Samadhi

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..:: Samadhi ::..

By

Alan Schneider

I have been a student of every kind of psycho-spiritual activity for many years now – for most of my adult life, actually – and have also been a very avid student of science and technology, particularly regarding the fields of physics and perceptual psychology. Many people would not suppose that any type of distinct relationship existed between the last two subjects, but I can assure anyone that a deep and profound link does exist between the world we can measure, and the world we can experience. This story deals at least in part with the nature of that bond. (1)

During the year of 1997, I was very interested in the study of one esoteric tradition in particular and, interestingly enough (from the text of this document thus far) this tradition was not Hinduism, but Cabala, the great mystical tradition of the Jewish faith. By December of that year, I had focused my investigation on what many authorities regard as the core concept of Cabala – the Tetragrammaton, the four-lettered, secret and (so-called) inexpressible name of God. I say so-called because I have heard this Name spoken, and have been given the revelation of the secret meaning behind the four deceptively simple Hebrew letters from which it is composed. That revelation was and is the beginning of an incredible transcendental journey to the Truth which knows no illusion. (2)

The method by which I came upon my first reasonably complete discussion of the Name is significant unto itself. One of the phenomena that people who begin the journey back to true Self awareness frequently encounter along the way is the occult book store. These institutions (and the somewhat lighter-hewed New Age variants) generally have a large selection of very unusual and esoteric literature and artifacts which tend to have some bearing on the reawakening process, albeit from a wide variety of perspectives. I have had some association with a number of these facilities over the years, including one in the desert where I lived at the time of the experience I am recounting here (and still live at the time of this writing, a few years thereafter). On one occasion around the beginning of that December, I was visiting that store. I had encountered the Tetragrammaton in discussions of Cabala up to that point, but they were very brief, and shrouded in secrecy, even by established writers on the subject. My attention was becoming focused in this direction. As I was leaving the store on that occasion, my leg brushed against a couple of books which were protruding slightly from one of the lower shelves on an aisle. The book at the end of the stack fell off at my feet as I was walking by. It was what turned out to be a very complete discussion of the Name by a well known occult writer and researcher, a world class authority on many hidden subjects. I have learned long ago that genuine statistical accidents are very rare, while synchronicities are occurring around us continually. This occasion was a classical example of one! (3)

Needless to say, I picked up the book and purchased it. This was the beginning of the remarkable path which I walked for the rest of the month. The Secret Name is so powerful that any form of its genuine expression (“God”, for example, is not) will trigger the awakening process in any reasonably receptive consciousness. It is no wonder that information on the subject can be sparse and difficult to access. Something of such power is not to be treated lightly under any circumstances. The Tarot is a child’s amusement by comparison, although there is a link between the two. I read the book with great enthusiasm, and thought deeply about the things said therein, and the things left unsaid. I was left with the certain conviction that, as well informed as the author obviously was, the true key to the deepest meaning of the Name was still concealed by a relationship of great subtlety. (4)

I am in the habit of taking vacation from my technical work during the last two weeks of December, and did so this year as well. This gave me additional time to direct more attention to the investigation. I performed divinations on the subject, searching for additional guidance and inputs from the etheric realms. I sat in yoga asana (postures), and meditation. And, of course, I continued to read on a variety of the mystery questions from varied sources. The experience of these operations was as though I would repeatedly come close to something, again of great subtlety, but encountered an invisible but persistent barrier in my consciousness. The clear sensation at these times was that I was being intensely scrutinized from the other side of that barrier, and was not alone... (5)

These efforts finally began to bear the fruit of success when I returned to the direct study of Cabala and, specifically, of the esoteric structure of the Hebrew language. Hebrew is one of a few languages in the modern world which is still composed of essentially the same esoteric alphabetical symbol set which has existed intact for thousands of years. Sanskrit, Rune script, and Hieroglyphics, are other significant examples. In each case, the individual “letters” of the system have intrinsic meaning, quite apart from their combined expression in generic language. In fact, an apparently mundane word can have a long and complex hidden meaning which is very spiritual in content. In ancient times, a letter or a complete alphabet were magical, spiritual things which symbolized important aspects of the existence of humanity and society. And I was struck by the fact that, at least to me, the Hebrew letters appeared to be burning letters of fire, by their construction. In fact one letter, Shin, means both earthly fire, and Holy Fire, depending on the context used. One is reminded of the Greek myth of Prometheus, who stole fire from the Gods and gave it to human beings to ease their lot in the material world. The obvious implication is that the element of fire is linked to light and enlightenment, and is fundamentally always Holy, and a source of purification and salvation, by nature. In a functional sense, I suppose that the effect of painting the letters (the common method of construction of the letters in ancient times) naturally tended to produce tapered terminations as a characteristic of the brush used, but the synchronicity is still there. (6)

