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Wednesday, 10/03/07:
Ecstasy and the Awareness of Synchronicity
The other day, I stumbled upon the following sentence from one of my earlier diaries: "A cluster of synchronistic events is itself a crystalline structure." How true that is I don't know but the idea seems to possess a significant degree of potency. (Does potency represent truth? Again I don't know...)
Last Saturday, I was sitting outside at a coffeehouse when I naturally slipped into a state of ecstasy, albeit a mild one. The way I understand ecstasy these days originally came to me as a vision. I saw the self (not my self, but just a generic human being) whose embedded light (which usually lies dormant) was kindled like a fire until it resonated with the light throughout the cosmos, or for those who are not skeptics, the light of the Creator. This resonance can manifest into an intense white light which puts the self into a state of ecstatic union with the creation. The feeling of one-ness, or at-one-ment with the world is the simple, almost obvious, reaction to ecstasy, for the energy is at once both inside and outside the self, although this might only be intuitively grasped by the one having the experience.
Ecstasy is for me in the same family of experiences as alighting in unconditional love, of bathing in the white light, of brilliantly glowing with love-radiance. All these experiences come with an internal reordering of one's being, an unblocking of the energy centers, a smoothing out of the distortions due to the higher order of these energies. There have been so many instances when I have been in the worst state of emotional and/or mental health and the slipping into such an ecstatic experience instantly washed me clean and left me hoisted in calm and serenity, for ecstasy is an infinite reservoir of well-being. Depending upon the level of intensity, such experiences are truly miraculous in nature.
As I was sitting in the coffeeshop and enjoying the last dewdrops of my mild ecstatic experience, I realized that I had suddenly become much more aware and alert of my surroundings. And the seemingly trivial events going on about me took on meaning, an order that seemed to fit tightly into place.
An hour or so ago, I had asked myself the following questions: "Why the spiral tug? Why does the kundalini rise in the form of a snake? Why does the light spiral upwards as opposed to rise up in a simply vertical fashion?"
There was a baby crying incessantly at the far table to my right, as if newly born. In order to reduce the level of annoyance of the other customers at the coffeeshop, the father was tapping his hand rythmically on the baby's mouth so that instead of hearing a long steady wail like "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH", it sounded like "WAWAWAWAWAWAWAWA". Most of us were laughing at the hilarious sound and someone to my left said "it takes the edge off." Oh yes, indeed it does.
Then I read the following words in the Ra Material, the question centering on the reason why "certain sacred Hebrew and Sanskrit words [were] powerful because they were mathematically related to the structure of Creation":
"...the linkage is mathematical and related to musical ratio...it is equivalent to types of rotation of your primary material particles.
A couple of hours later, my friends informed me that they were at the "Love Parade" in San Francisco, which is an annual outdoor party that featured a large group of DJs on parade floats pumping out loud electronic dance music. When I arrived, I felt my spirits lift instantly, as if I were riding the beat, which can be perceived as a sine wave that encourages one to vibrate with the same wavelength, i.e. to dance. I felt high and buoyant like a helium balloon.
The next day I was at a social gathering mingling with some friends. Sometimes our ideas come out in a surprisingly balanced fashion through the spontanaiety of conversation. One guy asked me what was my horoscope. "Gemini," I replied, "I deal with polarities."
"Oh, you're bipolar," he laughed.
"No, to be a gemini does not necessarily mean you swing about. But that you can balance the polarities. It's like having a pair of wings."
This set of events can itself be perceived as a piece of music, and my focused attention, intrigued appreciation, and emotionally-charged involvement in the rythem and the flow as a form of dance. Watching people dancing passionately without hearing the music can make them look awkward and amusing. In a similar fashion, listening to someone's synchronicity story lacks the underlying order of the movement that accompanies living out those events personally. However, those who know synchronicity well are already dancing.
Thursday, 10/04/07:
Strengthening the Grace of Multiplicity
Whereas an ecstatic experience can help one grasp the concept of oneness on an intuitive level, it was the Hurricane Period which provided my conscious mind with the opportunity to witness all human beings as one, doing so by shifting my state of mind in ways that moved me psychologically closer to whichever person held my attention. Until then, I thought my own concept of oneness, which stemmed from my mystical experiences in college, had been partially developed as an influence from popular spiritual teachings.
