The Door that Connects Us

I will depart a little from the "string" of things with this installment. No one reads these anyway, so it isn't like that is a reason to explain. But I'm here. What the hell.

I'm on a first day of a twelve day cleanse and feeling sort of spiritual right now. Very spiritual actually. Quite pleasant, in a light hunger sort of way. I would imagine if I did 40--the sky would totally open up for me. Not that it is closed. That is all about perception you know. And ability. Perceptability. I'll have to check that out later....

For now I want to discuss the fourth chakra, the heart center. You know it is always a little irritating to me to read someone's explanation of the chakras, like it is hard-fast, unchangeable, all-or-nothing reality. I have my theories about the chakras and it is helpful to read the great wealth of material about them, but folks, come on, at best we know only fragments of the whole story. I don't think that all there is to be known about chakras is meant to be known for us at this level. If it was in the realm of man and available to man's idle whims, surely we would treat chakras no better than we've treated agriculture or healthcare or how we run the world. No, chakras are out of our reach, thank Buddha.

This little excursion is brought to you by a memory which still burns of a particular experience from about five or eight years ago. I had traveled out to California to meet a medical doctor from England who was in the U.S. teaching a new healing technique she had recently learned. I didn't take the bait completely but was interested enough that I traveled to California to meet her and see if I thought she had something to offer.

Her technique was all about light. She said we could do away with all the struggle and disciplines and all the self help and rigorous methods associated with self cultivation. It is a matter of working with the light, she said. And supposedly if I would have plunked down the bucks (I don't remember how much, hundreds or thousands, or something between), she could have imparted the technique and I would now be on the path to complete freedom from pain.

I shy away from paying for spiritual advancement but the email exchanges were interesting enough to take me cross country to meet her. We had dinner at my suggestion. She actually gave me quite a bit of time. She was from India originally, living in England, and again remember, she was a medical doctor. I was more interested in seeing in her eyes and heart if there was a teacher there for me. I decided not. But still, this makes the story for what she told me to do.

She asked, "You meditate, right?" As it happens, at that time I had a fantastic meditation practice. Every morning, on rising, I would meditate for about two hours. I was capable at that time to go very quickly to a profound state and dwell in that space for between 30 minutes to an hour. The rest was used getting to that point and coming back in to my waking self.

She suggested that when I returned to my home and the place where I meditate that on the next session that I leave my crown chakra and then to report back to her about the experience. I said I would and we left it at that. Later that night I drover her to her Indian friend's home who was hosting her visit in Southern California and we said so long. I don't think we've had another email exchange or any other contact since then.

But this blog entry is about the experience I had. I think there is a connection to the rest of these installments. Not necessarily about strings or quantum but about "potential" and self and energy and matter.

It was probably about a week later. Because it was back at my meditation place at the time, which was down stairs, on a hard back chair, facing the wall. As she suggested I went in to the meditation with the intention of traveling out my crown chakra.

I spent the first part of the session getting deep within and once I was well situated and not distracted with thoughts or chasing my tail, I traveled up and through my head and to my crown chakra.

Immediately there was chatter. I was struggling with the conversation which I was thrown in to. It was all about this imagined conversation I would have with this woman doctor. Something along these lines...

"I've always been able to leave my crown chakra. Its just that I'm not into astral projection and all that." I went in to all this blah, blah, blah about me and my development and my ability and my consciousness and my awareness and yackity yak.

Naturally, as I watched this conversation taking place, I would attempt to pull myself out of all that and just be in the experience, and eventually I stilled it long enough to traverse the opening and to leave the chakra. There I was "above" myself and easily able to look "down" and see me seated, meditating. In fact, at this moment, even watching these letters appear, and watching my fingers type and watching myself read and reflect that I'm writing and reading and telling the story, I'm conscious of and can still see the same image of me looking down at my meditating self, together with me watching all of this, including me watching me describe and feel and exist on umtold levels of sensations!

