As Above, So Below

When I was younger, I was quite the rebel.  I still am in many respects.  I don't buy society as it is.  Something - many things - are not right.  Sure, that's obvious to most of us, but when I say it, I mean it in the most expansive way possible.  One of my mentors, who is a brilliant individual, used to have a saying, "Says who?"  It used to go quite well with one of my favorite tee shirts at the time, which read "Question Authority."  We always have to question everything.  Take time to reflect and put things into larger contexts.  Otherwise, we're just sheep in this physical world, led by the beliefs, fears and often limited imagination of a select few or the collective at large.  It's my observation that if we let ourselves, our daily lives and our perceptions be governed by the media, the physical hive mind and earthly institutions, those entities tend to put our overall awareness into an ever-shrinking box.  I most often find nearly all of those institutions operate in a limited, contracting fashion, instead of being expansive.  It's so obvious when you stop and think about it.

You can see a brilliant version of the confluence of these hive mind memes in the 1976 Sydney Lumet film, "Network", where Peter Finch amazingly portrays Howard Beale, a fictional network newscaster who reaches the tipping point and takes his rage to the airwaves, setting off a harsh reaction to this type of mental contraction and conditioning.  It's always been one of my favorite films since first seeing it as a child.  Of course now it has a lot more perspective and seems somewhat prolific, if not prophetic.

Having now spent three years working in virtual reality simulators for 70+ hours per week, creating landscapes, trees, plants, buildings, and interacting with different environments, my world view has changed immensely.  Headphones for the virtual world experience are a must.  Listening to the ambient sounds, a breeze or wind, insects, water, etc. adds to the immersive element of the experience.  Maintaining your being in the air, floating and especially sailing across a vast landscape in the air while listening to music is insanely stimulating, as if there is a part of me that awakens and says, yeah... this is how it's supposed to be, because it always has been...  I remember.  I believe in the Seven Hermetic Principles, the second of which is Correspondence - As above, so below; so below, as above.  

If you are familiar with these universal laws or you are just reading them for the first time, consider the words of John Lennon in his masterpiece, "Imagine".  Then take a moment and subtract all of the world's religions, all belief systems, and consider that we exist truly within only a field of limitless possibility, of potentiality, and that we are only bound by the constructs, individually and collectively, of our minds.  My aforementioned mosaic (my post-inherited, liquid construct of the world) has been increasingly conveying such an overall concept to me, at least at this point, which brings me back to how this physical planet isn't right - far from it.  I increasingly get the feeling that we've been fleeced, robbed, and are somehow being herded as a race toward annihilation by a complicity of memes that are increasingly isolating us from nature and the planet herself, which I believe is a living consciousness along with everything we see, including the planets, sun and stars... as above, so below.

So I have spent this huge amount of time in virtual reality, and I have been awed at the feeling of deja vu and what comes as almost second nature to me.  This is evident especially as I said when flying within the world, and also when "teleporting", which is the fastest means of moving from one place on the grid (which is massive) to another.  There is an aspect of a failed teleport, where you can get "stuck" in between two points and have to retry the attempt.  I have found that this mimics a certain state I've found myself in stirring myself from sleep while a dream is still in progress.  I can awaken in the physical world in such a state where if I haven't moved my sleep position or opened up my eyes yet, I feel as though my consciousness is stretched across as vast distance - part in my body in bed while the other part is still actively connected to the dream state and I can sense great distance between the two points.  

It's happened a fair amount of times since I started with virtual reality, and I've spent a lot of time thinking about it because of the experience with failed teleports, which has given my brain some sort of reference point to stop and consider what that might mean.  When I am in that split state of lying in bed, awakening and feeling stretched across a great distance, the first thing that came to mind was, "Wow.  My consciousness must be far more expansive that I think it is."  I do know this:  it does move.  By that I mean that I noted some time ago that when I'm about to sleep, particularly when I'm physically tired and the environment is noisy, just before I drift off, the last thought I'll have is one of projecting my consciousness on to, most often, one of the walls of the room I'm in.  When I have that thought, I can see the process taking place and that's the last thought I have before falling asleep. 