Once the knowledge that we were all one became well integrated with my outlook on life, I was able to recognize consciously that I had, indeed I've always had, before me a pallette of selves from which to choose. With the proper degree of selflessness as well as looseness of my ego, that which I beheld before me was that which I became. This was true only to a limited degree, of course, but for all practical purposes a full becoming of another is neither necessary nor desired for inherent in the self is the essential melody, the proper leitmotif.
The term "Hurricane Thinking" is elusive in that the overall trajectory of movement is indeed circular, or spiral, in shape but each actual movement is best described as a jump from one prespective to another. When seen in its proper complexity, hurricane thinking is a dance whose movements bounce about points on a set of axes of polarities. The higher the state of mind, the more this resembles electricity sparking about a neural network.
In order to get from point A, my self, to point B, an other self, there is a specific set of intrinsic points to which I can psychologically traverse in order that the appropriate new sympathetic state of mind is reached. My selflessness must be absolute especially if the other self's character is not harmonious with my own normal character. And the looseness of my ego, which is to be differentiated from selflessness, also must be maximized.
One of the main things that the Hurricane Period did to me can best be described in Carlos Castenada's terminology: the magnificent oscillations of that period "dislodged my assemblage point". The assemblage point of an individual at any specific point in time is that state of mind or being which determines how s/he perceives the world. An average adult naturally gravitates back to what can be called their assemblage point of normalcy after any temporary shift in consciousness. Dislodging my assemblage point meant that my point of normalcy to which I always returned was uprooted and I found myself forever floating around. In other words, the ground was pulled away from beneath my feet.
Seen from another angle, my ego, that which held me together, was shattered to pieces. Any attempt I made to resolidify my ego was followed by a return to a child-like state. At times I felt like an infant, with the mood swings of an infant.
In my higher states of mind, oscillation was lubricated by unconditional acceptance, selflessness and an all-encompassing sympathetic affirmation of life in both macro- and micro-cosm. In my more normal states, there was always the fear from the uncertainty of the movement. Any intervention on the part of my conscious self produced the friction and dissonance which made the movement painful, deleterious to my well-being. The extrinsic destination of the oscillation was not reached and I felt the pain of fragmentation as a result, the movement tore apart rather than transformed. Thus, grace in movement had to be learned.
I used to listen to some fast, high-energy drum and bass music while driving my car and I would visualize myself flying through the air and transforming into many selves. This adrenalin-infused imaginary game was a slightly different version of one of my favorite pastimes when I was a kid. There were specific ways of transforming which were graceful and smooth, while others produced a 'crashing effect' which would force me to restart my aerial flight. Such visualizations helped me understand the archetypal patterns inherent in some movements in consciousness, albeit at the intuitive level, because of the spontaneity demanded by the speed of the music. This was only one of many examples of how I was able to learn to follow my oscillations with greater ease even in my more normal states.
Saturday, 10/07/07:
There were many reasons why the Hurricane Period hit me when it did, and one of the most important of them was that I needed to switch paths from one that was based on my professional career to a path based upon my artistic pursuits. I had worked for a year and a half at an internet startup which had really burnt me out with its long hours and it was time for me to find another job that gave me the free time I needed. By the time the Hurricane Period ended three weeks later, I had successfully set off on a new career path which was to enable me to work a total of 9 months out of 12 for that year and I ended up more than doubling my salary.
This was during the internet hype right before the year 2000. At the time, nearly everyone in my company thought it was going to go public and we were all going to become rich. I had written a short story a year earlier which possessed some archetypal themes. I noticed the parallels between the story and the current state of the company and I therefore deduced that it was a sinking ship. I recall during the last week I was there, the CEO of the company sent out his first email that their going public will have to be delayed. The company was eventually to shrink back in size to below thirty employees, hardly keeping its ground.
Everyone I knew at work asked me why I was leaving the company, and to each person I concocted a different reason, each specifically tuned for his or her ears. In my heart, however, I wanted to write my farewell email to everyone in the following manner: "The real reason for leaving this company is because I want to become an astronaut. I know this may come as a surprise to you all, but I have already made my decision..."