The interactive meaning of the letters of the Name became the focus of my thoughts as my vacation approached Christmas. The specific progression of the letters is as follows:

Yod: Hand.

Hey: Window.

Vau: Nail or Hook.

Hey: Window.

There are occult (concealed) spiritual meanings for these letters which I had discovered, but none of them seemed to reveal something which I felt very strongly to be the Rosetta Stone to unlocking the deepest significance and power of the expression. Most of the authoritative literature tends to be oriented toward complex analysis and exoteric research, and I had the uncanny feeling that the truth of the matter was really a simple but VERY important principal hidden in the apparently unremarkable sequence of letters. Even the basic explanation from the comparative religious subject matter, that the ancient Rabbinical code had as a practice the habit of dropping the vowels from written expressions to help keep these teachings secret – Yahweh was the word God gave to Moses when he asked what name to call Him by to the Jewish tribes encamped at the base of Ararat. When the vowels are removed, the result is YHWH – a variant on YHVH. The pronunciation and spelling between W and V was not semantically distinct until fairly modern times. The removal of the vowels renders the Name of God humanly unpronounceable, or Secret – seemed to be too obvious an explanation in this case. This is not to say that the conversion of Yahweh (literally, I AM) into YHVH is untrue or incorrect in any sense whatsoever. I was convinced that the Secret Name held the answer to the balance of the expression: I AM – What? Who? Again, the conventional explanation is that God is omnipresent and omnipotent. God simply IS everything and in all things, and cannot be a label, or known as a discrete form of consciousness like a human being. “Labels” are indeed an impossibility, because they are the artifacts of our old friend, culture. But Yahweh can be known. (7)

On Christmas Eve, the investigation was still very much in progress – I felt that I was coming very close to something essential. Finally, a breakthrough took place in the process! As I was wondering about the sequence of the letters – Hand, Window, Nail, Window – a vision began to form in my awareness, and I found myself transported through the looking glass to a very different environment from the living room of my home. I was relocated to a Shepard’s tent in another desert in another, very distant time. I could smell the leather and fabric of which many things in that place were apparently made, perhaps the tent itself. I was inside the awareness of the Shepard himself, who was awakening in the tent, as the early morning sun began to show through various small cracks in the structure. The man arose and stood before the closed flap of a window in the wall of the tent. I had the sense of the significance of some recognized but very simplistic and almost childlike ritual taking place in this man’s mind. I watched as his Hand reached out and lifted the flap up and away from the Window, then tied it off to a Nail which was driven into a post which was part of the framework of the tent. The man then stood before the now open Window; the morning light streamed inside and brightly illuminated the inside of the tent. I looked through his eyes at the dawn, and the pastoral scene of the world outside, and felt a sense of reverence within him. A refreshing desert breeze was gently blowing through the window into the tent and dispelling the stale night air. His family was awakening. I felt a sense of blessing within the man. And then I abruptly left him as though I was pulled away, and found myself back in my normal consciousness in the familiar room around me. I had at last been shown the true and deepest meaning of the Name. Here was possibly the oldest allegory of the process of enlightenment, occurring at a time when civilization was in its infancy, as was culture and human awareness. The hand of the man opening and securing the window flap, followed by the reverie in gazing out upon the dawn of the new day is the simplest and most fundamental expression of enlightenment, wherein the Hand of God reaches out within human consciousness and creates and secures an opening, a window, through the physical sensory condition, permitting the Truth to be seen. Communion! Christ described Himself on one occasion as follows ”I AM the Way and the Light. None cometh unto the Father except by Me.” (Maybe not an exact quote, but we do not know exactly what was said.) This is the secret meaning of both Yahweh and YHVH. I AM is the source of consciousness, including our human consciousness and the “light” of our awareness is really the Divine illumination expressed through the human form: we are not alone. All that is required is that we indicate a sincere desire for the truth, and are willing to sacrifice the illusion. And to think that this nearly prehistoric man in his tent already knew this truth, and expressed it in the core of his language! (8)