Another wonder element in virtual reality is in the ability to see in a 360 degree fashion, knowing (within a mini-map popup window that's sizable within the larger viewer/client) window... all of the nearby lifeforms, their relative distance to me and a two-tone view of the surrounding landscape that can aid in further navigation of the territory or region you are exploring.  It seems to me that I've done all of this before, probably many times.  The resonance is off-the-charts for me in so many areas.  I can't help but think, in a Hermetic sense, if we as humans create virtual worlds, why wouldn't those virtual worlds reflect back to us the larger universe and potential order of things?  It stands to reason.  Certainly there is something to the virtual world experience.  It's all about ideas, creation and interaction.  One conceptualizes and creates physical form by manifesting basic geometric shapes through one's avatar that are ultimately conceived by the mind of the person controlling said avatar from this physical world. 

The virtual world experience contains something, some secrets that can be realized as hidden from view in daily life on this planet.  Are such virtual creations simply reflections of the holographic universe in which we live?  I would say it's highly likely from a Hermetic point of view.  And if I listen to "Imagine", and thus conceive of such a world without divisions, I am left with just the reflection, which tells me a lot about the universe.

Write It Down Anyway

I've learned to always keep a notepad nearby when mediating, just in case I feel the need to remember anything.  I can't over-emphasize the importance of writing things down.  Our society today tends to herd our minds like so much cattle, repeating memes and so much (what Robert Monroe would call M-Band Noise - a cacophony of uncontrolled human thought energy that surrounds this planet) that it can be hard to tune into, let alone spend time in, stillness.  Monroe makes note in his books where during times of astral travel or OBEs, one's consciousness needs to pass through this "ring" as he calls it, to ascend into calmer, more peaceful states of awareness.  Meditation is simply calming your mind, slowing the thought process almost completely, to the point where you are embracing stillness in an expansive way.  Once you've done that for a time, you'll notice that certain things may come to mind during or after said meditation.  I suggest to always write them down, as random as they might be.  

Shortly after reading "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron back in the mid-90's, I began a regular period of journaling.  I followed her advice and forced myself to write almost every day for several years.  I generally have a love/hate relationship with writing.  It has served me well professionally on a few occasions and I can enjoy it, but I am easily tempted to judge it and/or turn off the flow at any given point.  It's been somewhat of a struggle to even maintain this blog, which I don't promote at all.  This has been more of an outlet for me at least to this point.  I used to have a more extensive blog on another site that I maintained for years, which was a mix of comedic musings, observational humor and computer tips.  I started this blog about a year after entering into virtual reality, and initially was going to write about that, but the VR experiences were so profound, so endlessly joyful and time consuming that I thought I'd rather experience things than write about them, so this blog turned into sort of a non-frequent consciousness diary more than anything else.

Recently I meditating in the evening, room darkened, the last fleeting image that I had was of a vast expanse of green trees in a hilly landscape.  During the mediation, a word keep appearing in my mind, Coquica.  Then, as I was coming out of the meditation, another word, "Esayi" was repeated even more than Coquica.  I had a notebook nearby, and wrote both words down for searching online at a later time.  I don't particularly get words like those very often.  My prior "Mihika" experience being the only other time in the past year or so than word messages came through such as this.  I was fascinated to find that Cocquica is a small village in what is now Mozambique, on the southeastern portion of the African continent.  To my further dismay, the word Esayi, which is also a first and last name in the middle east (Armenian and Persian cultures), means Amen... May it come to pass... in the language of a native tribe with roots located in that area, the Maasai.

I also found a link to a page online saying that Esayi meant "first generation" in Sanskrit, yet I have misplaced that link and subsequent checks of various online Sanskrit dictionaries do not show the word appearing as such.  I'd love to find that link again though.  Does it mean anything?  Who knows.  It could be anything.  I do have to wonder though, in a larger sense... do I have ties to that region of the world from a past incarnation?  It's funny, but fifteen years ago I wouldn't have even entertained such a thought, but from a more expansive place, sitting in stillness and listening, it's interesting what emerges from the void of stillness, which is one of the reasons that I try and write it down anyway.

