In the Gospel according to Saint John, chapter 9, there is an interesting story about Jesus and a man blind from birth. When the disciples see the blind man, they ask Jesus, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?" Jesus answers them by saying, "It was neither that this man sinned nor his parents; but it was in order that the works of God might be displayed in him." The passage is interesting, because the disciples are asking about the nature of karma, the law of cause and effect. The disciples are asking which theory of karma is correct. One we can call the Hindu and Buddhist theory that the individual did the deed that caused the illness and the other is the Jewish theory that the family or genetic lineage caused the illness. Curiously, both theories of karma are mentioned in the Bible. If you asked anyone of an agricultural society how to explain individual karma, they would say, "Whatever you sow, that you will reap." This phrase appears in the religious texts of many religions and in a number of biblical passages, especially in the writings of Saint Paul (Galatians 6:7). It is a precise phrase, based on the idea that something subtle and small like a seed is planted (in the subconscious mind), and grows after its kind. Ancients were clear that a pear seed creates a pear tree, not an apple tree. There are other verses, too, where Jesus talks about karma as well especially in regard to forgiveness (cf Matthew 18:21-35 and Matthew 6:8-15). Jesus does not seem to refer to the family genetic karma much, though it seems Saint Paul may have indirectly alluded to it (Romans 5:12-19 and 1 Corinthian 15:45, where Saint Paul seems to link karma burning with the mutation of the human species). The genetic karma theory is a theme found in a number of Old Testament passages (Exodus 20:5, Numbers 14:18, and Deuteronomy 5:9). In this passage, Jesus negates both theories of karma, even though he seems to have believed in at least the individual karma theory (the Hindu and Buddhist theory). This kind of dialectical teaching approach is often used in Zen Buddhism. It forces the student to look deeper into the situation and to learn another lesson. I do get that Jesus is interacting with his disciples in hopes that they too become healers. John 20:22-23 indicates that he had succeeded and initiates them into being healers the way that he was, a larger initiation happens in Acts 2:1-5 where each disciple has disciples of their own (cf Acts 1:13-15). They receive a kind of mass initiation during a time of deep prayer and meditation. This results the power to heal being very strong for some time afterwards (cf Acts 5:15-15 and Mark 16:17).
What is interesting, too, is that Jesus does not reject the premise of the question. He does not question whether or not a man can sin and be born blind. It is clear that the disciples were familiar with reincarnation and must have believed it for their question to even make sense, because you cannot sin and be born blind unless you have a previous lifetime in order to sin. My sense is that both individual karma and family genetic karma are valid theories. Jesus, however, is acting as a healer in this passage. Jesus the healer has become a lesser theme in a lot Christian teaching, though for me Jesus the Healer and Jesus the Savior are intimately related. Many passages seem to link these roles together. When people question whether or not Jesus is the Messiah, he points to the healing miracles as a sign. Jesus is clear that anyone functioning in the role of a Bodhisattva, World Server, or Savior is going around healing people physically, emotionally, and mentally. Jesus does not see the blindness for the person as something to analyze karmaically, but simply sees the blindness as something that is meant to be healed. Jesus sends healing energy into the unknown space of the illness and lets the energy of love heal the condition. Sometimes when something is analyzed, it locks a person into the karma even more. When functioning as a healer, it is better to channel the energy of divine love into a person and simply let the healing happen. Sometimes during the process of laying on of hands and sending healing energy the receivers will experience a "surfacing". Something will come from within them that will require an action on their part in order for the healing to become permanent. It is usually about forgiving someone and sometimes seeing that one had done the same thing as the perpetrator. Some deep resentment in the subconscious mind, a samskara, is still operating as an imprint and causing the illness. When I had worked with someone who had paralysis, I had her breath and within 15 minutes her arm had regained about 70 percent of its movement range. At that point, she started to cry, and she was feeling a deep anger toward her daughter. I said, "It looks like life is giving you a choice. You can either forgive your daughter and be healed of your paralysis or remain paralyzed." When I had said this to her, her arm instantly froze again. She had chosen to not forgive her daughter, at least then. Later on, she even forgot the event and conversation had even happened. Sometimes, the forgiveness has already released the resentment imprint from the subconscious mind and the healing energy simply releases the outer effect. The deeper healing has already happened and now the outer effect can simply be removed.
Chapter 9 develops the basic theme of the first verses in some interesting ways. It is clear that "blindness" is a metaphor for being unaware or unconscious and literal seeing is a metaphor for being aware or conscious. In verse 41, Jesus seems to share that there is something called unconscious ignorance or innocence ("If you were blind, you would have no sin."). When we become aware of something, then we have responsibility. When a person sees something and does not take responsibility, they "become blind" and the karma imprint remains.
The key verse talks about something divine manifesting in the blind person as he shifts from blindness to seeing. Some kind of energy conversion is happening to make this shift. My sense is that Jesus heals by seeing the Buddha nature of the blind person. This is deeper than the karmaic patterns that need unconsciousness to function. Seeing this invisible and eternal nature allows the external effect of healing to happen. By negating karmaic history, he is looking deeper to the level where karma does not touch. When people are blind, they do not see or feel their true nature. When they see or feel this, the karma starts to lift (verse 11 shows that the process did take some time and was not instantaneous). Identification with karma, separateness, and ego are at the root of the unconsciousness.
Verse 35 is interesting, because Jesus asks the blind person now healed if he is the "son of man" (not "son of God"). I take this phrase to be the next evolution in the human species (Homo Telepathicus). The phrase "son of" means "offspring of" or something that comes out of something else. In its conventional meaning, if I am the son of someone, I come out of that family lineage. When this phrase is used, it means another species is coming out of previous species (cf I Corinthians 15:20-23, notice the phrase "first fruits", it is plural, and has to do with an eventual harvest coming in or many coming to this same level of being, verse 26 talks about even death ending, many passages talk about the perishable physical body becoming imperishable or the physical body undergoing some transformation).
There may have been some challenges with layers of translation. There is a Hebrew word "Kabed" whose root can mean "glory" and is sometimes translated into Greek as "doxa" (curiously in this verse another word is used "ergon" which has more the meaning of a mission or profession, showing than the single healing is part of a larger mission). The word "Kabed" can refer to good deeds or a display of something impressive enough to shift human opinion. It is also some times refered to as a kind of wealth, some times as something that makes people rejoice, or as the force behind the good deed. I got that what Jesus was talking about is an energy that can manifest healing effects. The results of Kabed are considered less transitory than more mundane good deeds that are sometimes forgotten. When healing links with our inner growth, there is something permanent that arises, even when some of the outer effects fade away. Curiously, Kabed is related to feeling things in the liver. It seems that the Jewish prophets were very kinesthetic and described feeling emotions in different parts of their bodies. This fits in with the psychosomatic awareness of Wilhelm Reich, Alexander Lowen, and bioenergetics. Many herbalists have focused on the health of the liver to be being a key to the health of the whole body. The liver, too, seems profoundly affected by resentment and the healing of resentment (aka forgiveness) seems integral to how Jesus saw the energetic healing process.
Having been initiated into Tanran Reiki, I notice a number of parallels to the Reiki understanding of energy healing and what Jesus is doing. Usui claimed to have studied Christianity and may have gotten much from his meditation on how Jesus healed. I am hoping as time permits to share some of the other healing stories and to highlight what each miracle is intending to teach. It is clear to me that Jesus had intended that the healing miracles were something integral to what he wanted his followers to do, and not merely a proof of his enlightenment. Usui also studied Shingon Buddhism and prayed and fasted for 21 days in a manner similar to Kobodashi, the Buddhist teacher who brought Shingon Buddism to Japan. During this 21 day period is when he got a Reiki attunement and an enlivenment of special symbols designed to be anchored in the mental aura and to conduct healing energy through his hands to others (and later on just remotely through mental visualization and intention). He gets the symbols through the third eye, though most Reiki attunements open up the crown chakra and implant them in the energy body this way. During mass initiation at Pentecost, Jesus in his light body seems to attune those gathered there through "tongues of fire" (Acts 2:3). The Hebrew letters are sometimes called "fire language" and look like little flames. The word "tongue" is an old language way of describing the language that someone speaks as in "he speaks a foreign tongue". In the Qabalah, there are ten spheres related to different aspects of consciousness and each is associated with a different Hebrew letter and name of God. Both the Qabalah and Tibetan Buddhism use letter symbols (in Tibetan they are bija mantras) that can be both visualized and intoned. They anchor a vibration into the mental body, or mental layer of the aura, that allow healing energy to conduct from the Universal Source of Loving Energy to those in need of healing (through laying on of hands). Some meditation and purification of the emotional aura is needed to help conduct the energy through a person, though this can happen during the attunement process. One of the signs of this energy present is unity (Acts 1:14, Acts 2:43-45, 2 Corinthians 13:11, Philipians 2:2, and 1 Peter 3:8).
While the symbols differ some between Reiki, the Qabalah, and Tibetan Buddhism, I find it interesting that the initiation or attunement process uses them in a similar way in all these contexts. My sense is that the science behind them and the purpose is the same. The symbols are not ultimately necessary. When we have direct understanding of our true nature, then the energy flows through simply from this realization to others. Until our understanding is completely pure, constant, and direct, though, the attunement helps the living understanding of an enlightened teacher to remain with the students as an energetic feeling. In Saint Paul's terms, one is "through a mirror dimly" and the other is "face to face" after the veil is lifted (conceptual thinking and mental conditioning).
What is interesting is that the healing miracles of Jesus seem to have been consistently strong. There is a phase where he keeps it more secret and then he is more open about sharing healing with others. In one case, he heals ten lepers (Luke 17:1-19) only one returns to thank him and Jesus says to him that his faith has made him whole. Usui found something similar, after his healing empowerment he goes to the beggars district and heals people of both their illnesses and even their poverty. But when he comes back he finds that many of them have reverted back to their original condition. He finds that the ones that stayed healed with the ones that were grateful. I have found, too, that there is a shift that the receiver needs to do for himself or herself. It has something to do with shifting from resentment to gratitude (through forgiveness). The receiver can get temporarily healed through being open in the moment. They all ask Jesus, "Have mercy on us!". This phrase is often used by people asking Jesus to heal them. It eventually becomes the stylized Eastern Orthodox mantra, "Kyrie Eleieson" which is still used to access healing energy from Jesus in his light body.
In terms of experience, I find that channeling Reiki energy energy to others feels like Vipassana Buddhist meditation flowing very well. In some sense, it is easier to go deeper when doing Reiki, because the focus is on giving to another person and so there is less "self clinging" to release. When a person is doing solitary meditation, there still might be some "spiritual materialism" running the process, some form of self clinging or trying to get something for oneself. When we are focused on giving to someone else, this self clinging is neither absent or softer. Many times this results in the Reiki healer getting a healing while giving to another. Part of what is realized in enlightenment is not merely our own true nature, but the realization of the true nature of everyone, and that we are not separate from each other. In the act of laying hands on someone and sending healing energy, there is a feeling of oneness that naturally arises. It reminds of a saying in the Upanishads, where Brahma, a personification of the creative energy of the universe, says, "I am the giver, the giving, and the gift (and the receiver)." In the final prayer of Jesus for his disciples (before his crucifixion), Jesus wishes (John 17:22 and the whole chapter) that his disciple "be one" and even adds "just as" he and the divine are one.
Having a healing meditation be a teaching focus, rather than solitary meditation (which is also important) has an interesting emphasis. Because the healing meditation includes others, Reiki and energy healing traditions grow by sharing. They expand to others who are in need and connects them to the Universal Loving Energy that permeates all of existence but which is not always felt. When Jesus has his enlightenment experience, he feels this universal love (Matthew 3:17). Buddha felt this love also. The energy of enlightenment has four basic feelings within it. They are freedom, wisdom, love, and peace. Buddha emphasized wisdom and freedom, while Jesus emphasized love and peace. Both Jesus and Buddha radiated loving energy through their aura. Buddha converted three Hindu debaters by this loving energy. They came, one by one, to argue with him, but when they felt the aura of love around him, they felt a deep need satisfied within themselves and did not even debate at all.
There is a phrase that simply says, "Reiki grows by sharing". As loving energy is shared, its presence in this world expands and heals this world. In John 1:29, Saint John the Baptist says, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." What I find interesting is that the word "sin" is used, the singular, not plural form of this world. This verse is sometimes mistranslated in to refer to sins plural. But the passage is precise, there is ultimately only one sin and that is the belief in separation that forms our feeling of self. Buddha focused on the illusion of a separate self and Jesus just focused on the separateness from universal loving energy. The very act of connecting in love with someone heals the separation and cuts the root of all adverse karmas. All the other "sins" are merely effects of this sense of separation and will start to fade away if we stay in unity. When Jesus is getting crucified, he nirvanas (exhales his last breath). This is called "breath release" in the Rebirthing tradition. This is where the ego releases its control of the breathing and one learns to "breathe from the breath itself" (the Holy Breath or Holy Spirit). Nirvana means "exhale" (nir=out, vana=wind). In Luke 23:45-46, this breath release and "tearing the veil of the temple" are together. He releases his breath into the divine unity. It is his "last" breath. John 19:30 adds that Jesus says, "It is finished," as he gives up his breath. In terms of the Heart Sutra Dharani, "Let go, let go, really let go, totally let go, Awake, Rejoice." Jesus lets go so totally that nothing is left undone, so it is indeed finished. The veil is the veil of separation that is torn asunder by the breath release. It is the veil that separates the divine presence of love (Shekinah) from the people of the world. Enlightenment (Satori) comes when we really let go and supreme perfect enlightenment comes when we totally let go. Before enlightenment, we practice letting go (hence the repetition of "let go, let go", since all practice is repetition). The total letting go is enough for Jesus to release the energies that will create his light body.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
The Psychohistorians
I wanted to write something about the Sufis. Contrary to some scholarship, they are not necessarily Islamic Mystics. Sufism predates Islam by at least 6,000 years. Sufism did take home in Islam during one phase of planetary human history. Islam, at one time, carried the evolutionary impulse. Mohamed, who channeled messages from the Archangel Gabriel, in communications called "korans" (recitations or readings) and which later became the Koran. The purpose of these transmissions, according to Mohamed, was to "unify the people of the book" (the Old Testament). He wanted to unify the Christians, the Jews, and some other tribal religions. The insight that he had was that both Judaism and Christianity believed in the principle of surrender to a higher power, following the guidance of such a being, and trusting this higher being to protect one, sustain one, and fulfill all our needs. His mission did not literally succeed, but he created Islam (from "Al Islam" meaning "the surrender") as a vehicle to carry his understanding of the spiritual life. In the early days of Islam, a follower of the Koran was called "Moslem," meaning one who had surrendered to the will of Allah. In the early days, the term "Moslem" also applied to people of other religions who surrendered to the Divine through their own religion. This showed that there was a literal level of surrender to the ethical commandments in the Koran and a deeper surrender to the intuitive wisdom coming from the Divine which transcended all religions. This meant that Islam was in some sense liberal and progressive in its early days, before Islamic fundamentalism gave a more dogmatic and literal interpretation.