Thrilled and delighted (re-lighted?) at the insight I had received, I was sure that no better, greater Christmas gift could be given than that which I had received. At last the quandary made “sense”. But I was wrong. A much greater revelation awaited me on Christmas morning. (9)

If I dreamed that night, the content of my sleeping state cannot be recalled, and this is significant. Any additional direction that was given to me in the fertile subconscious state of deep sleep was masked. I have tried to recall anything which may have passed there, at least as it may pertain to the Name, but nothing has come forth as yet. I have not yet undergone hypnotic regression to this end, and may do so as a final measure, should this become relevant. I suspect that the wonderful discovery of the evening so completely permeated my awareness that no significant psychic content remained active for expression in the dream state. However, I am also very sure that the vision of the man, the tent, and the sequence of the Secret letters was indeed having a profound, thorough effect in permeating and quietly restructuring my entire consciousness in preparation for the events which were to unfold the next morning. In the material sense, I had plans to spend Christmas with family living in the area. This is another synchronicity with the vision of the man and his tent home – his family was also present there. As I look back on these things, I have never lost my awe and amazement at how intricately the process was woven around me which carefully led me to the Samadhi of that incredible morning. (10)

I awoke a little time past dawn, in the early morning, just as the man I had known in my vision, although I did not notice this at that moment, and walked into the living room. The letters of the Name had begun to appear in my mind, sung in a quite chant of invisible voices. I opened the blinds to gaze outside, just as he did, still unaware of the steps which I was so faithfully retracing. Perhaps I was already in trance. Perhaps I had never fully regained “normal” consciousness following the vision of the night before. I do not know with certainty. In those days, I lived beside an artificial lake in my community, in a ground floor apartment on the water. The morning sun brilliantly reflected on the shining surface of the lake, in a liquid mirror. The world was in perfect stillness in an eternal moment. I could feel the scene flowing into my inner being through my eyes; as it did so I had the sensation of being touched by something familiar, and realized that I was being contacted by the intelligence whose nearness I had sensed before in my studies. It was as though a pure emotion was bonding to me at a similar place within myself. No words were spoken, but I was understanding. What a clumsy thing speech is by comparison! (11)

As I stood there, a great relaxation and tranquility began to flow through my senses, and I began to enter what I am sure was something very much like a hypnotic state. I began to hear the sequence of letters of the Name repeated in increased volume, again beginning with the first letter, Yod, and then He, followed by, Vau, and He, and resuming immediately with Yod, and continuing without cessation. I knew that I was being drawn into the Secret presence. The scene of the lake and the morning sun was becoming more and more brilliant, more luminous and enchanting, more so than any earthly scene could be. And I was not afraid. The things I knew and was familiar with in this life, including the sensation of my physical body, were vanishing as the sound of the Name increased into an enveloping chant, and my consciousness opened to the Presence before and within me. In fact, the border between inside and outside, between “me” and “not me” was disintegrating as the Secret Name became a great chorus of voices all intoning the letters again and again, and with more and more intensity. I could feel (indeed my feelings were all that remained of me) an indescribable, radiant field of love pouring out from the voices singing the name, but this was beyond human love as I have known it. It was as though I was being bathed in pure love through the voices and the chanting, a love with no reservation. The number of voices became uncountable and merged into One Voice which was no longer a spoken voice, but a literal wave of energy pulsating through my emotions just short of the point of what might have been unbearable. I had the perception that the YHVH energy wave could easily have obliterated my remaining link to the physical plane by dissociating my emotional bonds and thereby ending my “life”, but still was not afraid. I could sense that I had been intentionally and carefully brought to precisely the threshold of that place to enable me to leave the physical world and withstand the experience which was taking place without being harmed. In fact, I was not even uncomfortable, but was enraptured. I know now that the voices I heard were the Voices of the Host chanting Tetragrammaton in adoration (pure love and devotion) of God, and the power of that sound literally protected my consciousness by “burning away”, or removing from perception, any portion of myself which could not withstand the Divine Presence. I have never heard such a sound before, and though I am attempting to do so here, no human words could describe it. I heard the Name pronounced and it pulled me out of my body and through the cosmos and stood me before and within God. And I am going to take you along to that place and tell you of all the things which passed there. Because God is Love, and wants you all to know that love as I did. (12)

