THE DREAM
 Member ~Blondchakra
 

Last night I dreamed I was walking down a dark street, there was an eerie quality about it, as though I knew that I had a definite place to go, but couldn't quite bring an image of the destination to mind. Each time I caught a glimpse of colour, like a flowering tree or a kindly human, before I could even reach out in recognition I was around another dark corner into another shadowy road amid alien faces. I cannot remember all the twists and turns, but as it seemed at last I was getting used to the panicky feeling of being lost, the scene changed to one of great beauty - sunlit green hillsides with sparkling waterfalls and tropical vegetation.

Isn't the spiritual path one of lost turnings? The sense of a Quest, but the forgotten goal, and the pitfalls of the Astral plane? "In it thy Soul will find the blossoms of life," says The Voice of the Silence about the Astral, "but under every flower a serpent coiled." It has to be crossed, the Astral, we cannot escape it, we move in it constantly as we move in all the ethereal spaces of cosmic awareness all the time.

What is the Astral plane to us? It's where we are creating images with our every thought and desire and emotion, either consciously or unconsciously, images which the fluidic waves of the Astral fill with energy and vitality. Our Astral world is teaming with our creations, the life forms we have put there, which seek further expression through our interactions. Is it any wonder then that we get carried away on a surge of emotion, or a wave of thought? Whenever we think the same thought twice, thrice, etc, whenever we follow the same urge or the same feeling, we are intensifying the energy, and increasing the likelihood of further repetition. So, it's easy to see how habitual patterns set in - how we become the selfsame actor of the selfsame story in the selfsame world. UGH!

Actually the scenario gets worse. We actually become so completely enveloped in layers of stale sensations and pre-programmed responses and automatic thinking patterns that it's like we are not really present at all - like we put on the record player, but the artist musician has left.

What is it then that is present? It's the conglomeration of psychic energies that present themselves to us as "our" thoughts and "our" feelings, and reflect themselves in our consciousness. And it's our identity with the reflection that becomes a "separate self."
Sadly, it's this separate self that for the most part runs our day, that greets the people we meet. How much of human life is one separate self communicating with another separate self? And no one really meeting at the real-life level? Yes, these are the maze of shadow streets, where everyone else is an alien, and it is only in dreams when the separate self is asleep that we feel disconcerted about it.

It is only on wonderful, never-to-be-forgotten occasions that we (fully awake as the whole being we inevitably are) truly meet another in the glorious fullness of their own essence.

How can we extend these momentous times into the continuing event of real living? The truth is that we can at any instant, by just making that our intent. We have to remember ourself, our real SELF, and be IT, and act as IT. That SELF is always there. When we strip away all the conditioned ideas of who we are, when we cease to think about it, when we just ARE - and in silence, listening and alert, then we are present as the SELF.

Often on first awaking from a deep sleep, before one recognizes one's incarnation (what personality, what body, what place, what language) there is a pure, open-ended consciousness, fully aware without words and radiantly energetic. Too soon, though, we remember the personality and slip into the reflection. Or, is it that the reflection snatches the awareness? Is the separate self the mirror image that has come out of the mirror and entered our mind and will not let us make our own decisions any more? Or, has it dragged us into the mirror to lead us into grotesque worlds?

Meditation is to recall us to that pure consciousness of awareness and energy, to the real life and not the mirror image.

Spiritual teachers have described it as crossing to the other shore and have spoken of the Tathagata who has made that crossing and come back to show the way to others. How immensely exciting it is to know that the Astral sea can be crossed! The spiritual path is all about that crossing.

The twists and turns that I don't remember in the dark dream may symbolize the obstacles, desperate yet illusionary, the mirror reflections we take as real. They might be the way we see others when we miss their unique beauty because our vision is distorted by our narrow fixed patterns. The Astral "is dangerous in its perfidious beauty," says The Voice of the Silence, and volumes could be written on the beauty and the danger. Sweet blossoms, high mountains, breath-taking architecture, sublime paintings and music all exist on the Astral, as do dungeons and dragons. The dangers are ownership, separativeness, envy, greed, inertia, self-pity, complacency, etc. etc. etc. and the heavy, drugged sleep of dullness.

