Multidimensionality

Heaven is a realm of uncountable possibility. It is where we know ourselves as the omniscient, omnipresent beings that we are. But this is a leap for our time and space bound minds that only a very few wise ones have taken over millenia. Today many more of us are poised to grasp the consciousness of multidimensional beingness and teaching comes toward us even from mainstream entertainment.

I have talked a little bit about the concepts of super heroes and super powers and the relevance of these to our true nature today I am inspired to examine the idea of multidimensionality. If we are omniscient and omnipresent we are not truly confined to the here and now that we are all so familiar with and comfortable with. This is the most mind bending of the concepts of ascension that our spiritual teachers present to us. It is impossible for the mind to grasp the idea of being in more than one place or time. Our linear construct is so rigid and confined and just what the mind can grasp. What does multidimensionality look like?

There are amazing ancient spiritual texts that tell stories of this like the Yoga Vasistha or the Ramayana, some Buddhist tales and many fairy tales. Sometimes moments in those stories strike our super consciousness into remembrance. A moment like that is when Hanuman, the monkey god from the Ramayana, goes to the bottom of the ocean to retrieve Rama’s lost ring and he finds 10,000 identical rings there indicating that this moment has been repeated for eternity. When I read that my mind stopped, it became stuck in an open space of wonder and awe that I cannot describe.

But forget about the old stories for now, what about the new stories? Several TV shows right now toy with this idea of multidimensionality – Ghost Whisperer and Medium concentrate on how ghosts; us in another state, interact with the living.  There is an overwhelming fascination with death in today’s entertainment. And last week we discover that Lost examines ideas of what can happen in the other dimensions after death exploring a tangled tale of woe, loss and loves in the Bardo state of between life and death. The Tibetan book of Living and Dying explains this Bardo state in great detail. Basically it is a state of consciousness where a human who has lost form gets stuck attached to the realm or idea of form and moves through seemingly uncontrolled adventures spurred by the fancies of the mind. The natural process after death is to move directly to the bright light of the divine, which is God or our own highest self but sometimes we are so attached to the idea of a life in form that we get stuck thinking we are still alive. Or we may know that we are dead but for some highly charged reason we are unwilling to move on. This is powerful esoteric understanding that we are becoming familiar with through the use of popular entertainment. This is a great blessing for this age.

To my surprise after suffering through the last season of Lost, I stopped watching after the first, I liked the ending. It is my dream to create uplifting entertainment and I am impressed that Lost’s last show pulled off a miraculous feat of mind-bending although a bit too sappy spirituality.  The implications of the end are beautiful. When we wonder what multidimensional beingness might look like this could be it – parallel lives, friends who become enemies and then become friends again, a constant raw respect for living and a throwing oneself deep into the game of living.

Hinduism refers to life as a lila – a dance. This maybe what it would look like. The multiple arms of Shiva, of all the gods; stabbing, saving, feeding, stealing, sharing and depriving and then embracing each other. The dance of life.

We are on an ascended path, these remarkably esoteric entertainments are a cohesive part of the shifting process. They show us what is possible without ramming it down our throat like a religion might. We can laugh because it’s all fun and entertainment then we can’t get the ideas out of our heads and then we realize we are living it.

Bravo to Lost; it was definitely worth it. I think I am going to plan a Lost marathon.

Magic

Almost everyday I think to write this post and then another idea takes over but here we are MAGIC. Without it where would we be? Children delight in magic, magical stories never go out of style. Magical beings are fascinating to us whether in the form of dragons or super heroes. Popular media are swamped with magical tales from Harry Potter to Vampire Diaries and Witches of Eastwick. But what really is magic? I am going to tell you a couple of stories, personal experiences, these will not answer that question but to me they proove that something is greater than the mundaneness of reality that we accept and insist is all there is.

Last year here in Tribeca workers had just completed the plantings in a brand new garden greenway along the Hudson River around Murray Street. There was new dirt and tiny newly set plants for a few blocks along the river. I was walking home one day and I noticed that this small strip park was crowded with huge dragonflies, thousands and thousands of them. In over 30 years in New York City I only ever saw one of those big dragonflies and that was on 12th Street between University and Fifth Avenue, kind of odd also.  I stopped to watch the dragonflies. They were buzzing around in deliberate circles over the plants there was no still water as you might expect for these creatures. Suddenly it occured to me that I was seeing dragonflies because that is what my reality accepts but the thought hit me that they were not dragonflies but were actually faeries there to set the plants and activate the spirit of the new garden where no garden had ever been before. This idea felt absolutely right to me. I looked as carefully as I could at the dragonflies trying to see if I could see them as faeries but it never happened. Call me crazy, who knows what we see and how the mind interprets what we see. All I know is that there were all those thousands of dragonflies there for one day and now there is a vibrant and gorgeous garden there now. 