The Sufis trace their lineage back to the "Dog Star" (Sirius) and the beings who inhabited that solar system. They have always had an understanding that spirituality and human evolution are related. Sufism is considered the living vital essence of real spirituality. It is "the yeast that leavens the whole bread" that Jesus spoke of. Like yeast, it is an active ingredient that produces real change. Without yeast, the bread cannot rise. Sufism has never been about any kind of belief system and merely becoming a believer or merely joining a specific religion like one joins a club. It is about opening up to "yeast" and letting its action transform the whole loaf. From this view, any religion is part of Sufism if it has "yeast" and to the degree that it has "yeast". When a religion does not transform and evolve human beings, then it is not part of Sufism anymore. Sometimes religions which carried the "yeast" but do not anymore are called "shells". This term is from how certain sea creatures make a sea shell around them, occasionally leave it behind, and make another shell around themselves. An empty shell is evidence that there was once something alive inside the shell, but it is no longer there.
There are four characteristics of a Sufi:
(1) Universal truth. A Sufi follows truth where ever he or she finds it. If there is truth in Christianity, then the Sufi will follow this truth. If there is truth in Judaism, then the Sufi will follow this truth. If there is truth in Islam, the Sufi will follow this truth. Whatever truth any religion teaches, a Sufi will acknowledge it and follow it. The Sufi tends to ignore the dogma, the cultural accumulations, and time bound religious elements that are obsolete in terms of growing humans further and deeper.
(2) Time, place, and need. A Sufi does not teach any predigested formula of truth. He or she sees that for different people of different times, locations, and cultures, what is needed to grow them will differ. Like a school where people pass from one grade to another, with some remedial lessons, and some special lessons for special interests, each person is taught from where they are so that they can move to the next step on their evolutionary journey. The lessons can be very different from each other. Chess can be used to teach symbolic logic, concentration, visualization, and sequencing steps of a plan over time. Then poetry can be used to teach the use of metaphor, sound, meter, rhyme, and emotional awareness. Then Hatha Yoga, Tai Chi, and martial arts can develop the neural network of the human body so that the higher moving center is activated and educated. The lessons can "feed the pre-existing strength of a person" or they can "develop neglected sides" depending on the path of least resistance to the most growth that is possible for the being.
(3) Telepathic connection to the Light Beings. A Sufi lives in love to serve the evolution, healing, and peace of whatever world they walk upon. They eventually realize that being a "lone ranger" is not enough. There needs to be some plan to heal the world and some group whose members can coordinate with each other, to build upon the efforts of each other, and make sure that the good intentions of each individual do not run cross purposes with the good intentions of other world servers. A Sufi links with the Light Beings. These are sentient beings who have gone before us and who have evolved to a very high level. This group has been called by different names by different religions. They are the Mahasangha of Buddhism, the Communion of Saints in Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, the Taoist Immortals, and the Hindu Avatars. These Light Beings operate within a living consensus of understanding about how the world is best served. They create a plan for the healing of this world, though the plan is updated as unexpected events happen. It is not a rigid plan set in concrete from the beginning of time, but a plan that is lovingly and intelligently adjusted as new factors emerge. These new factors can present new obstacles to the plan or can present new supports to the plan. There are some "intellectual Sufis" who have an understanding of the Sufi path, but who had not yet reached telepathic maturity and linked to the Mahasangha. They are, strictly speaking, not yet Sufis, but are candidates on the probationary path.
(4) The transmission of Baraka. In many advanced spiritual paths, there is some kind of initiation where an evolutionary energy is transfered from teacher to student. This transmission can be through a formal initiation into spiritual sect or it can be an informal initiation with no obvious rituals or props. The key element is whether or not a living transmission is given which quickens something inside the student who then feels a shift in his or her consciousness. Sometimes the energy is vital enough so that tingling sensations are run through the whole body. Sometimes a person will feel the radiance of unconditional love from the heart or the third eye will glow. If the person "nourishes the seed" then this baraka can carry them all the way through the entire evolutionary process. Jesus initiates his disciples to this level in the Gospel according to Saint John, chapter 20, verses 21 to 23, where Jesus says "peace be with you" to his disciples, and then breathes upon them "the holy breath" and communicates to the disciples the power to "forgive sin" (aka emotionally heal). This kind of breathing initiation is still done by certain Sufi masters to this very day. In scientific terms, this kind of breathing is "charged with energy". Sometimes this transmission is also done by "laying on of hands". The Buddha initiated his disciples by meditating in silence with them until they realized "anatta" (no self). He also initiated them through mantra, like when he chanted the Heart Sutra and called down the force of Avalochiteshvara, the Cosmic Bodhisattva (aka Archangel) of Compassion.
One way of understanding Sufism is through using an acrostic of its letters:
Science
Understanding
Faith
Intuition
Science in its purest form is knowledge that is intellectually grasped, logically structured, empirically verifiable, tested, and reliable. If we study nature through scientific means, both individually and collectively, then we will come to an understanding of life on Earth, evolution, and human potential. As we practice what we understand, then we will have faith in a reliable and living truth. This faith evolves into an intuitive and direct knowing about the nature of existence.
Sufism is not a theological system, but it has created many theological systems in order to fulfill the time, place, and need of different human tribes. The words used to express the living understanding changes according to time, place, and need. Since the earliest times, where the Sirian teachers transmitted the vital force to Shamans, who then passed on the living knowledge to future generations, there have been Sufi lineages. This is not merely memorized intellectual teachings, but the evolutionary force of baraka. When a shaman evolves himself or herself to a certain point, then they are able to transmit baraka to others. Sometimes a person will be "initiated by nature" like the Sufi Master Farid, though usually a person will have had at least some intellectual exposure to Sufi ideas before this happens. Since Sufi ideas are coded into most the sacred texts of most of the religions on this planet, almost everyone has some exposure to them. It may take, however, a "Sufi decoder ring" to extract the living knowledge from the dogmatic, cultural, and conditioned elements of a religion.
There is a phrase that goes, "Sufism begins where culture leaves off". What this means is that every human culture is designed to evolve a person up to a certain point. We are meant to grow into the highest person our respective cultures can create and then access the Sufi transmission to evolve from there.
Sufism is not a religion, though almost every religion has some Sufis within them. The Sufism, in serving a world during times where there are invasions and persecutions, divides itself into three groups. The first group will join the religion of the invader and work from within this religion. The second group will become a rebell force and oppose the orthodox religion. The third group will go completely underground and carry on the scientific methods that nourish the evolutionary force that have been handed down from teacher to student since the Sirians came here and taught them.
There have been two basic kinds of Sufi pure groups. These are "preservers" and "transmitters". The first keeps the knowledge of individual transformation alive for the sake of humankind. The second releases parts of this knowledge that people of a given time, place, and culture need in order to heal, grow, and flourish. For a long time, the Sarmoun community held this knowledge. Their symbol has been the bee and the beehive. They would collect the "nectar" of the teachings of every genuinely inspired spiritual and scientific teacher that has ever appeared in humankind and then bring it back to their hive. There hive was near Pemir in the Afghanistan Himalayas. It has since been abandoned, after having been there for thousands of years, when the Russian tanks ran across this area. Since then their hive has been a mobile location and has been the source and inspiration for the formation of other repositories. Teachers from the Sarmoun community have come and taught many people. Padmasambhava was said to have been taught in Surmang in a region called Oddiyana. Surmang is Sarmoun pronounced with the usual Tibetan guttaralization of the "n" sound. This means that Abhisheka and Baraka have the same science behind them.
Many of Esoteric Spiritual Lodges in Europe were inspired by the Sufi lineages of Baraka. There is a way of historically tracing the Sufi influence through history through all cultures. This historical analysis is hard to fully document, because it takes some direct familiarity with the force of baraka and the cloaks it takes through history in order to sort out the meaning of the events where Sufism is spreading itself through. One must be able to "separate the wheat from the chaff" or the shells from the living essence. Both can use very similar words, the shells will make the same words into dogma and help people stay stuck where they are. The Sufi transmission will generally keep changing the kinds of words, metaphors, and descriptors it uses, because the goal is not a dogmatic mind who wants intellectual certainty and the basis to condemn all rival opinions, but a liberated telepathic awakened mind which can feel the miracle of being alive in an endlessly changing universe that is always evolving itself even further. Many things that were Sufism at one time, end up even turning into its opposite. Like sea shells, something else sometimes starts to live in the empty shells the original creatures left behind in their growth. Sometimes, too, a shell is allowed to operate and is able to adequately represent some of the early methods and stages of the growth process. These shell groups are sometimes visited by Sufis in an effort to find those who are taking the information in the right way and who possibly can be initiated directly into the Sufi current. Many of the sects that have the name "Sufism" are really shells that have some real knowledge being handed down. If a person unlocks this knowledge, then he or she might attract or seek a teacher who can carry him or her further in evolutionary growth. The science of the Sufis can be summarized in "what actually works" to evolve people further. The methods are rapid enough so that a single scientific method, rightly applied, should produce significant evolutionary change in three years of "meditation" for at least 45 minutes per a day. The results may vary depending on how the student receives and uses the knowledge. There is a certain kind of humility, sensitivity, and commitment that allows one to attune to baraka and let it grow the person. A certain kind of selfishness, defensiveness, and arrogance makes a person unteachable except through the painful karmas that attract lessons in humility to him or her. Even these lessons will not work until a person has learned to "forgive".
The word "conspiracy" literally means "to breathe together" and originally refered to the living saints who used a pranayama meditation to evolve themselves. They are the original and positive loving conspiracy that is committed to healing this planet. They do not operate through brute force, violence, or intimidation. They do not call attention to themselves unless such attention serves some evolutionary necessity. They reveal themselves to others of their kind through a kind of code that is called "twilight language" which is the language of dreamtime and metaphor. It is through this twilight language that they could continue to evolve themselves and others without being picked up by the radar of orthodox religions bent on persecuting the "black sheep" of humankind (the ones that did not fit in and merely conform to whatever dogma and society they were in). Alchemy, the conversion of base metal to gold, was one such metaphorical system which had its main purpose to evolve a base ordinary human being (lead) into a radiant being (gold). Astrology was another. These metaphorical sciences had as their secondary intention the transmutation of actual lead into gold or forming birth charts to read the destiny of individuals.
During this time, transmitters are more important than preservers. This is because humanity is at an evolutionary junction. It is a kind of "sink or swim" growth point. Much knowledge is being released to assist humanity during this evolutionary phase. The harmonic convergence in 1987 was a Galactic Center to Sirius to Sol to Earth transmission and initiation. It awakened a wave of collective growth patterns that are are linking and harmonizing humans into "light colonies" that wish to appear on this planet. This wave will complete itself around 2012 with enough "critical mass" being generated to eventually shift humankind as a whole to a new level of functioning. The galactic time table that is part of a higher astrology was encoded into the Mayan calendar and the Buddhist Kalachakra teachings. Although some variation exists among scholars of the actual dates involved. The shift day is approximately December 23rd, 2010, with the next significant year being 2024, and then a 500 year process that will enter with world peace established in 2524. Another 500 years of evolution "under dharma" where all humans collectively aligned with the evolutionary process will complete this process. There is no real end point to this evolution, but the main markers are the emergence of Homo Telepathicus and then Homo Holographicus (light beings in light bodies). These dates are approximate and the prophecies around the events general and variable. No disasters have to mark this evolutionary process, though it is unlikely that humans will avoid all the possible disasters and dangers the will appear to challenge this evolutionary process. My advice is to take the adverse prophecies as warnings of possible and potential harm, with varying probabilities of happening depending on what humankind is doing with its present moment, and keep focused on the vision of hope that will eventually manifest after this evolutionary phase is over.
One of the interesting branches of Sufism has been what I call the "Science Fiction Circle". Several Sufi groups are encoding the higher knowledge into modern society. Some Sufis are creating children's stories with the knowledge encoded into metaphor, allegory, and parable (Snow White and the Seven Ego Types, Humpty Dumpty and the Wall of Indecision, Sleeping Dreaming Beauty and the Activating Animus Prince, Little Red Karma Attracting Riding Hood and the Victim, Perpetrator, and Rescuer Triangle, etc.) and shipping these books off to various libraries in various countries. Still others are taking Sufi ideas and letting them be verified by Universities and scientific studies so that various scientists, teachers, and students start thinking of humans as only a midpoint, rather than an endpoint of an evolutionary process. Some of these University groups show their connection to Sufism in an obvious way, by adapting some logo with Sufi symbolic elements included within them (Out of respect for the level of privacy that these groups want, I am not going to name any of the symbols that are being used or to name the groups using them, but if you are reading carefully, you can already spot at least one of the groups from what has already been said). As mentioned before, one third of the Sufic activity is out in the open and is sometimes called the "Open Secret".
The Science Fiction Circle is a group of Sufis who are creating a 21st century mythology that serves the function of the older mythologies of previous initiatory religions. A myth is a fictional story that serves as parable, allegory, and metaphor for energetic and psychological processes that are necessary phases of our future evolutionary unfoldment. There are several books worth reading in this context. SLAN by VanVogt is about the emergence of Homo Telepathicus. In one passage in the book, some scientists are studying the development of an ape child, a human child, and a slan child. The ape child actually develops more rapidly and quickly than the human child. This is because this animal is more hard wired instinctively and very quickly accesses the ancestral knowledge encoded in the DNA. But the ape child is eventually outstripped by the human child when the human child learns language, speech, eye/hand coordination, and hearing. The human child then learns from the human cultural transmission and goes way beyond the ape child. The slan child, originally the slowest of the three, eventually outstrips the other two when it develops telepathy and is able to directly feel wisdom as light pulses transmitted from mind to mind. In this small passage from the book is a series of metaphors that I found useful to orient our possible future processes. VanVogt himself was a genius who was able to learn rapidly. He endorsed General Semantics as a kind of mind training and had something called a "cortical thalamic pause" as a basic kind of rapid meditation method. In the book SLAN, as the story unfolds, there are found to be two kinds of slan, ones with tendrils and ones without tendrils, and even a third slan that is also tendril-less. The tendril-less slan are those who lost their telepathic abilities and simply ended up being smarter humans. The second tendril-less slan, like the tendrilled slan, kept their telepathic abilities, but adapted their outer form so that regular humans could not detect them by their tendrils. Two other books of his talk about applying General Semantics as a kind of meditation process and they are THE WORLD OF NULL-A and THE PLAYERS OF NULL-A. The main character Gilbert GoSeyn (go sane) is a metaphor for a learning process.
Another author Roger Zelazny encodes a lot of metaphors from the Qabalah and other esoteric sources into his story and later on book called THE DREAM MASTER. This is the most concise of his stories and the most densely packed with information. The Amber series goes into how to use a Tarot Deck as a meditation to develop telepathy, but the information is hidden within a story with a lot of sword dueling. The court cards are links to the Mahasangha and could be arranged to form a mandala similar to the Five Dhyani Buddha Mandala. The ten trumps are the elements and seasons, and also describe a 10 stage developmental process. The major arcana is an initiation temple with the Moon card describing evolution.
LORD VALENTINE'S CASTLE by Robert Silverberg is, to me, a hidden manual on how to develop telepathy. It seems to have information encoded about the author's own learning process. If his book DYING INSIDE is autobiographical, he seems to have had some trouble in its early stages. But when he gets some teachings and training on how to develop this side of humankind, then he is able to write about a prince who lets messages from dreamtime guide him to an island where he can be trained further. The messages a dim and symbolic at first, and it only slowly dawns that there is an element inside the dreams that is not merely subjective imagination and wish fulfillment, and then to trust this element to guide him. The book itself has many paragraphs of the landscape of the world where the events are happening. The descriptions, if read a certain way, require the reader to do a lot of visualization which helps them eventually lucid dream and develop telepathy.
