Symbols - What does heaven look like
Lake
In Eastern medicine whether Indian or Chinese there is the concept of a reservoir of energy .
Thus although one may receive energy via the chakras, one may also store energy in these reservoirs or pools of energy. The concept has its physical equivalent in the endocrine system as well as major organs like the liver that stores glucose. Thus the idea is actually very sound, it is just that we are viewing it now at a spiritual level and not a physical level
Dan tien, for example, is loosely translated as "elixir field", "sea of qi", or simply "energy center" within Traditional Chinese medicine as well as a number of systems of spiritual practises such as Qigong, Taoism and Buddhism.
All our organs are viewed from the point of view of the symbol system as lakes, ponds, pools and reservoirs depending on how big they are. Furthermore, they correspond [as one would expect] with very specific organs.
There is a direct correspondence, for example, between the ‘lake’ that is the Lower Dan Tien and the Reproductive system which both produces hormones and stores hormones such as FSH and LS as well as oxytocin, progesterone, testosterone, oestrogen and so on. The lower dan tian has been described to be "like the root of the tree of life".
There is also a direct correspondence between the ‘lake’ that is the Middle Dan Tien and the heart, which is associated with storing ‘life energy’and with respiration and health of the internal organs. There appears to be a correspondence here with the thymus gland and heart. The heart can produce oxytocin.
Finally there is also a direct correspondence between the ‘lake’ that is Upper Dan Tien (Shang Dantian)whose location is on forehead between the eyebrows [the third eye], associated with the ‘energy of consciousness and spirit’ (shen) and the pineal gland and the pituitary gland another source of oxytocin.
So for those physically minded folk the science is actually sound.
The brain in this context is also treated as an organ, symbolically it is full of fish!
Symbolically one often sees references to ways of channelling the ‘water’ from Rivers and streams into these reservoirs and lakes with the objective of having that ultimate of spiritual experience – enlightenment of some sort. The Lake at the base of the spine contributes to a kundalini experience and we thus have a link symbolically between streams and rivers of energy coming in being stored in a lake and then issuing as a fountain!
Observations
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- A P Elkin - Aboriginal men of high degree - The Bandjelang clever man
- Angkor Wat
- Blake, William - Around Golgonooza lies the land of death eternal
- Blake, William - Each man is in his spectre’s power
- Blithe spirit - Sees a sea serpent
- Borobudur
- Braveheart - Guardians and keys
- Chichen Itza - Mayan - Pyramids and pools
- Cirlot on lakes
- Cirlot on snakes and serpents
- Dali - The Dawn of a New Day
- Dickinson, Emily - The Outer from the Inner Derives its magnitude
- Egyptian Book of the Dead - Spell 098
- Egyptian Book of the Dead - Spell 109
- Egyptian Book of the Dead - Spell 110
- Egyptian Book of the Dead - Spell 149
- Father Bernabe Cobo - Inca Religion and Customs - Titicaca Temple of Sun and Moon 1
- Harivamsha Purana - Akura's vision
- Harriet Brown's cave dive
- Hennell, Thomas - Of finer, thinner stuff than iridescent bubbles
- Hiroshige - Descending geese at Katada
- Hiroshige - Panorama of the Eight Views of Kanazawa under a Full Moon
- Hiroshige - View of a long bridge across a lake
- Holderlin, Johann - Mnemosyne
- Hypnerotomachia Poliphili - Nymphs and the Songlines
- Isole Madre
- Lake Maggiore - Borromee
- Lalla - Three times I have seen the lake
- Larsson, Carl – And a poem by Lars Gustafsson
- Lucian of Samosata – De Dea Syria
- Ludlow, Fitz Hugh - Caves
- Ludlow, Fitz Hugh - The alabaster palace
- Mayan - Sacbeob or White ways
- Mircea Eliade - Unravelling the symbolism of a strange custom
- Morrells, Luce and the horseshoe shaped island
- Morrells, Luce and the raft
- Mythology and Rites of the British druids - The gardens of the Tylwyth Teg
- Persian caves
- Persian gardens
- Plato - Phaedo - Energy recycling, streams and rivers
- Poe, Edgar Allen - Dream-Land
- Quincey, Thomas de - My mind tossed upon the billowy ocean, and weltered upon the weltering wave
- Ricardo from Mexico experiences divine love
- Rider-Waite - 17 The Star
- Rilke, Rainer Maria - 17 Fourth Elegy
- Rolling Stones - Gomper
- Rosary of the Philosophers - 04 The Bath
- Rosary of the Philosophers - 05 Conjunctio
- Rossetti, Dante Gabriel - Golden Water 1858
- Samavedas – 01 Book 06 Chapter 01, DECADE III Soma Pavamana
- Samavedas – 01 Book 06 Chapter 02, DECADE III Soma Pavamana
- Samavedas – Book 02 Chapter 01, XVII Soma Pavamana
- Samavedas – Book 03 Chapter 01, VIII Indra
- Samavedas – Book 04 Chapter 01, XXI Soma Pavamana
- Schwabe, Carlos - The Three Wise Virgins
- Segantini - Life
- Surdas - Fatephur Sikri manuscript - NPS 3886
- The Book of Taliesin - Buarch Beird - Llyfr Taliesin III
- The gardens of Iran
- The Great Egyptian complex
- The Supreme Teaching from the Upanishads
- Thoreau, Henry D - Walden - The landscape of soul
- Unusual cards - 16 The Tower
- Yu Xuanji - Free of all those hopes and fears
- Zosimos of Panopolis - The Mushaf as-suwar - 6th Book about the Nature, Book of Imuths
- Zosimos of Panopolis - The Mushaf as-suwar - 9th Book about the Measures of the Fire