But when I was at about ceiling height, the jabber started again! But this time it was in defense of not wanting to leave my body. And right then it happened. I instantly saw what I was dealing with and a clear message was also present. I'll try to explain.

The defense for not wanting to leave my body was at first this ego story of knowledge. I "knew" that astral projection was "nowhere" and only for amatuers. I "knew" that it was so low a level of development because we already dwell outside of ourselves and already are not limited to the skin of our body. We already are "everywhere" and "nowhere" and that this whole exercise of "leaving the body" was for juniors. I "knew" I was way ahead of that.

But then I got it. This wasn't about that and certainly wasn't to grow the ego. I understood that I had a chance right then to see what I was really struggling with. I knew that if this jabber was working to defend something, that something on a deeper level was taking place. And I finally got to that place. And it was also a reassuring voice.

Like all meditation, the opportunity was to hold the experience and walk around it from all sides. To understand it and to go "into" it. To get to the root of it. I learned then and there how little in to the journey I am. I learned at that moment that I am such a phony and hypocrite. I knew right then that my ability and power was meager and nearly silly.

As I was explaining, in my imagination, to the fine doctor, that I always could leave my body but didn't want to, I was quite outside of my body. And as I rose to ceiling level I could tell it was as if I was taking my first launch from the 40foot diving board in to the small tub of water. I was scared and I didn't want to jump from the nest yet.

So this is what I understood I had to go deeper into. This is what I had to learn about myself. This is also how I learned that my level is very low and how much further I have to go and that probably it will be not in this lifetime that I get to where I had hoped I would. But not like "getting there" is somewhere else. More like, be patient and just be. But there is more. Much more.

For me I understood a whole bunch of stuff about my sexuality, money, the way I try to earn a living, the connection to all of that and to how we come from dust and return to dust. It was MATTER. I realized that I'm dealing with things from a level of matter. Earth. Very earthy stuff. This explained my whole sexual thing which I had been struggling with, which is "why am I so driven and aroused sexually by women?" and how am I not able to moderate my attraction. Not that I'm jumping in bed with beautiful women but I am "lusting after them in my heart" as Jesus said. And all was crystal clear and at the same time the voice was, like, "and it's cool." Like chill out. Take it easy. Everything is OK!

But I got it. I didn't want to leave my body because it isn't time for me to be anyplace other than the space I'm in. The whole money thing and taking care of my family and the jerk that I am most of the time--it is all related to MATTER, EARTH. Outside of my body, in space outside of my skin, I wouldn't be constrained with matter or earth stuff. And all that is fine and will be fine and very fine indeed and I'm there and haven't left. But it wasn't about that. It was about recognizing this discomfort and understand the source of it.

I can't even explain it now but at that moment it was all clear. I think the rest of the session will help make sense of this. So after I had that clarity at ceiling level, I let myself venture further. And I soared. First outside the walls to the house (actually I looked around upstairs for a few minutes as I recall and maybe even went out the front door to the neighborhood). I flew up and out of the earth's atmosphere and sort of swirled around the moon. I went to the edge of the solar system and shot out in to deep space. I observed other solar systems as I sped past them and probably shot in and out of black holes, exploring the way you could short cut (like in the Clue game between rooms) to other parts of the universe. And then I slowed down as I approached what seemed like the "edge" of the universe. "Wait" I told myself, there is no edge, it is unending. So I searched for more and was able to continue but again there was this pressing question, "Where to from here?" And it was plain to me that there had to be a place to leave that "zone" that dimension of universe. So it seemed like an edge or ledge. As if I was looking down from the edge of the universe, ready to jump to something else.

So I searched more and seemed to go in circles until I found the door. Guess where it was? It was in my heart. From the edge of the universe I discoverd the way to come back into myself from that exact spot was IN TO MY HEART! And I found the great circle of connection and also discovered that it was a figure eight. I don't know how or why it was a figure eight but it was. And at the center of the figure eight is my heart center!