It is interesting that both VanVogt and Silverberg use the story device of having the hero find himself in another body. In the case of GoSeyn, he is aware of the brain reactions of the previous body owner and learns to reprogram the brain with the mind. In the case of Prince Valentine, he has the extra handicap of having forgotten who he is, having been placed under a spell of amnesia. Homo Telepathicus does have the experience of past lifetimes in other bodies and needing to remember, in stages, the deeper identity. The idea that we are princes and princesses is a good metaphor for the nobility of our potential evolutionary state and of our deeper present identity.
THE MIND PARASITES by Colin Wilson is a story about some humans that are waking up to Homo Telepathicus, but encounter the "mind parasites", which are psychological states like depression, a kind of sleep walking, and where we muddle through, being drained of emotional energy that we need to grow ourselves further. There is a kind of active intelligence which seems to interfere with our evolution. One tradition calls this force "the dweller on threshold", since we only meet this resisting force when we try to consciously evolve. Many advanced traditions talk about this force, sometimes as Mara, Iblis, or Satan, sometimes as "the death urge", sometimes as "our personal law", sometimes as "Chief Feature", or as, in this book, "the mind parasites". It is ultimately something alien to our true nature which has infected us and which can be released. But because it has an active intelligence, it will try to reclaim us. This book goes into how to combat this force and become free of it. Every advanced tradition has a name for it, or many names for it. They also describe a process of overcoming it, moving through a space sometimes called "Chapel Perilous", "the Bardo", "the Halls of Amenti", and "Purgatorio". During this time, there is a process of purification or "kenosis" (a Christian mystical Greek term for "emptying the self of self"). The key to freedom is to "die before you die" (Sufi), "to die and yet not to perish" (Taoist), or to "realize no self" (Buddhist).
Another book, THE FOUNDATION TRILOGY by Asimov, is interesting in regard to the spiritual future history of this world. It does not seem to be written by the Sufi Science Fiction circle, but it seems to be inspired by the Sufi emanation, the morphogenetic field of evolutionary spiritual wisdom that is permeating the planet. It seems that many sensitive authors can tap into this field and draw inspiration. What I like about the book is that the group called "the Psychohistorians" form a "second foundation". The first foundation is ordinary science and scientific knowledge. The second foundation is a higher kind of psychological knowledge. The Psychohistorians are all telepathic and have developed mental powers to a great extent, including the ability to temporarily control the minds of ordinary Homo Sapiens. This second foundation is guiding the evolution of the first foundation. They are able to predict various probable futures and influence humankind at various critical junctures in its time journey. There is someone called "the Mule" who is an evolutionary mutant and causes humanity to move down an unpredicted time juncture to an unknown future. This Mule is also telepathic and very powerful. He is able to make humans do his bidding very easily and make them imagine that they have always been his devoted followers. He describes looking into the minds of humans and seeing all kinds of dials and dialing them to make changes in their consciousness in order for them to be loyal and devoted to him. He rapidly overcomes many forces fighting for their freedom. The Psychohistorians do not seem to do much to stop him. But eventually one of them does mental battle with him and beats him. The Psychohistorian imprints the thought for the Mule to stop conquering everyone, to retire, and leave evolution alone.
This scene in the book is interesting, because it shows how the Sufis tend to interact with ordinary political power. It shows that sometimes mutants gain power that belongs to a higher evolution and coopt it to serve a lower evolutionary state and ambition. The Psychohistorians balance the situation with a minimum intervention in history. They do not use external weopons, but the higher powers that their evolution has given them. They respect the free choice of all sentient beings and do not "mind control" unless absolutely necessary, with the least number of people, and for as short a period as possible. In this case, only one person who was the focus of the whole alternate event time line. This conforms to the four conditions that a Bodhisattva/Dakini (world server) must conform to in order to use power to kill or control someone. (1) If the being in question, by persistence in their activity, will create hellish bad karma for themselves and is better off for their own sake stopped, (2) the being in question is bringing in much pain into the lives that would be less if he or she were not doing this (the karma is not coming from alternate pathways after he or she is gone or at least not as intensely), (3) the Bodhisattva/Dakini has no personal issue or negative feeling about this person, and (4) the method of control or killing must be through a mantra (not ordinary weopons).
The issue is resolved beyond appearances, too, because the Mule is allowed to live and rule (thus preventing another from taking his place and continuing to do more harm). The energy of the situation is shifted for the better and the Mule eventually fades from history. There was a Sufi master who attended Genghis Khan who may have been an inspiration for this story. This master saved several cities and villages from destruction by advising Genghis Khan to spare them (contrary to his "scorched earth" policy). This story and others is found in an excellent book called THE MASTERS OF WISDOM by John Bennett in a chapter called "1,000 Years of Love" where a one thousand year slice of hidden history is shared. One of the stories in this chapter has to do with a massive war between two big factions was going to happen the next morning. Had this war played out, a great many deaths would have happened for a long time. A Sufi master with two of his most advanced students, came to the center of the battlefield in the morning, much to the surprise of the two warring factions. They concentrated and the once sunny day was filled with massive dark clouds with intense thunderheads. Soon a powerful storm with intense thunder and lightning raged across the battlefield. The two armies fled in terror from the battlefield and never resumed their fighting.
Not all battles and problems can be stopped. Some are called "merited karma" in Buddhism or what I like to call "karma locks". This is where the accumulation of forces is so strong that the karma must manifest and play out. No intervention can stop it after a certain point in the process. When this happens, sometimes Sufis are taking certain people out of the villages that are going to be affected, hiding them in safe places until the karma wind blows over, and then having these people reseed their cultures so that they can grow on course again. They favor poets, philosophers, scientists, artists, herbalists, advanced farmers, and skilled crafts people. These people carry a special energy for their societies, infusing it with the "yeast" that allows the culture to flourish.
Besides books, there are some Science Fiction movies and TV series that are spiritually inspired. One of them was called THE TOMORROW PEOPLE. Although essentially a children's sci fi show, the plot line is interesting in that a small group of humans have awakened to the next evolution and are developing various psychic powers as a result. They can sense when some human is making the shift and starting to become one of them. They rush to meet such ripes individuals and to initiate them. Another group wants to stop the awakening process and to prevent humankind from evolving through these individuals. Once again, the theme of an adverse force trying to block this process, and a group who feels it is important that the ripe individual become telepathically linked with the others. The initiation one of them gives a ripe individual is very beautiful. "Imagine your mind is like a fist and now OPEN THE FIST". When the ripe person does this, the other being infuses the person with baraka, a telepathic flooding of knowledge, energy, and connectedness to the Mahasangha.
I could present several decodings of various sci fi stories, plots, TV shows, and books, but I think the above examples are sufficient to get a basic idea. I will add one more that the Starship Enterprise is a metaphor for the human body, with Kirk being the instinctive center, Scotty being the moving center, Spock being the intellectual center, and Bones being the emotional center. These are the four major centers in the early inner work, with a higher functioning of the intellectual, emotional, and sex centers possible after these basic centers are developed to a certain point.
There is also the work of Doris Lessing, especially in her books, MEMOIRS OF SURVIVOR, THE FOUR GATED CITY, and SHIKASTA. She is a Sufi student and wrote these books after studying Sufi parables. The first book is her most condensed writing about the transformation process. The second one is about 600 pages long and is describes the transformation process of Martha Quest (the last name having an obvious symbolism). The character awakens to telepathy through dreams. The last book is about the fall to lesser consciousness that happened at one time and how it complicated the healing and evolution of this planet.
The Sufis trace their lineage back to the "Dog Star" (Sirius) and the beings who inhabited that solar system. They have always had an understanding that spirituality and human evolution are related. Sufism is considered the living vital essence of real spirituality. It is "the yeast that leavens the whole bread" that Jesus spoke of. Like yeast, it is an active ingredient that produces real change. Without yeast, the bread cannot rise. Sufism has never been about any kind of belief system and merely becoming a believer or merely joining a specific religion like one joins a club. It is about opening up to "yeast" and letting its action transform the whole loaf. From this view, any religion is part of Sufism if it has "yeast" and to the degree that it has "yeast". When a religion does not transform and evolve human beings, then it is not part of Sufism anymore. Sometimes religions which carried the "yeast" but do not anymore are called "shells". This term is from how certain sea creatures make a sea shell around them, occasionally leave it behind, and make another shell around themselves. An empty shell is evidence that there was once something alive inside the shell, but it is no longer there.
There are four characteristics of a Sufi:
(1) Universal truth. A Sufi follows truth where ever he or she finds it. If there is truth in Christianity, then the Sufi will follow this truth. If there is truth in Judaism, then the Sufi will follow this truth. If there is truth in Islam, the Sufi will follow this truth. Whatever truth any religion teaches, a Sufi will acknowledge it and follow it. The Sufi tends to ignore the dogma, the cultural accumulations, and time bound religious elements that are obsolete in terms of growing humans further and deeper.
(2) Time, place, and need. A Sufi does not teach any predigested formula of truth. He or she sees that for different people of different times, locations, and cultures, what is needed to grow them will differ. Like a school where people pass from one grade to another, with some remedial lessons, and some special lessons for special interests, each person is taught from where they are so that they can move to the next step on their evolutionary journey. The lessons can be very different from each other. Chess can be used to teach symbolic logic, concentration, visualization, and sequencing steps of a plan over time. Then poetry can be used to teach the use of metaphor, sound, meter, rhyme, and emotional awareness. Then Hatha Yoga, Tai Chi, and martial arts can develop the neural network of the human body so that the higher moving center is activated and educated. The lessons can "feed the pre-existing strength of a person" or they can "develop neglected sides" depending on the path of least resistance to the most growth that is possible for the being.
(3) Telepathic connection to the Light Beings. A Sufi lives in love to serve the evolution, healing, and peace of whatever world they walk upon. They eventually realize that being a "lone ranger" is not enough. There needs to be some plan to heal the world and some group whose members can coordinate with each other, to build upon the efforts of each other, and make sure that the good intentions of each individual do not run cross purposes with the good intentions of other world servers. A Sufi links with the Light Beings. These are sentient beings who have gone before us and who have evolved to a very high level. This group has been called by different names by different religions. They are the Mahasangha of Buddhism, the Communion of Saints in Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, the Taoist Immortals, and the Hindu Avatars. These Light Beings operate within a living consensus of understanding about how the world is best served. They create a plan for the healing of this world, though the plan is updated as unexpected events happen. It is not a rigid plan set in concrete from the beginning of time, but a plan that is lovingly and intelligently adjusted as new factors emerge. These new factors can present new obstacles to the plan or can present new supports to the plan. There are some "intellectual Sufis" who have an understanding of the Sufi path, but who had not yet reached telepathic maturity and linked to the Mahasangha. They are, strictly speaking, not yet Sufis, but are candidates on the probationary path.
(4) The transmission of Baraka. In many advanced spiritual paths, there is some kind of initiation where an evolutionary energy is transfered from teacher to student. This transmission can be through a formal initiation into spiritual sect or it can be an informal initiation with no obvious rituals or props. The key element is whether or not a living transmission is given which quickens something inside the student who then feels a shift in his or her consciousness. Sometimes the energy is vital enough so that tingling sensations are run through the whole body. Sometimes a person will feel the radiance of unconditional love from the heart or the third eye will glow. If the person "nourishes the seed" then this baraka can carry them all the way through the entire evolutionary process. Jesus initiates his disciples to this level in the Gospel according to Saint John, chapter 20, verses 21 to 23, where Jesus says "peace be with you" to his disciples, and then breathes upon them "the holy breath" and communicates to the disciples the power to "forgive sin" (aka emotionally heal). This kind of breathing initiation is still done by certain Sufi masters to this very day. In scientific terms, this kind of breathing is "charged with energy". Sometimes this transmission is also done by "laying on of hands". The Buddha initiated his disciples by meditating in silence with them until they realized "anatta" (no self). He also initiated them through mantra, like when he chanted the Heart Sutra and called down the force of Avalochiteshvara, the Cosmic Bodhisattva (aka Archangel) of Compassion.
One way of understanding Sufism is through using an acrostic of its letters:
Science
Understanding
Faith
Intuition
Science in its purest form is knowledge that is intellectually grasped, logically structured, empirically verifiable, tested, and reliable. If we study nature through scientific means, both individually and collectively, then we will come to an understanding of life on Earth, evolution, and human potential. As we practice what we understand, then we will have faith in a reliable and living truth. This faith evolves into an intuitive and direct knowing about the nature of existence.
Sufism is not a theological system, but it has created many theological systems in order to fulfill the time, place, and need of different human tribes. The words used to express the living understanding changes according to time, place, and need. Since the earliest times, where the Sirian teachers transmitted the vital force to Shamans, who then passed on the living knowledge to future generations, there have been Sufi lineages. This is not merely memorized intellectual teachings, but the evolutionary force of baraka. When a shaman evolves himself or herself to a certain point, then they are able to transmit baraka to others. Sometimes a person will be "initiated by nature" like the Sufi Master Farid, though usually a person will have had at least some intellectual exposure to Sufi ideas before this happens. Since Sufi ideas are coded into most the sacred texts of most of the religions on this planet, almost everyone has some exposure to them. It may take, however, a "Sufi decoder ring" to extract the living knowledge from the dogmatic, cultural, and conditioned elements of a religion.
There is a phrase that goes, "Sufism begins where culture leaves off". What this means is that every human culture is designed to evolve a person up to a certain point. We are meant to grow into the highest person our respective cultures can create and then access the Sufi transmission to evolve from there.
Sufism is not a religion, though almost every religion has some Sufis within them. The Sufism, in serving a world during times where there are invasions and persecutions, divides itself into three groups. The first group will join the religion of the invader and work from within this religion. The second group will become a rebell force and oppose the orthodox religion. The third group will go completely underground and carry on the scientific methods that nourish the evolutionary force that have been handed down from teacher to student since the Sirians came here and taught them.
There have been two basic kinds of Sufi pure groups. These are "preservers" and "transmitters". The first keeps the knowledge of individual transformation alive for the sake of humankind. The second releases parts of this knowledge that people of a given time, place, and culture need in order to heal, grow, and flourish. For a long time, the Sarmoun community held this knowledge. Their symbol has been the bee and the beehive. They would collect the "nectar" of the teachings of every genuinely inspired spiritual and scientific teacher that has ever appeared in humankind and then bring it back to their hive. There hive was near Pemir in the Afghanistan Himalayas. It has since been abandoned, after having been there for thousands of years, when the Russian tanks ran across this area. Since then their hive has been a mobile location and has been the source and inspiration for the formation of other repositories. Teachers from the Sarmoun community have come and taught many people. Padmasambhava was said to have been taught in Surmang in a region called Oddiyana. Surmang is Sarmoun pronounced with the usual Tibetan guttaralization of the "n" sound. This means that Abhisheka and Baraka have the same science behind them.
