The Initiate

Many years ago I considered signing up for the Rose Cross or Rosicrucian literature and school of thought. What kept me from following through was this inner voice that had admonished me for years not to “join any religion or school of thought.” Once I awakened, I understood the purpose for me in my life for why this needed to be so, afterwhich the inner voice explained once I got a decade in that this would no longer be necessary. I wasn’t going to throw myself into the dogma or belief of any system at that point. As a result, I was able to begin researching other traditions for clues about illumination and /or enlightenment.

As an outgrowth of this, this video was sent to me and I think you might find it interesting. It is only a primer, but it helps to show how there is a universal phenomenon that has been seen in all the religions and schools of thought which boils down to a non-religious knowledge about body and soul (and all both contains) that I think could be understood in a more plain and objective way while realizing that it leads to themost vivid and deep levels of feeling. So here is the video. Let me know what you think.

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I was not satisfied with the teaching in church….I knew there was more. I didn’t know what it was, only that it was wanting. I knew this above all else, beyond the explanations of others that I was merely “prideful” or unable to take the teaching as truth. No, there was more, I knew it beyond all else.
When I awakened I was lucky to have seen how there WERE teachings by Jesus himself which he passed on to his disciples in books that spoke directly about a process whereby one entered the kingdom. These were central teaching that acted like a key to understanding everything else Jesus was teaching in his ministry. The problem was that these teaching were demonized and anathematized by the church. These were part of this something “more.” I knew that in fact Jesus was teaching his followers about awakening and that the truth was hidden or obfuscated in numerous ways. History offered up her secrets and laid bare the many ways that contributed to our losing these central teachings. What is so amazing to me is that these teachings are actually the lynch pins in understanding all that Jesus taught about. It’s pretty incredible to look at all of this and know that this went down in the way that it did.
I once wrote about this issue and had some of my friends asking me why I was so critical about Christianity, or why I hated the church. It’s too easy to feel that way when dealing with this issue and to me, it is an easy way out of actually examining things closely and asking some very fair questions. But it’s not out of a deep hate or any of that. In fact, it is quite the opposite. I want a religion that offers the keys to self realization, of actually knowing what this kingdom is. Truth is a curious thing; we can have all levels of it and still be missing key points.

I have done the hard work of inquiring and looking. I have poured through the texts of the New Testament as well as those that were not included, from apocrypha to the Nag Hammadi. I have studied issues surrounding translation, how the contextual nature of Aramaic actually does matter when translating to any language, as well as what biblical scholars are saying that pastors dare not touch. More than this, I awakened and saw that the only books that helped describe my new state of being were the words of Jesus teaching his followers about the kingdom, which fit my experience perfectly….but also happened to have been deemed heresy. They had been cast aside and had never made it into canon.  The more that I read, the more it became clear that what we got was a version of the truth, but not the full truth.  I’m not even suggesting that this was some sort of conspiracy.  It may have been simply a conspiracy of ignorance acted upon by those who had less than the full story.  But even half the story is better than no story, and it wasn’t as if we weren’t getting truths.  We just didn’t get its heart, and this, dear readers, is the hardest one to swallow for some of us today.  It is covered over first by some 1700 years of tradition and then it includes a whole new dimension of thinking added, a great mystery that has been hidden from all of us (for whatever reason).

Since my experience in awakening is the same exact phenomenon as others who have awakened, and it’s all described in the same way by nearly everyone, and is being described in these cast-away texts, it begs the question; isn’t it possible that something very important was missed? And perhaps, then, might this missing piece be important to know the fullness of this man’s great insight and teaching? If you found out that the teaching of Jesus was incomplete, wouldn’t you, as a follower of Christ, want to know? I’m asking you to put your pride aside and get curious and be simple like children, ripe for hearing what might just be really big news.

Awakening, which is the kingdom, brings a renewed way of using the mind. If you can teach yourself to forgo mere rational thought, you can activate more and more of your capacity for understanding, which is truly liberating. It requires humility because there is so much to give up in order to see in this way. There is a blizzard of biases and beliefs that rage in such places, and the very religion that was created to support these teachings has essentially continued to demonize the concept of awakening in some quarters. Once these biases have been cleared, though, the mind becomes a luminous field of awareness in direct proportion to how much bias has been released. But it isn’t just that, it’s letting yourself be shown, led, taken by the presence of the indwelling divine and it’s child which is the Christ consciousness. Others call it Cosmic Consciousness, or Cosmic Mind. It is all the same and emerges in the same way in each tradition because this is what we ALL are, rather than the beliefs we hold. Remember how Jesus said the kingdom is within you? That might just be an important clue to all of us. It’s what’s inside-this does not happen outside of any of us. Where, then, do you think you will meet God?

This more asks me to continually to let go of my familiar moorings to here and as I do, new understanding floods in, mysteries become knowns, and the universe resolves into a greater and greater miracle. But no words can contain this more…you just have to go and see for yourself.

