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.
o
I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
John 6: 48-51
o
I heard Thy voice from on high: “I am the food of grown men: grow and you shall eat Me. And you shall not change Me into yourself as bodily food, but into Me you shall be changed.”
Saint Augustine (Confessions)o
o
Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.
Matthew 9:17
o
Therefore we before him bending,
this great sacrament we revere.
Types and shadows have their ending,
for the newer rite is here.
Most High, all powerful, good Lord,
Yours are the praises, the glory, the honour, and all blessing.
To You alone, Most High, do they belong,
and no man is worthy to mention Your name.
Be praised, my Lord, through all your creatures,
especially through my lord Brother Sun,
who brings the day; and you give light through him.
And he is beautiful and radiant in all his splendour!
Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars,
in heaven you formed them clear and precious and beautiful.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Wind,
and through the air, cloudy and serene,
and every kind of weather through which you give sustenance to Your creatures.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Water,
which is very useful and humble and precious and chaste.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Fire,
through whom you light the night and he is beautiful
and playful and robust and strong.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Mother Earth,
who sustains us and governs us and who produces
varied fruits with coloured flowers and herbs.
Praised be You, my Lord, through those who give pardon for Your love,
and bear infirmity and tribulation.
Blessed are those who endure in peace
for by You, Most High, they shall be crowned.
Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister Bodily Death,
from whom no living man can escape.
Woe to those who die in mortal sin.
Blessed are those who will find Your most holy will,
for the second death shall do them no harm.
Praise and bless my Lord, and give Him thanks
and serve Him with great humility.
o
Saint Francis of Assisi
At the centre of the Tibetan Wheel of Life are three animals, a cock, a snake and a pig, chasing each others tails, symbolizing the “three poisons” of greed, hate and delusion. These three conditions can be understood psychologically as a pathological or unskillful response to the existential problems associated with time, that is, with the past, the present and the future.
Greed is directed to the future. We want something from the future, something that will satisfy our desire. Hate is directed to the past. We hate someone or something because of accumulated resentment and bitterness over past wrongs. Delusion is directed to the present. We misconstrue present reality because we fail to see it as it really is.
We can understand greed, hate and delusion as psychological coping mechanisms that defend us against the existential anxieties of life associated with time future, past and present. In The Courage to Be, Paul Tillich explores three types of existential anxiety: the anxiety of fate and death, the anxiety of guilt and condemnation and the anxiety of doubt and meaninglessness. These can also be understood as relating to our existential orientation to future, past and present.
If we suffer from existential anxiety, we experience dread (existential anxiety of fate and death) in relation to the future, regret (existential anxiety of guilt and condemnation) in relation to the past and despair (existential anxiety of doubt and meaninglessness) in relation to the present. Psychologically speaking, these are very uncomfortable states. So we choose greed over dread, hate over regret and delusion over despair. All this does, however, is demote our anxiety from the existential level to the pathological level, which, although more bearable, is less authentic.
There is a more excellent way: hope instead of pathological greed or existential dread; love instead of pathological hate or existential regret; faith instead of pathological delusion or existential despair. The greatest of these three is love (agape) because without compassion and forgiveness of sins, we remain slaves to a false self and cannot find the inner spiritual fount from which flow hope and faith.
bread of life 