tal, and from life to life is the foun­tain-source of Inspi­ra­tion and Guid­ance as you seek to free your­self from your sleep, from your uncon­scious, as you steadi­ly move towards becom­ing an “Awak­ened One”. Quite sim­ply, you are on the path of becom­ing ful­ly human. You are on the same path as the Buddha.

You are part of a hier­ar­chy of Spir­it-Life-Con­scious­ness, and though you are in the Human King­dom now, one day you will face the same choice that all the “great ones” have faced. Once you are tru­ly free, what is known as a Jivan­muk­ta, or freed mon­ad, you will have the great choice of con­tin­u­ing beyond this human king­dom into more sub­lime spir­i­tu­al realms, OR, you may choose to turn and extend your love and care for those who still strug­gle behind you. We are told that most who have crossed this thresh­old of lib­er­a­tion have made their lov­ing choice to remain and help those who come after. They are known as the Watch­ers, the sav­iors and saints who hold open the door of lib­er­a­tion for you. They send you lov­ing thoughts and inspi­ra­tions to lift your­self and one anoth­er towards that sub­lime state of beau­ty, grace and uncon­di­tion­al love that is your destiny.

What does this great teach­ing of the Bud­dha mean for you? It is said that the Buddha’s last words were this: “Broth­ers, all things that are, are com­pos­ite, are com­pounds, built of oth­er ele­ments. Find your way to Truth”. It is said that many in the west have mis­in­ter­pret­ed this to mean, “You should seek out your own sal­va­tion”. Noth­ing could be fur­ther from the truth. What the Bud­dha was say­ing is that the way to spir­i­tu­al peace and hap­pi­ness is to be present, to be total­ly here in the Cos­mic Dance of Life. You will do this for your­self, and you will do this for one anoth­er too.

For you and them, and every­thing in this Uni­verse is “That”, it is nei­ther Self or non-Self, it is death­less because it is Eter­ni­ty. It is THAT. You are That, I am That. It has no name, it is nei­ther Spir­it or non-Spir­it. It is both. Beyond nam­ing, beyond know­ing, it is and is not, it is the inef­fa­ble That. The great illu­sion is that you are sep­a­rate; the Great Truth is that we are one with one anoth­er, insep­a­ra­ble from one anoth­er in this Ocean of Spir­it and Love. Behind and through all the realms from the most phys­i­cal to the most tran­scen­dent, there is That.

You should cel­e­brate being here ful­ly and with great appre­ci­a­tion for the won­der of this beau­ti­ful world we call Earth. You should watch the beau­ty of the dawn unfold­ing before your eyes but know that it will end, and you must let it go. So, lat­er that day, choose to turn, and watch the Sun­set and know that it is good too. Life, Spir­it and Beau­ty are forged and reborn in motion, in liv­ing. Know that you may meet a won­der­ful per­son by chance one after­noon, but then they may fly back home and that was it, just a few hours of bliss; or you are with your true love for many, many years, but final­ly, it is time to let them go as the end for now is here.

But you should also know, that you are not say­ing “good­bye” but tru­ly just “fare thee well”, for you and I will be togeth­er again some­day soon, that is cer­tain­ly true. What has brought you to one anoth­er will hold you to one anoth­er in life after life for as long as the stars shine in the heav­ens above. Yes, the loss is real, it is quite right to mourn and cry and grieve the loss for now. But this is just for now, like all things this is not per­ma­nent either, for Love binds us all to one anoth­er, and we all held, pro­tect­ed and cher­ished by the love of the One and our love for one another.

Beau­ty, Love, Val­ue are only present “in Life which is Spir­it, in Spir­it which is life”. All of Cre­ation is mov­ing, through count­less forms and per­mu­ta­tions, being some­thing, let­ting go and becom­ing some­thing so much more. You should do your utmost to pre­serve, pro­tect and extend the worth and beau­ty and love in this world. But when it is time for mat­ters to move on we must accept this and “Let it go…and Grow”.

You are to move through these tem­po­ral realms with ever greater Intel­li­gence, Love and Will. You must hold; and you must let go. You breathe in; you breathe out. You learn to love and cher­ish the forms in which you abide, to love and pro­tect your­selves and your beau­ti­ful world too…but you are here to grow, so you must also release these won­drous forms and move into ever more sub­lime realms, for­ev­er and ever.

This is the mes­sage of the Full Moon in the time of Tau­rus. It is about the Dance of Life, the path of Lib­er­a­tion that we are all walk­ing and our even­tu­al des­tiny, which is to join those who have reached beyond the cycles of death and rebirth and are now free. The Lord Bud­dha, like all teach­ers, came not to start a reli­gion, he came to remind you who and what you are, he came to show you the way to become ful­ly human. No mat­ter what, you and I are on the path, and the Lords of Com­pas­sion are wait­ing for us all.