All of this is like a seed that grows into a sprout, then a plant, and then a flower. The flower opens more and more and this flower is awareness. This is how awakening proceeds; it is the smallest of seeds that grows in stages. More and more, it opens, revealing still-deeper layers of comprehension. To get there, I lay aside all rational thought and allow my mind to go blank. Yes, blank. It is here that absent thought a great and ineffable presence grows that is a love unlike any other. Everything I could ever wish to know becomes available in that “space.” If you believe you can’t, you probably won’t….but if you consider it possible, then it becomes possible. I wish this for everyone because it reveals our own foolishness and opens us to wonder and awe. The world so needs this right now.

Until next time….

Within & Without

No teacher can provide you with what is not already within you.  No one confers anything that you already are.  The great illusion of teachers and authorities is that they hold something that you, yourself, do not already have.  We fool ourselves into thinking this is so through our belief, that we must “get” something from another when all along, it is within us.  By no longer seeking to allow another to be the harbinger of that, we actually free ourselves in a way that goes beyond all the old paradigms that place each of us at a disadvantage, however small or seemingly inconsequential.  Doing so leads to authentic personal power.  This is something so incredible, no one can ever take it from you, for you never entered into any kind of agreement that sought to share that power, or borrow it, or rent or loan it in any way.  Some want to call this the warrior path because of how it is so clear, how it takes what is its own, but it is not that.  This is the human path.  It is the greatest truth never told.  To find it, you must search for it yourself.  Not just search, but find, then hold and embody it.  You do not look beyond yourself for the glory that is your own being.  There is nothing quite like it in anyone on this earth.  I ask you; why cheapen it by leaping over the fence in your own backyard in favor of the grass next door.  Yet we do this constantly.  You don’t have to, not anymore.  What you win from doing this is immeasurable.  And it is yours.

When you get this, you free yourself to see clearly how what is within is without.  The world is a mirror of you, for you.  You need only look.  You need only bear awareness in the moment and really see the world that turns in your day-to-day.  What do you see?  Now as you see, feel into what you see, seek its innards, its soul, its heart.  Seek the world from its insides and what you find there is you.  It isn’t that there isn’t anything there but  you, but that this universe is just that miraculous a thing that energy attracts its own.  Don’t like it?  Be the change you wish to see and I promise, it will indeed be. Don’t worry about what anyone else says, for moving out of the prison of your own feeling is but a breath away.  What is it that is in us that needs the crutch of others?  We do not believe in ourselves.  We do not honor and love and even cherish ourselves enough in order to see it, or find it.  But it is there.  Always.

Not long ago there was a movie about this very issue.  I have not seen it, but I know others who have. I know enough about it to know that it is a story about an ordinary man who was a maker of documentary movies who dressed up like a guru and people flocked to him, believed in his made-up stories.  He transmitted a blue light to them as a kind of blessing and the people saw the blue light.  He told them that the guru was within, all the while his students would ask him, “Yes, but what do you think?” This is the story of Vikram Gandhi.  This is perhaps the hardest of lessons for us to learn.  It is so engrained in us, to wake up from it is what we each will resist, many of us, until the moment happens.  And then it happens again, and again, until we have shed that which keeps us separated from that one great light that exists within ourselves.  Knowing it leads to imperishabillity.

Promised Land

Long before all belief formed its nucleus in this world, before any religions was known or formed, or followed, the Source of all Life took to itself its own religion.  This religion was so powerful, the light that is cast revealed all that was brave enough to step into its light and made great shadows out of that which feared its great radiance.  There were no steps, no prayers, incantations or books full of wisdom written to illuminate this religion.  So great was this religion that it spawned all later efforts to grasp it.  Men and women alike all believed that their observations accumulated over time, granted them the authority to make these into religions seeking to give voice to that which had never been spoken.

This religion was something that was without limit and was the essence of the infinite which wrapped the whole of everything of it in its great heart. It had no words, this religion, and so it was never limited, never wrapped or bound by any sense of contradiction.  This great religion was banned by the great stamp of ignorance on earth, and efforts have been made ever since to limit it, to define it, and in so doing, it has been like holding a corpse.  The moment we grasp the wind, we have lost it.  This was how this religion was.  It was great, profound, wonderful and available to all.  There were not translation necessary, no books to read nor rules to live by for the brilliance of it was enough.

The force that drove this one original religion was spoken of in many forms in the world.  Many would identify it and would find many versions of it, but there was a parent to all these versions, a vine with its own origin within the infinite heart of the divine.  This root was great, and its name was love.

This love was the original love, a force, not a feeling alone.  It was not a thing anyone felt FOR someone but that inhabited them.  So great was this love that the souls of those who could hold it in their awareness would be carried by this force and see into the infinite.  The power of this love was just this great, powerful, for it swept every aspect, every speck of a person and would clear it of all the dust which had settled within it.  It scattered shadow when souls were brave enough to stand before it, naked, hiding nothing, allowing nothing to stand in the way.  It would be then that all souls would be resolved into pure light and enter a place which is indescribable, born out of grace.  By entering into it in this way, one would enter into a new life with all love in the world the children of this one great love.

Beyond all of this is a realm of heaven, but this beyond is that which lies within us.  it seems so far only because we have travelled so far from that which made us, which yearns for our return, and which shall dance like children before the Holy of Holies…..a temple that lies in every soul.