As the Voices of the Host sang within me, the scene on what had once been the other side of my window underwent a very remarkable series of transitions. A great tree grew outside my window, and overhung the lake with elegant green bows. As I watched from my disembodied state, the walls of my home, the window, the remaining familiar elements of the scene quickly shifted: natural surroundings became super luminous, exactly like the scenes and colors in some of the Hindu paintings of the various Divine scenes and Beings of India. I looked in the Mind’s Eye at the Tree now before me, undoubtedly the Tree of Life. The leaves became glowing shapes and forms, much like the Sephora. The lake had disappeared and the Tree was now in the midst of a forest, or garden, of plants and trees which I “knew” were not trees but Divine Beings appearing in that form, of The Garden of Eden. A doe, beautiful beyond description, walked out of the forest and stood in front of the Tree, and looked at me with eyes I shall never forget, filled with love and innocence. I had a distinct sense of being examined by the creature. When nothing hostile or otherwise inappropriate to the setting was sensed in my nature, the majestic vista of fantastic floral form and color around me once again began to shift into another transition, as I experienced a fleeting thought: “So this is how it was meant to be”. (13)

That was the last identifiably personal perception which I had. The successive stages of this journey left me with only the pure kernel of self identity present. There was just enough of “me” left to note the course as it unfolded. (14)

The radiant Garden quickly transformed into a dimensionless tunnel or vortex of some kind, composed of golden light, and enveloped me. I had the sensation of being carried up and away from the earth, slowly at first, and then with great force and velocity. The great Host chanting the Name had become blended into the total experience of the vortex, and of my ascent. Although any real evidence of the world had passed, I still had the feeling of movement and focused direction. All of my normally segregated five senses were combined into one single field of experience of the condition inside of some great conveyance of light– it was delivering me into still another realm, unlike any I had yet seen. (15)

I cannot say how long the transitional phase just described lasted; the sense of time had been blasted away by the powerful experience I was undergoing. In a subjective sense, the seeming interval was perhaps some minutes. Then I emerged from what was apparently the terminus of the phenomenon into another completely fantastic scene, and this among the others which I had already surveyed! I beheld a form composed of light which encompassed the totality of existence. The form was in constant radiant flux, resembling a kaleidoscope, but with far more intricate designs and patterns than any human being could create or imagine. Since I had no physical nature, I simply floated there before this vision, bathed in radiance. And I had the certain sense that the light form was actually a composition of an infinite number of individual Light Beings, all simultaneously aware of each other, and of me as well. Although I had no “eyes”, I was able to direct my attention across the great expanse of these entities, and “see” that they were actually themselves focused on and radiating from a central source, like a sphere of rays of living light with a common center. I could here something like the chanting of the Name again, but this time it was a melodic and beautiful single sound and feeling, combined into an expression of love and adoration. I mean that this was emanating from all the light beings at once, and was experienced as a perfect blend of all the known senses at once: total sensory and perceptual communion without physical boundaries. (16)

When I tried to focus my consciousness toward the “interior” or “center” of the Universe of Light, another transition began, and I had the unmistakable feeling of being embraced and drawn toward the center of the light. The sensation was so powerful that I could feel the last remaining state of self knowing from my old earthly, physical form being burned away as I progressed, but was in such a state of ecstasy in the presence of these intelligences that I was yet not afraid. I remember being passed through and among them as an object of great delight: There was obviously no concern there that I would be harmed in any way. These entities were Angels of Light, and I was their charge. (17)

There was, or must have been, a quiescent point where all that remained of Alan was gone, a final gate of passage where ALL human consciousness finally vanished. Was I dead? If so, I can only say that the normal worldly observation of death had long since vanished prior to the event. Death in the light of the transition I was making was like everything else: its true character cannot be known from within the human illusion, and I was far, far away from that illusion. I do remember a final, blinding instant of complete surrender of all form, and then I was in the presence of the Creator, at the Center of the Light. (18)