Another time I was walking in the woods of Vermont by myself. These woods were always very quiet and rarely were there any hikers going by except in hunting season. Suddenly I heard as clear as anything a set of pipes like the pipes of Pan. It was not windy. I could see through the woods in the direction of the sound and I saw no one. Again, I have no idea what that was but it was an undeniable sound.

Magic is that which leaves room for amazing things to happen. Magic is a harbinger of new rules for the way the universe, our world and our reality function which we don’t quite understand yet. Think of the things that we take for granted which would have been considered magic just a century ago: cell phones, TV, Satellites, nanotechnology, and so much more. If we deny magic we close the door to untold and uncounted future possibilities. We close the door to surprising nows.

Magic is beyond the idea of hope or wishful thinking it is a mystical knowing and practicing with the forces of life that produce space or possibility for different outcomes. Here is another experience.

I was working on a project for a summer spiritual retreat a few years ago which was a 30 foot wide and 20 foot high back drop for the stage where the festivities were to be hosted. I designed the back drop and worked with a crowd of volunteers and one other experience painter, together we pulled the bulk of the project together and to completion but it was touch and go and a big mess for most of the process. Finally we dragged it into the hall and laid it on the floor for the crew to hang it while we went to lunch. I looked at it then and thought, “Oh well, done is beautiful” a term from my costume business. And left for lunch thinking that the work looked a bit flat and maybe unfinished yet.

When we returned I ran straight to the farthest side of the hall to see what the drop looked like and when I turned around I was blown away. It was stunning. Somehow between laying it on the floor and hanging it up the drop had become infused. It glimmered, it sang, it came alive and touched places inside that reminded us of mystical connections. I don’t know how this happened and I have more to say about this drop which I plan for tomorrow’s blog. This kind of magic is the ineffable something that we always seek to create in the theater; that electrical magic that sweeps one away and sparks a connection to the mysterious lifeforce that inspires us all. That’s what magic is about, to deny it is to shut out the mystical part of us the part of us that nourishes our greater being and then that greater being that nourishes the form of us that we know.

Beauty

To look around at the natural world is to encounter a plenitude of gorgeousness. The clouds, trees, flowers, glittering waters, birds, chipmunks and other furry things are stunningly beautiful at no charge. This is a truly smashing time of year too. Late spring brings a wealth of delightful vibrancy and a promise of more to come. Beauty has a power of affirmation about it, it opens the heart and softens the breath and quiets the mind with awe. All these causes are deeply needed tonics for our fast moving, high pressure lifestyle. “Stop and smell the roses” is a great and wise dictum. Stop and watch the sunset too.

How can a place of such extraordinary gorgeousness not be Heaven? Left unchecked by the interventions of mankind the natural order produces stunning landscapes, breathtaking mountains, fascinating minute plants and creatures, stars that stop the mind’s chatter and on and on. We hurry about trying to improve it all, making things and arts to make it better and yet all we need do is stop and take it in as the gift of glory that this realm is. Even the harsh salt flats, bare deserts, deep inhospitable (to us) ocean exhibit stunning beauty.

As a spiritual practice, recognizing beauty may lead to devotion and become a profound and transformative step toward fully embracing unconditional love. It is at once a gentle and a viselike path for once the eyes open and the world bursts into full color of exquisiteness there is no going back. Beauty will forever grab your attention entice you into rapturous blankness, staring at a sunset, peering at a tiny insect or into the center of a flower. Beauty leads one to a state of wonder and reminds us daily and even many times a day that the magic of creation is far beyond our understanding.

Beauty is always surprising. I am forever awed by the exquisiteness of a rose; it’s fragrance, it’s color, it’ vigor. I have seen fully blooming roses on the streets of New York City in December.

My personal exploration of beauty this spring has been gardening in my own garden and watching the Battery Park gardens here at the tip of Manhattan grow into the first season. I think after 25 years of gardening I finally get my own garden from watching the Battery Conservancy for the last couple of years. Check them out they are truly gorgeous.

http://www.thebattery.org/gardens/

Infrastructure

I am inspired by the Dalai Lama’s interview with Ann Curry not to share the meaning and value of his message but to examine the value of the fact that he is here and able to share his message with so many.  This is the infrastructure of Heaven, it is the subtle roads and bridges that allow us to navigate the treacherous territory of the mind. This infrastructure has been constructed over millenia of mankind begun by ancient Rishis and Gurus and continued by Saints, Sages, Shaman and Teachers of all cultures. I capitalize them all because they are great ones codifiying the divine conscious energies in such a way as to assist us all in our expression of a perfect life in form.

