Author Archives: danijel

Creeps

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I was thinking about something, related to the last book and to how some people understand it.

What I need you to understand that the reason why nobody knows the things I wrote about, why nobody could possibly know them or verify them, unless they were one of the people there, or were told what happened by one of the people there. It’s because nobody has the right to know. You can’t access “akasha records” and see it. It’s beyond anybody’s access privileges.

How can I know? I’m not you. The way someone like Goddess acts with me is not the way she would act with you. If you tried to see yourself in some kind of an intimate situation with the Gods, behaving as if you’re one of them, the impudence of it would spiritually degrade you so much, I don’t recommend even thinking about it.

Let me just tell you an anecdote I didn’t describe before. Once, Goddess wanted to get in touch with me, and went past the Judges. They wanted to warn her about the rules of engagement, the strict limitations imposed by this place and the contracts. She didn’t pay them a single look, and the way her presence felt made the Judges remain silent because they didn’t want to tempt fate, as she was in a very foul mood, and didn’t feel like entertaining idiots. Shit froze in their asses from Her mere presence in passing, because one wrong move with Her and you die. And those were the Judges. I already wrote who they are and what their order of magnitude is, and what they are to you. However, she adhered to all the rules precisely, because she knew them better than anyone.

She’s intimate with people who are her family and friends since long before you were one of those fluttering butterfly newborn souls born from some event between them. If you’re not one of those people who were there when Time was a new thing, do not assume any kind of friendly familiarity, because we don’t appreciate that. Start with respect, and learn. Don’t rush head first into things that would make Angels shit themselves, because they know better.

I keep seeing all kinds of nonsense people come up with, where they imagine themselves in some kind of a romantic context with some deity. I find it abominable. Just fucking imagine yourself being drooled over by some person you don’t even know. If you find the idea pleasant, you’re an idiot and a creep.

That accursed Vedanta thing that made everybody believe they can imagine God in any form and imagine themselves in a romantic or sexual context with a deity and God would have to oblige because God is some impersonal ocean of consciousness you can mould into whatever you want, it did incredible amounts of damage due to sheer disrespect it caused, and disrespect causes more damage to souls than any other kind of sin. It made people treat God as a personal figment of imagination under their control, something created ad-hoc to fulfil a purpose and be disposed thereafter. So, they act with a God the way they would act with a sex toy of some kind – something that exists because of them, and for their uses. This attitude doesn’t cause spiritual progress. It causes degradation and fall.

That’s why I’m shocked by the fact that people don’t actually understand the implications behind that last book, especially when they think everybody should be able to verify things and others should also be able to know. That assumption comes from some satanic idea such as egalitarianism. Everybody should be able to do nothing. That’s why the fact that I can know those things has implications. I’m not everybody. The fact that I was given permission to write those things down is an extreme privilege and a blessing. They could have as well told me to keep it to myself, as they did for many things before.

I already told you that God gets a say. God is not some passive pool from which every cow gets to drink. Brahman is such a pool, but your relationship with God determines your level of access to that pool. If you access God with respect, admiration, worship and understanding of what you’re dealing with, this correct attitude will open up a wellspring within your soul from which brahman will manifest more in you; basically, you get water from that lake to drink. If you approach Gods, Angels, Judges and other seniors without respect, your soul will dry out and you will wither and die, and God will see that it is good.

Learn humility or die. I don’t actually care which one it will be, but if you approach the Gods without humility, you will be dealt with.

There’s a story from Bhagavatapurana about a Brahmana who wanted to test the Gods to see which one has the most sattvo-guna in his makeup. It didn’t end well for him or his descendants, because Lady Lakshmi wasn’t amused, and she withdrew her blessings. Nobody gets to treat her holy husband disrespectfully and walk away with impunity. There are consequences of arrogance and presumption, and you might wish never to find out what they look like from up close.

The Golden Light

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“Miss them?”

Kay sat at Lord Vishnu’s feet at the orchard, smiling timidly.

“Terribly”, replied the Lord. “I’m their guardian angel, so I know everything that’s going on and what they’re going through, but that somehow makes it worse. They were occasionally going through terrible things and I could only try to warn them. I feel almost as helpless as they do”, he sighed. “You?”

