These Seven Sacred Rites are all geared towards critical life passages like being born, getting married, finding out your true purpose, discovering your spiritual allies, releasing the past, dedicating your life to God, and passing back into the Light at the end of your life’s journey. They are contained in their fullness in the Training for the Way of Truth Clergy, a calling to service that anyone above the Third Initiation can join. A short summary these Seven Sacred Rites is:
ONE: THE NEW LIFE BLESSING CEREMONY OR CHISTENING
This Welcome Ceremony into the world for a new child is usually held within the first six months of a baby’s life. It is designed to gather friends and family members who wish to love and support this child’s journey in life, and to welcome him or her into the world. It is usually preformed in the first half of the day as a time of New Beginnings, and can be preformed outside in nature with the morning sun, or in any sacred church, synagogue, garden, or home.
It is an active ceremony that allows the parents, grandparents, godparents, family members and friends to each take part in the bestowal of a blessing on the child’s life and journey forward into the world. Inspiring, uplifting, and beautiful, it honors the journey that each parent takes as they take on the mantle of parenthood, clarifying their bonds of nurturance, support and faithfulness to that child’s welfare and success in the world.
TWO: DISCOVERING YOUR SPIRIT ALLIES
This powerful ceremony can be used at different moments of a person’s life, for example during the life passage from childhood into adolescence, adolescence into adulthood, or even later in one’s life while undergoing a spiritual awakening or career renaissance. It invokes a Spirit Journey to the Otherside to find and connect with your Spirit Allies, whether Angelic, Shamanic, or Intergalactic.
Within the Way of Truth, we have many Spiritual Allies. These are the great Spiritual Masters who have served humanity throughout the centuries. And of course, there is the Living Sehaji Master who has the ability to take you on a journey into the highest reaches of Heaven.
But every person also has other Spirit Guides who have been assigned to help us fulfill our life’s purpose. These Guides were assigned to you before birth, and some of them may have been with you for centuries. Because of our past lives, we may also have animal totems that can come to assist you on your journey. For example Butterfly Medicine is about transformation and joy; Snake medicine is about dying and being reborn; Bear Medicine is about being a healer; Eagle Medicine is about linking your vision to that of the Divine Father; Dove energy and Swan energy is about linking to the unconditional love of the Divine Mother; Otter Medicine is about being joyful, playful and creative, and so forth.
So this Ceremony is an Inner Journey designed to begin to discover who your Spirit Allies are. To find out: Who are my Spirit Allies? What is my Spirit Medicine? What gifts do they offer? How can I best use these gifts in the expression of my life in the world? And how can these Allies assist me on the next phase of my journey?
THREE: RELEASING OLD KARMA CEREMONY
This ceremony is ideally done at the ocean or by a moving brook, stream or river, for it is designed to allow you to let go of old wounds, old habits, negative engrams and beliefs, and to clear the decks for something new to come into your life.
It can be used to release old fears, traumas or phobias, to let go of frustration, anger or resentments, to sever ties to negative relationships, dissolve karmic issues with old businesses or relationships, or dissolve the vows that we have taken in a marriage. In short, this is a powerful Ceremony for releasing and dissolving the mental, emotional and karmic patterns that block us from moving forward in our lives.
At the same time, since Nature abhors a vacuum, it is equally as important to call in and affirm the elements of joy, love, self confidence and wisdom that we wish to create in the new cycle before us. So this ceremony is designed to close the door on one chapter of our lives through forgiveness and letting go, and to call in the energies of the Light and Sound to lead, guide, inspire and support us for the new phase of our life’s journey
FOUR: THE WEDDING OR SACRED LIFE PARTNER CEREMONY
The choosing of a true partner that we can travel with through life is an enormous deal. It can be one of the most wonderful fulfilling moments in any lifetime. If chosen wisely, a marriage is the joining of two lives into one, creating a garden of infinite possibilities. This is the consecration of two hearts who have hopefully found in each other a best friend, a lover, a spiritual companion, an emotional and physical support system, and a place of refuge in the storms of life.
So this ceremony is one of opening two hearts to proclaim your love before others, and committing to a life of honesty, kindness, partnership, communication and mutual support with one another. It can be performed in the morning, representing a new cycle of life beginning; in the afternoon sunlight, representing the peak of the greatest Light; at twilight when the Veils between the worlds are thin, representing the eternal nature of your bond; or by candlelight in the evening, representing the flames of love and eternal Light that unite that couple even in the darkness times.