So I think that same door is also the center which connects us to everything outside of ourselves. I don't know precisely why I wanted to explain this to you now. But I did. And I have. So goodbye.

Universal Light

My friend Kitty, the shamanista http://www.poetkitty.com/, is writing about the pain associated with duality, or I should say the pain we make for ourselves by struggling with the observation of two seemingly conflicting selves. This isn't meant to be a critique--I'm there baby. Full on. In fact, I could teach a course called How to Be Your Own Worst Enemy While Crying in Your Corn Flakes and Not Even be Able to Get a Role Like Richard Dreyfus In a Similar Dynamic with His Cherished Mashed Potatoes. Phew, there's a best seller waiting to be brokered--any takers?

Back to the strange world of physics. She wanted more about "potential." So let me see what the muse has for us...don't forget, the other night I woke up with this. Now I'm just avoiding work. No guarantees.

Well the physics folks would have us understand that this strange phenomena of wave vs. particle happens as a result of an event, which is the element being observed. When it is unobserved it is either a wave or particle, but when it is observed it switches. So they can't call it a wave or a particle, so they call it POTENTIAL.

It got me thinking about ourselves, specifically ourselves in the context of mind. Remember--huge distinction between mind and brain. Brain is matter. A machine. A living, pulsating complicated machine, but machine no less. I know that machine is not the best word for it but I like it better than computer. I don't know why. Anyway, my usual bad habit of digressing...

Lately the idea of observed and observer has been sort of front and center for me. What I really love is when I can get in that state of losing one part of myself to the other. What I mean is like in the Donovan song, First there is a Mountain. Then there is no Mountain. Then there IS!

So at first we are separate from the mountain. We observe it as separate from ourselves. It being observed and us as observer. Then there is no mountain. We become the observed!--we've merged. We escaped duality and are one. No separation. Then the tricky part--There IS!, which is way out there. A state of being ONE as the observed but also seeing the even more complete view by "observing" with a higher aptitude, as God ourselves, if you will.

This isn't as simple as just an analysis of matter and mind. Naturally we all quickly grasp that distinction. But mind AS matter and as NON matter, i.e. as everything, with no glue needed because there are no parts requiring to be connected. They were never disconnected. Except in our primitive and meager ability (or non ability) to see clearly.

But what exists is this potential. And what a cool thing to think that we are actually ONLY potential, in our real state. Because in our real authentic selves, there is nothing separate to observe us as separate (except by our small selves). So this potential must be this universal and infinite light (Love?).

Right now I want Rumi. The little boy with his blanky declares--I want my Rumi.

This will even be better than a Rumi line if you connect with me right now and feel this adoration I have for the feeling Rumi gives us. We'll share it--RIGHT NOW, in this moment as you read this. Let it "jump" from this blog and turn in to this spinning, vibrating energy from my heart to yours. Pure Potential! Remember where, and mysteriously in what way, Rumi touched you, and reclaim that now as our blessed connection.

Wow.

If you, by some freak of nature, are reading this and you haven't had a Rumi experience--go find him. His teacher runs circles around Einstein. Here's a twist--You are Rumi's teacher, as pure potential.

No Strings Attached.

Potential

by Winston Riley

This isn't rocket science. No, much more complicated than that.





Disclaimer: I couldn't make it through a 10th grade physics class at this point. Reading The Trouble with Physics, Lee Smolin's new book covering "The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next," has been challenging enough. Forget me explain E=MC2 or what the hell is going on with black holes. Forget me, in fact, really grasping neutrinos, unification, supersymmetry or dark matter (other than being pretty up to date on the whole "Luke, I'm your father" gig and having a pretty good handle on how things went bad for the Darthmeister). As a matter of fact, the whole story of Strings vs Quantum is brand new to me. I mean, I've tuned in and read my share of stuff. I've struggled through much of Zukav's Dancing Wu Li Masters, and over the last few years read articles about String Theory. Plus I've watched What the Bleep and being sort of a new age kind of guy, I get this feeling of Quantum and Religion are starting to be bedmates. But honestly, I wouldn't have known until reading Smolin that Quantum is out and Strings are in. I would have guessed that Strings were just the newest knowledge "block" with the whole mysterious quantum story.