Imagine that once there were no roads; moving from place to place was difficult if not impossible because there were also just rudimentary vehicles. As time and civilization progress foot paths become wagon tracks, these get paved and carry faster vehicles. People come together to build trains, bridges, airplanes and everyone moves around from place to place with much greater ease. Then there is the communications system from telegraph to telephone, television, internet, multiuse PDA’s, what’s next? These tangible, physical infrastructures are directly representative of subtle infrastructures that have in similar ways developed over time.

These subtle roads are the roads to magical inner realms of peace, harmony, contentment, enlightenment. The vehicles are meditation, listening to the teacher – as you will, I hope listen to the Dalai Lama’s interview on the link below. Other vehicles or roads, or bridges are knowledge, self-examination, right attitude, good company, discipline, vigilance and I am sure there are more.

The infrastructure of assistance to us in these very difficult paths is extraordinary today. In the past very few were able to find a great teacher and follow a path of spiritual growth, today we are rich with all the world’s disciplines and a vast complement of teachers whose books, websites, videos, workshops and personal counseling are readily available to so many of us. Our physical infrastructure allows us to mix it up to reach for the teaching that we fancy or resonate with. The subtle infrastructure is so much more available and comprehensible because of the astonishing improvements in communication techniques over this last century.

We are very blessed; we have so much at our fingertips because the infrastructure of our world wide civilization is so strong and so far reaching. The Dalai Lama states that we as humanity are getting better.  Infrastructure has much to do with that; we are dependent upon each other, we resonate with each other’s difficulties no matter how far away or how different we are, we can now assist in ways that were never possible before with direct transfer of funds and goods to those in need.

Check out the video:

In Between

There is a very peculiar sacred space that we might call in between. It is the space between all things as manifest and it is the open door to that which manifests. It is always available.

In ancient days Celtics, Druids and all nature spiritualities honored the in between spaces evidenced in the seasons and the day; soltices and equinoxes were recognized as profound moments replete with potential for the new season and dawn, dusk, midnight and midday present moments of turning in which to reset the next flow of life. I learned in meditation that the turning of the breath from in to out and out to in offers an ever present window into that eternal space of becoming, of potential or rather potency.

Today we seem to enjoy a desperate need to fill all our spaces with something; shopping, games, TV and mind altering substances protect us from that in between space, that sudden and disturbing feeling of emptiness. It is a feeling that comes after a really intense job is done, after a child is born, a project finish, a vacation over or the holiday season done and everyone has gone home. There we are left alone, quiet, rudderless; what to do? Most of us cram our lives full of activities, duties, obligations in order to avoid that feeling. Yet there is where our power lies. It is in the potency of in between that all possibilities lie. Too many people around the world today are coming face to face with that in between; loosing a job, a home or a life’s savings slams us right there in the emptiness and requires us to examine how it feels. Here is a moment to look to see and remember where did it all come from in the first place. How did we manifest this space, stuff, family, home, job to begin with? If we have forgotten our conscious universe welcomes us to look at it again and to remember this time where it all comes from.

There is a fabulous description of a new paradigm for physics by Nassim Haramein. Haramein has developed the formulas to reconcile the unified field theory and tells his path to discovery with great enthusiasm because it is a spiritual journey for him and all of us. His lecture is engaging, inspiring and mind-bending and well worth listening to you can find it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2qLIeN7gRI. To summarize though, and I am not a physicist so forgive me if I’m not quite getting it right, Haramein establishes that the strong force which is a power that Einstein discovered and necessarily inserted into all of his theories in order to make them work is actually black holes. Now what is a black hole? I suspect it is that same in between that we are examining here, it is that in between opening great and microscopic fissures within our reality like holes in swiss cheese. But Haramein shows us this force holds our reality together and he suggests that force is found in the center of every atom. It is the potent power of emptiness, the unthinkable power of creation which holds every possibility inside that emptiness. Haramein concludes that the purpose of this relationship that we as form have with this other part of us which is void is to be the divine consciousness expressing itself and then looking back at itself. Wow, that’s exactly what the profound esoteric religions say too. But watch Haramein explain this yourself.

My purpose here is to inspire a profound respect for that emptiness which is always present and sometimes intrudes upon our lives wreaking havoc on our sense of self. We are greater than form and in the void is where we will find greater understanding of our greatness.

