When we
contemplate our spiritual journey from darkness to light, not only is there a
sense of us leaving our negativities, our fear, anxieties, anger and doubt and
aligning ourselves with our love, wisdom, peace and joy, but also there is a
feeling of a weight gradually being removed. As though in some way we are
becoming lighter, more free.
If the doors of
perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. For
man has closed himself up, ‘til he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks in his
cavern. – William Blake
As we release ourselves from the outer constructs of ourselves what
naturally radiates from the inmost recesses of our existence is the
lightness and freedom and joy of the real – the kingdom of heaven within us
– that defines our real and eternal nature. Is it not also uncanny the fact
that when we are in the dark we feel ourselves
imprisoned, enslaved – that even though our conditioning usually paints
freedom as the ability to have any material or physical need immediately
fulfilled – the reality of the darkness is that far from freeing – it
enchains us.
All you need is love – the Beatles
This weight might be conceived as the weight of attachment to the world and
physical and material desires, and it is removed by the seeker becoming aware of
the spiritual realities of our journey.
We have no choice but to progress.
There is one very important dynamic to all of this, one cosmic rule:
we must
evolve, we simply must. That is what this journey is about. We have no
choice but to progress. This is crucial for as we have said before, we
cannot progress by staying the same. Often, our common hope, is for
everything to stay unchanged, we know what has come in the past, we hope to
have a degree of safety by keeping all of our experiences within the realm
of what has been experienced before. As you know this is impossible simply
because we must evolve. Even if we perform the
exact same action 100 times straight after one another, we will still find
that each moment is different from the last, that the flow
of revelation and life-lessons remains unabated and indeed, largely
unattached, to the actions that we are performing.
Upon those who
step into the same rivers, different and again different waters flow- Heraditus
Consider that for a moment, for it may seem that there are parallel
universes inside of us. One that is negotiating the day-to-day struggles of fate
on the surface of our lives and another that is solely focused on our evolving
spiritual journey, on making sure that we pay attention to the
lessons of our
soul, and the heaven within us. You will find that this polarization of
universes is sometimes helpful in increasing our mindfulness of our spiritual
journey, but ultimately there is a very natural state that simply allows our
spiritual urgings to be the centre of our experience and our so-called ‘outer’
life radiates from it.
Driven by the force of love, the fragments of the world seek each other that
the world may come into being. - Teilhard De Chardin
Having said that, it is crucial to be aware of the very few ways the
spiritual revelations and lessons of our soul are communicated to us. The
most important method is in the intuitive revelations we feel in meditative
moments. The second avenue is via our spiritual dreams. Finally the only
other way is by way of the events of our lives, the coincidences and lessons
we discern from the daily experiences of fate. Do you see where this is
leading? If we are not conscious of our meditative moments, if we do not
listen to the
lessons of our dreams, then there is only one other option for
us to progress and that is through the circumstances of our lives. Imagine,
what follows, if we
do not recognize the lessons as they appear in the daily
to-and-fro of fate, there is only one thing that can
happen and that is for the circumstances to become more and more extreme
until the lessons they are offering are so obvious and so confronting, we
have no choice but to discover them, albeit often very slowly and painfully.
Matter has reached the point of beginning to know itself. Man is a
star’s way of knowing about stars – George Wald
Can you imagine how this works in terms of the journey from darkness to light.
When we are in darkness, it seems we have absolutely no control, that our life
is a rollercoaster of one extreme circumstance to the next. We might wonder what
we have done to deserve the things that happen to us, as though every day is a
fight with fate. We probably start the day with fear of what is going to happen
today and feel that our
lives are something that we have to summon every gram of
our strength just to cope with. Conversely, can you imagine that someone living
in the light is able to consciously accelerate their progress. They are
intentionally living in the moment, aware of the opportunity for lessons and
revelations in every second, listening to their dreams and meditations and
easily and blissfully rolling along on top of fate. People in light, have no
fear, for no event or circumstance can remove them from their conscious
awareness at every moment of the infinite heaven within them. The removal of
fear from one’s life is the most powerful catalyst that can be offered to the
seeker’s spiritual life, as it is the absolute antithesis of love. To be put
plainly, fear
creates hell, love reveals heaven.
Creating heaven
Over the course of the classes, we have been saying that the kingdom of heaven
is here now, and it is for us to open ourselves to our own pure revelation of
that reality inside of our own hearts. But for a moment imagine creating a
perfect heaven yourself, a place that people came to learn and grow and evolve,
a place where they would learn about and experience their real infinite and
eternal nature. Imagine creating a place where your children could evolve as
fast as possible.
We no more know our own destiny than a tea leaf knows the destiny of the East
India Company– Douglas Adams
You might need to create some basic laws. The first might be that everyone has
to progress, however slowly. Those that really are very slow, will be cajoled
and perhaps even forced to make the leaps they need to progress, while those
consciously trying to be good students will be empowered and inspired to travel
at an accelerated pace, with a full measure of encouragement and perhaps (often)
a full measure of help.
