For a lot of you, this blog may be a little too esoteric or unbelievable; however, I have blogger friends (Wellis Fool-A Fool's Tale) who can back up a lot of these events and it's time that I put them down.
Upon deciding to move to Portland I made a little "pact" with myself that no matter how my mind felt, I would no longer ignore my intuition on the "left coast" and would attempt to further merge into the expanded consciousness with each passing day. Needless to say, the past two weeks have been absolutely mind-altering as a result of this experiment.
#1 Leaving Pennsylvania on Labor Day I had no set plan for trekking across the country other than stopping in Lincoln, NE to visit my Uncle Jeff who is a professor there. While for some this wouldn't seem like a problem, when one is broke it is a relatively large hurdle to overcome, considering any motel room could put a major dent into the budget. After about 4 hours of driving on Monday I received a phone call from a friend who happened to be calling at random. When asked what I was doing, I replied that I was on my way to my new home across the country. It was then that he informed me that he was attending medical school in Canton, OH and had a place for me to sleep for the night. Problem solved! Point: Universe.
#2 I fell asleep the next night in Lincoln, NE and had a dream: a certain friend of mine from high-school (who I was never romantically involved with, nor especially close to by any means) appeared in my dream and I gathered that we were in a West Coast City shortly after sunset. She was wearing glasses and headphones, and walking on the opposite side of the street, so I called to her. After several increasingly desperate attempts I realized that she wasn't going to hear me, and she walked on. The following day I decided to tell her via facebook that I had a dream about her. Upon receiving my message she told me that she had also had a dream with ME in it, and asked what it was about. When I elaborated, she said that she was supposed to move to the West Coast 3 years ago, and it never happened (that's why she couldn't respond!). Point: Universe
#3,4 (I'm realizing how long this blog is getting, so I'm leaving them out, but they were both astronomically unlikely due to "coincidence".)
#5 Earlier this week, while sitting on a bench in downtown Portland writing memoirs a late-20s, tall, somewhat awkward man sat a few benches down from me. His "Members Only"-type gray jacket and gray canvas pants would be atypical of someone I generally hang out with (not that I base friendship on clothing, but none of my friends dress that particular way, and he did not "stand-out" in any certain sense). A general feeling crept over me with a voice calling to me "Talk to him! Talk to him!" So I did. After minor small talk I mentioned a sensory deprivation tank that I had seen in his part of town. After explaining its mechanism and purpose he announced something VERY intriguing to me. In fact, THE thing I want to hear about: "did you know there are Ayahuasca groups in Portland?" he asked. There's the coincidence, I thought. (Ayahuasca or Yage is the shamanic brew employed in South America for divine matters. Its main active ingredient is n-n dimethyltryptamine--DMT--which is the ONLY hallucinogen endogenous to one's body and is released when YOUR BORN and when YOUR DIE.) Though I had smoked DMT before, I had NEVER taken ayahuasca. I asked him, "do you have experience with anything like that? "Yes," he replied, "I ate ayahuasca in a shamanic ceremony in Peru". WHAT!? This guy was the first person I have EVER met who has actually eaten ayahuasca. After further conversation, he told me that he was a DJ for the radio station in Portland and could get me on the air, as well. POINT, POINT, POINT: Universe.
So what's the point of all this? To me, my faith in my own awareness/inner divinity has increased everyday due to all these events. I simply cannot chalk it up to simple coincidence; I have direct, tangible evidence of a higher map or divine plan unfolding each day in front of my eyes. I make one suggestion to you: take time everyday and reflect or meditate. Stay off those habit-forming chemicals you've been taking since you were a teenager (you may be blown away by exactly how much they're covering up!). And most of all, listen to that voice inside your heart. It's your true Self, showing its mastery in every situation, every day. And that's my word!
A Funny Thing Happened Leaving McDonald's
Often, proceeding a philosophical discourse--or rant--of mine, someone will inevitably ask me the question, "What made you get into 'all of this'?" While an answer to such questions can never FULLY be traced to one single event in life, in this case it's easy for me to pinpoint one in particular that rises above the rest in my memory regarding my obsession with "the search".
On January 7th, 1994 my mother picked me and my sister, Shea, up from our soccer practice (I was just shy of ten at the time) and allowed us the "treat" of eating at McDonald's (I'm a vegetarian now, but I loved me some McDonald's as a young-buck). It strikes me that we were so hungry from practice that we actually ate in the car, despite the fact that my mom was and is to this day an absolute "clean freak". Rounding the windy roads of Central Pennsylvania a certain pain began to increase alarmingly in my gut. We got home, I leaped from the car, and ran to the bathroom, assuming that it was simple indigestion from the not-so-healthy food. After about 20 minutes, no bowel movement, and a continued rise in pain, I knew something was SERIOUSLY wrong; my mom strapped me back in the car and we rushed to the hospital.
I'll skip the preliminary waiting room experience (detoxing teenager screaming at the top of his lung, something a nine-year old usually hasn't experienced by this age) and the test experience (9 shots and two-hours later for an "inconclusive result") to cut to the chase. I had appendicitis. It was critical that I go into surgery immediately. What was to follow would change my young mind forever.
