Do You See Me?

It continues.  I've been feeling somewhat identical to Neo in the Matrix for several weeks now.  I can't describe most of it here.  So much information.  Much of it has no context as yet.  My meditations lately have turned into 24-hour affairs.  I've gotten about eight hours sleep over the past 96 hours.  That sensation on my back is pulsing constantly.  My hearing and vision have changed.  For two days I could sense a veil that was over the earth.  My perception of light has changed as well.  I noticed that my focus had changed.  Now, the concentration point of my focus naturally moves to the horizon, and I feel as if I'm seeing the detail in my field of view in a backwards motion, from the horizon toward me, instead of the other way around.  I can see things in the distance with great detail like never before.  In my meditation, the term "lifted gaze" has entered repeatedly.  It feels as if I've vibrated into another reality... one that is a phase off from what I'm used to, but everything seems to have a balance and grace to it.  Sometimes it feels as though I've vibed right out of this dimension.  

The last few days have been beyond belief.  I've stood for many hours meditating, which I normally don't do.  I'll do it when I run in the morning, but it never occurred to me previously to maintain meditation standing still.  I've also paced and paced meditating, marveling at how this energetic shift in awareness had really started to go off the charts, making me walk in circles for an hour or two.  Much of the information that I have received has to do with the order of things universal, the order of my ancient ancestry and the order of my current physical life.  The amount of information is too much to attempt to catalog here, and much of it will take time for me to process.  I've never felt such an intense, often playful feeling with Source energy before.  So much became clear to me about so many things, many from past lives and bloodlines, yet now I have twice the amount of questions.  When I close my eyes anywhere, including a dark room, there is a constant white glow at the base of my eyes.  That's how it appears to me... like a white aurora in my mind's eye.  I've also been able to see with my eyelids closed, which has never happened to me before.  Something has also happened with my hearing.  This is been quite extraordinary.  

It's also been scary at times.  My meditations have taken on another dimension, so vivid... more intense than at any other time sans using herbal or other help to achieve such a state.  My back has been pulsating more than ever.  As I said, I feel like I'm being guided, or taught something.  Perhaps I've tapped into a deeper part of myself, or maybe I've tuned into a higher vibration.  If I yield to the awareness...  it's like a unity thing... it's delicious.  That's the best way to describe it.  In all my years of dogmas, memes and searching... since I started to deconstruct my construct, my reality tunnel... I've never quite connected in this way.  As this has been occurring, my life contains more uncertainty than ever, as what I've built over the past ten years collapses.

During a spontaneous visit to the Lake Shrine yesterday, I was directed to walk the grounds in my bare feet, which I managed to do for about two hours before a staff member reminded me of liability issues in doing so.  The impression I got was that I should try and absorb the energy of the ground.  There are several places on the grounds where there are benches.  Each one is in a different section of the grounds' environment, and each has its own unique tiling, along with a sacred rock base up which the bench sits.  Someone had told me that the rocks were imported from a holy site somewhere at the time of the Shrine's construction.  

I had been sitting on one of the stone benches for about twenty minutes.  A black cat that lives on the ground had hopped up on the bench and then into my lap.  Two women approached on the path.  As they got closer our eyes met and the radiating pulse point in my back started to vibrate significantly.  They stopped and we started to talk.  Again, for whatever reason, these past few weeks have been other-worldly in terms of an expansion in my perceptions, both spiritual and most recently, physical.  I felt so familiar with these two strangers.  A couple of times we all just started to laugh... in that way that you do with good friends at certain times.

We talked about the Shrine, a potential universal consciousness shift within the next few years and briefly toward the end about soul groups and time on a grand scale.  Toward the end of the conversation, as I looked at these two beautiful woman, my thoughts turned toward the possibility of previous incarnations, past lives and trying to remember more and more about them (since this information, at least for me until very recently, has been slow in coming forth).  As we were saying goodbye, I had clasped my hands and one of the women did the same as she placed her hands on mine.  An even bigger smile than I had seen from her expanded across her face from ear to ear as she took in a furiously deep breath.  Our eyes locked.  She started jumping up and down quickly, her hands still clasped with mine... "Do you see me?!?!!  Do you see me?!?!!"  I was riveted - shocked - amazed - and my knees almost collapsed.  It was like her soul was communicating directly with mine beyond the physical.

Instantly I felt that I had a kinship with her.  Something that she and I could both feel, yet the depth and context were not able to be fully realized.  Maybe she could feel it more than me initially, which is why she started jumping and said what she said.  I stood there for some time at the bench after the women left.  We told each other in the cosmic sense that we'd see one another again.  My body continued to vibrate in this new ecstasy mode that I have been in.  By the time I got home, I was in this cloud.  The pace of strange encounters like this has increased exponentially of late.  Later that evening I had moved on and back into reading and taking notes, as the desire to learn more about my merkaba and other consciousness-related subjects were being fed through my new-found cosmic information line.  I dove into it again for hours.

