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A friend wrote to say he had a dream:
I'm with Elias and he's explaining to me, in intricate detail, about blue light and how it pervades everything. I can see the light everywhere. Everything is blue and it does indeed pervade everything....Elias...me...everything.
This is a terrific dream, for several reasons. For one thing it seems to demonstrate that what I have to say it "getting through" to those who are giving me an ear open on the subtle planes. For another, the "blue light" is a powerful symbol, both traditionally and in the modern sense of deconstructive thinking about religion.
Traditionally blue light is associated with Siva, Krishna, the Self, the Holy Spirit, the Goddess (especially the Blessed Virgin), and the "Siddha-loka" which is said to exist above the sahasrar or "thousand-petalled-lotus" of the upper brain.
Muktananda taught "the blue pearl" -- a brilliant blue dot or spark that often appears to the naked eye during meditation or spiritual illumination. Supposedly when you get very close to it you can see a whole world inhabited by highly advanced beings. (Franklin Jones wrote a lot about this blue scintilla in the early days of his guruhood.) It has been called "the seed of consciousness" and "the goal of kundalini":
As the kundalini would rise, it would slowly, but surely purify the bodies, the sense organs, and the chakras, themselves, and deep levels of meditation would be experienced. When the kundalini finally reaches the crown (which can take many, many years) there is a triangle, Baba [Muktananda] says, that one sees. In the center triangle resides Shiva (God). This is the ultimate goal of the rising of the Kundalini.
Baba tells of His experience of seeing a brilliant light like that of a thousand suns when this experience occurred for Him. In the center of light as it quieted down he saw the "blue pearl". The blue pearl He describes as the Divine Light of consciousness, that dwells within every person. It is the actual form of the Self. It is the size of a sesame seed. The Infinite Universe is contained within it.
The goal of meditation in the Siddha practice is to see this blue pearl, and ultimately to go inside it and merge with it. Within the blue pearl you will see the "Deity" you have personal devotion to, be it Jesus, Buddha, Sai Baba, Krishna, or Rama. Baba, at one point, experienced this blue pearl expanding until it became the size of a human being. He saw a magnificent being made of shimmering blue light. This blue being gave Baba some advice and gave Him a blessing, and then reduced in size to the blue pearl and entered into Baba Muktananda. (It is interesting that Krishna was often seen as being a blue being in many of the accounts and pictures of Him).
As meditation is continued Baba says, the blue pearl will eventually explode, and its light will fill the universe, and you will have a direct experience of yourself as omnipresence as the Eternal Self. You will no longer identify yourself with physical body consciousness.
from: http://www.iamuniversity.ch/Baba-Muktananda-and-the-Path-of
In the essays that follow, I am going to post some thoughts on "the blue light".
Elias
blue light special: essay one
Blue Light -- a nice symbol for the all-pervadingness of God and everybody: our Consciousness.
In God, we are everywhere and nowhere, "infinite in all directions" and "the center without a perimeter".
Of course we don't know that because most of the time we are focused in transient form(s). But mystical experience reminds us, by shaking us free of our identification with form(s).
You could say that our mysticism is the experience of formless love, of a continuum which "forgives" our clinging to form and our "scheming to win" in the realm of the impermanent.
This "forgiveness" is the opposite of condemnation: it unveils freedom and uncircumscribed possibility. Accept that as your destiny and you are "forgiven". Stop hanging on to form and you are released into Reality, the natural (and joyful) state of all-pervading Consciousness.
What does the "blue pearl" have to do with this? Nobody knows for sure what the "blue pearl" is beyond the mythologizing of it in Muktananda's teachings. It manifests as a tiny flash of intense blue light in the periphery of daytime vision. I have talked to dozens of people who have noticed it. (In the 1970s I used to see it regularly, at unpredictable moments.) For all we know it could be an artifact of some electro-chemical process in the brain or optic nerve. Millions of people could be seeing it and thinking nothing of it. The fact that some people in India have given it spiritual significance doesn't mean it has real spiritual significance. Or perhaps it does. But what's the difference? It's just "seeing something". Seeing something isn't the same as being something. Unless of course your particular "blue pearl" experience opens up into a vision of another world...
