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..:: Revelations ::..
By
Alan Schneider
Whether this occurs through the influence
of the mechanism of the physical senses, or through the influence of
neurology, or the influence psychology and the ego – or more probably
all of these – we seem to be subject to a perspective through
which we experience both the internal and external environments. Since
the total realm of human affairs obviously encompasses substantially
more than the perspective of any one human being, however powerful and
influential this person may be, we must agree with the assertion that
the individual human experience of life is one of sensory
fragmentation. While our respective cultures certainly generate
collective effects on the world population, these are frequently
unpredictable and problematic in character. We swim about in an ocean of
uncertainty and anxiety amid the Post-Modern condition.
The epiphany is a window of clarification amid the
confusion of life. The epiphany is an experience of revelation and
extraordinary insight into here-to-fore concealed and mysterious
circumstances that have been previously impenetrable to our
understanding. How do these windows of clarification occur? They are
enabled when we successfully “think outside the box” of perceptual
habits and inhibitions. This mechanism of perceiving “outside the box”
is customarily the result of years of deconditioning and multi-cultural
experiences that tend to create an open consciousness. A few fortunate
people actually manage to “live outside the box” as the eventual outcome
of stubbornly refusing to conform to social pressures in their
respective cultures of origin. But, most of us are stuck with the Box –
our perceptual habits.
This
essay is concerned with the process of obtaining
revelations of insight, and we must necessarily exit the perceptual Box
to do so. Let us begin with the consideration of what a box is – a
bounded area composed of inclusive walls that serve to contain something
or someone. This is not necessarily bad – the box can provide
protection from many things that would otherwise harm the organism – but
this protection always comes at a price. This price is the loss of
personal freedom. This price is the loss of the joy of discovery. If we
are to continue to survive psychologically, we must at least
periodically get out of the Box and experience a free perspective on
life. The walls that protect also kill consciousness eventually. Even if
what we experience are “soft” walls, e.g. fences, hedges, trenches and
the like, that we can at least partially perceive through, this will
still result in stultification if true perceptual freedom is not finally
attained. We simply must be free to explore and experience when
and where we are called to.
The process of exiting the box begins with the realization
that it exists and we are in it. I have heard the Box referred to
as “The Cosmic Egg”, and this captures a very important aspect of our
enclosure – we do not see it, because it has always been there – taken
for granted in the mix of assumptions that we inherit from our culture.
We think we experience the entire universe, but we are only experiencing
our mental reflections on the inner shell of the Egg. So we must begin
the exit process by recognizing and questioning our assumptions about
life anywhere and everywhere we notice them – initially a scary thing to
do for most of us, steeped as we are in social conditioning!
Sometimes we get help from outside of the Box, even
if we do not know that there is an “outside” per se. This help
frequently comes in the form of persistent synchronicities that catch
our attention and disturb our comfortable hypnotic state as we sleepwalk
around in the Box. Sometimes we are subjected to profound personal
disruptions as well. There appears to be a continuum of disturbances
that range from merely irritating to lethal that all have the common
factor of initiating interruption in the Box. No one really knows why a
given disturbance occurs in the life of a given human being, although
Karma is often given as the blanket explanation for such things. I have
often noticed that resisting the awakening process once it has begun
seems to result in more and more severe disruptions, both personally and
extra-personally. I have learned over the years to acknowledge
synchronicities and follow their indications as the best way to
circumvent large scale events that are much more disruptive, and I
advise everyone I know to cultivate this trait – it can do nothing but
assist the awakening process once it has begun. Even so, the excursion
out of the Box tends to be a rough ride! But, the sleeper must awaken –
we will all eventually walk out of the Box, if not in this incarnation,
then a future one.
The synchronicity amounts to probing the walls of the Box.
The synchronicity leaks into the Box through the imperfections in the
walls, and can be followed back out through those same imperfections.