Many of Esoteric Spiritual Lodges in Europe were inspired by the Sufi lineages of Baraka. There is a way of historically tracing the Sufi influence through history through all cultures. This historical analysis is hard to fully document, because it takes some direct familiarity with the force of baraka and the cloaks it takes through history in order to sort out the meaning of the events where Sufism is spreading itself through. One must be able to "separate the wheat from the chaff" or the shells from the living essence. Both can use very similar words, the shells will make the same words into dogma and help people stay stuck where they are. The Sufi transmission will generally keep changing the kinds of words, metaphors, and descriptors it uses, because the goal is not a dogmatic mind who wants intellectual certainty and the basis to condemn all rival opinions, but a liberated telepathic awakened mind which can feel the miracle of being alive in an endlessly changing universe that is always evolving itself even further. Many things that were Sufism at one time, end up even turning into its opposite. Like sea shells, something else sometimes starts to live in the empty shells the original creatures left behind in their growth. Sometimes, too, a shell is allowed to operate and is able to adequately represent some of the early methods and stages of the growth process. These shell groups are sometimes visited by Sufis in an effort to find those who are taking the information in the right way and who possibly can be initiated directly into the Sufi current. Many of the sects that have the name "Sufism" are really shells that have some real knowledge being handed down. If a person unlocks this knowledge, then he or she might attract or seek a teacher who can carry him or her further in evolutionary growth. The science of the Sufis can be summarized in "what actually works" to evolve people further. The methods are rapid enough so that a single scientific method, rightly applied, should produce significant evolutionary change in three years of "meditation" for at least 45 minutes per a day. The results may vary depending on how the student receives and uses the knowledge. There is a certain kind of humility, sensitivity, and commitment that allows one to attune to baraka and let it grow the person. A certain kind of selfishness, defensiveness, and arrogance makes a person unteachable except through the painful karmas that attract lessons in humility to him or her. Even these lessons will not work until a person has learned to "forgive".
The word "conspiracy" literally means "to breathe together" and originally refered to the living saints who used a pranayama meditation to evolve themselves. They are the original and positive loving conspiracy that is committed to healing this planet. They do not operate through brute force, violence, or intimidation. They do not call attention to themselves unless such attention serves some evolutionary necessity. They reveal themselves to others of their kind through a kind of code that is called "twilight language" which is the language of dreamtime and metaphor. It is through this twilight language that they could continue to evolve themselves and others without being picked up by the radar of orthodox religions bent on persecuting the "black sheep" of humankind (the ones that did not fit in and merely conform to whatever dogma and society they were in). Alchemy, the conversion of base metal to gold, was one such metaphorical system which had its main purpose to evolve a base ordinary human being (lead) into a radiant being (gold). Astrology was another. These metaphorical sciences had as their secondary intention the transmutation of actual lead into gold or forming birth charts to read the destiny of individuals.
During this time, transmitters are more important than preservers. This is because humanity is at an evolutionary junction. It is a kind of "sink or swim" growth point. Much knowledge is being released to assist humanity during this evolutionary phase. The harmonic convergence in 1987 was a Galactic Center to Sirius to Sol to Earth transmission and initiation. It awakened a wave of collective growth patterns that are are linking and harmonizing humans into "light colonies" that wish to appear on this planet. This wave will complete itself around 2012 with enough "critical mass" being generated to eventually shift humankind as a whole to a new level of functioning. The galactic time table that is part of a higher astrology was encoded into the Mayan calendar and the Buddhist Kalachakra teachings. Although some variation exists among scholars of the actual dates involved. The shift day is approximately December 23rd, 2010, with the next significant year being 2024, and then a 500 year process that will enter with world peace established in 2524. Another 500 years of evolution "under dharma" where all humans collectively aligned with the evolutionary process will complete this process. There is no real end point to this evolution, but the main markers are the emergence of Homo Telepathicus and then Homo Holographicus (light beings in light bodies). These dates are approximate and the prophecies around the events general and variable. No disasters have to mark this evolutionary process, though it is unlikely that humans will avoid all the possible disasters and dangers the will appear to challenge this evolutionary process. My advice is to take the adverse prophecies as warnings of possible and potential harm, with varying probabilities of happening depending on what humankind is doing with its present moment, and keep focused on the vision of hope that will eventually manifest after this evolutionary phase is over.
One of the interesting branches of Sufism has been what I call the "Science Fiction Circle". Several Sufi groups are encoding the higher knowledge into modern society. Some Sufis are creating children's stories with the knowledge encoded into metaphor, allegory, and parable (Snow White and the Seven Ego Types, Humpty Dumpty and the Wall of Indecision, Sleeping Dreaming Beauty and the Activating Animus Prince, Little Red Karma Attracting Riding Hood and the Victim, Perpetrator, and Rescuer Triangle, etc.) and shipping these books off to various libraries in various countries. Still others are taking Sufi ideas and letting them be verified by Universities and scientific studies so that various scientists, teachers, and students start thinking of humans as only a midpoint, rather than an endpoint of an evolutionary process. Some of these University groups show their connection to Sufism in an obvious way, by adapting some logo with Sufi symbolic elements included within them (Out of respect for the level of privacy that these groups want, I am not going to name any of the symbols that are being used or to name the groups using them, but if you are reading carefully, you can already spot at least one of the groups from what has already been said). As mentioned before, one third of the Sufic activity is out in the open and is sometimes called the "Open Secret".
The Science Fiction Circle is a group of Sufis who are creating a 21st century mythology that serves the function of the older mythologies of previous initiatory religions. A myth is a fictional story that serves as parable, allegory, and metaphor for energetic and psychological processes that are necessary phases of our future evolutionary unfoldment. There are several books worth reading in this context. SLAN by VanVogt is about the emergence of Homo Telepathicus. In one passage in the book, some scientists are studying the development of an ape child, a human child, and a slan child. The ape child actually develops more rapidly and quickly than the human child. This is because this animal is more hard wired instinctively and very quickly accesses the ancestral knowledge encoded in the DNA. But the ape child is eventually outstripped by the human child when the human child learns language, speech, eye/hand coordination, and hearing. The human child then learns from the human cultural transmission and goes way beyond the ape child. The slan child, originally the slowest of the three, eventually outstrips the other two when it develops telepathy and is able to directly feel wisdom as light pulses transmitted from mind to mind. In this small passage from the book is a series of metaphors that I found useful to orient our possible future processes. VanVogt himself was a genius who was able to learn rapidly. He endorsed General Semantics as a kind of mind training and had something called a "cortical thalamic pause" as a basic kind of rapid meditation method. In the book SLAN, as the story unfolds, there are found to be two kinds of slan, ones with tendrils and ones without tendrils, and even a third slan that is also tendril-less. The tendril-less slan are those who lost their telepathic abilities and simply ended up being smarter humans. The second tendril-less slan, like the tendrilled slan, kept their telepathic abilities, but adapted their outer form so that regular humans could not detect them by their tendrils. Two other books of his talk about applying General Semantics as a kind of meditation process and they are THE WORLD OF NULL-A and THE PLAYERS OF NULL-A. The main character Gilbert GoSeyn (go sane) is a metaphor for a learning process.
Another author Roger Zelazny encodes a lot of metaphors from the Qabalah and other esoteric sources into his story and later on book called THE DREAM MASTER. This is the most concise of his stories and the most densely packed with information. The Amber series goes into how to use a Tarot Deck as a meditation to develop telepathy, but the information is hidden within a story with a lot of sword dueling. The court cards are links to the Mahasangha and could be arranged to form a mandala similar to the Five Dhyani Buddha Mandala. The ten trumps are the elements and seasons, and also describe a 10 stage developmental process. The major arcana is an initiation temple with the Moon card describing evolution.
LORD VALENTINE'S CASTLE by Robert Silverberg is, to me, a hidden manual on how to develop telepathy. It seems to have information encoded about the author's own learning process. If his book DYING INSIDE is autobiographical, he seems to have had some trouble in its early stages. But when he gets some teachings and training on how to develop this side of humankind, then he is able to write about a prince who lets messages from dreamtime guide him to an island where he can be trained further. The messages a dim and symbolic at first, and it only slowly dawns that there is an element inside the dreams that is not merely subjective imagination and wish fulfillment, and then to trust this element to guide him. The book itself has many paragraphs of the landscape of the world where the events are happening. The descriptions, if read a certain way, require the reader to do a lot of visualization which helps them eventually lucid dream and develop telepathy.
It is interesting that both VanVogt and Silverberg use the story device of having the hero find himself in another body. In the case of GoSeyn, he is aware of the brain reactions of the previous body owner and learns to reprogram the brain with the mind. In the case of Prince Valentine, he has the extra handicap of having forgotten who he is, having been placed under a spell of amnesia. Homo Telepathicus does have the experience of past lifetimes in other bodies and needing to remember, in stages, the deeper identity. The idea that we are princes and princesses is a good metaphor for the nobility of our potential evolutionary state and of our deeper present identity.
THE MIND PARASITES by Colin Wilson is a story about some humans that are waking up to Homo Telepathicus, but encounter the "mind parasites", which are psychological states like depression, a kind of sleep walking, and where we muddle through, being drained of emotional energy that we need to grow ourselves further. There is a kind of active intelligence which seems to interfere with our evolution. One tradition calls this force "the dweller on threshold", since we only meet this resisting force when we try to consciously evolve. Many advanced traditions talk about this force, sometimes as Mara, Iblis, or Satan, sometimes as "the death urge", sometimes as "our personal law", sometimes as "Chief Feature", or as, in this book, "the mind parasites". It is ultimately something alien to our true nature which has infected us and which can be released. But because it has an active intelligence, it will try to reclaim us. This book goes into how to combat this force and become free of it. Every advanced tradition has a name for it, or many names for it. They also describe a process of overcoming it, moving through a space sometimes called "Chapel Perilous", "the Bardo", "the Halls of Amenti", and "Purgatorio". During this time, there is a process of purification or "kenosis" (a Christian mystical Greek term for "emptying the self of self"). The key to freedom is to "die before you die" (Sufi), "to die and yet not to perish" (Taoist), or to "realize no self" (Buddhist).
Another book, THE FOUNDATION TRILOGY by Asimov, is interesting in regard to the spiritual future history of this world. It does not seem to be written by the Sufi Science Fiction circle, but it seems to be inspired by the Sufi emanation, the morphogenetic field of evolutionary spiritual wisdom that is permeating the planet. It seems that many sensitive authors can tap into this field and draw inspiration. What I like about the book is that the group called "the Psychohistorians" form a "second foundation". The first foundation is ordinary science and scientific knowledge. The second foundation is a higher kind of psychological knowledge. The Psychohistorians are all telepathic and have developed mental powers to a great extent, including the ability to temporarily control the minds of ordinary Homo Sapiens. This second foundation is guiding the evolution of the first foundation. They are able to predict various probable futures and influence humankind at various critical junctures in its time journey. There is someone called "the Mule" who is an evolutionary mutant and causes humanity to move down an unpredicted time juncture to an unknown future. This Mule is also telepathic and very powerful. He is able to make humans do his bidding very easily and make them imagine that they have always been his devoted followers. He describes looking into the minds of humans and seeing all kinds of dials and dialing them to make changes in their consciousness in order for them to be loyal and devoted to him. He rapidly overcomes many forces fighting for their freedom. The Psychohistorians do not seem to do much to stop him. But eventually one of them does mental battle with him and beats him. The Psychohistorian imprints the thought for the Mule to stop conquering everyone, to retire, and leave evolution alone.
This scene in the book is interesting, because it shows how the Sufis tend to interact with ordinary political power. It shows that sometimes mutants gain power that belongs to a higher evolution and coopt it to serve a lower evolutionary state and ambition. The Psychohistorians balance the situation with a minimum intervention in history. They do not use external weopons, but the higher powers that their evolution has given them. They respect the free choice of all sentient beings and do not "mind control" unless absolutely necessary, with the least number of people, and for as short a period as possible. In this case, only one person who was the focus of the whole alternate event time line. This conforms to the four conditions that a Bodhisattva/Dakini (world server) must conform to in order to use power to kill or control someone. (1) If the being in question, by persistence in their activity, will create hellish bad karma for themselves and is better off for their own sake stopped, (2) the being in question is bringing in much pain into the lives that would be less if he or she were not doing this (the karma is not coming from alternate pathways after he or she is gone or at least not as intensely), (3) the Bodhisattva/Dakini has no personal issue or negative feeling about this person, and (4) the method of control or killing must be through a mantra (not ordinary weopons).
The issue is resolved beyond appearances, too, because the Mule is allowed to live and rule (thus preventing another from taking his place and continuing to do more harm). The energy of the situation is shifted for the better and the Mule eventually fades from history. There was a Sufi master who attended Genghis Khan who may have been an inspiration for this story. This master saved several cities and villages from destruction by advising Genghis Khan to spare them (contrary to his "scorched earth" policy). This story and others is found in an excellent book called THE MASTERS OF WISDOM by John Bennett in a chapter called "1,000 Years of Love" where a one thousand year slice of hidden history is shared. One of the stories in this chapter has to do with a massive war between two big factions was going to happen the next morning. Had this war played out, a great many deaths would have happened for a long time. A Sufi master with two of his most advanced students, came to the center of the battlefield in the morning, much to the surprise of the two warring factions. They concentrated and the once sunny day was filled with massive dark clouds with intense thunderheads. Soon a powerful storm with intense thunder and lightning raged across the battlefield. The two armies fled in terror from the battlefield and never resumed their fighting.
Not all battles and problems can be stopped. Some are called "merited karma" in Buddhism or what I like to call "karma locks". This is where the accumulation of forces is so strong that the karma must manifest and play out. No intervention can stop it after a certain point in the process. When this happens, sometimes Sufis are taking certain people out of the villages that are going to be affected, hiding them in safe places until the karma wind blows over, and then having these people reseed their cultures so that they can grow on course again. They favor poets, philosophers, scientists, artists, herbalists, advanced farmers, and skilled crafts people. These people carry a special energy for their societies, infusing it with the "yeast" that allows the culture to flourish.
Besides books, there are some Science Fiction movies and TV series that are spiritually inspired. One of them was called THE TOMORROW PEOPLE. Although essentially a children's sci fi show, the plot line is interesting in that a small group of humans have awakened to the next evolution and are developing various psychic powers as a result. They can sense when some human is making the shift and starting to become one of them. They rush to meet such ripes individuals and to initiate them. Another group wants to stop the awakening process and to prevent humankind from evolving through these individuals. Once again, the theme of an adverse force trying to block this process, and a group who feels it is important that the ripe individual become telepathically linked with the others. The initiation one of them gives a ripe individual is very beautiful. "Imagine your mind is like a fist and now OPEN THE FIST". When the ripe person does this, the other being infuses the person with baraka, a telepathic flooding of knowledge, energy, and connectedness to the Mahasangha.
I could present several decodings of various sci fi stories, plots, TV shows, and books, but I think the above examples are sufficient to get a basic idea. I will add one more that the Starship Enterprise is a metaphor for the human body, with Kirk being the instinctive center, Scotty being the moving center, Spock being the intellectual center, and Bones being the emotional center. These are the four major centers in the early inner work, with a higher functioning of the intellectual, emotional, and sex centers possible after these basic centers are developed to a certain point.
There is also the work of Doris Lessing, especially in her books, MEMOIRS OF SURVIVOR, THE FOUR GATED CITY, and SHIKASTA. She is a Sufi student and wrote these books after studying Sufi parables. The first book is her most condensed writing about the transformation process. The second one is about 600 pages long and is describes the transformation process of Martha Quest (the last name having an obvious symbolism). The character awakens to telepathy through dreams. The last book is about the fall to lesser consciousness that happened at one time and how it complicated the healing and evolution of this planet.