In which case you may be resonating with the feminine aspect of God, the power of energy and manifestation and wisdom -- Shakti-Sophia. But to what end? What does Shakti-Sophia reveal to you in your Vision? What's the lesson? (Unless there is a lesson, it's not a vision but an hallucination. Indeed, unless there is a lesson, it is not even a good dream!)
When I was 23, after a couple dozen experiences of the Divine Woman, She gave me a vision that changed my life forever. It both confirmed the existence of a far greater reality and taught me something about what constitutes the world. It began as a down-to-earth parable:
I was in a factory, putting money into a Coca-Cola machine. (At that time Coca-Cola was calling itself "the real thing".) Two businessmen were talking shop on the factory loading platform. It was starting to rain.
"Listen," said the first man, "I closed that deal. I had to lie a little to get the order. I told them we could get it out in two weeks, but actually it may take us months. Now I hear the boss has already got us on our feet again, and we don't need that big order after all! ...Well, the business isn't going to hurt us any."
Then I was walking away from the factory in the pouring rain. In the streets of the city I met a priest dressed in black, and together we approached a church. There was thunder and lightning and the rain came harder. "I like storms," said the priest, "they remind me of God." Yes, I thought, that is true, and we ran up the stairs and entered the church. There were others with us, who had fallen in beside us along the way.
There were no pews in this church. A mosaic mandala adorned the floor, and on one edge of the mandala a circle of Latin Americans had gathered to pray. I had a sudden thought: what if God were to strike this church right now with His lightning?
At that moment there was an electric crackle of sound, as if energy was bursting in from another dimension. This was followed by a brilliant explosion of blue-white light, and I could see a luminous figure had appeared in the center of the group of Latinos. It was the Blessed Virgin Mary! I could see her feet and her brilliant blue gown which fell loosely about her feet. Someone was standing so that I couldn't see her face.
In that instant I had an overwhelming intuition that someone in this room was about to be transformed. And then I found myself rising in the air, energy surging through my entire body. I was rising above the heads of the people up into the brilliant dome of the church. I could feel Her eyes watching me as I rose, and my mind was laughing....
I woke up from the vision breathless and ecstatic. Immediately I promised this Holy Woman that I would do something special for Her in thanks for this magnificent vision. I lay in bed for hours, pondering the ineffable kindness of God. For sure, at the time I saw only the fulfillment of a Catholic youth's wildest dream: the Blessed Virgin Mary had appeared to me, in all her glory, with more power and radiance than any of my previous visions of the Great Mother.
The lesson of the vision, as I see it now, has to do with the mind of the world vs. the real nature of the world. Educated in the flawed assumption that we must scheme and sell to survive, we waste a lifetime pre-occupied with "business", dealing in half-truths and lies to turn a buck. The accumulation of money is our object, our prime motivator, and the great distraction that bonds us to "the factory" and its feudal society. Entranced, consoled, and distracted, forming an "identity" within the framework of our "work", we lose our connection to the real nature of the world.
And what is the real nature of the world? The world arises in God and is nurtured and supported in the feminine side of Consciousness -- that all-pervading Blue Light.
The vision is saying you don't have to be bound to the factory. Your mind does not have to be bound to money to "survive". There is another way, which is your birthright. It can be learned by abandoning pride of identity (with all its attendant struggle), and becoming humble before God.
Circle back and read essay again from the beginning.
(to be continued)
Elias
essay two: easy for you difficult for me
And what is the real nature of the world? The world arises in God and is nurtured and supported in the feminine side of Consciousness -- that all-pervading Blue Light.
The vision is saying you don't have to be bound to the factory. Your mind does not have to be bound to money to "survive". There is another way, which is your birthright. It can be learned by abandoning pride of identity (with all its attendant struggle), and becoming humble before God.