FIVE: VISIONQUEST – REVEALING YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE
This profound ceremony is designed to help you connect with you true Soul Self and to answer some of life’s deepest questions: Who am I? Which direction should I go in next? What is my next step? What am I here to do? What is my life’s calling? The answers to these perennial questions are ones that should lie at the center of our life. They are the central column around which the other spokes in our life should turn.
A Vision Quest Ceremony may be performed many times in a person’s life, and each time you may find deeper and deeper answers. The direction that you are meant to pursue at age18 maybe to go to college, pursue a vocational school, join the Peace Corps or military, or do a walk about the explore the world for a year.
In your 20s and 30s it may be to build a career, pursue a romantic relationship, get married, have a baby, buy a house, change your residence, or choose a more fulfilling career. By your 40s and 50s the answers to these questions will usually start to deepen as we awaken to how to use our life experiences to pursue more creative or spiritual goals.
In these decades we are often ready to know more about our Soul’s past history, meet our Spirit Guides, find our deeper calling, and arrange our outer lives to express the deeper longing of our heart and Soul. This quest for something greater than material security and worldly achievement burns ever brighter as we mature.
And along the way we must also address the wounded places in our mental and emotional bodies. This is done far more successfully when we follow a spiritual path that connect us with the Light and sound of God, and assists us in opening up our spiritual flow.
So the process of the Vision Quest Ceremonies has many varied expressions forms, and those who are trained in assisting us in this great Soul work, can help you to find out the answers for this chapter of your life.
SIX: THE JOINING WITH THE ANGELIC TWIN OR SACRED MARRIAGE CEREMONY
While today many people do not even know the concept of the Angelic Twin, it was a wisdom teaching put forth by the great Master Jesus long ago. It deals with the concept of the Sacred Marriage. The Sacred Marriage is the union of the Inner Male and Female aspects of who we really are. This means the union of the emotional and mental, the intuitive and logical, the being and the doing, the heart and the mind, the creative and the analytical, the formless and the form. This is the first step in becoming a balanced whole human being.
But at an even deeper level the concept of the Sacred Marriage is a marriage of your true Soul Self or Angelic Twin that resides in the highest heavens, and your human or mortal self, which is largely identified with the Ego or personality self. This Inner Marriage means that the little self comes into alignment with the Higher Self or Soul, allowing your life to be lived in the highest frequencies of service to the Divine.
So at the heart of this process is a Soul awakening and a commitment to serve the will of Sugmad or Spirit at a higher level. Unlike the ordination of a priest or nun, this deep life pledge does not preclude a person from being married, holding a job, having children, making money, or creating a full and happy life. Serving Spirit and having these things in our lives are not mutually exclusive. In fact, this alignment with your Higher Self allows more joy, more abundance, and more emotional support into your life.
While you may not know exactly how you will serve the will of Sugmad, joining with your Angelic Twin or true Soul Self, is a commitment to embodying your highest calling in both the earthly and the heavenly realms.
SEVEN: LAST RITES OR THE RETURNING TO THE LIGHT CEREMONY
While each of us as a Soul is immortal, the mortal or perishable body dies in the vast circle of recycling the resources of the Universe. So dying is sacred, for it is a return to the Light from whence we came. Virtually every culture of the world honors this time of life transition, and the more ancient cultures like Tibet and Egypt composed entire books called The Books of the Dead, about how to consciously pass into the heavenly Light. In Catholic traditions these processes are called the Last Rites.
While all of our ceremonies are non-denominational and can be adapted to any religious path, the main elements in this Ceremony are designed to help the Soul recognize that it has come a long way on its journey to the Earth, and that this portion of their journey is now coming to an end. Now the person is at a place of rejoicing, for they are returning to their true home in Heaven.
However, as we know, some people are not at peace with the way their lives have gone. They have regrets, disappointments, and places of non forgiveness both for themselves and others. They are holding on to guilt and shame, and attachments they need to let go of.
So the process of helping them to release these things can sometimes take a few days before this Ceremony ever takes place. Helping them to write letters to loved ones, or those they have wronged can be an important step in creating a meaningful ceremony. While this may not be necessary, knowing the individual you are doing Last Rites for, is very helpful.
So this Ceremony is about helping those who are dying to release past regrets, forgive themselves and others, and give thanks for the opportunities for growth that this life has given them. It allows us as Souls to thank our enemies and our allies as teachers on our path to greater mastery, to reflect on our lessons and achievements, to acknowledge ourselves for what we have mastered, and to welcome in a new cycle of reunion into God’s light.