Friday, April 16, 2010
E=Mc2
In a book called NINE CHAINS TO THE MOON, Buckminister Fuller wrote an interesting chapter about "E=Mc2". He asked and answered the question, "What does this equation mean to the average person on the street?". The equation is a tight communication much like a Zen koan for awakening our consciousness to a deeper and more profound level of truth. This truth does affect how we "chop wood and carry water" (or nowadays, "work our job and pay our bills"). When Isaac Newton shared his understanding of physics, it was condensed into F=MA (force equals mass times acceleration). Through this our understanding of the interaction of forces, of cause and effect, deepened tremendously. In a sense, it was part of the law of karma. The three laws of motion being, (1) for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction (aka balancing karma), (2) an object at rest tends to stay at rest, an object in motion tends to stay in motion (the law of inertia [aka habit force or vashana] with an amendment that the sublaw of friction eventually slows down a moving object and brings it to rest), and (3) objects attract each other in proportion to their distance from each other and their mass (the law of gravity aka how the samskaras attract their karmaic fulfillment). Isaac Newton was a student of the teachings of Jacob Boehme and seems to have mathematized the first three of the seven cosmic principles behind what Jacob Boehme had received in a mystical spiritual vision.
I found that there is a revolution in physics, first from Aristotle to Newton, and then from Newton to Einstein. The shift is parallel first to how Buddha created a more dynamic psychological model of the self compared to classical Hindu psychology. The second shift is parallel to the advent of the Mahayana Buddhist revolution, where the Theravadin teaching of "no self" is extended to include the nonsolidity of all material objects. F=MA does not become invalid in this shift, but is revised to become F=MvA (force equal mass with respect to velocity times acceleration). I did find it interesting that the Buddhist teaching of no self was understood by one of my college teachers who had a doctorate in Physics and Philosophy (with a Masters in Engineering). It seems that the mental discipline required to fully understand certain physics principles is similar to the mental discipline required to fully understand "anatta" (no self) and later on "sunyata" (emptiness). I remember the look of delight as he understood what was taught by the Buddha when I was explaining it. I remember him saying, "So the premise of having a self is not necessary to explain experience!"
When I contemplated the equation that Einstein left, that "energy equals mass times the speed of light squared". I found I had to reverse engineer it back to what it meant in nonmathematical terms. The main point is the matter and energy are interconvertable and essentially the same (aka "form is emptiness, and emptiness is no other than form" aka the Heart Sutra). What is interesting is that the speed of light or light itself is the constant in the equation. When I contemplated deeper, I came to the conclusion that "multiplication equals interpenetration" (which is a theme developed in the Lotus Sutra in the teaching of the 10 worlds). I also came to the understanding that "the speed of light squared" is light interpenetrating light or awareness aware of itself. When this awareness aware of itself is interpenetrating the body and sensory experience (form) and through this penetration feeling everything as a manifestation of energy (emptiness). The body is already energy and will be felt this way when awareness squared interpenetrates it.
As an exercise to feel this, see if you can first be aware that you are aware. Notice anything and then notice that you are noticing it. Feel this state. It will take time to be able to sustain this for even five minutes. It will sometimes collapse into being lost in thought (awareness of phenomena, not awareness squared aka experience equals awareness times matter). Then see if you can be aware that you are aware and also be aware of all the sensations in your body (energy). If you can sustain this for one hour, it is a lot of energy. But if we are honest with ourselves, we will see that we often collapse into "awareness times matter" (aka identification with phenomena).
This is a little technical. It translates what E=Mc2 means by assuming awareness=light=speed of light=c in this equation and assumes that c2=awareness aware of itself and resting in itself (aka rigpa). This awareness squared is then focused on the matter/body and converts it to a light body. There is an intermediate level in this process aka conversion where an energy body is felt within the physical body and all the meridians are opening up, feeling warm currents of energy moving within. This would be the beginnings of the matter body shifting into a light body. The key is that it already is that (when c2 aka awareness aware of itself and interpenetrates the body). Mc2 is already E.
I found that there is a revolution in physics, first from Aristotle to Newton, and then from Newton to Einstein. The shift is parallel first to how Buddha created a more dynamic psychological model of the self compared to classical Hindu psychology. The second shift is parallel to the advent of the Mahayana Buddhist revolution, where the Theravadin teaching of "no self" is extended to include the nonsolidity of all material objects. F=MA does not become invalid in this shift, but is revised to become F=MvA (force equal mass with respect to velocity times acceleration). I did find it interesting that the Buddhist teaching of no self was understood by one of my college teachers who had a doctorate in Physics and Philosophy (with a Masters in Engineering). It seems that the mental discipline required to fully understand certain physics principles is similar to the mental discipline required to fully understand "anatta" (no self) and later on "sunyata" (emptiness). I remember the look of delight as he understood what was taught by the Buddha when I was explaining it. I remember him saying, "So the premise of having a self is not necessary to explain experience!"
When I contemplated the equation that Einstein left, that "energy equals mass times the speed of light squared". I found I had to reverse engineer it back to what it meant in nonmathematical terms. The main point is the matter and energy are interconvertable and essentially the same (aka "form is emptiness, and emptiness is no other than form" aka the Heart Sutra). What is interesting is that the speed of light or light itself is the constant in the equation. When I contemplated deeper, I came to the conclusion that "multiplication equals interpenetration" (which is a theme developed in the Lotus Sutra in the teaching of the 10 worlds). I also came to the understanding that "the speed of light squared" is light interpenetrating light or awareness aware of itself. When this awareness aware of itself is interpenetrating the body and sensory experience (form) and through this penetration feeling everything as a manifestation of energy (emptiness). The body is already energy and will be felt this way when awareness squared interpenetrates it.
As an exercise to feel this, see if you can first be aware that you are aware. Notice anything and then notice that you are noticing it. Feel this state. It will take time to be able to sustain this for even five minutes. It will sometimes collapse into being lost in thought (awareness of phenomena, not awareness squared aka experience equals awareness times matter). Then see if you can be aware that you are aware and also be aware of all the sensations in your body (energy). If you can sustain this for one hour, it is a lot of energy. But if we are honest with ourselves, we will see that we often collapse into "awareness times matter" (aka identification with phenomena).
This is a little technical. It translates what E=Mc2 means by assuming awareness=light=speed of light=c in this equation and assumes that c2=awareness aware of itself and resting in itself (aka rigpa). This awareness squared is then focused on the matter/body and converts it to a light body. There is an intermediate level in this process aka conversion where an energy body is felt within the physical body and all the meridians are opening up, feeling warm currents of energy moving within. This would be the beginnings of the matter body shifting into a light body. The key is that it already is that (when c2 aka awareness aware of itself and interpenetrates the body). Mc2 is already E.
Monday, April 12, 2010
A Parable
A starship descends upon an ancient human landscape. The humans of this time period have newly emerged from the primates. They mainly live near the giant seas and dwell in caves created by the cooled volcanoes of the previous geological era. They have already begun their rapid cortical growth through voice, hand, hearing, touch, and eye coordination. They have already tamed the energy of fire to some extent and are able to place fire in chambers for cooking food, warming themselves, and to keep predator animals away. They have developed many kinds of simple tools for various purposes. They use a crude form of painting to record events symbolically. Their vocabularies have a few thousand words. They have organized into tribes with usually a male leader to the tribe, though sometimes there are female leaders. There is a gender division of labor based on the need to reproduce as many humans as possible. The expected lifespan is about 40 years, though there are some who have lived to about 90 years, and a few rare beings have already lived beyond 300 years. There are no accurate birth records yet among them to record the exact birth, longevity, aging factors, and death rates yet. There word for generation presupposes that a person has lived about 40 years. A person is called a sage if they live about 70 to 120 years old. A person is called a "long traveler" if he or she lives beyond 150 and is called an "ancient of days" if he or she lives beyond 300 years. This last category of longevity is considered so long by their generational standards that it is considered "beyond death". It is like infinity to modern humans, since most of the human civilizations at this time rarely have numbers going beyond 100 and have to make up phrases like "10 generations" to extend their counts beyond this. There is a weak idea of death by natural causes and death by accidents, disease, wounding, and predators. Diseases are mysterious afflictions to them. The sudden appearance of rashes on the skin followed by death are attributed to invisible demons. Since so many of them die by visible predators, invisible predators seem logical to them and are sometimes called "wind creatures", since even the idea of invisibility is hard for them to grasp, and the wind is considered the most invisible thing they can comprehend as existing, though some use the words "space" and "sky" already to describe more subtle levels of existence. They are already discovering the medicinal use of herbs, but have yet to classify them in a systematic way.
The beings who come down from the sky in starships are from the Sirian star system. They are the watchers of the progress of the "seed" that they planted on Earth. It was a genetic boost to the primate genetic code. It has to do with dissolving histones to activate latent portions of the genetic code which hold abilities that humans will do in the future. As each histone dissolves, through the use of sound currents, the body activates new abilities that the individual human must develop to a certain point for the next histone layer to open up. When all the histones have dissolved, then the physical body becomes a light body. It is programmed into the genetic code to undergo this evoluton.
One of the Sirians is accidentally wounded by a predator and saved by a human. This person is a shaman and healer who nurses the Sirian back to full health. The Sirian quickly masters the entire vocubulary of the human tribe. The shaman and the Sirian have many conversations. The shaman memorizes as much as he can to pass on to future generations of his tribe. The female sage of the tribe visits the Sirian often and memorizes the uses of herbs. The Sirian describes how every plant has an aura that can be felt and that often you can know which plant is healing by placing your hand in the air surrounding the plant and sensing how it feels. The atmosphere or aura around plants and humans gives a clue to the healing relationships that can form. The human aura of a sick person will brighten merely by the subtle sound that the plant emanates in the aura field and extends a few feet away from the body. The herbs are classified by the elements of earth, fire, air, and water. The roots are earth, the fruit is air and sometimes water, flowers and leaves are air, and water circulates through the whole plant and carries the medicine out of the plant and into the human. The Sirian says that later on that plants and parts of plants will be more deeply classified in turns of a musical tone scale called an octave with 7 steps, 5 half steps, and two shock points where some sound note vibration outside the progression, different for each circumstance, must be introduced to keep the flow going, usually a conscious inhale, and sometimes a holding a breath while looking at the brightness of the sky. The Sirian says he can barely describe these things now. There is not enough basis for this next stage of understanding. But he wants to point to this possibility because it is inside the seed. Knowledge is structured in the living library of the genetic code. The Sirian says that this same knowledge is inside every animal species. Some of the animals are more in touch with this knowledge instinctively, because they do not have the burden of all their life force energy moving into cortical evolution. So he advises the humans of this time period to study the animals and learn their ways. They have an understanding of the uses of the many herbs. Many of the herbs of the humans will later have the names of animals associated with them because of what this Sirian said to them then.
The Sirian then said that the evolution of this world is programmed "into the seed", that at certain a times, a sound would come from the stars, during alignments of star bodies with the galactic center, channeled through many intermediate star bodies of many kinds, including meteors or rocks coming to Earth with new elements and compounds. These things would have subtle sounds to them that would stimulate resonance with various parts of the genetic code. Some would dissolve histones and further mutate humans along their evolutionary path. Some would temporarily light up parts of the code so that certain specific things could be understood and transmitted to others. Some of these sound currents could be embedded in material objects and emanate as a subtle radiance. Other code activations could be downloaded from human to human and merely conducted to a code activated human simply through touch or an eye to eye concentration, or through chanting a mantra.
The Sirian described a living universe with millions of worlds. The Sirian had to make up new numbers, very large numbers, to communicate these things. Even thinking about such numbers stretched the brains of the humans in this tribe. They could feel new genetic potentials stimulated to awakening just by the sharing of these "Sirian memories". The story of the Sirian, the star brother, had a reminding factor that helped their evolution. These stories would later on be written down and passed on through sutras and texts. Those who carried the activations of codes would be called tertons.
The Sirian said that, from time to time, members of his tribe would come to help. If the evolutonary process ever moved too far off course, one of them or more of them would come to teach the humans, to guide them back on the path of balanced evolutionary growth, as best they could. They said that this help would always be withdrawn, too, when the gift was delivered and its right use was taught. The evolution needed to be open ended and self directed to a certain extent, because free choice and intentionality was what was being grown. Again, these terms were hard to comprehend for the early humans, so many metaphors were given instead. Some of the metaphors lost the original sense of the early communication and some did not.
The Sirian said that the evolutionary growth of humans was going to be vast, that some day humans would even travel the sky in giant metal birds and roll across the landscape in fast moving metal turtles with wheels instead of legs. Many of these things would happen when each force of nature was understood and harnessed. Many of the things he described would happen when lightning could be put into bottles and drawn out when needed. Other changes would happen when everything was seen to be composed on tiny particles and these tiny particles were seen to build everything that is seen, including the air, and that only about 200 particles would be needed to build everything by combining in different ways. There were ways these particles could be broken down and build up again to make "powders" which could then be used for every manner of purpose, some healing, and some could be made into food to drive the metal bird that would travel across the sky.
The Sirian then taught the humans to build a calendar that would mark celestial events, showed them time cycles when certain celestial alignments would take place. He showed how certain infusions of sound, sung by the sun, would wake up the code inside them. When the song of the galaxy was sung to the Sirian star and then the song was sung again to the Sun to reach the Earth, then another infusion would awaken the new potentials of the code that were meant to awaken at that time. It was an evolutionary signal that would stimulate a change in consciousness. It would take some time for the song to be memorized and lived by the affected humans. This sound was the "evolutionary call" that would be heard by those humans who had rightly used and integrated the learning of the previous phase of growth. The rest would stay at the previous stage until they had completed their growth. It was important to use all the gifts that were given to be ready for the next gift. Failure to do this usually attracted adverse karmas that would force the gifts to be used in self defense. It would be wiser to embrace and live the gifts that were given to follow the evolutionary call.
The shaman was overwhelmed by this vision of the future and of the potential of humans to evolve to such wonderful beings. The Sirian showed the shaman where his metal bird had crashed to the ground when it was hurt. He said to the shaman that he was going soon, returning to the stars. A larger metal bird, shining in the sky, came down to pick him up. The shaman said, "How can we compare to the wonders that you have shown." The Sirian said, "Just as the entire tree is inside a single seed, so too are all the wonders inside you. Have faith in your selves. We are your future." And then he left.
The beings who come down from the sky in starships are from the Sirian star system. They are the watchers of the progress of the "seed" that they planted on Earth. It was a genetic boost to the primate genetic code. It has to do with dissolving histones to activate latent portions of the genetic code which hold abilities that humans will do in the future. As each histone dissolves, through the use of sound currents, the body activates new abilities that the individual human must develop to a certain point for the next histone layer to open up. When all the histones have dissolved, then the physical body becomes a light body. It is programmed into the genetic code to undergo this evoluton.