A needle struck my vein in the operating room and I quickly drifted off into the abyss. This didn't last long. Suddenly, my consciousness sprang forth and I realized that I was looking down from the ceiling in the operating room, watching the surgeons hover around a body. When the head surgeon stood erect to give an order the patient's face was revealed and... it was ME! I couldn't believe it! Here I was, floating around a hospital, unattached to my physical body. Something inside me told me that I wasn't dead, so I decided to explore. I noticed that if I concentrated on a position in the room (and eventually outside it) I could easily move to that spot, in order to change perspective. Eventually, I snapped back into my body and awoke.
I can't begin to describe the dissonance one feels at such a young age when something of such magnitude occurs. Keen on social expectations I immediately understood that I couldn't tell my parents, especially my father who to this day insists that NO human being (except for our mythical hero, Jesus) has ever perceived anything beyond third-dimensional consciousness. So I pondered what to do. It was from the exact point forward that my search began feverishly to understand the mechanism with which I left my body. Eventually I discovered that it was called an "Out-of-body Experience" and that as many as 1 in 4 people will have at least one such experience in their life. I also learned how to control it.
Often such traumatic and life-altering events propel us to unravel the nature of mind, despite the lack of road maps and clear pathways we are so used to in linear thinking. These events have happen to all of us in one way or another, and it's important that we don't allow them to reside in the shadows of our minds, wondering whether there was any meaning behind them. There is. If you allow yourself to open to the experience, the divine can plant its seed in your fertile mind and your search will begin fresh beyond your wildest dreams: seek and ye shall find. And that's my word.
On January 7th, 1994 my mother picked me and my sister, Shea, up from our soccer practice (I was just shy of ten at the time) and allowed us the "treat" of eating at McDonald's (I'm a vegetarian now, but I loved me some McDonald's as a young-buck). It strikes me that we were so hungry from practice that we actually ate in the car, despite the fact that my mom was and is to this day an absolute "clean freak". Rounding the windy roads of Central Pennsylvania a certain pain began to increase alarmingly in my gut. We got home, I leaped from the car, and ran to the bathroom, assuming that it was simple indigestion from the not-so-healthy food. After about 20 minutes, no bowel movement, and a continued rise in pain, I knew something was SERIOUSLY wrong; my mom strapped me back in the car and we rushed to the hospital.
I'll skip the preliminary waiting room experience (detoxing teenager screaming at the top of his lung, something a nine-year old usually hasn't experienced by this age) and the test experience (9 shots and two-hours later for an "inconclusive result") to cut to the chase. I had appendicitis. It was critical that I go into surgery immediately. What was to follow would change my young mind forever.
A needle struck my vein in the operating room and I quickly drifted off into the abyss. This didn't last long. Suddenly, my consciousness sprang forth and I realized that I was looking down from the ceiling in the operating room, watching the surgeons hover around a body. When the head surgeon stood erect to give an order the patient's face was revealed and... it was ME! I couldn't believe it! Here I was, floating around a hospital, unattached to my physical body. Something inside me told me that I wasn't dead, so I decided to explore. I noticed that if I concentrated on a position in the room (and eventually outside it) I could easily move to that spot, in order to change perspective. Eventually, I snapped back into my body and awoke.
I can't begin to describe the dissonance one feels at such a young age when something of such magnitude occurs. Keen on social expectations I immediately understood that I couldn't tell my parents, especially my father who to this day insists that NO human being (except for our mythical hero, Jesus) has ever perceived anything beyond third-dimensional consciousness. So I pondered what to do. It was from the exact point forward that my search began feverishly to understand the mechanism with which I left my body. Eventually I discovered that it was called an "Out-of-body Experience" and that as many as 1 in 4 people will have at least one such experience in their life. I also learned how to control it.
Often such traumatic and life-altering events propel us to unravel the nature of mind, despite the lack of road maps and clear pathways we are so used to in linear thinking. These events have happen to all of us in one way or another, and it's important that we don't allow them to reside in the shadows of our minds, wondering whether there was any meaning behind them. There is. If you allow yourself to open to the experience, the divine can plant its seed in your fertile mind and your search will begin fresh beyond your wildest dreams: seek and ye shall find. And that's my word.
I Don't Believe in God, but, Man, I'm Scared to Death of God!
A recent resurfacing motif in this holographic merry-go-round I refer to as life has been relentlessly enticing me to dance. So let's dance.
Fear. I have been contemplating its role in our everyday lives due to many currently occurring personal circumstances that would generate fear for most: loss of job, loss of relationship, loss of place to stay, moving across the country to a new city based upon the beckoning of intuition, and overall up-rooting of the past. As I see it, fear acts upon us in two ways, depending on which perspective we take.