But who or what was there? I have very clear memories of this final phase of my journey, but if I was no longer “alive” in the traditional corporeal sense, what was the locus which collected them, and how were they transmitted (and, for that matter, how was “I” transmitted) back into the state of incarnation which is permitting me to write this material now? We must continue with the story told to find these answers. (19)

It was like first viewing, and then being pulled into the Sun. As I approached the core of the Hosts of Light, I perceived a final all-encompassing field of intense golden-white light, the source and focus of the adoration of the Light Beings. A circle of flowing energy which was at the same time consciousness was originating there, and flowing out through the Light Beings, and back again, forever: a living cosmic dance of Perfect Love. This is probably the single most important thing to be said, that everything in this realm appeared as forms of Light, acted like fields of electromagnetic radiation (energy), and WAS consciousness without physical boundaries. At the core of the Lotus was YHVH, the perfect expression of the primal principal, generating the process of creation through pure awareness, giving without the expectation of receiving anything in return, and yet receiving everything returned in infinite variety. This is both the Cosmic Dance of Creation in the Hindu faith, and the ultimate message of the Lamb of God in Christianity. The three forms of experience in the Light Realm -- Light, Energy, and Consciousness -- are the basis of both the Christian (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) and Hindu (Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva) Trinity expressions, along with some other faiths. This triple expression of the Divine Form is the essential creative force that structures everything, whether humanly knowable or otherwise, right down to the mundane world of physical events. We and our world are absolutely included in the Cosmic Dance of Love just as much as the Light Beings or Angels; we simply have learned not to see this in life. The root of suffering is caused by living in an illusion that we think is the final condition. That is the real meaning of the Biblical Fall from Grace. And the inner Truth is all that we ever really fell from! These were all revelations which I had while still retaining the last vestiges of my human awareness before I entered the Ultimate level of Experience. (20)

As I passed through that final gate of existence, I had the feeling of being handed off from Many to One. The One received whatever I may have been (or not been) there within It and placed “me” in some form of secure state, where I remained for the “duration”. I can assure anyone that being directly within the Mind of God is at once an unmistakable and simultaneously indescribable condition. Yet, I have my memories of this place, too, and was shown many things by YHVH, all of which I will tell you of now. This is His wish, and the humanly knowable reason why I was taken beyond the death of my personal consciousness and into His own. (21)

That death did not matter. The first thing that I experienced was that the only real identity that anything has anywhere is not as a “thing” at all, but as a process, or idea, in Divine Consciousness. I did not die, because I had never really lived as I truly was until that moment of entry. And I did die, because all that I had known as “me” and “reality” was gone. Everything. Breathing, bodily sensation, my home, the lake, memories, personal history, everything. I began to lose these perceptions from the first vision of the Tree and Garden. Feelings, beliefs, mental structure, ideation, all these concepts were left behind along the way, systematically and carefully removed at each step to make my entry into and return from Divinity possible. I was there, and I was not there, and this is how I survived inside the Sun. Intelligent nonexistence can exist anywhere, and does exist everywhere. God is perfect, formless, universal awareness and intelligence. (22)

A number of perceptual events occurred instantaneously. The “first” concerned the perception of infinity. When “normal” human consciousness attempts to grasp a limitless condition from a (self-defined) limited state, the result is a more or less immediate memory overflow. We simply cannot manage the task. For an unlimited intelligent condition, there is no infinity, simply awareness. I was taken beyond the ends of the universe as we know it so quickly that I cannot assign any human interval to the action. I was simply there, outside that universe which somewhere held the planet where my body presumably still stood, observing the complete system FROM THE OUTSIDE!! And all the instruments of our science cannot see beyond the event horizon of the radio static at the “edges” of the universe, presumed to be the primordial remnant of the “Big Bang”. Now, this was a real surprise! The universe was shaped irregularly. It resembled something like a unicellular organism with a curvilinear boundary that was in constant flux of form, suspended in the Mind of God. It was softly luminous with the lights of billions of stars and galaxies, and it was alive inside its Creator, its parent in reality, the Being who had birthed it into “physical” form from pure consciousness. It was a stunning sight, and I felt as though we stayed there in that place for a long “time”, although temporal reality had disappeared when infinity became accessible. Yahweh loves the universe beyond expression, so much so that He created human awareness (among others) so that this creation could have an independent life and thought of it’s own – the greatest gift of all. We most commonly and directly experience that gift as the quality of free will, evident in determining what we choose to include within, or discard from, our daily activities and sense of the world around us. (23)