“Yeah”, Kay’s smile faded. “I was so used to them being here. I know they are out of the worst of it now, but the closer it is, the more nervous I am and the more I miss them. And the fact that you and others are here with me doesn’t help – I miss them specifically, and nothing else will fill the hole”, she sighed and hugged her knees. “Tell me stories about them, my Lord. You know them the best. I know you and Lord Shiva are different, and I know you both, but I’d like to hear it from you. How are you different, and where are you similar? I mean, you are both male Primordial Gods, but you are nothing alike.”

“Mahesh is the one who takes charge in emergencies and attacks the deep causes of the problem. Remember?”

“Yes. When the victims started arriving, we were all in complete shock and crying, and he just took action and handled it all”, Karuna smiled. “Also, when Hypatia reported what’s going on with the Germans”.

“Oh, he cried too”, Vishnu smiled back. “It’s just that his instinctual reaction to things that shock him and make him cry is extremely aggressive. He puts a shield around us, wields his most powerful assets, and just solves the problem. I think we have an implicit division of duties; he solves the root cause of the problem, I try to heal the victims and deal with the consequence side of the issue.”

“You hug and comfort the victims, he finds who’s responsible and someone gets to regret their choices”, she grinned. “It’s amazing how I never get scared when I saw him in action, and I intellectually know that he’s the scariest person in existence when he’s angry. In fact, I get goosebumps in the most positive way. He’s awesome”, she giggled. “I always wondered, did the two of you ever spar? To see who’s stronger?”, she winked.

“Never. Even the thought of fighting him, thinking how to hurt him, even in jest, feels like a terrible sin. I never did it, and I never will. Have you ever thought about sparring with Mandy? Think about how to kill her?”, he looked at her seriously.

“No!”, Karuna almost shouted in shock, and her eyes glistened with tears. “That would be terrible!”

“Exactly”, Vishnu nodded. “We Gods can never mock-fight, because our power is always to be used to protect the family, never to attack it. I would rather lose my powers altogether than direct them at Mahesh. The purpose of my power is to heal, protect, guard, anticipate problems, and figure out ways out of them. Thinking about fighting him, or fighting you, feels so wrong I can’t actually do it. I’m sorry I upset you, sweetheart. But I had to make that point”, he smiled at the Goddess.

“I know”, Kay smiled back. “It was just a shocking, terrible thought. But tell me about the Lady. You two know each other for eons. Tell me about her.”

“See that thing on your forehead?”, Vishnu pointed at the golden circle. “That’s what they actually are, in their deepest nature, or at least as deep as I can see. When they descend a step, they become two separate people, with separate personalities, energies and abilities.”

“Woah. You mean, they are the Throne of God in their actual true nature, and it splits into a male-female couple as it descends into manifestation?”, Karuna touched the golden light on her brow in amazement.

“Yes. How that works is the deepest mystery of Creation.”, the God’s eyes went soft.

“And if one of them died for real in that pit of Satan down there, or if Shiva got into trouble as usual as he tries to chew off more than he can swallow, and you couldn’t save him…?”

“No more world. No more Relative Creation. No more God. Worst ending of everything”, Vishnu shivered in terror. “They manifest the World, between them. Without them, there would be nothing. No meaning, no point, no world, no love, no light, no consciousness.”

“So, it’s not just me”, Kay nodded seriously. “When I look at either of them, I feel they are the most fundamental, most essential reality. I can’t imagine life without them, or the world without them, and now that they are temporarily absent it feels… as if everything is on pause. We’re just waiting for them to return before life can go back to normal”.

“No, it’s not just you”, Vishnu smiled and ruffled the girl’s hair. “It’s not just you”.

“So, that’s why they do their spells together”, she mused with a smile. “It takes two of them, and they remember their higher state where they are one, and that changes how the Throne of God manifests and what it is.”

“Smart cookie”, Vishnu grinned, and Kay glowed with his praise. “Let’s go have coffee and see how the others are doing”.

“Wait a minute”, Karuna stood still in shock. “They are down there. They are growing in power. They are manifesting something very similar to what they usually are. If that completes, the Throne of God manifests on Earth. Does that mean what I think it means?”