Sometimes fear can be a great awakener. Like all our opponents it can be our mentor. In a dark cellar in a dark house on a dark night when one is afraid, one is intensely awake, fiercely aware of oneself, listening with every perception open to the utmost. Pema Chodron, the Buddhist teacher, has written a book all about using fear and discomforting emotions as part of Boddhisattva training. The message is to stay with the energy, don't fight it, don't get upset by it, don't run away from it, and don't put it into words, just BE with the energy. When I stopped reacting to the fear in my dream, it left.

Pema Chodron gives a dramatic picture of the Tathagata's crossing when she says, "In the middle of the river with the shoreline out of view, the raft begins to disintegrate. We find ourselves with nothing to hold on to. From our conventional standpoint, this is scary and dangerous. However, one small shift of perspective will tell us that having nothing to hold on to is liberating."

I hated it at first, and thought, "Well, how will we ever get to the other side?" But, of course, paradoxically, we are already THERE.

Copyright © Blondchakra, 2003.

 

Theseus THE DREAM OF LIFE 1/25/2003 9:22:54 PM This excellent, compelling and insightful writing really gets to the heart of the matter. So much of the ‘sleepers’ life is a dream state from which the poor ‘sleeper’ will only awaken at the moment of death. Our task is to deep awaken into we-awareness, while we yet ‘live’. There are many levels to what you have so well written here, depths of meaning that call for deep thought and comment. rabbithowl truly meeting another 1/27/2003 8:22:23 PM "It is only on wonderful, never-to-be-forgotten occasions that we (fully awake as the whole being we inevitably are) truly meet another in the glorious fullness of their own essence." Perhaps rather than focusing on "working" on ourselves (i.e. stripping away the limited, conditioned idea of who we are) we could instead turn our focus out, right away, towards another person, instead of waiting to feel suitably true to our real Self to be in relationship. We cease to ponder the self-consuming questions "Who am I?", "Is this the real me?" when we grant more attention to another person's feelings, thoughts and predicament rather than to our own. Our intent, if we must have one, should be to allow the other person the space, the innocence to be whoever they are in that moment, to not prejudge or limit him/her based on past experiences, to, with an open-mind and heart, respectfully hear him/her in the same way we would like to be seen and heard and honoured as a unique spiritual being. Do we need to already be "awake" to do this? Perhaps we can uncover who we really are just by sincerely showing interest in and care for another person. Perhaps our limited, solidified idea of who we are, the automatic pilot, so to speak, will crack and break in the act of lovingly granting the other the right, the freedom to BE. It is only through human interaction, through relationship, that we can cross that "astral sea" and extend and perpetuate more of the wonderous moments of "real living" that Blondchakra is describing. Star The Dream 1/28/2003 9:41:15 PM Blondechakra, this is a wonderful piece of writing which expains many things that we have all been talking about. Your discription of the Astral plane is one that we can all relate to, and your explaination of how the Astral plane actually creates the Separate self, in which we all get so entangled, believing it to be real, is excellent. You gave us good insight as to how to make the moments that we spend with others more meaningful. I think that for many of us, we need to really understand and believe that we are the real self and act on it. It is so very important to strive for silent, listening awareness when interacting with others, then we can come to each other with full awareness of the other without self concern. Thank you for this insightful writing. Sarpa Astral Conditioning 1/29/2003 4:12:08 AM Would you say then that in the same way as the physical body can acquire addictions, or certain behaviours through conditioning, so too can the astral-psyche level of the self? Through repeated actions, thoughts, etc. the astral becomes conditioned to respond in ever increasingly mechanical ways. Stimulus-response, stimulus-response... You could say then that the separate-self or ego, gets its sense of individuality from the habits of the astral. There is a link on the front page of this site to a piece on Meditation. The first form described there seems to be a way of deconditioning the astral, and freeing the Self from these automatic responses of the separate-self. Maya Our own conditioning 1/31/2003 9:49:16 AM There are so many deep points in your dream, that Astral plane bombarding us with energies which come from other beings, who like us, are struggling to survive in a very complex world. We open ourselves to embrace them, and many times all we get is negativity. Something we should think about is the conditioning of our own emotions, and instead of just over-reacting, we should be present and aware of the other. Our selfsame world, our selfsame feelings, and all the layers of thoughts keep coming to the surface and we don't give a chance to the other to be themselves. Do we have the right to expect others to think like us, to be as open to us as we are? Do we have too many expectations and that is why we feel angry? But anger is a negative energy, and that is what we should try to transform into love or compassion. The moment we move away from ourselves, and BE the other, at that moment all anger dissolves. You have connected with them, and you are them. So we should ask ourselves, what is it that makes us angry? Is it the negative vibes we get, or is it our lower self who wants the other to be like us? Are we such bundles of joy that people would love to be with us? Or are we going to blame it all on the psychic atmosphere where we live? Just some thoughts on our Astral conditioning. Star Can we help each other? 