Somebody emails: "easy to say, but obviously very difficult to do."
There's a reason for that: we are living in an uninspected mind. If you never look at your mind, never see what it is composed of, never notice the inherited structures designed to enslave the spirit, then of course it is going to be "very difficult" to make contact with the real nature of the world, i.e. CONSCIOUS REALITY.
God might as well be an idol and a myth, for all you know. You are so broken by your education you actually think that knowledge of God is something that is postponed until death...if then. You literally doubt that you can know God, except perhaps indirectly by finding a rare "avatar" wandering the earth.
Even when I tell you that God is looking for you, you feel grave doubts because you don't have an inner sense that that is the case. You feel abandoned...indeed, you know you are abandoned, "bereft of grace", as they say. The fact is, deep in your psyche you are split off from your real nature. And you need someone or something to reach across that divide from "the other side", to help you break the spell of the world.
I am here to say that this reaching out is going on, even as we speak. It happened to me. I know a number of people for whom it happened. It most certainly can and will happen to you. You are not orphaned by God -- just the opposite. God desperately wants to bring you home, back from the strange hallucinatory mental world in which you have lost yourself.
The perfect medium for that homeward journey is the feminine side of Divine Consciousness. It is Truth and Nurture, your Real Mother. Oh, but it is fashionable to dismiss the feminine side of God, to seek "enlightenment" in some brutal rational "non-dualism". It is fashionable to see union with her as weakness, or submissiveness before "The Goddess", a cosmic tart who is, at heart, a temptress who wants to eat you alive.
But I am here to tell you She is all you have got. Shankara had no problem with Her. Ramakrishna likewise. Give Her the chance, and She will show you things you never dreamed of.
For example, consider that She is Herself free of the world and its machinations. From this position of Freedom, it is Her inspiration, Her infusion of Truth, that will help you understand you do not have to compromise with the world. The first thing She will tell you is do not sell your soul. Don't make that foolish bargain, there is no need for it and it accomplishes nothing but greater isolation and even absolute loss. Indeed, why would you sell something so precious as your soul? Are you seeking to gain power in the identity-mind? To "become somebody"? If so, you are starting out with a lie and an illusion. You are avoiding the First Law of Reality: death itself.
That one avoidance, that first lie -- the denial of dying and death -- is at the root of virtually every structure in the mind that makes up "the world". You can just go back to that one lie, yank its loose thread, and the whole edifice of maya will come tumbling down.
She can show you how to do that, because She already knows the real meaning of dying and death. She already transcends the mind of the world and its endless obsessions with identity.
Of course nobody can (or will) make you drink the Water of Life. You can choose to be an actor in the theater of your "profession" or "job", going no deeper than the politics of your relationships and your commitments to a system that is "supporting" you. It seems as if there is no other choice, doesn't it? You are in it, it owns your waking days, and somehow there is never any time or energy left over for contemplation. Well, who said the system was designed to liberate you? On the contrary, it was designed to use you, chew you up...and then spit you out when it has exhausted you. "You were well paid, now go and enjoy your retirement. Bye. ...Oh, by the way, your name will be on a plaque on the wall, so everybody will know of your grand accomplishments."
Do you see the con? Do you see you have sold your one precious life to criminals and psychopaths? Your owners are utterly godless men. These proud world-conquerors are not any closer to redemption and salvation than you are, but they do own condos in Hawaii and elsewhere. And maybe, just maybe, they have some kind of Egyptian-style death-trip going for them, with all their former employees showing up as attendants and slaves in some misbegotten hell of an afterlife. I guess you will have to die to find that one out.
Fortunately something greater is trying to be heard. Something is reaching out to you, Something that loves you, Something that is your own deepest Truth.