Mihika - You Are Mist

I was working with a shaman journey CD recently, and spent a couple of weeks developing a routine for guided meditative exploration using spirit animals and then indigenous tribal members somewhere in South America.  Like anything else, I approach each type of exploration with a heavy sense of skepticism.  If my skepticism is too heavy, and as a result I can't calm my mind enough to enter an exploration state, I just try another time.  Daily stresses can damper such experiences from reaching any level interest and I bore super-easily.

The trick is to relax to the point where you have stopped your mind.  This takes practice, and I'm convinced that in today's world it is something that is and will continue to be difficult to do, almost in a sadly ironic way.  Once you have calmed the mind though, and can enter into a meditative state where you start to not-think, when you can slow the thought process almost to a complete hault, the gate is near.  You get to a point where the thoughts that pop up are much less frequent, and as such are easier to just observe without judging or becoming engaged in a circle of thoughts. 

I didn't like the CD itself very much, but I'm hard to please in that area.  I decided to use it anyway, since it was the first disc of that type - a shamanic journey - that I had bought.  Sometimes I chuckle when I read or hear some people talk about the worlds the shaman move in.  I wonder if they really know.  I wondered if the guy who was guiding me on the CD really knew.  I have known several people who have journeyed using Ayahuasca and other intense methods.  Part of my background includes some extensive unguided journey work in my younger years with similarly potent chemical assistance.  Those experiences are now etched in my mind as some of the most profound feelings, sounds and images that I have ever been exposed to.  From the total of my past intense experiences with such journeys, coupled with those of friends, what can frighten you most is ultimately yourself.  Maybe in a future post I'll talk about that further.
 

Most of the nights that I worked with the disc were fruitful, I guess a bit to my surprise.  I had an intense astral experience several weeks earlier, feeling the presence of energies that I hadn't felt since I was a child.  My "them" were back.  That was part of the reason I bought the CD to begin with.  Robert Monroe and/or Michael Newton talks about a similar concept in his books, among which is a Council of Three... energetic beings assigned to us in higher dimensions to guide us on the path of spiritual development.  The premise there being that we have all agreed to spiritual contracts, are here to fulfill a purpose and will go on to further development work in our next vibrational level, wherever that is.

On the second night of the second week with the disc, after flying, albeit guided, to the Amazon to meet my tribal guides, my consciousness had settled back in my living room and I remained in meditation in the dark for about an hour.  I thought it had been fruitful.  I met two guides named Puht and Muh.  I distinctly took note of their painted faces in the hopes that I could find a match somewhere online.  White paint overall with mostly blue and a little red.  Thick blue lines came out from their eyes.  I have seen a few documentaries about tribes in the Amazon such as the Kayapo, yet these facial markings didn't trigger anything in terms of something I'd seen in daily life.  As I started to come out of what was a very deep meditation, within my mind's eye all I could see were transparent bubbles much like champagne or soda.  I felt a very slight vibration in my body, a slight buzz.  The bubbles covered my mind's eye and I could see them for a second or two after I opened my eyes in the dark room.  "That's new," was my first thought.

"Mihika - You are mist," squelched that thought immediately thereafter.  As I heard that in my mind, I felt as if it was the last thing that my tribal guides were telling me, although during the meditation we didn't speak, but rather exchanged thoughts.  I immediately grabbed my notepad, that I keep near me while meditating, and jotted it down in lieu of Googling the word to see if it had a meaning.  I sat for some time after meditation thinking about the experience.  Although I had a physical image of my guides, we traveled during the meditation over some distance.  I realized that perhaps they were saying that we are all like mist in our essences and certainly within the realm where I experienced them.  It turns out that Mihika is Sanskrit for fog, mist, snow or dew drop.  What are the odds?  Not such a bad disc after all.