One of the Sirians is accidentally wounded by a predator and saved by a human. This person is a shaman and healer who nurses the Sirian back to full health. The Sirian quickly masters the entire vocubulary of the human tribe. The shaman and the Sirian have many conversations. The shaman memorizes as much as he can to pass on to future generations of his tribe. The female sage of the tribe visits the Sirian often and memorizes the uses of herbs. The Sirian describes how every plant has an aura that can be felt and that often you can know which plant is healing by placing your hand in the air surrounding the plant and sensing how it feels. The atmosphere or aura around plants and humans gives a clue to the healing relationships that can form. The human aura of a sick person will brighten merely by the subtle sound that the plant emanates in the aura field and extends a few feet away from the body. The herbs are classified by the elements of earth, fire, air, and water. The roots are earth, the fruit is air and sometimes water, flowers and leaves are air, and water circulates through the whole plant and carries the medicine out of the plant and into the human. The Sirian says that later on that plants and parts of plants will be more deeply classified in turns of a musical tone scale called an octave with 7 steps, 5 half steps, and two shock points where some sound note vibration outside the progression, different for each circumstance, must be introduced to keep the flow going, usually a conscious inhale, and sometimes a holding a breath while looking at the brightness of the sky. The Sirian says he can barely describe these things now. There is not enough basis for this next stage of understanding. But he wants to point to this possibility because it is inside the seed. Knowledge is structured in the living library of the genetic code. The Sirian says that this same knowledge is inside every animal species. Some of the animals are more in touch with this knowledge instinctively, because they do not have the burden of all their life force energy moving into cortical evolution. So he advises the humans of this time period to study the animals and learn their ways. They have an understanding of the uses of the many herbs. Many of the herbs of the humans will later have the names of animals associated with them because of what this Sirian said to them then.
The Sirian then said that the evolution of this world is programmed "into the seed", that at certain a times, a sound would come from the stars, during alignments of star bodies with the galactic center, channeled through many intermediate star bodies of many kinds, including meteors or rocks coming to Earth with new elements and compounds. These things would have subtle sounds to them that would stimulate resonance with various parts of the genetic code. Some would dissolve histones and further mutate humans along their evolutionary path. Some would temporarily light up parts of the code so that certain specific things could be understood and transmitted to others. Some of these sound currents could be embedded in material objects and emanate as a subtle radiance. Other code activations could be downloaded from human to human and merely conducted to a code activated human simply through touch or an eye to eye concentration, or through chanting a mantra.
The Sirian described a living universe with millions of worlds. The Sirian had to make up new numbers, very large numbers, to communicate these things. Even thinking about such numbers stretched the brains of the humans in this tribe. They could feel new genetic potentials stimulated to awakening just by the sharing of these "Sirian memories". The story of the Sirian, the star brother, had a reminding factor that helped their evolution. These stories would later on be written down and passed on through sutras and texts. Those who carried the activations of codes would be called tertons.
The Sirian said that, from time to time, members of his tribe would come to help. If the evolutonary process ever moved too far off course, one of them or more of them would come to teach the humans, to guide them back on the path of balanced evolutionary growth, as best they could. They said that this help would always be withdrawn, too, when the gift was delivered and its right use was taught. The evolution needed to be open ended and self directed to a certain extent, because free choice and intentionality was what was being grown. Again, these terms were hard to comprehend for the early humans, so many metaphors were given instead. Some of the metaphors lost the original sense of the early communication and some did not.
The Sirian said that the evolutionary growth of humans was going to be vast, that some day humans would even travel the sky in giant metal birds and roll across the landscape in fast moving metal turtles with wheels instead of legs. Many of these things would happen when each force of nature was understood and harnessed. Many of the things he described would happen when lightning could be put into bottles and drawn out when needed. Other changes would happen when everything was seen to be composed on tiny particles and these tiny particles were seen to build everything that is seen, including the air, and that only about 200 particles would be needed to build everything by combining in different ways. There were ways these particles could be broken down and build up again to make "powders" which could then be used for every manner of purpose, some healing, and some could be made into food to drive the metal bird that would travel across the sky.
The Sirian then taught the humans to build a calendar that would mark celestial events, showed them time cycles when certain celestial alignments would take place. He showed how certain infusions of sound, sung by the sun, would wake up the code inside them. When the song of the galaxy was sung to the Sirian star and then the song was sung again to the Sun to reach the Earth, then another infusion would awaken the new potentials of the code that were meant to awaken at that time. It was an evolutionary signal that would stimulate a change in consciousness. It would take some time for the song to be memorized and lived by the affected humans. This sound was the "evolutionary call" that would be heard by those humans who had rightly used and integrated the learning of the previous phase of growth. The rest would stay at the previous stage until they had completed their growth. It was important to use all the gifts that were given to be ready for the next gift. Failure to do this usually attracted adverse karmas that would force the gifts to be used in self defense. It would be wiser to embrace and live the gifts that were given to follow the evolutionary call.
The shaman was overwhelmed by this vision of the future and of the potential of humans to evolve to such wonderful beings. The Sirian showed the shaman where his metal bird had crashed to the ground when it was hurt. He said to the shaman that he was going soon, returning to the stars. A larger metal bird, shining in the sky, came down to pick him up. The shaman said, "How can we compare to the wonders that you have shown." The Sirian said, "Just as the entire tree is inside a single seed, so too are all the wonders inside you. Have faith in your selves. We are your future." And then he left.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Sufi Vibrational Scale
I wanted to share a framework that helps to understand more about the relativity of time, space, and being. This framework is present in the Fourth Way and in the teachings of some Sufi orders. The framework has been revised and simplified by one of my teachers whose name is Etabah. What is interesting is that I found his revised version fits the ten world teaching that the Bodhisattva scholar Tendai derived from the Lotus Sutra.
The framework is based on the following number series: 1, 3, 6, 12, 24, 48, 96, 192, 384, and 768. The numbers keep doubling from 3. If you assume that the distance between the Sun and Mercury is one unit of length, then all the planets fall into approximately the corresponding distances from the Sun, if you assume that the asteroid belt was a plant at one time. The numbers represent orders of fundamental laws which govern one vibrational level. There is the world of pure unity where there is only one law which influences everything. This one law may be called love, wisdom, creativity, beauty, harmony, awareness, joy, or freedom. The word does not really matter, since pure unity cannot be really expressed in dualistic parts which are playing off of each other or opposing each other even mildly. Language itself starts to break down in describing this unity. But it can name that it exists. The Madhyamika Buddhist philosophers asserted this unity through showing the logical fallacy of any sense of separation and by showing that unity is presupposed in how everything arises interdependently upon everything else. They even negated the word "unity" since its usual meaning carries a tension with the word "duality". The unity behind what was realized behind what was realized is beyond even this tension.
The next level below this vibration of the world of unity is where there are 3 laws. Gurdjieff called them the active, the passive, and reconciling forces. In terms of chemistry, he talked about the active as Oxygen, the passive as Nitrogen, and the reconciling as Carbon, and a generic element as Hydrogen. In Hinduism, there are three gunas that correspond to these forces. Some people have assumed that the Christian Trinity also has correspondence, with the Holy Spirit being the reconciling force (the law of grace), Christ being the active element (active choice), and the Father being the passive or resistant element (the law of karma).
The next level below has 6 laws and relates to how samskaras and karma create the manifest universe. The New Age teaching of "your thoughts create your reality" operates on this level.
The next level below has 12 laws and relates to how everything is vibration. Sound healing, overtone chanting, and bija mantras operate on this level. Sound has geometry and form. String theory in Quantum physics has to do with this level.
The next level below has 24 laws and relates to the division between the conscious and subconscious mind as we know it now. This is the level where psychotherapy and hypnotherapy is useful. Each individual has his or her own process. We can support this process by empathetic listening, radical acceptance, and trusting innate goodness to evolve a person from within.
The next level below has 48 laws and relates to human artistic and scientific culture. It represents finding fulfillment through being a householder, raising a family, having a profession, having a spiritual purpose, doing daily meditation, and being a good citizen.
The next level below has 96 laws and relates to biological animal evolution and humans as biological beings. This is the level of the genetic code and the mitochondria driving celluler evolution and manifesting individual bodies to further its own evolutionary agenda. This is sexual energy as a biological and evolutionary force.
The next level below has 192 laws and according to Etabah it is the first of the unnecessary worlds. The sorrow of this level is not necessary for humans to experience and it was not really designed into the cosmos. This is the world of addictions and compulsive habits. This is where some emotional process is being avoided by a habitual pattern and a chemical indulgence that blunts the sensitivity so that the emotion cannot be fully felt and moved through.
The next level below has 384 laws and is the world of deep unfulfilled longings and dysfunctional family systems. The law of a dysfunctional family is "do not tell, do not feel, and do not even acknowledge". There is a focus on manipulation, lying, seduction, and possessing, focusing on changing, keeping, and holding others so that one does not feel abandoned.
The next level below has 768 laws and is the world of self destruction, deep anger, and constant struggle. There is a battle going on.
Our energy field can have different percentages of each vibrational level vibrating within us. Each thought that we think has a vibrational level and links us to one of these worlds. Every world has its own time and unfoldment. Etabah shared that each world is in logarithmic relationship to the worlds higher and lower to itself. For instance, if some growth process takes 1,000,000 years in world 96, then it will take 10,000,000 years in world 192, and 100,000,000 years in world 384, and 1,000,000,000 in world 768. Correspondingly, devoting yourself to human culture and mastering any art to a certain level will allow the growth to happen in 100,000 years. If you commit to psychotherapy and hypnotherapy, involve yourself in self help and methods of psychological growth, then the growth will take 10,000 years. If you get an energy initiation, like abhisheka in Tibetan Buddhism or a Reiki attunement, and do chanting, get acupunture, run energy through your etheric body, do energy breathing, and open up to all the emotional content flowing through the body, then the same growth will take 1,000 years. If you realize that, without any exception, that your entire life is a manifestation of your conscious and subconscious thoughts, learn to gently correct your thoughts, and release outmoded beliefs, then the same growth will take 100 years. If you link with higher sources of wisdom, telepathically commune with higher beings, allow their wisdom to flow through you and purify your mind, and let feeling understanding emerge from this communion, then the same growth can take place in 10 years. If you remain in rigpa, without identifying with anything other than the one energy of all life, never falling to any lesser state, then the same growth can take place in 1 year.
Etabah shared that the best level to focus on is world 12, because it is more within reach of our understanding and that 1,000 years of lifetimes and growth is a relatively short path. The initiation into this kind of work starts when we feel the kundalini energy flow through us and wish to surrender to its ascending current. Gurdjieff called this "the solar octave". The lunar octave is the energy of creation and manifestation. The lunar octave is about energy flowing down the vibrational scale from the world of unity. The solar octave is about energy flowing up the vibrational scale back to the world of unity. The Taoist phrase, "The path of return is the way forward" symbolizes the two octaves and points to the one that is relevant to our growth.
Because the worlds 192, 384, and 768 are the unnecessary worlds of an artificial ego, they are meant to be dissolved completely. It means learning to completely release our toxic addictions, our dysfunctional patterns of relating, and our self destructive moods. When these artificial worlds are released, then the remaining seven worlds correspond to the seven chakras in the human body. The sex center corresponds to world 96 and drives biological evolution.
Many verbal confusions can be sorted out by assuming that every word has a different meaning in each of the worlds. For instance, sex-96 is pure innocent biological lust which motivates animals to procreate and perpetuate their species. Sex-192 is sex merely for pleasure and for emotional repression. It is pornographic and nonrelational. Sex-384 is a dysfunctional bonding which has jealousy, possessiveness, and control as its issues. Sex-768 is sex with sadism and masochism involved. Normal courtship, romance, and family formation is sex-48. When a couple can share with each other and process emotional issues with each other, with compassionate acceptance, active empathic listening, and genuine care for the other, and a willingness to look at and release ego patterns, then they function as process partners in world 24. When a couple can feel kundalini energy arising between them and surrender to its ascending current, then this is sex-12. When the energy starts releasing samskaras in the subconscious mind, and there is a certain kind of attention and presence to notice the thoughts which are arising to be released, and there is a unity of purpose consciously created by common thought intent, then sex-6 has emerged. When it feels like the couple is always together, always in telepathic communion, and field merged, then sex-3 has emerged. When the bodies of the two dissolve into light, the sex-1 has emerged.
The path of celibacy, renouncing sex, is about purifying sex-192, sex-384, and sex-768 from the energy field. It also renounces sex-96 in the sense of shifting from the lunar octave to the solar octave. Every word can have a different vibrational meaning depending on what level it was formed on. For instance, remorse-24 is purifying and healing, whereas remorse-384 (guilt) holds one in a dysfunctional pattern. Many of the conflicting views about what a word means can be resolved through application of this vibrational scale. One can assume that each person is right depending on which world the word is spoken from and about.
The vibrational scale matches the Ten Worlds teaching of Tendai (which he derived from the Lotus Sutra and which Shingon Buddism and Nicherin Buddhism took on). World 768 is the demon or hell realm. World 384 is the hungry ghost realm. World 192 is the animal realm (compulsive habits, insensitivity, and chemical addictions). World 96 is the asura realm of animal (predator) humans. World 48 is the realm of human culture and is the human realm proper. World 24 is the deva realm where humans have accomplished survival and are working on their purpose. World 12 is the saint realm of beings who are purifying themselves. World 6 are the meditators and geniuses. World 3 are the bodhisattvas and dakinis. World 1 is the dharmakaya realm of the Buddhas. There are some differences between the vibrational scale and the worlds teaching. Buddhism has sometimes placed the asura realm above the human realm, because the human predator types seem able to exploit ordinary humans through conquest and intimidation. Shingon Buddhism places them below the human realm, because they are parasitic and do not have their own culture. They steal from human culture. Humans-48 just want to live, love, work, and be creative.
Each human tends to have three vibrational frequencies that they primarily inhabit. One is the highest possibility that they can reach and easily comprehend through present centered intention. One is their normal state where the highest percentage of their thoughts vibrate within. One is the vibration they fall to when their trauma circuit is activated. Every world, however, is accessible to all beings through thought, intention, and surrender. Gurdjieff defined several evolutionary types by this threefold classification. Persons number one, two, and three are on the same level with one being physically focused, two being emotionally focused, and three being mentally focused. Person number four is harmonizing the physical, emotional, and mental through the introduction of consciousness. Person number five is resting in consciousness, but still has a subtle feeling of duality. Person number six has surrendered into cosmic unity. Person number seven has surrendered into nirvanic unity (the formless level before any manifest cosmos).
The vibrational numbers workout for these evolutionary types in this manner: #7=1,3,6, #6=3,6,12, #5=6,12,24, #4=12,24,48, #3,2,1=24,48,96. Gurdjieff also mentioned the hasnamous, lunatic, and tramp are types that will not be attracted to the evolutionary process. They would have t=48,96,192, l=96,192,384, and h=192,384,768. The hasnamous would be a sociopath, predator, or asura. Lunatics are wrapped up in some crazy dysfunction that makes emotional processing very complex, time consuming, and slow (hungry ghost). A tramp is a person who indulges in an addiction at the expense of being a responsible social person. When we have one vibrational world in common, then we are more able to understand a person. In the system of correspondences, the asura hasnamous has the basic world 96, but does not have a personal frequency match. This is what Gurdjieff would call a "lawful inexactitude". Humans are meant to have human social culture. When a human falls back to being a "natural human" is never really natural. There is a rare exception when a human is raised by animals in nature. They tend to socialize when found by humans-48. The animal realm really functions at world 96, but Tibetan Buddhism has used animals to symbolize compulsive emotional states that are vibrational level 192. The tramp can rise to responsibility. They know what it is and it is their highest possibility within reach. It takes some commitment and concentration for them to do this. The lunatic has his or her naturalness distorted and twisted, usually by some trauma and/or long term deprivation of a basic human need in childhood. Their highest possibility is to become a natural biological human again and then become socialized on this basis. The asura can be very clever, but it is the cortex being driven by the lower brain which are locked into predator and survival mode, but targeting other humans instead of other animal species (except for dinner). If you felt their thoughts, though, you would feel something that felt hostile, insane, and impersonal. It feels very alien to the human world. When an asura dies, they will likely be reborn in a lesser world filled with much pain and sorrow. You can already see this world like a shadow in their aura, as if they are already living in that world in their dreams and thoughts, and will by cosmic law manifest it in their next life. It is like their foothold in world 96 is tenuous, due to some good karma that will exhaust itself unless they commit to a compassionate life path and generate more good karma.