Ironically, this very gift of independent awareness also creates the possibility of ignoring or failing to observe its own source. YHVH could not give us the gift of consciousness without giving us the gift of the possibility of ignorance – and, hence, the gift of the ability to choose our options. Not a bad piece of work, and done with only four states of expression (solid, liquid, gas, and radiation) as the foundation condition. Personally, I prefer consciousness insight to ignorance in the human sense and human condition, and have always sought out many optional choices in any decision oriented situation. (24)

The “energy” expression within the Awareness of YHVH was simply an outpouring of unconditional love. God really is Love. It is important to note here that the Trinity perception was gone once “inside” the Divine condition. That was one of the last human limitations removed prior to entry or communion there. The reason why our human perception “divides” the Holy Spirit into the trinity has to do with the principals used in our construction. In sacred geometry, it is commonly known that the triangle’s status as the simplest and most durable geometric solid form expresses the basic mechanism of construction of mental form as well. We can only exist in manifest (physical/mental) being as a composite of interactive three state forms – everything we know and are is derived from these basic building blocks – atoms, molecules, proteins, everything in the mundane world of mundane consciousness. It is only with the shift of perception into process based thought that the actual condition of the unitary monad is suggested, in the circle. But in our concrete world, the circle is only an ideal form: “real” circular objects are still composed of elements which ultimately devolve to three state forms. God in perfection is literally a one-state open circle of Love and Light everywhere. (25)

Following the fantastic view of the complete universe, YHVH showed me a record or model of my personal human consciousness, which, of course, was present in His consciousness as well, although I had been separated from these things during the journey of my revelations. I could recognize myself all to well, along with all my human imperfections, and the deep personal injuries which had contributed to their development. Then I watched as the Pure Divine Love simply instantly healed those wounds! It was as though they had never taken place at all! In that perspective, the agony of my human life simply ceased to exist. I felt completely reborn in that instant of wonderful radiant love and compassion. How I wish I could give this perception to everyone in the world: that all your wounds should be healed in love. In some small way, perhaps this story will do so. I know that is Yahweh’s wish. (26)

At a certain point in the experience of being “held” in the Supreme Consciousness, I became aware of a very revealing facet of that Divine Nature – it had the fundamental quality of a child! This is to say that there was an essential innocence and utter lack of contrivance which pervaded YHVH in every instant of my memory. This may explain the Biblical observation that ”Except as ye become again as little children, ye may not enter the Kingdom of Heaven”. The lack of pretension and contrivance is a double-edged sword, however. We have all had the earthly experience at some point of being embarrassed by the frank remarks of children, even though they were uttered in complete innocence. I came to understand that this simple fact influences the whole of the elements in life which we perceive as suffering. If we were being genuinely honest and open in our lives, then we would not be subject to embarrassment. And if we were furthermore being as completely centered in the Ultimate Truth, we would also see worldly suffering as Yahweh knows it to be: a temporal illusion. In fact we would see that all of the “life” we know, whether joyful or painful in our subjectivity, is just that – very temporal, and very fictional. The only real point of this existence is to meet the challenge of that illusion and seek higher consciousness. The perfect challenge created as an expression of love by the Perfect Being – one not to be taken lightly by any means. Most people are going to periodically and repeatedly fail to rise to this demanding task; the powerful character of the human condition, and the many tests we all face, make this more or less inevitable. I who have literally stood stripped down to a naked kernel in the Omnipresence nonetheless am still blinded by the dust of the world, and still fail. But I know the Truth, and one of the aspects of this Truth is that we are loved unconditionally, and that God understands. This makes it possible for us to understand, and to accept life’s many imperfections. (27)