After the Hurricane Period ended, I went through the most difficult period of my life mostly because of my incessant mood wings; any negative judgment I harbored about my self, an other self (which at this stage was but a reflection of my own self), or about life in general or in particular had the potential of sending me straight to a psychological hell. Even though there were some beautiful moments and I was still absorbing so many insights, at times I was convinced that I was staring face to face at the archetype of self-destruction. My only salvation was to adopt and regularize a thoroughly affirmative attitude towards life and everyone I knew. I kept a diary and the time when my struggles started to lift coincided with when my diary writing turned into fiction. I started to write a science fiction story; the first sentence surfaced completely on its own and it went like this: "There was a flash and Astronaut X found himself floating high above the moon."
The Science Fiction Period
The story was eventually named "Human Erasure" and it was about escaping or transcending the human domain, depending how you look at it. A month or so after I began, my spirits were reaching heights that were out of this world. There came a week when I had to take time off work because of some minor ailment. I was euphoric practically the entire time and the world about me seemed to be bathed in white light. As I was writing my story, I had visions, dreams, and inspired thoughts that were so profoundly moving that they outshone every single experience I had had before then. Like my astronaut character, I had truly left the planet and found a dimension that was unfathomably beautiful. Everything in my past was nulled out and void, and I say this without exaggeration. And I have yet to experience states of mind that are in any way comparable.
After returning to work the next week, I could no longer keep up with my inspiration and writing and I felt as if I was half in this world and half outside it. Finally, one night I had a nightmare that I was stuck on Mars all alone and so my writing ended, leaving the story unfinished. I returned to my old, turbulent self, but eventually I regained my stability to a certain degree and the hurricane movement mostly occurred during my higher states of mind.
Sunday, 10/08/07:
Those who have a deep appreciation of abstract art have the knowledge, even if it is only at the intuitive level, that a mere set of lines can produce an enlightening transformation in consciousness through witnessing and absorbing their specific configuration. Great works of art are of a higher order, and they help the viewer evolve by imprinting their special intelligence into one's psyche for possible integration. This usually happens at the unconscious layers and the effects are subtle and vague.
Abstract artists, through the repeated process of adding, deleting, fading and enhancing abstract forms on the canvas, develop the ability to look at aspects of their surroundings at any point in time and highlight with their inner eye those forms which produce an inspiring effect. In some states, I can do this with ease and it is as if whatever image lies before me begins to speak; at times, my surroundings come alive and it is as if the world is smiling at me.
Abstract musicians, through the repeated use of raw sound and sound textures also develop the ability to hone in on the sounds of everyday life and to harmonize themselves with it, allowing them to appreciate the soundtrack of everyday reality as if it were a symphony. I often concentrate on the sounds of my surroundings as a method of meditation, and at times this alone hoists me into an ethereal state.
Being in tune with one's surroundings in this manner is in no way limited to artists and musicians, however. These experiences are shared by mystics, or by those who approach being mystical, through their at-one-ment with the world and their deeply rooted appreciation of the magic behind everyday life.
Just as an ecstatic experience brings a higher order into a personality's configuration, so does the mystical appreciation of life in its raw form, its core experience, provide for the necessary tuning to behold the archetypal order behind life's events. And this is why, in general, I like to integrate my ideas with my real life story, for without attempting to express the archetypal order beneath life's events that originated these ideas, they would seem to the reader to float about without solid foundation. This goes for my music and art as well. It is a wonder why I waited so long to start this blog, perhaps a distortion towards shyness...
These psychological phenomena highlight the intense potential for a human being to gain inspiration from life at any given point in time, and shows each moment to be pregnant with possibilities for our evolution. Add to this the wide variety of catalysts that is born out of everyday human interaction, the synchronicities, the dreams, the ideas running through our heads, and already life can be seen to be overflowing in potential.
We seldom, myself included, utilize each moment for our betterment, however. Usually, the moment, as pregnant with power as it is, passes us by, missed like an unwanted train.
In my past, there was a night which I vividly remember, in which my pores were completely open, so to speak, to absorb the wisdom held in each moment. I was actually at a bar at the time, which is typically full of life, usually obnoxiously loud but not for me at this time. I will try to be accurate in describing my state of mind:
First, there was the aforementioned appreciation of abstract form, so that every visual aspect of my surroundings came alive upon my focused attention.
Secondly, I experienced an extreme amount of "synchronistic conditioning", which I desrcibed in my August blog to be the conditioning of one's state of mind by deeper portions of the psyche to better perceive synchronistic events. But, it was to the point that I would think a thought or recall a memory (or rather a thought or memory would surface on its own) and I then would witness something or hear lyrics in the music that ping-ponged a meaning at me through the relative contrast between the inner and outer event.
