QADUMIA IS THE DAWN SERVICE that is observed in the morning twilight before the rising of the sun. Qadumia is an Aramaic word that means first, or Primeval, and refers to the first appearance of Light in the eastern sky. Al-Nadim said that the Manichaeans observed 50 prostrations at this liturgical hour. The character and nature of Qadumia is that of rising with respect and reverence with the intent of serving the Hidden Living Ones and all their children here on earth throughout the ensuing day. The ancient Nazoreans and Essenes were known as dawn bathers because they always ritually washed themselves at this time in preparation for the developing day. This custom goes all the way back to the origins of the Gnostic Stream and was observed in antiquity among the Goddess worshipping Harappans of the Indus Valley in Shenrab Miwo’s time around 2000 BC, and before.  In Qadumia, the Primal Hour, the Gnostikoi arise to celebrate the oneness of Light and the Great Mother and Father of Light – Zurvan-Hiya. Rededicating themselves to serve the Living Lords of Light, they vow afresh to transcend the duality of the lower worlds and engage in the Great Work. They reconsecrate body, speech and mind with pure water, cleansing it from any pollution that may have occurred during the night. In the still predawn darkness of Qadumia the Morning Stars, the Firstborn B'Qorims, prostrate fifty times before Amin-Hiya, the Great Life – once for each of the fifty Gates of Light that lead homeward to Heaven. These Fifty Gates of Light are the ceremonial initiations that open the soul portals to reception of the thirty-two degrees of Nazirutha, or Gnosis. Then, awaiting the arising of the Aten disc, symbol of their divine unity with Deity and with all things, they engage in sacred song until sunrise. As the multiplicity and duality of the night, symbolized by the myriads of stars, now congregate beneath the Morning Firstborn Star who leads them forth toward the Unity of Amin, so the Firstborn seed congregate before Yeshu-Maryam in deep prayer and praise, being led forth toward the solar Orb, the rising sun that swallows all diversity through obscuration of the many stars, blending and melting them into one radiant whole. So do Yeshu and Maryam as they weld together the scattered remains of the Living Soul, preparing it for ascension homeward.

“When the Holy Spirit came, he revealed to us the path of Truth, he taught us that two Natures exist, that of the Light and that of the Darkness, separate from one another since the beginning. While the Kingdom of the Light exists in five Greatnesses, namely the Father and His twelve Aeons, and the Aeons of the Aeons, the Living Air, the Land of Light, with the great Spirit breathing in them and nourishing them with His Light.”

 “Now then, as they were warring on each other, they dared to make a raid on the Land of Light, thinking in themselves that they would be able to conquer it. But they do not know that what they have thought against it they will bring down upon themselves. There was a host of Angels in the Land of Light, having the power to come out to subdue the Enemy of the Father, who was pleased that he should send himself through his Word to subdue rebels who desired to raise themselves over the one higher than they, like a shepherd who shall see a lion coming to destroy his sheepfold. … The same is the method of the Father, who has sent His strong Son, and he in turn produced from himself his Maiden furnished with live powers that she might give fight against the five abysses of the Darkness.”

TLATA MEANS THIRD in Aramaic, referring to the third hour of the daylight hours. Tlata is the midmorning commitment to regather our scattered limbs, gathering in the Buddha nature that was scattered in the fields of night during the first great war when we and the Primal Pair were swallowed up in the material worlds of samsara.

“When the Watcher had stood up in the boundaries of the Light, he showed them his Maiden who is his Soul; they moved themselves in their abyss wishing to thrust themselves upon her, they opened their mouth desiring to swallow her. He controlled her power, she spread her over them like nets over fishes, she made her rain down upon them like purified clouds of water; she thrust herself into them like a piercing lightning, she crept within them and bound them all unawares.”

“Every elect and righteous person who walks on a path due to the work of God, and though walking upon the earth and though treading with the soles of his feet on the Cross of Light, he does no sin therein.”

The Tlata period is a time when the observant recognize the Light of Christ in all things:

“Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there.”

“When the Primal Man had finished his war the Father sent His second Son; he came and gave a hand to his brother out of the Abyss.

“He established this whole universe out of the mixture of the Light and the Darkness that had occurred. He spread out all the Powers of the Abyss to ten heavens and eight earth’s, he enclosed them in this universe together; he made it both a prison for all the Powers of the Darkness, while it is also a place of purifying for the Soul that had plunged into them.” “Then the Living Spirit revealed his forms to the Sons of Darkness; and from the Light which had been swallowed by them, from these Five Luminous Gods, he purified the light and made the Sun and the Moon and the light of the Stars more than a thousand.”