Yahweh took me on yet another fantastic trek, through the Divine Universe, after showing the “little” universe from which I had come. The Mind of God (or the Godhead in Hindu terms) makes the humanly perceptible infinitude of the physical universe and space seem very limited indeed. Try to imagine existing in a succession of glorious Technicolor visions of the sublime and the magnificent – that is the perception of the Lamb of God in one timeless instant, and I was literally filled with these countless concepts and revelations, many of which I simply cannot even attempt to describe here because there are no analogous terms which I know of to communicate them in human words. More is the pity, I can assure you. And in the few years since I crossed the “bridge” of consciousness to that place, I have also discovered myself “remembering” more of these visions, which had apparently been lost within my human perceptions upon returning to this world. There is every reason to suppose that I experienced the Totality of Universal Consciousness in what the psychologists would call a parareligious trance state at the time, and that all of that content now lies accessible within me. I trust that these things will emerge into the light of this world as they become appropriate to share again with myself and others. Fortunately, there are many things which I did retain in my “normal” consciousness, revealed to my by YHVH. I have already shared some of them here in this writing, and will set forth the sum of them all in additional works to follow, for there is far more to be told, and even this amazing story is only an introduction. (28)

Certain additional visions I will recount now. There are apparently countless other universes, some physical in more or less the sense we are familiar with, and many in much different forms: universes of living ideas and emotions, and of interactive light and sound, and of dancing stars and darkness which is itself light. I cannot say at this time whether all these things were also the creations of our Creator, although at least some of them bore the unmistakable Divine imprint. They were certainly all available to YHVH. I suppose an Infinite Child would inhabit just such a playroom. I also had the distinct impression of some kind of continuation of the Creator beyond even Itself into another level of being, but was not specifically taken there, and I believe this was intentional. Or perhaps I was taken there, and this memory (or set of memories) has been intentionally blocked from recollection in my consciousness at this writing. There is considerable variance of opinion among the many Hindu traditions regarding the final nature of God. I have been told that Krishna is popularly considered to be the Ultimate Personality of God, superseding even the Trinity, in modern Hindu culture, and that yet another even more fundamental Consciousness in the form of Govinda exists beyond that expression. I have also encountered the concept of Krishna (literally, “Christ” in Hindi) as a manifestation and extension of Vishnu, the Preserver of the Godhead – in which case, they are considered to be functionally the same entity in a different form expression. At least some of the qualities attributed to Krishna are very much in agreement with my experience of God as an Infinite Child Creator, and this set of impressions occurred after entering the Center of the Divine Lotus, sequentially “following” the perception of the Godhead Trinity expression. The experience was so transcendental as a whole that the very attempt at description is quite challenging, as I am sure that it has been for all of the Adepts who have done so. I am nonetheless quite certain that all of these Presences were encountered in that place, and were intimately related at the very least. More will be said of these things in the Creation Chapter to follow. (29)

There are a number of established, if esoteric, spiritual precedents for at least some of the stages of my experience. The vision of the Doe beside the Tree in the fantastic garden was an image of the Lamb of God, and the Tree an image of the Tree of Eternal Life. These are both astral forms on the Astral Plane, inasmuch as they are still referenced to known physical forms in the Physical Plane. They are also both subconscious psychological symbols originating in the Jungian Collective Unconscious, or Racial Memory. It is important to understand that there is no real difference between the “external” Cosmic Journey of Ascension through the planes of experience, and the “internal” journey, seemingly in the “opposite” direction, through the layers of consciousness, because the distinction drawn between that which is within and without is just another illusion. The core of awareness in the Jungian system is the Primal Self – at the center of all consciousness – , and this is absolutely the Soul referred to in religious expression, and is the Godhead, and the Sahasrara, and Nirvana, and Samadhi, and the Christian Logos as well. There is ultimately one journey to one destination in One Consciousness. (30)

The Doe (or Lamb) was both examining and communicating with me not to determine my relative lack of “sin” (or separation from God), because YHVH already knew perfectly well that I was entering the experience from a separated state of consciousness, but to establish a bond in the Astral Sense to the opening to reunion which had been triggered within me by the Host chanting the Name. It was sufficient that I wanted to make the sacrifice and know the Truth to continue. (31)