1) Fear elicits a cautionary reaction to situations, facilitating our drive for survival during perilous circumstances, ultimately reflecting our inherent fear of DEATH/GOD. If we view fear in this way, it necessarily follows that we either don't believe in God (I know this seems paradoxical, but give me a minute) or we are simply afraid of the ultimate power we possess. Why, you ask? Well, simply put: if we are afraid to greet God through death then it necessarily follows that we don't believe in a true God, since God is said to be All-Loving of his creation, which implies that God must be truly beyond our ego-centric view of Good and Evil; in other words, God--an infinitely perfect being--created you and your existence (if you are a "believer"), so how could he have failed in creating you the "right way"? Therefore, our "sins" must be no more than human constructions, and each moment of our life--whether deemed good or bad--must be a moment of learning that somehow brings us closer to the embodiment of that perfect creation. As far as being afraid of the "ultimate power we must possess", let me explain. If the prior said statements are true, and we were truly created by a "perfect" being, each moment in our life must be total perfection which means...(drum roll, please)...we must be part of that infinite perfection! When we are able to assimilate this idea into our own worldview, then we will slowly shed our ego-based preconceptions of our "sins" and our life will be viewed with great mystery and awe as each unfolding moment yields eternally more understanding and bliss.
2) Fear, it seems, truly acts as the ebb to curiosity's flow (the yin to the yang) throughout our existence, so that we don't follow to the "holy grail" too quickly, before our fractured minds can comprehend or understand it. In other words, a little voice inside compels us to continue forward through life--despite its apparent hardships--because we cannot let go of the concept that there is something at the end of the rainbow. Regardless of our fears, we propel ourselves further into the fire with each passing sunrise, whether conscious of the fact or not, in order to learn more and further unravel our understanding of existence. From the beginning of this search we are generally afraid of many "irrational" things: the dark, the boogie man, witches, goblins, monsters, etc... As our curiosity propels us to further understanding through trial-and-error these irrational fears are replaced by more "rational" ones: bills, security, self-perception, social-perception, etc... However, most of us don't pause to take an overall look at the process, which brings about the realization that we are slowly preparing ourselves for something. And I submit that it's Death/God. Slowly, fear falls by the wayside as curiosity takes hold, and we march full-fledged into the depths of our Self for ultimate truth.
Remember this: as long as we view ourselves as inherently "sinful" and "guilty" we are off the hook--until death--for our meeting with God. Fortunately, some people slowly come to the realization that this idea is a farce, and the search will exponentially increase at that point, because fear slowly but surely becomes conquered. What do we find at the end? I'll save that for another post ;) And that's my word.
Fear. I have been contemplating its role in our everyday lives due to many currently occurring personal circumstances that would generate fear for most: loss of job, loss of relationship, loss of place to stay, moving across the country to a new city based upon the beckoning of intuition, and overall up-rooting of the past. As I see it, fear acts upon us in two ways, depending on which perspective we take.
1) Fear elicits a cautionary reaction to situations, facilitating our drive for survival during perilous circumstances, ultimately reflecting our inherent fear of DEATH/GOD. If we view fear in this way, it necessarily follows that we either don't believe in God (I know this seems paradoxical, but give me a minute) or we are simply afraid of the ultimate power we possess. Why, you ask? Well, simply put: if we are afraid to greet God through death then it necessarily follows that we don't believe in a true God, since God is said to be All-Loving of his creation, which implies that God must be truly beyond our ego-centric view of Good and Evil; in other words, God--an infinitely perfect being--created you and your existence (if you are a "believer"), so how could he have failed in creating you the "right way"? Therefore, our "sins" must be no more than human constructions, and each moment of our life--whether deemed good or bad--must be a moment of learning that somehow brings us closer to the embodiment of that perfect creation. As far as being afraid of the "ultimate power we must possess", let me explain. If the prior said statements are true, and we were truly created by a "perfect" being, each moment in our life must be total perfection which means...(drum roll, please)...we must be part of that infinite perfection! When we are able to assimilate this idea into our own worldview, then we will slowly shed our ego-based preconceptions of our "sins" and our life will be viewed with great mystery and awe as each unfolding moment yields eternally more understanding and bliss.
2) Fear, it seems, truly acts as the ebb to curiosity's flow (the yin to the yang) throughout our existence, so that we don't follow to the "holy grail" too quickly, before our fractured minds can comprehend or understand it. In other words, a little voice inside compels us to continue forward through life--despite its apparent hardships--because we cannot let go of the concept that there is something at the end of the rainbow. Regardless of our fears, we propel ourselves further into the fire with each passing sunrise, whether conscious of the fact or not, in order to learn more and further unravel our understanding of existence. From the beginning of this search we are generally afraid of many "irrational" things: the dark, the boogie man, witches, goblins, monsters, etc... As our curiosity propels us to further understanding through trial-and-error these irrational fears are replaced by more "rational" ones: bills, security, self-perception, social-perception, etc... However, most of us don't pause to take an overall look at the process, which brings about the realization that we are slowly preparing ourselves for something. And I submit that it's Death/God. Slowly, fear falls by the wayside as curiosity takes hold, and we march full-fledged into the depths of our Self for ultimate truth.
Remember this: as long as we view ourselves as inherently "sinful" and "guilty" we are off the hook--until death--for our meeting with God. Fortunately, some people slowly come to the realization that this idea is a farce, and the search will exponentially increase at that point, because fear slowly but surely becomes conquered. What do we find at the end? I'll save that for another post ;) And that's my word.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)