Shortly before midnight, I went into the kitchen to make some green tea.  On my kitchen counter is a small framed picture of a panda, sitting in some flowers.  It was given to me when I was very young by my grandmother, who passed away over ten years ago.  Above the panda is a butterfly, and the saying "Know that you are loved."  I had come across it during the move last September and had placed it on the counter.  As I walked into the kitchen, I glanced at the picture.  The panda became animated, stood up and I heard "Do you see me?!?!!  Do you see me?!?!!"  I almost fell over.  Another first.  I just stared at the picture wondering what had just happened - and if it was going to do it again.  I have no explanation.  I stood in the kitchen for about an hour after that, contemplating what that and the day's earlier events could mean.  I don't know.  I do know that the common denominator of everything that's been happening to me lately is vibration-related.

The Lake Shrine

My awareness has continued to change over the past year, and it seems as though as time goes on, my awareness continues to change and shift at a faster rate, as if it's getting to be more expansive and accelerating while doing so.  A friend recently invited me to go to the Lake Shrine in Pacific Palisades, California, which is the community that neighbors Santa Monica to the north, on LA's west side along the coast.  She gave no reference about the facility other than to say that she and other friends (some of whom I have met recently) often go to the Shrine to walk, meditate and enjoy the energy.  "It's beautiful.  You'll love it," said my friend.

After agreeing to go, I Googled the Shrine and was amazed to find out that it was started by Paramhansa Yogananda, who's "How To Be Happy All The Time" was a book that I had been using as a daily inspirational text for the previous two months.  I had purchased the book a few years prior, and it resurfaced after my move back in September and had been on the table next to my bed.  I had been reading it daily.  "A pleasant seeming coincidence," I first thought, which was followed by a "must-go" energy just because of the measure of same.  I had no idea that since my first two trips, days apart, that my awareness would change again, once during my first visit and again during the second, which is an awareness that is strong and I've managed to hold it since.

The Shrine is a fascinating place.  It's part of the Self-Realization Fellowship, which was founded by Yogananda.  There is a spiritual wishing well and a area that serves as a monument to the world's religions.  On the higher end of the grounds (it's spread up over a hill), there is a temple that holds weekly services and times of teaching. Territorially, it's not that large, but it contains both a beauty and an energy that is uncommon, at least to my experience.  I've spent a fair amount of time in nature, and I am easily awed with beauty.  That much has been true my whole life.  As a rebellious teenage punk in Greenwich Village around '81 or '82, I was taken by a friend to a shop for the first time that was then on 8th Street called Poster Mat.  As we walked around in the store, one particular laminated word collage poster caught my eye.  At the center of the word collage was the phrase, "Never lose your sense of wonder."  The rest of the poster had compelling words in different colors.

"That works for me," I thought, and I bought the poster.  It really resonated with me.  Many years later I was searching for something completely unrelated online and came across the author who was said to have originally coined the phrase that had become one of my mantras.  I don't recall his name at the moment.  I was going to say Dalton Trumbo (one of the original Hollywod Ten and an ultimately blacklisted author during the McCarthy era) but I don't think that's correct.  Perhaps it was a quote from Shel Silverstein, author of "The Giving Tree" and a man with many, many memorable quotes.  I know there's a band from England called Yeti who released a song by that name, but the saying is much older than that.  Words to live by wherever they came from.

Back to the Shrine.  This place is like a living diorama of the world in balance, at least that's what I was perceiving in terms of the energy that I felt there.  It's very powerful.  The Yogananda's teachings had already become a part of my daily practice by this point, and I considered it a real blessing when speaking with one of the staff members there who was kind enough to give us some of the history of the site.  Yogananda had a saying during his time here, "Whenever you think of me, there I will be," or words to that effect.  I couldn't help thinking about the seeming measure of coincidence after going through a few months of consulting "How To Be Happy..." on a daily basis.

When you look into who this being was, the people whom he affected and the nature of the Shrine and how it came to be, it's astounding.  The Beatles, in particular George Harrison, played a role in the development of the site, which was in its previous incarnation, according to the staff, a gravel pit.  The Yogananda had then been living in the LA area for some time and had the desire to construct such a place.  Without any physical effort, though only meditation, Yogananda placed himself within the mind of the gravel pit owner, repeatedly, over time.  Eventually the owner came to him in person, to which Yogananda replied, "What took you so long?"  and plans ensued for him to to secure the space for the Shrine from the then-current owner, whom I believe gave him the land or did so at a special price.  For me, this was a huge spiritual lesson.  If only I could do such things... if we all could... and if we could... surely the world would become a much more interesting place where unity could grow, instead of division.

I have since returned to the Shrine and taken some photos, which maybe at some point I'll put into a slideshow of some kind.  As I said, the energies there are very powerful.  I'm so glad my friend turned me on to the place and I hope to go there regularly.  I have since found that listening to George Harrison's "Dark Horse" album and its lyrics have taken on a whole other level of meaning, especially the song, "Give Me Love," which is a masterpiece.  My respect for George, which was already high, has hit all new heights as a result.  What an amazing individual.  It was also he (George) who financed Monty Python's "Life of Brian".  What fascinating person and bringer of good great things to the rest of us.  Without Python, my life would have been different.  They rewrote the concept of comedy on so many levels.  Harrison's insights into the human condition, which is found in the music he left behind, are profound and have such a delicate, true-feeling resonance to me, as if the universe itself was singing through him.  I'm so thankful that I haven't lost my sense of wonder.