Nusardil: The reordering and recreation by the Living Spirit thru his Five Sons and the setting in motion of the machinery of refinement.  (Realm of Malakut)

And afterward they revealled their image and secretly inspired Ptahil and Ruha to create the astral and eventual physical forms of man thru evolutionary fires. In Shitaya we reenact the creative work of the Living Spirit made concrete by the Fouth Life who solidified the world by engaging in creative stewardship work that also reshape and refashion the raw materials of the universe. Through the creative labors of the elect the Monastery becomes a Column of Glory for the raising up of the world. The Living Spirit established his five sons to rule over the universe, and within the Gnostikoi is established five wheels of light over the subtle body. The Shitaya prayer is that of the Column of Glory at midday. Vairochana, the Resplendent Buddha of Central Asian Buddhism is a representation of the Column of Glory, or Perfect Man,  and the fifth Zephyr or void element in Manichaeism:

“Also the Envoy's Son, the Great Mind which is the Column of Glory, the Perfect Man to whom all the churches gather, and to whom all the Light that has been refined out of the world returns. The Baptism of Life, the Washing-place of the Souls, the Harbor of those who are in the open sea is the diamond-like Column supporting and upholding the world.”

Sleewa: The revelation of the image, the spurting forth, and the making of non physical and physical man. Solidification of the material world.  Adam and Havah entombed and encased in a stinking stump of physical flesh. Awakening of Adam by Hibil-Yeshu (Realm of Nasut)

“Then the Mother of the Living and the Primal Man and the Living Spirit stood in prayer and implored the Father of Greatness; and the Father of Greatness hearkened to them and evoked the Third Evocation, namely the Messenger. The Messenger, moreover, evoked the Twelve Virgins with their vestments and with their crowns and with their attributes. The first Sovereignty; the second, Wisdom; the third Victory; the fourth, Reconciliation; the fifth, Purity; the sixth, Truth; the seventh, Faith; the eighth, Longsuffering; the ninth, Rectitude; the tenth, Beneficence; the eleventh, Justice; the twelfth, Light. And when the Messenger came to these Ships he ordered the three Servitors to make the Ships move. And he ordered the Great Ban to construct the New Earth, and the Three Wheels to ascend.”

“The Sun and the Moon were established, were placed on high, so that they might purify the Soul; the refined part they daily carry up on high, while they sweep out the dregs . . . mixed, they convey above and below.”

Soubra: The Call of Life awakens the slumbering Pearls imprisoned in physical form (Realm of Malakut)

“And when the Ships went up and reached the middle of the heaven, the Messenger then revealed his forms, male and female, and was seen by all the Archons, the Sons of Darkness, males and females. And at the sight of the Messenger, who was beautiful in his forms, all the Archons became filled with lust for him, the males for the form of the female, and the females for the form of the male, and in their lust they began the emit that light which they had swallowed from the Five Luminous Gods.

Shlama is not only the hour of complete darkness and imprisonment in the bag of pus, but also the hour wherein the veil of darkness within our own soul can be enkindled with the lamp of Gnosis signifies our first awakening to the path that leadeth homeward. The five lamps lit before the five Buddhas signify the illumination within of our five chakras clustered about our subtle spine. As the five Helpers assisted the Primal Pair to disseminate their essence outward into the Mixture, so they help us gather it back once again, like Isis recollecting the scattered remains of Osiris her love. The Primal Pair hath ascended upward out of the dark lower world which we inhabit. Osiris has fled, and Set vies for the kingdom, and Horus the Day has not yet been established, although the Seed of Infusion lieth within her womb. One cannot arise as Horus until one has fallen as Osiris. The Primordial Christ is slain of the Cross of Light, and the Christ within is crucified on the Tree by our evolving Set or intellect. Our sense of unity from our original Laluthian home is scattered and destroyed, and our consciousness differentiates. Many lifetimes establish this scattering more firmly until the nadir of involution is reached, and the crossing over at the Stauros Cross of Yeshu-Osiris slain. Our true original self is then locked away in the Cedar coffin, in the Cedar tree, the Djed Pillar of Osiris which is destined to arise like the Aten disc in the East, like Ra from between the two Turquoise trees.

The loss of our soul mate in the cosmic Ramsha period is accentuated by our complete and utter spiritual aloneness and separation whilst incarcerated within the stinking stump of flesh in this cosmic Shlama period. We have only our animus or anima within, hinting of the oneness and solidarity we once knew, and occasional wiffs of unity that come from our physical unions. In the darkness of soul separation we grope toward the illumination of the Buddhas, faithfully adhering the the lamp of the law of light.