2/1/2003 10:49:22 AM This discussion brings to mind the article on meditation, where it discusses the movement of perception - attunement - absorption - entanglement - self recalling - transcendence - releasement. When we meditate we become aware of this movement. In day to day life, our perception is still moving in this way, but it is less obvious to us as we are entagled in our separate-self-ego-personality. I understand that meditation will raise our awareness not only during the meditative state, but also during our daily experiences. I have become more aware of how completly I fall into forgetfulness and into the separate self. This awareness, seems to make the separate self less real, but I still fall into this. Can any of you share your experiences on this? Can we help each other to identify less with the psychic energies that make up our astral and separate self? rabbithowl more thoughts on astral conditioning 2/1/2003 11:30:19 AM It's human nature to like some people and not like others, to enjoy spending time with one person as opposed to another. If we are well, we gravitate towards people who are happy, energetic and positive. The trick is to stay awake to what is doing the liking and the enjoying. The moment we pull back from another, no matter for what reason, we have given into our self-centered desire to make the interaction, the relationship, all about how we feel, what we like, what we want. When we get angry at another person for poisoning a potentially fruitful connection, that's the lower self having wants and expectations from the other. The anger, the resentment, the withdrawal are products of its own warped feeling of self-importance and self-righteousness. Its anger is, in fact, revenge. See it for what it is - it will then fly away. It won't take up residence within you. Yes, there are hostile, toxic, vampiric, highly negativized people - we have to work with them, we meet them in the street, they are in our families. It is incredibly frustrating and draining dealing with people who take what you give them and don't reciprocate, or worse, give you back their diseased baggage. The ego gets hurt when it isn't treated as it feels it should be. Having said that, though, I must reiterate that we are all beautiful, unique spiritual beings who deserve to be treated as such. Yes, we can demand to be respected as individual spiritual beings - being a spiritual realist doesn't mean becoming a doormat or a punching bag for poisonous people. This isn't blind idealism, either. No one has the right to dump his or her garbage on another person, whether that garbage be in the form of coldness, verbal or psychic abuse, or outright physical hostility. The thing is, though, we can't allow our bad experiences with a person, with a handful of people, to embitter us against the world, to cloud our next interaction with that person or our relationships in general. We musn't take revenge by letting our spoiled, angry and disappointed lower self write a person off or paint a group of people with the same brush. That is self-indulgence of the worst kind. It is only after we actually make the effort to grant the other person the chance to be who they really are, to overcome their negativity, that we can then decide to disengage from them, if the energy and positivism we are sincerely giving, without personal want, proves to be in vain. Star engage the other 2/9/2003 9:50:52 AM Thankyou rabbithowl for your insightful comments on how to engage the other without expectation or judgement. I think that it is with this attitude, that we are able to overcome our tendency to fall into our separate self ego personality. We have all had the experience of having others' garbage dropped on us. I guess for me, my reaction has been to retreat into myself. Then of course I have not only the reactive negativity, from the encounter within myself, but also the withholding, ungiviing, unloving side of my separate self personality is raging with all its negative energy. Perhaps this self defence mechanism of withdrawing was learned many years ago as a child when all personal boundaries were crossed and violated, but I'm a big girl now, and this habiatual reaction, which was formed as part of the etheric astral plane is no longer a valid reality. I had fallen into the habit of not granting the other person the chance to be who they really are, prejudging their negativity and disengaging them. Letting go of this, takes courage I think and also leaves us feeling vulnerable, but I see that it is only through truely opening ourselves to the other, that we can see the energy and make a choice as to whether we will choose to engage them or not, without judgement or blame. I need to remind myself of where I am coming from when I choose to be engaged in negativity with others with the false pretense that it is compassion. Engage the other, but then turn to light and freedom. The other may come with you as you compassionately show the way to true freedom, or they may choose their own separate path for a while, until vaguely, in some future time, they remember their friend who went free into the light and come to find you again.   Only Spiritual Realists can comment: Read Spiritual Realist Principals and Practice and Member Agreement to find out if you are eligible to become a member: Sign-Up Already a member?: Login

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