The next to create balance might be as simple as every action creates a reaction
– that whatever you give you get in return.
You
might like to entertain the idea of a final law, where although you do not
wish to
distract your children from
their major task, you still want them to have fun and be a little spoilt, so
you might decree that whatever they want they get and it is for them to
choose. Obviously from your perspective, it would seem logical that if they
want something from the dark you make it considerably harder to obtain than
the natural flow of gifts from the light of heaven. But to get the things
they want they might have to imagine the thing they want and focus on that
thing and eventually it would become a reality.
In a perfect heaven, it would seem logical that the consciousness of your
children would directly reflect upon their feeling of well-being. Perhaps even a
method of communicating what they were doing wrong would help. But above all
they should be loved, infinitely and unconditionally and have the capacity to
connect to that love, and feel the way it connects all souls.
You might think that in a perfect school, the opportunity for role-playing would
be a great help. To place your children in a multitude of different
life-scenarios where they might more quickly learn important lessons. This might
be an opportunity where the seeker having problems in a particular area would be
placed in a scenario where a particular major lesson would be powerfully
presented to the seeker for resolution.
"You make a living from what you get, you make a life from what you give."
Finally you might create a few methods of communicating your lessons. An inner
intuitive voice, might be the most obvious. Perhaps night dreams where the
seeker could be guided through virtual reality lifetimes and truths revealed. To
end with, you might connect the events of every moment on your heaven, as a kind
of theatre of coincidence, where no event happens for no reason and where
everything perfectly reflects consciousness.
Do you see how this heaven is our earth?
1. Everyone must progress
2. Whatever you give you get in return
3. Love empowers and unites everything
4. Multiple lives give multiple chances
5. Communication methods (dreams, conscience and life events)
6. Everything naturally becomes easier.
All things from the beginning are in their nature Being itself”– Ashvaghosha
(Buddhist)
There is a lesson here that knowledge is learned and changes, while truth and
wisdom are revealed and constant. Meditation is the key to this revelation of
truth.
For this
exercise I would like you to imagine yourself walking alone in a desert.
You are alone but
not lonely as this walking seems more of a contemplation. This desert a place to
remove yourself from the distractions of the world. After a time you find
yourself at a crossroad and you are immediately aware that this crossroad has three options.
You feel in your
heart, that these options represent your destiny and each
path a different possible future. You feel as though it is possible to walk down
any of the paths and return as you choose. And you feel compelled to try them
all.
The first path is your lowest possible future. It is defined by your inability
to focus on your spiritual aspirations and your ignorance of the inner
promptings and intuitive leanings of your heart. Take 2 or 3 steps down this
path imagining with each step a month is passing. See yourself falling into this
possible future and imagine how you might be feeling - imagine how your life
would be unfolding. You might see the confusion and unhappiness, even depression
that might arise from not being in touch with yourself. When you are ready
return to the crossroad and step straight ahead down your middle possible
future. With each step you might find that your spiritual endeavours are
important to you but they often neglected, put to the bottom of the pile
underneath the day to day struggles of our busy lives. Every so often you will
commit to something of spiritual significance in your life but find that perhaps
because of lack of time or commitment you do not follow through. You are, however,
somehow making progress and you do find yourself gradually evolving. When you
are ready, return to the crossroad.
Finally, take a
few steps and keep walking down the path of your highest possible future. Down
this path, you have had the solid realisation that your spiritual life is the
most important thing in your life. You have seen that if you allow your heart to
be the centre of your being - directing your mind, body and emotions - you make
solid progress, you are infinitely happier with yourself, you progress the
fastest. Look into the future 6 months, 1 year, 5 years. Imagine what sort of
person you would be in five years time having
meditated daily from today.
• You will be healthier having learned to hurl negative thought patterns from
your consciousness.
• You will be peaceful and self-assured, confident in yourself and your ability
to make major life decisions by consulting your own deepest inmost nature.
• You might be amazing yourself with your creativity in music or art or poetry.
• You find that you are able to intuitively understand people so much better,
and rather than competing with them, you might be feeling as though they are a
participant in you.
• You will have discovered a clear life purpose. Imagine how much clarity and
satisfaction that will reveal in your life.
And then having seen who you might be in five years, step 10 or twenty years
into the future and see how you might feel about yourself then. Having meditated
for twenty years, I would like you to imagine how you might meditate there.
Imagine the thoughts you would allow in your consciousness. You will have
transformed all the hate or anger in your life. Depression or unhappiness will
be words from a very long time ago that you might have trouble even imagining.
Sit there 20 years in the future and meditate as you might.
When you are ready to finish, consider one last thing. The only major difference
between you now, and you, having meditated for twenty years and following your
highest possible destiny is the thoughts you allow into your state of mind.
Resolve right now, to stay in this consciousness, and one assimilated, use it as
the starting point for the rest of your spiritual life.
Summary
During this
ninth
class you will have;
opened yourself up to the heaven that
we live in
made progress a focus of your spiritual journey - looking for ways to
learn through noticing dreams, intuition and the coincidences of life