transition

As one comes out of sleep into wakefulness, one hardens into the attitudinal frame one assumes and becomes for the day. Spiritual practice allows for both a slowing of the concretization and an increase in diaphaneity. Some enjoy the quickset into their long-assumed "personality" and its resultant obtuseness and give no thought to this remarkable skill.

symbols

As Henry Corbin points out in his deep and abiding commentary on visionary recitals (stories that show the path, the stages, the phases of spiritual birth and rebirth), symbols are not designed for rational explanations and their inevitable hardening into dogma, but for transmorphing into, merging, and becoming. One becomes the Cross. One becomes the Caduceus. One becomes the Tao Sign. In doing so, one has moved into invisible realms far beyond the world of so-called ordinary (ordinal, linear) consciousness into the Poetic, the Imaginal -- the realms the ordinary call phantasy and the unreal (if bothering to call them anything at all). Yet for those who have made the transposition, who have become those symbols of eternal energetic flow, for whom the ordinal is a desiccated cocoon they have shed, nothing is more real. One does not bow at the foot of a symbol and worship it. One becomes that symbol.

daring of spiritual adventure

I read some words by Henry Corbin a few minutes ago concerning the spiritual universe of Avicenna that appear to me to directly relate to the state of Christianity today. Here they are (I insert "Christianity" instead of "Avicennan" and "Jesus" instead of "Avicenna"): 

The future of Christianity "can be decided in a positive sense only on one condition--that the traditional philosophy, nourished on Christian motifs, shall not drowse on in the murmur of the old formulas but shall be capable of again daring, on its own account and in our present-day world, the spiritual adventure that Jesus himself dared."

helmet heads

If you slow down enough you will see that your thoughts are an overlay to what is.

For those who do not purposely meditate, this experience may come only in the morning upon awaking. At times, the process of "putting oneself together"is a slow one with a gradual understanding of who you are, where you are, and what your business of the day is. At other times, you may leap into your self suit immediately. In both instances you are re-inventing you, fashioning you into the fashion you have adopted and others expect. In other words, you put on the virtual reality helmet you wore yesterday, the one you have carefully and not so carefully constructed over the years.

This is self-hypnosis. We live in the world we live in as individuals and as a society because of the hypnotic state we have adopted. Of course we call this individual and mass hypnosis "Reality" and derogate anyone who sees otherwise.

We do not dare and may not even be capable of riding helmet-free.

little gods prancing

Each of us has a reality picture. Much of it is subliminal (below the light of awareness). We fit whatever happens into our reality picture. Distortions or, if you prefer, creative ingenuities occur. Perhaps even more disturbing is that we ARE our reality picture. [Kudos to William Gibson for the "reality picture" term.]

post-eden

It is not I think, therefore I am. Thinking is.
It is not I feel, therefore I am. Feeling is.
It is not I perceive, therefore I am. Perceiving is.
No self. We insist on "having" a self.
We tend to believe in this illusion.
We are an interflow of sensing, thinking, feeling, perceiving.
Self is an attempt to separate out from this interflow.
This is the Fall. This is the expulsion from the Garden.
Knowing that we are dynamic interflow is returning Home.

ancient wisdom

Ancient wisdom: The sun gives both heat and light. Our planetary sun is a representation of the spiritual sun, which also gives both heat and light.  Heat is the warmth of love. Light is the clarity of wisdom. Both are offered to us. Reception depends upon will and attention. 

transition

The Body is the Cocoon of the Life Force Spirit working its Work upon the transforming Soul. Our inner Life is our True Life and over Time we can see that now the Body is in the Soul. The Soul radiates out from the Body and is felt by Others. At some point we drop the Body and the Soul has even more Freedom to expand.

Birth Right

We have the sensory world, the world revealed to us by our physical senses, which is but a flickering in the deep expanse of the Infinite. We have presented to us the suprasensory world, the world revealed to us through Love. I use the words “revealed” and “presented” purposely. All of us see by the light of our physical senses. Yet this light extends into the darkness only so far, not very far at all. A greater realm of sight is presented to us and is ours if we but accept it and practice walking by its vision.

We move from sensory encapsulation, from tiny creatures blinded by our own light, to open radiance in which the entire cosmos becomes our home. We move from being creatures shining little flashlights in the dark seeing nothing but what the flashlight reveals to radiant beings in no need of blinding flashlights. We now see in the dark. And the dark is light, the light of Love.

I speak here not of physical love, though that has its place, but of celestial Love. The Cosmos is Love. And our Home is the Cosmos.

We move from being sluggish worms crawling the surface of the earth seeking what we might devour, seeing nothing but immediate gratification of need and want (what use can I make of that? how can this profit me?) to cosmic citizenry. The transition is more than from caterpillar to butterfly though that analogy has its merits. The transformation is from sensory being to spiritual being to celestial being. 

This is the Call being made. Transformation to that which we already are. The reclaiming of our Birth Right.