There are many ways of working with this vibrational scale. One is to notice where the thoughts are that one is dwelling on. The dharma teachings of any higher religion come from higher worlds. It is why sutras and scriptures are considered inspired by the divine. Most of the teachings of the world religions, though, are a little impure. If you tested the thoughts in most sutras, there are some thoughts that fall below the frequency of the total message. It is up to future generations to question these thoughts and adjust them. Some of these thoughts were concessions to the dogmas that mind locked previous generations of humans. Jesus said that they were due to "hardness of heart" and that the totality of laws that those humans could agree on would soften the heart enough for compassion to expand further than before, in other lifetimes. For instance, the Old Testament seems more complacent about slavery. Most humans are still complacent about hunting, killing, and eating animals when it is, from a higher standpoint, savage and unnecessary for good health.
Higher vibrational thoughts are not merely positive thoughts. They are a higher view of everything that is happening. It is realistic about suffering and the need to heal suffering. Every thought derives meaning from the world or vibrational level that it emerges from. When we immerse ourselves in higher thoughts, we always feel better, even if we are undergoing some intense life challenges. For instance, when someone hurts us, we can feel that life is unfair (v192,384,768) and be angry, or we can assume it is old karma coming to end and be grateful (v12,24). Or we can assume that we created the whole event through our thoughts (v6). Each will be a shift in how we experience the event and life itself.
There are different levels of time associated with each world. Time-192 is driven by the feeling of have to have it and frustration. Time-384 feels like a murky heaviness infused with not feeling fulfilled and feeling that nothing can satisfy us. Time-768 feels like tension, annoyance, and pain. Time-96 has an evolutionary feeling, but feels impersonal, like its timescale is too big for any one lifetime. Time-48 has a feeling of "the way of all Earth", of going through social rituals. Time-24 has a feeling of emotional process. Time-12 has a feeling of energy flow. Time-6 feels like you can insert things into the time stream and experience them. Time-6 also has the feeling you can be above it and travel back and forth across it. Time-3 feels like a time of ever unfolding wisdom. Time-1 feels like one vast eternal now.
The framework is based on the following number series: 1, 3, 6, 12, 24, 48, 96, 192, 384, and 768. The numbers keep doubling from 3. If you assume that the distance between the Sun and Mercury is one unit of length, then all the planets fall into approximately the corresponding distances from the Sun, if you assume that the asteroid belt was a plant at one time. The numbers represent orders of fundamental laws which govern one vibrational level. There is the world of pure unity where there is only one law which influences everything. This one law may be called love, wisdom, creativity, beauty, harmony, awareness, joy, or freedom. The word does not really matter, since pure unity cannot be really expressed in dualistic parts which are playing off of each other or opposing each other even mildly. Language itself starts to break down in describing this unity. But it can name that it exists. The Madhyamika Buddhist philosophers asserted this unity through showing the logical fallacy of any sense of separation and by showing that unity is presupposed in how everything arises interdependently upon everything else. They even negated the word "unity" since its usual meaning carries a tension with the word "duality". The unity behind what was realized behind what was realized is beyond even this tension.
The next level below this vibration of the world of unity is where there are 3 laws. Gurdjieff called them the active, the passive, and reconciling forces. In terms of chemistry, he talked about the active as Oxygen, the passive as Nitrogen, and the reconciling as Carbon, and a generic element as Hydrogen. In Hinduism, there are three gunas that correspond to these forces. Some people have assumed that the Christian Trinity also has correspondence, with the Holy Spirit being the reconciling force (the law of grace), Christ being the active element (active choice), and the Father being the passive or resistant element (the law of karma).
The next level below has 6 laws and relates to how samskaras and karma create the manifest universe. The New Age teaching of "your thoughts create your reality" operates on this level.
The next level below has 12 laws and relates to how everything is vibration. Sound healing, overtone chanting, and bija mantras operate on this level. Sound has geometry and form. String theory in Quantum physics has to do with this level.
The next level below has 24 laws and relates to the division between the conscious and subconscious mind as we know it now. This is the level where psychotherapy and hypnotherapy is useful. Each individual has his or her own process. We can support this process by empathetic listening, radical acceptance, and trusting innate goodness to evolve a person from within.
The next level below has 48 laws and relates to human artistic and scientific culture. It represents finding fulfillment through being a householder, raising a family, having a profession, having a spiritual purpose, doing daily meditation, and being a good citizen.
The next level below has 96 laws and relates to biological animal evolution and humans as biological beings. This is the level of the genetic code and the mitochondria driving celluler evolution and manifesting individual bodies to further its own evolutionary agenda. This is sexual energy as a biological and evolutionary force.
The next level below has 192 laws and according to Etabah it is the first of the unnecessary worlds. The sorrow of this level is not necessary for humans to experience and it was not really designed into the cosmos. This is the world of addictions and compulsive habits. This is where some emotional process is being avoided by a habitual pattern and a chemical indulgence that blunts the sensitivity so that the emotion cannot be fully felt and moved through.
The next level below has 384 laws and is the world of deep unfulfilled longings and dysfunctional family systems. The law of a dysfunctional family is "do not tell, do not feel, and do not even acknowledge". There is a focus on manipulation, lying, seduction, and possessing, focusing on changing, keeping, and holding others so that one does not feel abandoned.
The next level below has 768 laws and is the world of self destruction, deep anger, and constant struggle. There is a battle going on.
Our energy field can have different percentages of each vibrational level vibrating within us. Each thought that we think has a vibrational level and links us to one of these worlds. Every world has its own time and unfoldment. Etabah shared that each world is in logarithmic relationship to the worlds higher and lower to itself. For instance, if some growth process takes 1,000,000 years in world 96, then it will take 10,000,000 years in world 192, and 100,000,000 years in world 384, and 1,000,000,000 in world 768. Correspondingly, devoting yourself to human culture and mastering any art to a certain level will allow the growth to happen in 100,000 years. If you commit to psychotherapy and hypnotherapy, involve yourself in self help and methods of psychological growth, then the growth will take 10,000 years. If you get an energy initiation, like abhisheka in Tibetan Buddhism or a Reiki attunement, and do chanting, get acupunture, run energy through your etheric body, do energy breathing, and open up to all the emotional content flowing through the body, then the same growth will take 1,000 years. If you realize that, without any exception, that your entire life is a manifestation of your conscious and subconscious thoughts, learn to gently correct your thoughts, and release outmoded beliefs, then the same growth will take 100 years. If you link with higher sources of wisdom, telepathically commune with higher beings, allow their wisdom to flow through you and purify your mind, and let feeling understanding emerge from this communion, then the same growth can take place in 10 years. If you remain in rigpa, without identifying with anything other than the one energy of all life, never falling to any lesser state, then the same growth can take place in 1 year.
Etabah shared that the best level to focus on is world 12, because it is more within reach of our understanding and that 1,000 years of lifetimes and growth is a relatively short path. The initiation into this kind of work starts when we feel the kundalini energy flow through us and wish to surrender to its ascending current. Gurdjieff called this "the solar octave". The lunar octave is the energy of creation and manifestation. The lunar octave is about energy flowing down the vibrational scale from the world of unity. The solar octave is about energy flowing up the vibrational scale back to the world of unity. The Taoist phrase, "The path of return is the way forward" symbolizes the two octaves and points to the one that is relevant to our growth.
Because the worlds 192, 384, and 768 are the unnecessary worlds of an artificial ego, they are meant to be dissolved completely. It means learning to completely release our toxic addictions, our dysfunctional patterns of relating, and our self destructive moods. When these artificial worlds are released, then the remaining seven worlds correspond to the seven chakras in the human body. The sex center corresponds to world 96 and drives biological evolution.
Many verbal confusions can be sorted out by assuming that every word has a different meaning in each of the worlds. For instance, sex-96 is pure innocent biological lust which motivates animals to procreate and perpetuate their species. Sex-192 is sex merely for pleasure and for emotional repression. It is pornographic and nonrelational. Sex-384 is a dysfunctional bonding which has jealousy, possessiveness, and control as its issues. Sex-768 is sex with sadism and masochism involved. Normal courtship, romance, and family formation is sex-48. When a couple can share with each other and process emotional issues with each other, with compassionate acceptance, active empathic listening, and genuine care for the other, and a willingness to look at and release ego patterns, then they function as process partners in world 24. When a couple can feel kundalini energy arising between them and surrender to its ascending current, then this is sex-12. When the energy starts releasing samskaras in the subconscious mind, and there is a certain kind of attention and presence to notice the thoughts which are arising to be released, and there is a unity of purpose consciously created by common thought intent, then sex-6 has emerged. When it feels like the couple is always together, always in telepathic communion, and field merged, then sex-3 has emerged. When the bodies of the two dissolve into light, the sex-1 has emerged.
The path of celibacy, renouncing sex, is about purifying sex-192, sex-384, and sex-768 from the energy field. It also renounces sex-96 in the sense of shifting from the lunar octave to the solar octave. Every word can have a different vibrational meaning depending on what level it was formed on. For instance, remorse-24 is purifying and healing, whereas remorse-384 (guilt) holds one in a dysfunctional pattern. Many of the conflicting views about what a word means can be resolved through application of this vibrational scale. One can assume that each person is right depending on which world the word is spoken from and about.
The vibrational scale matches the Ten Worlds teaching of Tendai (which he derived from the Lotus Sutra and which Shingon Buddism and Nicherin Buddhism took on). World 768 is the demon or hell realm. World 384 is the hungry ghost realm. World 192 is the animal realm (compulsive habits, insensitivity, and chemical addictions). World 96 is the asura realm of animal (predator) humans. World 48 is the realm of human culture and is the human realm proper. World 24 is the deva realm where humans have accomplished survival and are working on their purpose. World 12 is the saint realm of beings who are purifying themselves. World 6 are the meditators and geniuses. World 3 are the bodhisattvas and dakinis. World 1 is the dharmakaya realm of the Buddhas. There are some differences between the vibrational scale and the worlds teaching. Buddhism has sometimes placed the asura realm above the human realm, because the human predator types seem able to exploit ordinary humans through conquest and intimidation. Shingon Buddhism places them below the human realm, because they are parasitic and do not have their own culture. They steal from human culture. Humans-48 just want to live, love, work, and be creative.
Each human tends to have three vibrational frequencies that they primarily inhabit. One is the highest possibility that they can reach and easily comprehend through present centered intention. One is their normal state where the highest percentage of their thoughts vibrate within. One is the vibration they fall to when their trauma circuit is activated. Every world, however, is accessible to all beings through thought, intention, and surrender. Gurdjieff defined several evolutionary types by this threefold classification. Persons number one, two, and three are on the same level with one being physically focused, two being emotionally focused, and three being mentally focused. Person number four is harmonizing the physical, emotional, and mental through the introduction of consciousness. Person number five is resting in consciousness, but still has a subtle feeling of duality. Person number six has surrendered into cosmic unity. Person number seven has surrendered into nirvanic unity (the formless level before any manifest cosmos).
The vibrational numbers workout for these evolutionary types in this manner: #7=1,3,6, #6=3,6,12, #5=6,12,24, #4=12,24,48, #3,2,1=24,48,96. Gurdjieff also mentioned the hasnamous, lunatic, and tramp are types that will not be attracted to the evolutionary process. They would have t=48,96,192, l=96,192,384, and h=192,384,768. The hasnamous would be a sociopath, predator, or asura. Lunatics are wrapped up in some crazy dysfunction that makes emotional processing very complex, time consuming, and slow (hungry ghost). A tramp is a person who indulges in an addiction at the expense of being a responsible social person. When we have one vibrational world in common, then we are more able to understand a person. In the system of correspondences, the asura hasnamous has the basic world 96, but does not have a personal frequency match. This is what Gurdjieff would call a "lawful inexactitude". Humans are meant to have human social culture. When a human falls back to being a "natural human" is never really natural. There is a rare exception when a human is raised by animals in nature. They tend to socialize when found by humans-48. The animal realm really functions at world 96, but Tibetan Buddhism has used animals to symbolize compulsive emotional states that are vibrational level 192. The tramp can rise to responsibility. They know what it is and it is their highest possibility within reach. It takes some commitment and concentration for them to do this. The lunatic has his or her naturalness distorted and twisted, usually by some trauma and/or long term deprivation of a basic human need in childhood. Their highest possibility is to become a natural biological human again and then become socialized on this basis. The asura can be very clever, but it is the cortex being driven by the lower brain which are locked into predator and survival mode, but targeting other humans instead of other animal species (except for dinner). If you felt their thoughts, though, you would feel something that felt hostile, insane, and impersonal. It feels very alien to the human world. When an asura dies, they will likely be reborn in a lesser world filled with much pain and sorrow. You can already see this world like a shadow in their aura, as if they are already living in that world in their dreams and thoughts, and will by cosmic law manifest it in their next life. It is like their foothold in world 96 is tenuous, due to some good karma that will exhaust itself unless they commit to a compassionate life path and generate more good karma.
There are many ways of working with this vibrational scale. One is to notice where the thoughts are that one is dwelling on. The dharma teachings of any higher religion come from higher worlds. It is why sutras and scriptures are considered inspired by the divine. Most of the teachings of the world religions, though, are a little impure. If you tested the thoughts in most sutras, there are some thoughts that fall below the frequency of the total message. It is up to future generations to question these thoughts and adjust them. Some of these thoughts were concessions to the dogmas that mind locked previous generations of humans. Jesus said that they were due to "hardness of heart" and that the totality of laws that those humans could agree on would soften the heart enough for compassion to expand further than before, in other lifetimes. For instance, the Old Testament seems more complacent about slavery. Most humans are still complacent about hunting, killing, and eating animals when it is, from a higher standpoint, savage and unnecessary for good health.
Higher vibrational thoughts are not merely positive thoughts. They are a higher view of everything that is happening. It is realistic about suffering and the need to heal suffering. Every thought derives meaning from the world or vibrational level that it emerges from. When we immerse ourselves in higher thoughts, we always feel better, even if we are undergoing some intense life challenges. For instance, when someone hurts us, we can feel that life is unfair (v192,384,768) and be angry, or we can assume it is old karma coming to end and be grateful (v12,24). Or we can assume that we created the whole event through our thoughts (v6). Each will be a shift in how we experience the event and life itself.