It is my opinion that the sequence of synchronous events can neither be
accelerated nor prevented. Although we can try to, and early on there is
a pronounced tendency to, speed things up, there seems to be a
cosmically predetermined pace involved. It is best to let things unfold
at this “natural” pace – as the quote at the beginning of this article
says “Don’t push the river” – just let it flow along as it does, and
flow with it. The Dao also refers to this natural unfolding process, and
is sometimes called “The Watercourse Way” for that reason – we are
involved in the “flow” of the universal stream of consciousness.
Awakening, and the pace of awakening, results from the most powerful
forces at work in the universe, and beyond the universe. Respect those
forces, and you will be well, if occasionally bruised a bit! Defy them,
and disaster will result. Don’t push the river...
As the “trail of disruptions” (i.e. synchronicities) is
followed, a progressive series of epiphanies will occur. These are
generally positive discoveries about living, but can be sources of
profound disappointment for those with unrealistic expectations. There
is a kind of progressive testing and toughening that takes place in
conjunction with the awakening process. Life outside the Box is
definitely not for the faint of heart! There are many layers of illusion
and misconception that constitute the Box, and all must be overcome on
the way out. Just take things as they come and focus on letting go of
what never really was there anyway, however real as it may have seemed
to be.
If a given individual has fundamentally benevolent Karma, a
psychic “draw bridge” can be built over the walls and out of the Box
that will permit relatively convenient exit from and reentry into the
enclosure. If things get too unsettling in the free zone, one can simply
retreat back into the fortress, and pull up the bridge! Perhaps less
fortunate individuals may have to break down the walls, and live with
the results thereafter. I say “perhaps” because the exchange of freedom
for security is always such a melancholy one – life back in the
enclosure is never the same after one has had a taste of freedom, bridge
or no bridge.
The epiphanies will eventually compose the framework of an
alternative reality that both leads to the world outside the Box, and
is the world outside of the Box. As soon as one departs ego-based
linear logic, a dizzying blur of more or less chaotic conditions is
encountered that frequently display simultaneous, but conflicting,
information to our consciousness. So it is that the Path out can also be
the Destination. I advise people who have such perplexing experiences
in meditation to simply accept them at face value without dwelling on
them excessively. The point of this process is the construction of a
Gateway to the outside that will always be assessable – the
aforementioned Draw Bridge is simply another example of such a
condition, one of many possibilities.
What lies outside of the Box is everything the ego is not.
This can amount to quite a bit of material! We have already briefly
investigated the Astral Akasha in a previous essay. In fact, the
Astral Plane is the first psychic region encountered beyond the Box, and
is a very complex expression of consciousness, to be sure. Depending on
the extent of an individual’s Karmic and psychological grounding, the
Astral Body may be present. This is an image very much like the physical
body perceived in the senses, but is experienced as essentially mass-less, and free to float far away from the Physical Plane and the
associated physical body, to which it remains attached by the Astral
Chord. This latter is much like the fetal umbilical chord, with the
exception that it is perceived as capable of light extending to
astronomical lengths, allowing extended travel through the Astral Plane.
There is a variance of opinion regarding the meaning of the
Astral Akasha. Some investigators feel that any activity that takes
place in the Astral Plane necessarily takes place in the Akasha – the
Akasha is the Astral Plane. Others feel that the Akasha is simply an
aspect of the Astral Plane, among many others. This writer feels that
both are correct – the hallmark of the Astral State is the
simultaneous validity of all perception without regard to any
apparent conflicts. What we are really initially experiencing in the
Astral State is the first exposure to personal and collective archetypal
images. The latter originate from deep within the collective
unconscious, well beyond the reach of the ego, and must be accepted for
their symbolic significance, not their literal content.
Things become increasingly theoretical beyond the Astral
Plane. Some investigators feel that there is only the Astral
Plane, and that even the Logos is simply another, albeit perhaps more
focal, Astral manifestation – essentially the King on the Astral
chessboard. Other investigators believe that they have traveled beyond
the Astral perception into other, higher, planes of psychic expression,
as part of the Ascension process of the Soul as It returns to the Logos
from which It originated. I personally like the Hindu Chakra System. It
contains enough differentiation of expression to account for all of the
variety of experience that I have perceived in my many psychic journeys,
without the burdensome complexity of some of the other models of
consciousness. This even applies to the well known Tree of Life model
from the Cabala. This is a powerful depiction of the Psyche, but is also
an intellectualization of what is a fundamentally experiential
process. The Chakras are also grounded in the literal physical practices
seen in Yoga – the Asanas, or postures, and the Yoga extended lifestyle.