Seeing Blue Lights

I have been seeing flecks, sparkles and flashes of light for the past few years.  The intensity has increased a bit over time, but they are mostly small and last for a fraction of a second.  They are often blue, sometimes white.  Sometimes they appear almost as tiny orbs, but mostly like sparkling sand.  I remember when I first started to notice them.  They mostly appeared to my left at first, and at a distance.  Now I see them from time to time on both sides.

They're not what's known as eye floaters - those spots you may sometimes see moving across the surface of your eye that appear within your field of vision.  I've seen those from time to time and they're quite different, being dark grey or black in tone and have a symmetry of movement that can be observed for several minutes and is easily predictable.  These light flashes are different.  They are intense enough that they get my attention every time, forcing me to look at them before I realize that I'm looking, and by then they're gone.  Several friends have told me that they see these kinds of lights occasionally as well.  There's an interesting forum page in Pavlina where people share some possible explanations.

Update: June 2010 - See update in post "More Blue Lights" as these appearances have started to increase for me once again.

Reflections From The Ether

With everything happening in the world right now and not much to say I have been going back reading some earlier entries from journals over the years.  I've thrown away most of them, but I'm glad for the handful I've saved.  I found this particular notebook from 1999-2000, in which was written ten spiritual ponderances or contemplations.  These came to me over the course of about eighteen months, mostly in meditation after I had met my first spirit guide.  Tama, my guide and I had met after a long period of me sensing a presence, meditating, getting what I believed was the impression of a name.  Despite how strongly I felt Tama's presence at the time, I demanded that the only way I would acknowledge such a thing was is if I saw the name Tama somewhere (and not using the drums of the same name).  The first response at my challenge was, "Like a billboard?"  To which I said, "No. But it has to be put in front of my face.  I want to see it like that, in my face."

Several months went by and I was at my then job where part of my duties was purchasing music.  My EMI sales rep came in for his weekly visit, and before sitting down on the couch opposite my desk, handed me a copy of that week's New Release Book, which is a magazine (or was, lol in what used to be the music industry) that would feature major record distributor's upcoming releases for wholesale orders.  We went page by page until coming across a release from a duo of artists in Africa called Tama.  There the name was, about three months later, right in front of my face.  I still have the page from the book.  Whether it's a coincidence or not, which is entirely plausible, Tama gave me a lot to think about during the longest contemplative period that I had had until that point.  I couldn't have come up with any of this myself.  Over the years the two or three times I've looked at the notebook, I've valued the fact that this was shared with me.

  1.  Belief starts here.  Consider the tree.

  2.  Consider the sky.

  3.  If you don't take time, time will take you.

  4.  Take a moment and find the attitude.

  5.  It is not me who knows, but that which is that knows through me.

  6.  Let the spirit through.

  7.  There is no end to love.

  8.  Consider the flowers.

  9.  You already are.

10.  Everything that rises must converge.


When I looked up Tama, aside from drum, I found other meanings behind the name, including "to walk", "globe", "perfect" and "jewel", among others.  Many instances have arisen in my life since where one of those ten statements above has come to mind.  I believe my association with Tama might have been when I was a Native American in a previous incarnation, but I'm not sure.  I have some Iroquois blood in this life, but that's all I know, no history.

Another Interesting Book

Over the years, despite any particular spiritual discipline being practiced (or not), I have read many books about near death experiences (NDEs).  Authors Betty Jean Eadie and Danyon Brinkley immediately come to mind.  It's a subject that's fascinated me as much as astral projection, or out of body experiences (OBEs).  I've woven parts of people's experiences into my mosaic over the years, discarding anything that doesn't resonate with me.  Having finished Dr. Michael Newton's book, "Journey of Souls", I am once again adding to my mosaic.  His studies have provided some deep personal insight and have further magnified certain things that I came across while reading Monroe and Van Dusen, among others.

