Good religion is faith without fussiness,
urgency without fanaticism;
wind, boat and harbour.
o
But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.
1 Peter 5:10
Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil.
Hebrews 6:19
Enlightenment is awareness of the presence of God.
What is God? The Great I AM Paramãtman (Exodus 3:14, Psalm 46:10, John 8:58).
This Self is behind everything, inside everything.
Awareness of the presence of God is “Paramãtman Dhyana”:
o
LORD I AM THAT.
o
But the light of perfect enlightenment shines clearest
when those words, and all words, are dropped.
(Be sure to listen out for the sound
of one hand clapping!)
o
If that doesn’t work, take the lowest room,
so that when your host comes, he will say to you,
‘Friend, go up higher.’
o
The first room is for the faithful servants (in storge),
where God is addressed as LORD.
The second room is for the secret friends (in filia),
where God is addressed as FRIEND.
The third room is for the spiritual brides (in eros),
where God is addressed as BRIDEGROOM.
The fourth room is for the hidden sons and daughters (in agape),
where God is addressed as FATHER.
The fifth room is for your very Self,
where God is addressed as I AM.
o
For God is Love
and Thou art That.
o
(But, as Dame Julian discovered, nutshells can be very capacious:)
o
Lord (Jah) I Am (Ba) That (Gaia)
Lord (Parashiva) I Am (Shiva) Zen (Shakti)
Father = Nous = Parashiva = Jah
Son = Logos = Shiva = Ba
Holy Spirit = Pneuma = Shakti = Gaia
Zen Christian Shamanism is Headlessness, Holiness, Wholeness.
Zen Christian Shamanism is Kenosis, Gnosis, Pistis.
Zen Christian Shamanism is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
o
There is a weak form and a strong form of Zen Christian Shamanism:
The weak form is a weak interaction between three common conceptions of Zen as calm mindful presence, Christianity as selfless love and Shamanism as psychedelic journeying.
The strong form is a strong interaction between Zen as satori, Christianity as christification and Shamanism as ego death and rebirth. The three things are ultimately one and the same. In the end all things point to Zen.
o
“What is Zen?
Try if you wish. But Zen comes of itself. True Zen shows in everyday living, CONSCIOUSNESS in action. More than any limited awareness, it opens every inner door to our infinite nature.
Instantly mind frees. How it frees! False Zen wracks brains as a fiction concocted by priests and salesmen to peddle their own wares.
Look at it this way, inside out and outside in: CONSCIOUSNESS everywhere, inclusive, through you. Then you can’t help living humbly, in wonder.”
Paul Reps
The wonder of existence and the joy of life get obscured and lost as we get older. Sometimes we need a reminder. Sometimes we need a wake up call.
Sometimes the only way to break the spell of existential numbness and disenchantment we call ordinary life is a healthy dose of holy inebriation.
This is wisdom. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.
The path to unforgetting and disclosure of Truth is a dramatic hero’s journey guided by the Good and validated by the Beautiful Life.
Similia similibus curantur
Paracelsus
Ingesting the same psychoactive mushroom can have diametrically opposite effects:
If taken for the purposes of self-aggrandizement and ego-enhancement, in order that, as the serpent in the garden promised Adam and Eve, you may become “as gods”, the result will be exile from paradise and even deeper immersion in Babylon.
If the aim is ego death and spiritual rebirth, in the spirit of the second Adam, Christ, the result will be reconciliation with God and entry into His kingdom.
The primal intention behind all other intentions when embarking on a high dose trip should be theosis. We accept God’s transformative grace from “above” as partakers in the divine nature. We don’t transform ourselves from “below” with Faustian magic into some kind of transhumanist homo deus superman.
Even if we are seeking personal healing or guidance, we should seek it not out of self-love, but for the glory of God.
And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin.
Romans 14: 23
Don’t worry. Have faith. Be grateful. Be humble.
Babylon – shelter
from the level
sands – and
consuming fire.
o
Who can stand
to bear the beams
of love – and
eternity in an hour?
o
The madman, the lover
and the poet – and
the saint hidden
in the heart – of Babylon.
Ultimately, all is ONE.
One Uni-verse, One Cosmic Mind, One God.
o
We get a taste of this Absolute Oneness
in nondual awareness.
o
The ONE becomes THREE
with the birth of duality.
o
A exists in relation to A’ (not-A),
producing three terms: A, A’ and AA’.
o
In Kashmir Shaivism, we have Parashiva, Shiva, Shakti;
in the Christian Trinity, we have Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
o
The THREE becomes SEVEN in the same way.
A, B, C exist as A, B, C, AB, BC, AC and ABC.
o
This constitutes an octave, expressed in the Ray of Creation
as Emptiness, Energy, Matter, Life, Mind, Planetary and Universal Consciousness.
o
We can envisage the relationship between 1, 3, 7
as an expanding and contracting sphere
o
surrounded by two rotating wheels,
something like a pump and a gyroscope.
o
The centre of the sphere is ONE indivisible point,
which expands to THREE and SEVEN
o
before contracting back to ONE again
and expanding again.
o
The two rotating wheels
represent the cycles
o
of the liturgical year of holy days, festivals and readings
and the TWELVE monthly ceremonies,
o
turning like two Tibetan prayer wheels
around a breathing universe.
When you lose touch with inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself. When you lose touch with yourself, you lose yourself in the world.
Your innermost sense of self, of who you are, is inseparable from stillness. This is the I Am that is deeper than name and form.
Eckhart Tolle
o
And God said unto Moses, I Am That I Am: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me unto you.
Exodus 3:14
o
AHAM
PARASHIVA SHIVA SHAKTI
AMUN RA ATUM KA BA GAIA JAH
There are beings that populate the imaginal world and beings that populate the sensuous world. Human beings, blessed of all creatures, can inhabit both in extraordinary fullness of being. What is the imaginal? Your inner world (it’s all in your mind). What is the sensuous? The outer world (the world of the senses). These are problematic designations, but they’ll pass.
Psychedelic experiences are either extrovertive (eyes open) or introvertive (eyes closed). They can connect you to “Nature” or to “Spirit”. In ordinary states of consciousness, we generally enter the imaginal at night, in dreams, and the sensuous during the day, on long walks for example.
We consider dreams to be a lower state of consciousness than waking consciousness; they are usually confused and confusing. But what if dreams are not continuous with waking consciousness? What if dreams unfold in the imaginal world and waking consciousness in the sensuous world? What if we conceive of the imaginal and the sensuous as parallel worlds, parallel dimensions, parallel universes?
A low level of consciousness in the sensuous experiences a shadowy world of vague impressions. We are like a ghost in a world of ghosts, shades in Hades. A high level of consciousness experiences the sensuous as a paradise bursting with life, light and colour. The summit of this experience is a profound sense of unity with all existence. It is the classic enlightenment experience, exemplified most paradigmatically in the spiritual awakening of the Buddha.
A low level of consciousness in the imaginal experiences a chaotic world of dream images. It tends towards the nightmarish as the chaos leans into negative valency and frightening or violent situations. We are like the damned in Hell. A high level of consciousness experiences the imaginal as a heavenly realm over-brimming with beauty, light and love. At the summit we approach the effulgent source of all, in which we lose ourselves in a mystical union of absolute oneness.
Extrovertive psychedelic experiences, through a dramatic elevation of our ordinary level of consciousness, can usher us into paradise, and can even lead to extrovertive mystical experiences of samadhi or satori, that is, enlightenment. Introvertive psychedelic experiences, through an inner-directed elevation of consciousness, can take us to heaven and even to the very throne of God.
bread of life 