There are different levels of time associated with each world. Time-192 is driven by the feeling of have to have it and frustration. Time-384 feels like a murky heaviness infused with not feeling fulfilled and feeling that nothing can satisfy us. Time-768 feels like tension, annoyance, and pain. Time-96 has an evolutionary feeling, but feels impersonal, like its timescale is too big for any one lifetime. Time-48 has a feeling of "the way of all Earth", of going through social rituals. Time-24 has a feeling of emotional process. Time-12 has a feeling of energy flow. Time-6 feels like you can insert things into the time stream and experience them. Time-6 also has the feeling you can be above it and travel back and forth across it. Time-3 feels like a time of ever unfolding wisdom. Time-1 feels like one vast eternal now.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
About Time
In the New Testament, there are some verses that actually have some curious time dynamics. My favorite is when Jesus talks about prayer, "Ask anything in my name (the consciousness of love, present tense), believe you have received it (past tense), and it shall be given to you (future tense)." The usual experience of the time flow is past to present to future, with the events of the past being causal forces in shaping all the futures that emerge. Yet when there is some awakening, then the present becomes the causal force, the past becomes the trail left behind our present activity, and the future is a reflection of our present intentions merging together within a dreamtime consensus (regulated and organized by universal law). To be alive in the present moment shifts our experience of time.
Einstein showed how the experience of time was relative to the observer of the flow of events and his or her own inertial frame of reference (the motion of the observer relative to what is observed and its own motion). Deeper than this, whether or not we are awake within our bodies, alive to the way sensations are pulsing through our sensory organs and neural networks, and even whether we are simply watching or participating within the arising events, determines how we are experiencing time. Many experience time as if watching a river from on top of mountain, while others experience the future as if lashed to the front of a train with events coming at them. In Buddhism, awareness of change, of events arising, abiding, changing, and dissolving, gives a certain feeling of time, and is integral to flowing in intuitive wisdom and being within meditation. Buddha wanted people to not get enmeshed in the cause and effect chains that bind us to the wheel of repetitive sorrow and yet he did want people to "enter the living stream" of meditation and flow within intuitive wisdom.
When I was being a security guard on the graveyard shift for two years and seven months, I had time to deeply study meditation. I read many books and then did very long stretches of meditation. I did need to keep my eyes open and be alert to my world. I had visualized a white light bubble surrounding the place that I was meant to guard and invoked protection. Curiously, nothing at all happened on my shift, whereas the other security guard would often report strange things happening. When it was time to leave this job, I unvisualized the bubble, like a spider taking its web with itself to its next location, and within two weeks strange things would happen on all the shifts. I was mainly studying the teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti and falling deeper into silence.
I remember writing in my journal a few notes from the deepest time period. I just wrote "nonclinging, nonresistance!" and then later on "nonclinging, nonresistance!!!". Meditation came back to not setting up resistance to the flow of phenomena. Inside it felt like everything was unfolding without pressure. There was no pressure resisting anything that was arising and no pressure holding on to anything that was dissolving. When my mind entered this space, a flow of images and feelings arose. There was a feeling of everything being meaningful and then passing away to allow for something else to arise. I called this space "the flowing space". The mind felt like it was simply healing itself, like a slow steady river flowing home to the ocean. The movement was natural, effortless, spontaneous, and simple. This movement, too, had "no self" or "self consciousness". There was no "I" referencing or interacting with the experience. I saw that the usual "I" that we invoke is a pattern of clinging and resistance to everything, defining itself energetically by what it pushed away and by what it resisted. This sense of self was a straining which is at the heart of all sorrow. It subtly freezes us in time, makes events more solid than usual, and visualizes the very walls that must be torn down to gain liberation. It reminded me of why the Buddha said, "Unless the teaching of no self is understood, there is no end to sorrow." This was the most subtle level where sorrow is maintained. The illusory and transitory self is the most subtle level where sorrow is held within our experience. When this mental construct is released, not held on to, seen to be composed of transitory thoughts, emotions, and sensations that are only connected by our identification with them, then a feeling of self dissolves, like a long fever fading in a cool mountain lake.
I think that in the maturing of our consciousness, we pass through an ego construction phase. Our brains needed to learn how to manipulate symbols, build tools, and extrapolate into the future what might happen. We needed to learn how to symbolize the interactions between self and other, get a sense of ourselves as personalities, and even try to improve them through refining our social skills and learning communication protocols. We tend to identify ourselves with our mental concept of who we think we are. We take in information about who we are from parents, teachers, strangers, and peers. We become a product of the endless reflections we absorb from life. We identify with some of these reflections and alienate other reflections. Later on we call those we agree with us friends and those who disagree with us enemies. Even later on, our process tends to become more complex, where we have reflections of our reflections, arguments between different sides of ourselves, and ambivolent responses to friends and enemies. At this point, we are may realize that we do not need to process more opinions and reflections, where ever they came from, but need to realize that we do not know who and what we are, and then directly look within with an innocent childlike curiousity. There is a need to let go of the need to "conceptualize self" at all. Terms like "We are Buddha Nature" and "one with God", become useless to this inquiry. They keep us stuck in thought, because even spiritual thought is still thought.
When Emperor Wu asks Bodhidharma, "What is the highest meaning of the holy truths?" Bodhidharma responds, "Empty, without holiness." Bodhdharma saw that Emperor Wu was attached to holiness and that it was still a mental idea. Even though Emperor Wu was doing tons of good works and mounting up much good karma for himself, there was a subtle trace of ego greed driving this process. Emperor Wu was shocked at the answer that Bodhidharma gave and said, "Then who is standing before me?" He wanted to know why he should listen to Bodhidharma if he was not some kind of holy man. There are many people on many spiritual paths who really do not always stay in a state of listening, but filter out who to listen to from who to not listen to based on a judgment of who is in front of them. Bodhidharma responds by saying, "I do not know." He says this for two reasons. One is that he literally does not know how Emperor Wu sees him. It is easy, when you reach telepathic maturity, to see what kind of thoughts a person is living by. Bodhidharma could see how Emperor Wu was wrapped into being holy. But it is more subtle to see how a person is seeing. People are usually in a constant state of identifying and alienating parts of their experience. It looks like a tension and a straining to one who is aware. It is hard to get too much about the subtle depths when there is a traffic of endless reactions and dramas going on inside.
Although this is the first koan in the Blue Cliff Record, a Zen meditation training manual, this koan, like almost all of them, are not really puzzles. Bodhidharma is simply pointing to our Bodhi mind, simply, honestly, and directly, apart from all the sutras of Buddhism. Bodhidharma, in his own deep process, also does not know who he is. The conceptual knowing, which is not real knowing, has fallen away, and there is no new concept to self symbolize what has happened. There is also no temptation to do this. This effort and drive to self symbolize, which has been driving human evolution, has ended. It is important to let go of the need to do this and just stay in the emptiness. This is a vulnerable state, because we are becoming very telepathic during this time. The thoughts of others have more impact than usual. All their projections of who they think we are do not have the shield of our dogmatic self concept to ward them off. We can retraumatized by their thoughts activating samskaras within us. We eventually learn to just let their own conceptual grasping and conceptual resistance not affect us. We do not know how anyone sees anything. Bodhidharma stays in this self agnosticism. Eventually a deeper self recognition dawns, within the pressureless space of meditation. It is awareness knowing itself, beyond the mediation of thought and symbolization. It cannot be forced by the mind. The conceptual thinking function has no place here. We can travel very far with the conceptual mind and by the conceptual mind, but it must bow to this higher process. It takes a very mature mind to do this. It must be a mind which is functioning high enough and well enough to feel its limit. When thought is transcended, we reach "no thought enlightenment", and then later on take back the body and mind, and use it more fully and freely than ever before. The thought function becomes a creative power within the expanse of awareness.
Bodhidharma is gently staying in his process. He uses few words. He gives Emperor Wu only seven words total, and then moves on. Emperor Wu is disturbed by Bodhidharma's words, but later on gets a glimmer of what Bodhidharma is saying and why. He tries to get Bodhidharma back so that he can talk to him more. But his minister advises him not to do this. The disturbance is the lesson. It is "confusing the confusion" so that it can be illuminated and transcended. More words do not help. The disturbance is the gate to enter into and sink into. It creates a mind gap to move into the silence through. Bodhidharma is staying in the serenely peaceful night before the arising of the Great Affirmation. He needs to not get entangled in the human world and yet he needs also to not resist it either. Whether Emperor Wu realizes it or not, he got Abhisheka, initiation, attunement, and empowerment.
Einstein showed how the experience of time was relative to the observer of the flow of events and his or her own inertial frame of reference (the motion of the observer relative to what is observed and its own motion). Deeper than this, whether or not we are awake within our bodies, alive to the way sensations are pulsing through our sensory organs and neural networks, and even whether we are simply watching or participating within the arising events, determines how we are experiencing time. Many experience time as if watching a river from on top of mountain, while others experience the future as if lashed to the front of a train with events coming at them. In Buddhism, awareness of change, of events arising, abiding, changing, and dissolving, gives a certain feeling of time, and is integral to flowing in intuitive wisdom and being within meditation. Buddha wanted people to not get enmeshed in the cause and effect chains that bind us to the wheel of repetitive sorrow and yet he did want people to "enter the living stream" of meditation and flow within intuitive wisdom.
When I was being a security guard on the graveyard shift for two years and seven months, I had time to deeply study meditation. I read many books and then did very long stretches of meditation. I did need to keep my eyes open and be alert to my world. I had visualized a white light bubble surrounding the place that I was meant to guard and invoked protection. Curiously, nothing at all happened on my shift, whereas the other security guard would often report strange things happening. When it was time to leave this job, I unvisualized the bubble, like a spider taking its web with itself to its next location, and within two weeks strange things would happen on all the shifts. I was mainly studying the teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti and falling deeper into silence.
I remember writing in my journal a few notes from the deepest time period. I just wrote "nonclinging, nonresistance!" and then later on "nonclinging, nonresistance!!!". Meditation came back to not setting up resistance to the flow of phenomena. Inside it felt like everything was unfolding without pressure. There was no pressure resisting anything that was arising and no pressure holding on to anything that was dissolving. When my mind entered this space, a flow of images and feelings arose. There was a feeling of everything being meaningful and then passing away to allow for something else to arise. I called this space "the flowing space". The mind felt like it was simply healing itself, like a slow steady river flowing home to the ocean. The movement was natural, effortless, spontaneous, and simple. This movement, too, had "no self" or "self consciousness". There was no "I" referencing or interacting with the experience. I saw that the usual "I" that we invoke is a pattern of clinging and resistance to everything, defining itself energetically by what it pushed away and by what it resisted. This sense of self was a straining which is at the heart of all sorrow. It subtly freezes us in time, makes events more solid than usual, and visualizes the very walls that must be torn down to gain liberation. It reminded me of why the Buddha said, "Unless the teaching of no self is understood, there is no end to sorrow." This was the most subtle level where sorrow is maintained. The illusory and transitory self is the most subtle level where sorrow is held within our experience. When this mental construct is released, not held on to, seen to be composed of transitory thoughts, emotions, and sensations that are only connected by our identification with them, then a feeling of self dissolves, like a long fever fading in a cool mountain lake.
I think that in the maturing of our consciousness, we pass through an ego construction phase. Our brains needed to learn how to manipulate symbols, build tools, and extrapolate into the future what might happen. We needed to learn how to symbolize the interactions between self and other, get a sense of ourselves as personalities, and even try to improve them through refining our social skills and learning communication protocols. We tend to identify ourselves with our mental concept of who we think we are. We take in information about who we are from parents, teachers, strangers, and peers. We become a product of the endless reflections we absorb from life. We identify with some of these reflections and alienate other reflections. Later on we call those we agree with us friends and those who disagree with us enemies. Even later on, our process tends to become more complex, where we have reflections of our reflections, arguments between different sides of ourselves, and ambivolent responses to friends and enemies. At this point, we are may realize that we do not need to process more opinions and reflections, where ever they came from, but need to realize that we do not know who and what we are, and then directly look within with an innocent childlike curiousity. There is a need to let go of the need to "conceptualize self" at all. Terms like "We are Buddha Nature" and "one with God", become useless to this inquiry. They keep us stuck in thought, because even spiritual thought is still thought.
When Emperor Wu asks Bodhidharma, "What is the highest meaning of the holy truths?" Bodhidharma responds, "Empty, without holiness." Bodhdharma saw that Emperor Wu was attached to holiness and that it was still a mental idea. Even though Emperor Wu was doing tons of good works and mounting up much good karma for himself, there was a subtle trace of ego greed driving this process. Emperor Wu was shocked at the answer that Bodhidharma gave and said, "Then who is standing before me?" He wanted to know why he should listen to Bodhidharma if he was not some kind of holy man. There are many people on many spiritual paths who really do not always stay in a state of listening, but filter out who to listen to from who to not listen to based on a judgment of who is in front of them. Bodhidharma responds by saying, "I do not know." He says this for two reasons. One is that he literally does not know how Emperor Wu sees him. It is easy, when you reach telepathic maturity, to see what kind of thoughts a person is living by. Bodhidharma could see how Emperor Wu was wrapped into being holy. But it is more subtle to see how a person is seeing. People are usually in a constant state of identifying and alienating parts of their experience. It looks like a tension and a straining to one who is aware. It is hard to get too much about the subtle depths when there is a traffic of endless reactions and dramas going on inside.
Although this is the first koan in the Blue Cliff Record, a Zen meditation training manual, this koan, like almost all of them, are not really puzzles. Bodhidharma is simply pointing to our Bodhi mind, simply, honestly, and directly, apart from all the sutras of Buddhism. Bodhidharma, in his own deep process, also does not know who he is. The conceptual knowing, which is not real knowing, has fallen away, and there is no new concept to self symbolize what has happened. There is also no temptation to do this. This effort and drive to self symbolize, which has been driving human evolution, has ended. It is important to let go of the need to do this and just stay in the emptiness. This is a vulnerable state, because we are becoming very telepathic during this time. The thoughts of others have more impact than usual. All their projections of who they think we are do not have the shield of our dogmatic self concept to ward them off. We can retraumatized by their thoughts activating samskaras within us. We eventually learn to just let their own conceptual grasping and conceptual resistance not affect us. We do not know how anyone sees anything. Bodhidharma stays in this self agnosticism. Eventually a deeper self recognition dawns, within the pressureless space of meditation. It is awareness knowing itself, beyond the mediation of thought and symbolization. It cannot be forced by the mind. The conceptual thinking function has no place here. We can travel very far with the conceptual mind and by the conceptual mind, but it must bow to this higher process. It takes a very mature mind to do this. It must be a mind which is functioning high enough and well enough to feel its limit. When thought is transcended, we reach "no thought enlightenment", and then later on take back the body and mind, and use it more fully and freely than ever before. The thought function becomes a creative power within the expanse of awareness.
Bodhidharma is gently staying in his process. He uses few words. He gives Emperor Wu only seven words total, and then moves on. Emperor Wu is disturbed by Bodhidharma's words, but later on gets a glimmer of what Bodhidharma is saying and why. He tries to get Bodhidharma back so that he can talk to him more. But his minister advises him not to do this. The disturbance is the lesson. It is "confusing the confusion" so that it can be illuminated and transcended. More words do not help. The disturbance is the gate to enter into and sink into. It creates a mind gap to move into the silence through. Bodhidharma is staying in the serenely peaceful night before the arising of the Great Affirmation. He needs to not get entangled in the human world and yet he needs also to not resist it either. Whether Emperor Wu realizes it or not, he got Abhisheka, initiation, attunement, and empowerment.
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