Thirdly, my thoughts were jumping around like electricity in a selfless form of Hurricane Thinking and sweeping in insight after insight through the use of polarity, a delightful orchestra of revelation conducted by the synchronicities I was witnessing.
Altogether, my mind felt like it was speeding faster than a space rocket.
At one point in the night, I perceived a very loud vision which showed me traveling through a circular tubing, shaped like a donut. Each moment in time was represented by a flash of one solid color, and this color was full of intelligence and meaning. I was being shown the power in the moment and how much wisdom was integrated in every second of our existence.
This circular tubing shape, I was to find out many years later, is called a torus. I was first introduced to this shape in the article below, to be found on David Wilcock's website, DivineCosmos.com, but I'm sure it's a common image amongst physicists. It discusses what occurs when you travel close to the speed of light based on Einstein's Theory of Relativity although I believe the ideas discussed here were an extension of Einstein's thoughts. (I could be wrong, however. Please do not think I have any degree of proficiency in the field of science!)
http://www.divinecosmos.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=337&Itemid=30
Here is an excerpt from that article:
...Einstein’s discoveries that space and time are part of one unified ‘fabric’...
Space-time starts out ‘flat,’ without curvature, and as you accelerate it towards the speed of light, the curvature increases. This curvature bends gravity along with it...
At the speed of light you create a torus as you see in the next image. Space could now be thought of as the outside surface of the torus, and time as the inside.
What happens when you accelerate the curvature PAST the speed of light? The torus unrolls again -- but now it is INSIDE OUT.
Time, which was on the INSIDE of the torus, has now moved to the OUTSIDE of the torus -- the SURFACE.
What was once time has now become space.
Everything inverts. And as your velocity further increases (from our perspective) or decreases (from the other side’s perspective), the torus again flattens out, becoming a stable, inhabitable plane.
You have just created a gateway into ‘time-space’ -- a parallel reality in which there are three dimensions of time (as we think of it) and one dimension of space (to our perspective.) Over there, the three dimensions of time become the space you move through, and experience as space -- and the one dimension of space (to us) becomes the steady flow of time.
Could the torus shape in my vision correspond to what occurs when our evolution reaches that extreme level of acceleration? Now, you might be saying: "Yo Makram! You really think your consciousness traveled the speed of light? You must be crazy!"
Indeed, but here is another piece of the puzzle: Just as I had no idea when I had the vision of the torus that it was the shape of space-time as one travels close to the speed of light, similarly, when I wrote my Astronaut story, I had also yet to be introduced to the space/time vs. time/space relationship. As David Wilcock explained above, in time/space, space becomes a constant, similar to how time is a constant in our space/time in that we forever only perceive the current moment. And in time/space, time takes on 3D characteristics that we can explore just as we explore 3D space in our space/time reality.
What occurs to Astronaut X when he finds himself floating above the moon? His body follows an inevitable orbiting trajectory but he cannot help but forever float motionless in the air. In other words, he is fixed in space. And throughout the story he recalls alternate periods from his life on Earth, i.e. he moves himself through time.
So what am I trying to say in all of this? Only that which has already been stated in the Ra Material. The main point I am trying to make is that there is a threshold in consciousness which when transcended takes us outside of time as we know it so that we are no longer stuck in the moment but capable of moving around in time, both into our past and into our future. In Ra speak, through transcending "space/time balancing", we "enter the combined realms of space/time and time/space."
In my opinion, this is an extremely important model of the human psyche and it serves to explain the reasons behind so much psychic phenomena that most scientists refute solely on the grounds that these phenomena, despite being witnessed over and over again, do not fit in with any scientific explanation. Predicting the future is no longer a mystery when we accept the fact that consciousness can tap into time/space; the only question is how we can reach time/space.
If we take the emergence of the story of Astronaut X, which was just a fictional extension of my diary writing, as the point in time when I switched over to time/space through "transcend[ing] space/time balancing", the most significant personality shift or tuning I underwent was the adopting of a thoroughly positive attitude. And this goes in line with Ra's statement about the Transformation of the Mind archetype. Speaking of the "the pull towards mental polarity" of the conscious mind deciding between the positive and the negative: "In order for the Transformation of Mind to occur, one principle governing the use of the deep mind must be abandoned."
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