I offer this poem that I just found in my notebook, I don’t know when I wrote it or why but it speaks to this issue:

The Sacred space of In Between.

In between the white sky and the grey sound is a thin blue line. A blue line that denotes infinity – a blue line that circumnavigates the earth – a blue line that we right now travel within and that we breathe.

In between the fleshy colors and the grey, green, brown, wood, soil, asphalt surface of this gorgeous earth is a microcosm of vibrating space, a thrumming rythmn of caresses, a stroke of blessings attracting and repelling me from my one and primary field of support.

In between the wind and my breath is a pause, a consideration of life inside and outside; swelling my lungs, swelling the sky, tasting my lips, tasting the clouds, one continuous stream of life force in and out.

In between this thought and the next is a potent eternity containing this poem both ephemeral and manifest with all fruits; real and unreal, eaten or rotted, all there ready to be known.

In between the night and day is in or out both the way to the day and to the night a sacred doorway promising delicious black – the void, replete with potential and entrancing white; the manifest chaos that distracts us all.

Cultivate the in between – there lies the true rest within both the black and the white space.

Community

I just, finally, managed to see Invictus which is one movie I really wanted to see. I think I have never been so moved by a film as much as I was by this film. I was on the way to Greece in a plane where the sound was terrible the screen a postage stamp and the distractions endless and in spite of all that Invictus drew me in like no other film.

Community – I am struck by how powerfully needful we are of this. What is it – Unity in Community? The word means – in unity. Millions of South Africans black and white coming together to celebrate a rugby team. A team playing as a cohesive group and coming together to perform in excellence. Is there any need as a human greater than this need to belong? Perhaps a greater need than food, water or even sex is our need to belong and to be a part of something greater than ourselves. There is where our truth lies, this is the essence of our truth, our core nature – we are one.

I delighted in “on the money” cheesy moments of the film where a young black boy sneaks into the hearts of the white taxi drivers just to listen to the world cup game. I revel and thrill to the powerful Maori war dance which is led by a white New Zealander and strikes terror into the opponent Spring Bok team. I loved the white Afrikaner presidential security guard teaching his disinterested black politico counterpart about rugby until together they rejoice in a remarkable Spring Bok – no – a remarkable South African win of the World Cup.

I hate to watch sports and I think it is a waste of time and yet here is a song to unity in community teamwork. Like another film of extraordinary compassion and grace, The Blind Side; Invictus touches our core humanity, it highlights how much we need each other regardless of race, creed, ideologies or location, we need to support, love and respect each other in order to shine and express our excellent individual self. These two films are harbingers of heaven, they are songs of unity that invite us to examine our supernature the essential self of us that is beyond individual but belongs to the greater whole of humanity.

I have always said if a child is playing with a knife don’t just snatch it away from them but substitute it with a very attractive toy – the knife will be forgotten in a flash. Nelson Mandela did that with rugby. By focussing the entire country, blacks and whites on the game he created a unity that could never come from any political maneuvers.

I think my favorite line in the film is “Soccer is a gentleman’s game played by houligans – Rugby is a houligan’s game played by gentlemen.” To me that says it all – there are no boundaries, no rules except those that we make for ourselves and then unthinkingly abide by. I yearn, ache for the unconditional family of man, for unity in community, for unyielding grace and fierce respect to each other. For the most part the family man functions with elegance and unity if it didn’t there could never be so many of us. But unfortunately many abberant conflicts suck all the oxygen out of our general harmony. Reframing the focus like Nelson Mandela did is a brilliant move, reminding us of this brilliance with Clint Eastwood’s film Invictus is another brilliant move. I watched four other films on my way to and from Greece, it’s a long flight, and the rest of them were insipid compared to the rich relevance of Invictus.

Invictus shows us that we can ‘play’ on opposite teams to test our prowess, push and jostle each other but then we go home as equals, as lovers of one game, residents in the same life that we share together as one in many forms. Today I am on top tomorrow you wear the crown, today I am white in another life black, what’s the difference? The energy of unity is extraordinary, we can do anything together. Together we transcend the stars. Not to drag anyone down, that is never my goal here, but look for a moment what happens with partisanship – division. Even the best organization, the most powerful group will fail when undermined by partisanship. We do ourselves disservice when we withhold full authorization to those we put in power by that we withhold our own power.

Unity is our essential nature. It is a societal norm that continues to inspire and draw people together. We form groups in national, cultural, spiritual, artistic, intellectual and generational tribes. We revel in those associations, identify ourselves by our tribe. But that is not all that we are, our transcendent energetic being includes all those and more. You are all and much more.