“Honestly, my daughter, if you didn’t already have the Title of Goddess of Wisdom, I’d give it to you now”, he smiled as he stood up and offered her his hand. “Come, let’s walk”.

Stupid questions

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Some things are repeatedly crossing my mind because people think them when they are reading my articles and books, especially the last one.

For instance, “how can he possibly know this?”, or “why does nobody else know this?”

It’s an annoying question, because it’s the wrong one. The right question is “who is he actually?” When that’s correctly answered, everything else is very easily understandable.

You essentially have a flow chart of possibilities. First junction is whether this is fiction or a fictionalised description of reality. If it’s fiction, you have no problems – you think I just invented it and that’s that. If it’s fictionalised description of reality, you have a problem, because I’m not writing some generalised nonsense like, basically, everybody else. I’m being extremely specific, and I’m also talking about things that should be extremely hard to know, for instance what happened between two or three people who were in a private room that is isolated from any kind of spying. The answer is obvious – either somebody who knows told me, or I was one of the people in the room and I remembered it. People dislike both options because of what they imply. The possibility that a Primordial God personally told me what they and their peers talked about implies that I’m on an intimate basis with them, and this also implies that what I’m writing needs to be taken absolutely seriously because it all comes from the highest authority. The option that I’m one of those Primordials is even worse. So, they get stuck at asking stupid questions, not because they couldn’t answer them, but because they don’t like the answer, likely because they want to keep their ideas and in order to do that, they need to keep a diminished idea about me, to rationalise their so-called skepticism.

I mean, some things are so fucking obvious. Years ago I wrote about remembering certain things because I was there, and in the book I narrated them from the position of a character in the book. If you have a problem connecting those dots, you have negative IQ. I don’t think people are actually that stupid. They just don’t like the conclusion, so they stop far enough from it and pretend to ask questions. That’s what I find annoying.

Rules

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I’ve seen an interesting video from a photographer who got annoyed by all the stupid “rules for photography” stuff that can be found online.

Basically, it’s the “if you’re serious about photography, you’ll use primes, use only the manual mode, compose in thirds, not shoot from standing perspective” and so on. Instead, he argues that most professionals use zooms because they are good and they are also less likely to leave you without a proper lens for the shot; that manual mode is basically relying on camera’s metering with extra steps, and you should use either aperture or shutter priority instead for most cases, and go to manual only if you’re shooting flowing water or astrophotography. Also, that composition is far more complex than the thirds or the golden ratio, and that it’s about the symmetry, weight, lines that go through the frame and so on. It’s not that you first need to learn the rule of the thirds and then learn to break it, it’s that the rule sucks in the first place because it’s simplistic. For instance, central composition is usually derided as boring, but it’s sometimes exactly how you need to compose the shot. For instance, if it’s a portrait and you want your subject to look into the audience and metaphorically make eye contact, central composition is how it’s done. The famous shot of the Afghan girl is the case in point.

Also, if you saw something from a standing perspective and found it striking, then that’s the perspective it needs to be shot from.

I get where he’s coming from. I personally always found it annoying when beginners read a book or a tutorial on photography and then they’re suddenly the resident forum experts on composition, sharpness and everything. The rule of the thirds, in particular, is particularly annoying because it works often enough that it looks like a rule, but it is in fact a very crude approximation for a complex perceptual geometry which includes all kinds of things, like lines going through the frame, weight of certain elements that need to be balanced with other elements, connection between the elements, colour and light, and also the intent of the picture itself. It’s usually said that the placement of the subject on the side-third makes the image dynamic. However, what if you want to portray serenity and calm? What if “dynamic” is actually something you don’t want in that picture? Suddenly, that rule of the thirds doesn’t help. Also, one of the important things is to follow the subject’s eyes with the composition. If you’re taking a portrait, and you want to create negative space in the direction where the subject is looking. However, if the subject is looking into the camera, a central composition might be ideal. So, basically, you need to know what you’re doing and how the image will look on the wall, and not blindly follow some set of rules meant for beginners to get their way around things.