The tunnel or vortex of Light was a Mental Plane image of the more relatively universal form of the same vision, but on a successively higher plane of expression, another stage removed from the familiar physical illusion, as that illusion fell away. The sensation of being carried along by an invisible force was the entry into the Intuitive or Buddhic Plane, the fourth level, where sense of reunified consciousness has begun, and the emergence into the presence of the Multitude of Light Beings, and specifically being touched and guided there expresses the first contact with the Angelic awareness of the Atmic Plane, or the Fifth Chakra, the center of the Divine Vibration, and communication. Being passed among the Light Beings constituted the process of entry into the Monadic Plane: the passage across the Thousand Petaled Lotus radiating from Brahma. This is the plane where the All-Seeing Eye opens in the Sixth Chakra, enabling the perception of the Godhead. And the passage into the Sun was the ultimate and final stage of union with Brahma and the Logos – direct knowledge and experience of God without separation, following the shedding of the last human form in the Seventh Plane. I have since had other experiences of this kind, and the progression is a very familiar one, both in the personal sense, and in reference to the religious experiences recounted by many other seekers of the Truth of all cultures, ages, and faiths. Only the terminology used to describe the path varies, and this is itself another manifestation of the physical cultural illusion. I have been told by yogis that my experience was clearly the Kundalini energy rising to full expression, and this is also true. One journey and one destination... (32)

Something which I have frequently mentioned in this accounting of these events, and whose importance cannot be exaggerated, is the concept of light as the vehicle of consciousness. When I became “enlightened” regarding the true meaning of YHVH in the vision on Christmas Eve, this illumination occurred within, and intensified the inner light of my consciousness, and that is exactly what we are: a field of radiant electromagnetic energy. Paramahansa Yogananda has described this energy field as a non-differentiated sphere of white light. Even to say that this is an inner light is illusory – it is the only light, the only reality, and exists eternally in the Godhead. The literal light of the Sun on the lake triggered and sustained my subsequent journey on Christmas Day to the full perception of that Universal Light. Even the great Sun is still a partial perception which is an image of the Truth. In the final analysis, we are all a collection of perceptions occurring in the Universal Mind, and that Mind is a field of radiant consciousness, appearing as light, and expressed as love. (33)

Another perception which has not been blocked, and which I have been asked to communicate now in these pages, concerns human alienation. One of the underlying points of all the events which took place in that room on that Christmas Day was the unified nature of all things and particularly of all consciousness and conscious beings. We have lost this in our world. We have learned to view each other as objects of exploitation and as inherent enemies. This is completely wrong, and a terrible, tragic mistake. We are all God’s children and each other’s brothers and sisters, even the “dumb” animals and the whole of the natural world as well. I have been an angry man, and have raised my fist (and worse) in fear and anger against others, and I say to you right now that the blows I struck were directed at me, and wounded me in my pathetic and ignorant condition. And I also say that I have been a loving, caring man, and the gifts which I have given to others have also been given back to me. Love is the Truth, and fear is the illusion which must be overcome to know that Truth. Life is as simple as that. I give you this gift, and YHVH gives you this gift. (34)

At last a conclusion to my wonderful “partnership” with Yahweh was reached. I experienced another indefinable sensation, of conclusion and release, and found myself back in my living room, standing right where I had been, looking out of the window onto the lake! The Voices chanting the Name had ceased. I collapsed on the floor, more out of psychological exhaustion than physical fatigue. I am not sure how much human time had passed – I did not happen to look at a clock that morning when I first awoke, but the guess of perhaps one hour might be accurate. It was definitely still fairly early in the morning. One hour in eternity! I was very disoriented for several minutes: the usual sense of things which I had known as the world had been completely disrupted. After perhaps another hour had passed, I was sufficiently composed to begin preparing for the day, and go about my affairs, but it was as though I was acting in a dream. And I was acting in a dream, after all. (35)

I was never really the same person again, following that momentous time. After the pieces of my awareness had finally taken renewed human form (and this took a few weeks), many things within had been changed, even though I continued to work at my technical job (where I still work now), and live my external life in that sense. One of the really excellent results of my experience is the presence of what appears to be a permanently “initialized” portal to ALL of the higher plains of consciousness, most especially directly to the consciousness of YHVH. And the Godhead seems to be permanently (or as permanent as anything can be here) active in my sensory awareness as well, as though I have become a human “view port” and mechanism for the expression of that energy. Amazingly enough, I also can still access my sense of self as a discrete ego state, and act with free will regarding my affairs. In other words, I’m still somewhat sane! I believe that I am and have been blessed with the best gift knowable in this life – literally the best of both worlds in and out of the physical form. (38)

                                                                           (Copyright 2007, by Alan Schneider)

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