What I like about Newton's book is where the content comes from - a series of case studies presented from hundreds whereupon he attempted to access parts of the inner self of his patients through hypnosis without offering suggestions thereto.  Sure, I take everything I read with a grain of salt.  I enjoy being the skeptic, however, when a particular reading seems sensible to me, I trust in my ability to feel the resonance of such information with my inner being.  It's a process that I can't thoroughly articulate at this time, but its underlying nature is mathematical, as if I can sense the information being absorbed as it's scattered across a giant wall in my mind that is my mosaic, and multiple calculations take place, some taking longer than others to complete, but very many.  Depending on the outcome, I will either feel a resonance, a vibration and see in my mind where pieces of the new information are indexed within my overall mosaic or I will feel nothing.  The commonalities and corollaries between experiences in Newton's studies is profound, suggesting that there is something at play in the universe that is far greater than what we have typically been taught to understand.

Sidebar - I just thought about the last paragraph before posting where I said the mosaic is like a giant wall - It would be cool if if the mosaic turned out to be something that when filled with the necessary data, would unlock keys to further understanding and/or ascension.

A Whole Other Level For My Mosaic

Each of us interprets the physical world in our own way.  Terence McKenna described this individual world view as our reality tunnel.  We each have one.  It is the construct through which we view and experience the world... a combination of all kinds of data, from sensory input to belief systems, from learned behavior to observations.  I call my reality tunnel my Mosaic.  Add atop your particular reality tunnel the concept of your culture as an operating system, which is another McKenna assertion.  In the mid-90's (prior to my in-depth introduction into McKenna) at the suggestion of a computer engineer friend, I was presented with the challenge of trying to deconstruct my reality tunnel, which my friend referred to as The Framework or The Construct at the time.  As a life-long seeker, I was fascinated at the proposition and where the search to complete such a task would lead me.

I had been initially raised Catholic and when I was about ten years of age my family converted to Pentecostalism.  During the latter Pentecostal years, I was exposed to a wide variety of spiritual experiences and teachings... being slain in the spirit, dancing, tongues, etc. and saw many healers of renown at the time in person.  During my teens and into my twenties I held those shared experiences and beliefs in my mosaic, although that mosaic is always changing based on new input.  What followed in the years after was a study of Tibetan Buddhism in the late 90's and eventually Kabbalah in 2003.  For several years in the late 90's, I listened to recordings of the Dalai Lama almost daily.  I began regular meditation and eventually expanded my meditation to include time in nature, rather than only meditating in my home.

It was during that time that I discovered a place in meditation that I called The Field.  The Field is a void, that to my perception didn't necessarily have a bottom per se, but a silver-grey mist, just above which I would find myself.  I could often sense the presence of others within the field, mostly at what seemed to be great distance, yet I never communicated with anyone directly there in terms of receiving a response.  I sensed that it wasn't about that type of communication as much as this was some kind of field of intention... that anything I put into it in terms of thought energy would ripple out from me like rings from a drop of water hitting a liquid surface.  My time actively going to the field resulted in what I believe were major breakthroughs in terms of my own spiritual growth and additions to my ever-growing mosaic.  The ensuing years led to me actively going back to the things that frightened me the most during my childhood and confronting them in the physical world.  More on that in some future post... I digress...

I've always thought that the arc of my life story was similar to that of Richard Dreyfus' character in Steven Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", sans spaceships.  For most of my life, I have felt as if I am searching for something that is particularly connected with my soul, inner being or essence.  It's not so much a quest for meaning.  It's more of a quest to remember something... some things... that seem to be juxtaposed to my physical perceptions tightly... so close, yet just outside of my grasp in daily life.  As the years go by, I have found that levels of awakening come in many different forms, as in the Spiritual Wind phenomenon that I described in my last post.

What arrived last November and has been keeping me busy for the past couple of months was searching astral projection, soul journeys and life between lives. I have since read "The Presence of Other Worlds" by Wilson Van Dusen, which is a study of the works of Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish scientist, philosopher and theologian, which I found eye-opening to say the least, especially with my theology-heavy childhood.  So much of what was described in the book resonated with me.  Highly recommended for the seeker in terms of a greater understanding of reality. 