Also, the zooms. I absolutely agree that the wedding photographers and photojournalists prefer them, and that they should, because they are a better tool for the job. Also, I prefer zooms for landscape photography, and most landscape photographers agree. On the other hand, if I’m using a zoom, and I’m constantly at the longest focal length, wide open, then I’m actually using a poor substitute for a prime. If I’m using a 24-105mm f/4 at 105mm f/4, and I’m shooting closeups, what I actually need is a 100mm f/2.8 macro. If I’m constantly using a 16-35mm f/4 zoom at its widest focal length, why not just use a 16mm prime? Primes are better for people who know what they are doing, and for situations where they have things under control – they know what will happen, and what focal length is good for that. You need to have enough experience to formulate your preferences, and even then, your preference can be for a zoom, at least in some situations. So, it’s another thing where it depends. However, when I say “knowing what they are doing”, you need to understand it in context – sometimes not knowing what you’re doing is the whole point of a job. Things change, they can be unpredictable, and by definition you don’t know what you’re doing. If you’re taking pictures of riots, framing can change from wideangle to telephoto in a hurry. If you’re shooting weddings, framing can be an intimate portrait at one moment, and a dynamic wide shot the next. However, if you’re in control, for instance in a studio, or a specific set, or you’re working with a model outside, you by definition know what you’re doing and you can choose a specific lens for the task, that’s going to do that one thing well. So, a choice is not between a zoom and a bag of primes. It’s between a zoom, and a prime that does that one thing you intend to use the zoom for, only better.

As for the perspective; sure, standing perspective is great for shooting cityscapes, or crowds, or people in context, doing people things. However, if you want to take a picture of a child doing child things, better kneel to their perspective and get into their world. If you’re taking a picture of a flower, get into the flower’s world, because from your perspective it will look insignificant. From the flower’s perspective, it’s the centre of the world and it matters.

Would I shoot film?

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In 2006, when I transitioned to Canon EF system, one of the reasons for it was the option to use the same lenses and other hardware to shoot film. I bought a used EOS 3 on ebay, and also an EOS 650 on the local used photo gear market, together with the EF 35-70mm f/3.5-4.5 lens.

I also bought lots of Astia and Velvia and put them in the fridge, for whenever I decide to actually go and shoot film, and an Epson 4990 flatbed film scanner, because I already sold my Minolta Dimage IV to finance the Olympus E1 purchase.

However, as it turned out the 5d was so much better than film, that this turned out to be pointless. I did shoot some film, but my heart wasn’t in it. There was no actual gain. There was no artistic reason to do it. The digital actually gave me more artistic freedom, and it also gave me better shadows, better detail crispness on magnifications, less noise, and higher ISO.

Canon 5d, EF 35-70mm f/3.5-4.5

The question “would I shoot film again if that were a real option?” was unanswered for me in 2006. I retained all the necessary hardware – two film bodies, film in the fridge, scanner on my desk. However, having this option available and knowing that I didn’t really want to use it answered it for me.

I stopped caring about film, because digital did everything for me. When I bought into the Sony FE system, that question was long answered, and I no longer cared that the new lenses will never be able to work on film. So, that’s my answer to the question “would you shoot film again, if it became a real option for you?”. No, I wouldn’t. It’s just hassle with no benefits. I like the way film looks, but I like digital more. “Oh, how can you say that, the film is organic, it’s physical, it’s not just a computer producing numbers” yada yada. Yeah, sure, and the point of shooting it for me was to scan it and produce a set of numbers on a computer. It’s just that the process of getting there introduced dependency on other people, whole other industries, and was pointlessly messy. I loved photography, and film was how you got it. I suffered through all its quirks because that was what you had to do. That’s no longer the case.

With digital, it doesn’t matter that I live on an island where there are no film labs or photography stores. I don’t have to figure out how to buy film, where to process it, how it will deal with the summer heat, how to scan it. I don’t have to worry that my favourite emulsions went out of production or are about to. My favourite “emulsion” was a digital 35mm sensor ever since the Canon 5d. It did exactly what I wanted. I could shoot deep, juicy dark colours, finally. I could shoot hand-held in the dark woods after rain and get workable exposures. And, finally, I could do every part of photography myself.

What’s my favourite film emulsion? The Sony 35mm sensor from A7RV and A7CR.

A7RV, FE 135mm f/1.8 GM