But to cut to the chase. This thing about "the observer." I think we can all be included in the conversation of turning this around and examining it--whether we're physicists or just schmo's like me. Some of us meditate and we've come pretty face-to-face with the phenomena of watching the switch flick back and forth between observer and observed. Just to make sure we're on the same page, let me elaborate a little more on this.





You start watching your thoughts or your breath or your lower dan tien or whatever, and you get a flicker of awareness that NOW is all there is. If you can hold that awareness, you stay in the NOW, but if you "think" for a moment, you either notice that "now" just passed or you anticipate it coming up, with your next thought. Naturally, in this thinking mode, NOW won't present itself again. NOW is something which you are always part of naturally, but if you go to observe it, it will allude you.





This is the tricky part because it is in the "going" to observe it part that will trap you. In other words if you don't "try" to observe it and just "be," you can actually observe NOW as also being the observed. You see, we're back to the whole duality thing. I suspect that unification may be related, but man those formulas and terms are too much for me.





Stay with me...


Back to this switching mechanism I mentioned. On/off and the binary schtick of computers seem to mesh nicely with this particle theory thing. I won't get it right but when Einstein noticed that the thing which messed him up was that the particle seemed different between the time that it wasn't observed and the time that it was. Smolin helped me see this in a new light by referring to the phenomena as potential. The particle (or whatever the matter was he was describing) would either be a wave or matter. I know I don't have the terms right, but if you can hang with me, I hope you'll agree that terms aren't important--this is a concept.





What I'm picking up on right now can also go back to Einstein's thing about time/space and his experiment with the moving train. If I'm not mistaken he actually made a movie or the idea of a movie by taking still shots and flipping through them. I may be mixing up documentaries or books, but again, it is the concept which is important. So if you have to just breath this in or whatever....





So the NOW could be a snap shot. If you strung a series of these now snapshots together, they would make a movie. A fantasy really because there is no movie and NOW never stops to be captured. But for us to "turn it around" and examine it, we have to stop frame, unless we are in the state that allows us to observe as also BEING the observed. In which case we have a much higher aptitude to comprehend reality. We are actually reality itself, while in that state, and have no need of a "thinking" mechanism. To function, as physical beings, we certainly require the thinking mechanism. Our brain is, after all, part of our physical self and is functioning on other levels without our having to instruct it. It is making our heart beat and processing our last meal, shedding dead cells and building new ones. All of this on a physical, chemical, and biological level.





But the mind part--the part which we would be hard pressed to "find" is part of the puzzle. The physicists need to include it in their formulas. I suspect it is the link between the mystery and the state of the art. It can be described as the "observed" and if carefully--very carefully--defined, it could also be described as the observER. But the distinction must be made between thinking and "being."





So there is something to this thought of snapshots and stringing together this fantasy movie. Like it has been done thousands of times on the whole Einstein space/time thing but now with some new rules.





Rule One: NOW never stops but can be measured and observed. (It seems to have had a beginning, as I understand it, whether that was as the big bang or something like a big bang which sprung from a multiverse).





Rule Two: NOW can not be affected by energy, mass, light, density or mind.





Rule Three: Mind is non local. All information of all time since the start of NOW, or possibly before, has never been lost. Information has no place to go, therefore it does not go away. It exists only in mind but can be observed by the many parts of "self."





Rule Four: Self is a function of a process, totally related to matter. Self is the connection between man and non duality. (Non duality may be mind).





Rule Five: Potential has a direction and a force. Isolating the direction (keeping in mind we're dealing with at least nine plus one dimensions--if not 25 or 26) and being able to measure the force may reveal the missing step to moving physics to the next step.





Naturally, as a schmo, I've got no business making rules about physics. But what else am I going to do when driven to wake up to write this crap?