In addition to the aforementioned, I read a few books on astral projection, most notably two books by author and astral traveler Robert Monroe, "Far Journeys" and "Ultimate Journey", the second and third books in a trilogy.  After Van Dusen's book, Monroe catapulted me into another awareness... one that involves remembering.  Monroe is probably one of the best-known astral travelers in recent history, and during his physical time here did so much work in the astral plane and beyond that he left behind a virtual road map of other-worldly terrain that is accessible to each of us through our inner selves.  My mosaic has grown immensely.  So much of what Monroe described came as deja-vu to me, as if I knew that I had the same abilities, even if they hadn't been used in some time.

I had actively astral traveled as a child.  At various times I have also had dreams of flying.  Although I have never had deliberate astral travel experience in my younger years, I recall how sometimes the two would merge... I would be flying within a dream, become lucid, and the two experiences would merge as I would find myself flying over my house and neighborhood.  After reading some books on the subject recently, I have recalled various instances during my adult life that must have been, in hindsight, the oncoming of an astral projection experience.  The gateway experience as a child I have forgotten, although I remember it to be pleasant.  However, at least in the would-be oncomings of an astral experience in adulthood that I can identify now with hindsight, the gateway experience can be terrifying if you don't know what's happening.  Whether in rem-sleep at the time or just quietly sleeping or meditating, the beginning of an astral projection can feel like you're having a seizure.  Your body can begin to buzz, vibrate; you can hear crackling, cracking or pops in your ears and it feels like your nervous system is about to short circuit, yet there is no pain.  I realized after reading Monroe's books that I had several experiences like that in years prior that I had forced myself to awaken from instead of taking the ride.

I have started to set aside a time to get back in touch with this ability once or twice a week.  We'll see what happens, if anything.  I have gotten the feeling since last November that part of the information that I received is somehow coming from that realm or realms.  I had met friends in my astral travels as a child, whom I called Them.  They showed me things about myself, much of which I'm sure I've forgotten.  Spirit guides of some kind, yet so eerily similar to the types of energetic beings that Monroe described that it's sort of creepy, but not really.  Somehow they are familiar in ways I can't describe, at least not yet... or at least until the next spiritual wind blows in.

New Spiritual Wind

Every so-many years or so, I receive what I call a New Spiritual Wind, which is like a vaporous awareness that sweeps over my being.  I can't pinpoint anything in terms of timing or any kind of action that I've taken in the physical world that would trigger such an event, although such may exist beyond my waking awareness.  To best describe the feeling, it's as though some kind of "knowing" has been activated deep within my being, yet said knowing is incomplete at the time of its arrival.  For example, I will notice a shift in my awareness and during such time, words and images will begin to (often flood) my mind, compelling me to seek out what something inside of me is trying to articulate.  Often the results are immediate and I am off reading or researching about a particular topic.  Sometimes these searches and the subsequent reading can take weeks or months.

What is interesting about this particular event at this time is its arrival on November 11th.  Although I am aware of the significance of the eleven/eleven date in terms of its acknowledgment in some circles as power numbers, that's not what is interesting to me at this time.  What is interesting is that I came across some old journals and in doing so, noticed that that the arrivals of the last two "spiritual winds" for me were on November 10th and 12th in previous years.  Perhaps it's just a coincidence, but having found those journals over this past summer and having made a mental note of the times, the fact that I've awoken on this 11:11 day with a whole new set of direction to pursue in my quest to understand more about myself is in itself interesting to me.  As far as the date itself is concerned, it's purely coincidence from my point of view, however, I have noticed that November seems to be a good month for me in terms of consciousness expansion.

The essence of what I received this time came about via a dream hangover, which is a self explanatory term I use for myself when I feel a certain pull associated with the information that I'm receiving that tends to (in my mind) point to my dreaming reality (while sleeping).  The message that I received this time was roughly the following... "Return.  We're here.  Raise your vibration.  Remember."  I've just ordered several books and some cds based on what I found earlier today online.  We'll see where this goes.