This system tends to maintain a real-world orientation that can be lost
in the study of Cabala. At the other extreme are the Shamanistic systems
that are often so physically grounded that they can fail to define
Ascension at all, even while remaining spiritual in character. These
systems can also become very dark through their Physical Plane
orientation, resulting in the practice of Black Magic for personal gain.
Yoga and the Chakras seem to be a good middle ground amid all of the
theoretical descriptions of consciousness.
Such an effective method of classification is needed. One
cannot travel the Planes without incurring certain moral burdens along
the way. Let us say that certain moral choices must be made early on,
and that these choices will influence the experiences to follow. We must
make these choices whether we know it or not – even ven not choosing
amounts to a choice to abnegate moral considerations, resulting in a
defacto choice to follow the Path of Darkness. In Astral life, as in
Physical life, we must choose between the Light and the Darkness as our
basic working modalities. Although the choice to aspire to Darkness can
certainly be made, it will, in fact, hold the Soul in the Lower Astral
region of consciousness until it is forsaken. Ultimately, this is still
a consideration of Karma, and the Darkness must be experienced at some
point – this experience actually makes the perception of the Light
possible – but compassion and Agape love can only be known when the
level of the Heart is attained. This corresponds to the Chakra Anahata
in Hinduism, and the Sephiroth of Tipereth in Cabala. Both are well
beyond the Lower Astral region.
One condition that can be recognized beyond the Physical
Plane is the ongoing influence of the Archetypes on consciousness. This
is why I have used the Jungian Spherical model of the Psyche as often as
possible – it treats consciousness as consciousness with as little
metaphysical interpretation as possible. To Jung, even the Chakras and
Sephira were still ultimately archetypal symbols in the archetypal
symbol systems present in the Psyche. Even the Logos was another
archetypal symbol – the root archetypal manifestation present at the
core of all perception, but still at least slightly subject to cultural
interpretation. Only at the stage of completely non-dual awareness
experienced in Buddhist Satori are we truly free of culture. Although
this state can be experienced, it tends to defy description – but
probably is a good goal to seek, and certainly a point of reference for
the Astral traveler to use in reckoning spiritual experiences.
The Chakras are examples of what can be called Primary
Archetypes, progressive sets of symbols that direct consciousness back
to the Core of the Psyche. Although this is not an absolute analogy, the
Chakra Svadhisthana, the Second Chakra, is representative of the Astral
Plane. It is also representative of the physical genitalia and sexual
stimulation. Hinduism allows for essentially two routes to Enlightenment
called Tantric Paths – the Left Hand Path, and the Right Hand Path. The
Left Hand experience involves direct sexual expression, while the Right
Hand experience involves symbolic Astral expression on the Astral Plane.
Interestingly, Freud characterized all spirituality as sublimated
(directly symbolized) sexuality, and the dual nature of Svadhisthana
would seem to validate this contention.
Tantric theory maintains that the Right Hand Path – essentially Yoga
practice – must eventually become the exclusive route to Enlightenment,
as we look within for the full expression of the Chakras,
something not attainable through any external methodology, including
sexuality. The problem with Freudian Theory is that it limits
consciousness to the external manifestations of only the first
three Chakras, essentially classifying the remaining four as
psychological aberrations occurring beyond the pervue of science. Beyond
that pervue they may well be, but not invalid for that reason! The
investigation of the Planes of Ascension as expressions of the evolution
of the Soul and the Psyche is absolutely the single most important human
endeavor of all, and represents the highest motivation of our species
amid the challenge of incarnation. The revelation is the essence of
spiritual discovery, and will be increasingly manifested in a multitude
of expressions as we travel beyond the Box. I invite you to make this
journey!
- With Love, Alan -
(CR2008, Alan Schneider)
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