SITARA IS AN ARAMAIC name which means veil. The liturgical hour of Sitara is the first of three Watches of the night, celebrated somewhere around 9pm, the half way mark between sundown and midnight. There are two forms of this Sitara, or First Night Watch. One is a Tamasha Immersion on the evening of the seventh lunar week day. The other is informal personal prayers said at bedtime. The Tamasha Immersion is similar to a Jewish “mikveh”, yet distinctly different. It is an ancient form of self baptism practiced by the Essenes and Nazoreans of first century Palestine. Its primary purpose was the removal of ritual impurity. Its position here, on the eve of the last day of the lunar week, allows one to purge themselves of certain spiritual impurities before the beginning of the new week.

Sitara is the engaged soul seeking to actively free itself from karmic stain, from possession of lesser spirits, and from the gravitational field of the earth itself. In Sitara we wash free of darkness and are anointed with purging medicine, preparing us to eventually have welded as one our Ruha and Nishimta through the saving grace of Hibil-Ziwa-Be-With-Us. This is the new man or woman within, the Creation Phase of Vajrayana. Mani said:

“The masculine Virgin whom they call Daughter of the Light and named Yoel, gave Eve a share of Life and Light. Next Eve freed Adam from bestiality, then was she thereupon stripped naked of the Light. So they both asked for the Redeemer, and the Mother of Life and the First Man and the Spirit of Life did send to that 'first child ', one who should free him and save him, show him the Knowledge and the Righteousness," and rescue him from the demons. … Yeshu the Radiant approached Adam the Innocent, and awoke him from the sleep of death, … Then Yeshu-Ziwa …spoke to the child who was Adam, and made clear to him the Gardens and the Gods, and Hell and the demons, and the earth and sky, and the Sun and Moon. … Thereupon Adam examined himself and realized whence he-came; and Yeshu showed him the Fathers on high and his own Self in everything, thrown into the teeth of leopards and elephants, swallowed by the greedy and chewed by the gluttonous, eaten by dogs- mixed and imprisoned in all that is, and bound in the stench of Darkness.” The return to the Light Land triumphant and the unveiling and merger with primordial unity. (Realm of Hahut)

Ramsha and Lilya are the hours of division, where one repents of their separation from Amin. At Lilya, at midnight, at the deepest hour of the winter solstice, there is the advent of Bnia-Amin, Sun Amin, the Day star, the Morning Star, the Firstborn Seed of Amin. The Dua-Stars begin their ascent upward and homeward, they begin to gather into constellations, into communities of light, preparing for the rising of the Sun of Righteousness with healing in His wings at Tziphra.

Lilya is only formally observed on the night of Habshabba, although it may be kept on any midnight that one feels moved to keep vigil. It represents a continuation of the saving work of Yoel and Yeshu-Ziwa on earth which is figuratively represented by Mani’s account of Adam’s further instruction by Yeshu:

“Thereupon Adam examined himself and realized whence he-came; and Yeshu showed him the Fathers on high and his own Self in everything, thrown into the teeth of leopards and elephants, swallowed by the greedy and chewed by the gluttonous, eaten by dogs- mixed and imprisoned in all that is, and bound in the stench of Darkness Then (Yeshu) raised him and made him taste of the Tree of Life and thereupon Adam looked and wept, he mightily lifted up his voice like a raging lion, saying: "Woe, woe to the maker of my body, and to the binder of my Soul, and to the Rebels who have enslaved me!". The return to the Light Land triumphant and the unveiling and merger with primordial unity. (Realm of Hahut)

“In the hour that that Builder shall finish, the universe shall be all dissolved and set on fire, so that it may be smelted away. All life, the remnant of the Light which is in every place, he will gather to himself and fashion of it a Statue; while as for the Counsel of Death, the whole Darkness, he shall gather it in and make it into a picture of its own self, it and the slaves of the Ruler. The Living Spirit comes in a moment; . . . he will give hand to the Light, but the Counsel of Death and the Darkness he will confine in the storehouse that was established for it, for it shall be bound therein forever. There is no means of binding the Enemy save this means, for he shall not be received to the Light because he is a stranger to it, nor again can they leave him in his land of Darkness, lest he should wage a (new) war greater than the first. A new Aeon will be built instead of this universe, which shall dissolve that the Powers of Light may reign within it, because they have done, have fulfilled, the Father's whole will, they have subdued the Hated One, they have trampled on him forever.”