You don't have to search for it -- It is right here, right now. Let down your guard a little, just a little, and It will come right through. Pay attention to your dreams. Pray. Contemplate. Contemplate the mystery of your own death. Get to know it. Suspend your identity for a moment and She will give you a profound sighting of this Reality. Then something will happen that will shake you to the roots of your being.
Remember, if you let It in, It will keep on coming. Let the She-Elephant get Her trunk in the door, and pretty soon the whole wall will come down. Nicely, of course: She always comes bearing Gifts.
peace
Elias
essay three: The Return of the King
from an email:
Aren't you talking about the old-fashioned world-vs-spirit dichotomy?
No. The real world arises in the Spirit of God. That's the reality of our existence.
Caught up as we are in the dishonesty (and death-denial) of the pseudo-world, we don't know about that, of course. We might hear of it from time to time. But we don't really know it. We don't really know reality.
We live removed from the truth of our existence, and thus at a distance from the Truth of our real selves: our all-pervadingness and our eternal union with God.
That's the "problem", and it is this "problem" that defines our daily lives. It is this "problem" that defines the imaginary opposition between "the world" and "the spirit".
A lie is always going to imagine a non-existent "dichotomy" between itself and the truth, is it not? That doesn't mean we should enshrine the lie as an authentic reality, equal to the truth.
Rather, we should just deep-six the lie and get to the truth.
You have to decide which you want -- the lie or the truth. And if you decide to go for the truth, you have to inspect the lie, see what it is made of, and learn why you have lived under its commands.
Like a spell placed on the mind by an evil Wizard (society), the world system has a hidden motive. Its unspoken intention is to block communion with God, to push Reality right out of the "description of the world". It also, like the Wizard of Oz, attempts to block all awareness of its game (except perhaps by those who are destined to become the "game-masters" of the next generation.)
What is the Wizard's game? Over many centuries he has perfected his ability to enthrall you, to enclose you in limitation, to secure your agreement to a state of ignorance. He has even made you indifferent to your own dying and the eventual accounting of your karma.
This pseudo-world profits by the theft of your spiritual (and mental as well as physical) freedom, exactly as slave-holders have always profited from their possession of human chattel. The modern difference (as compared to the slave societies of the past) is that to a great extent you are complicit in your own slavery. Your loss of freedom is not only based on indoctrination -- it is based on choice.
Fear and desire, compounded by ignorance, lead you to make a choice (sometimes a very subtle choice) to live within the "Emerald City", and to learn how to survive according to its rules. You even imagine that you profit thereby -- you are awarded both financial support and "identity". Despite the fact that you have chosen separation for God, within this self-limiting system you are a "somebody".
The Catholic Church (another self-limiting system) even goes so far as to teach that this "somebody" is eternal, caught up at death in a kind of "beatific" separation from God. What they are saying is that the ego-personality is so rock-solid that it cannot be undone at death. There is simply no bridge to transcendence and liberation in Catholicism. There is (at best) "the beatific vision", a kind of exalted eternity of worshiping an Absolute Other.
(Note: that same myth unconsciously informs a lot of the Western approaches to the Eastern teachings, as well. More about that some other day.)
Even the real mystics, who can be found in the Western tradition, are misunderstood as privileged seers of the "beatific vision." They are held up as examples, not of the real life in the Spirit, but as better versions of the dissociated life, the life of a satellite consciousness orbiting the Great Other. In other words, according to the Churches, Western mystics are no better than glorified cultists. And they are exploited as paradigms to reinforce the cultism of the Churches.
From the personal experience of spending a few years in a Catholic monastery, taking daily "theology" classes, I learned that there is no trace of real spiritual education to be found in the official Church. There is no understanding of the nature of the mind as an instrument of spiritual awakening. There is no effective criticism of the mind as an obstruction to awakening. There is no self-inspection, no self-inquiry, no "who am I?"... Indeed, self-knowledge is pretty much relegated to Freudian-style analysis of the occasional psychological "case". I never saw self-awareness considered as the necessary instrument and immediate precursor to divine illumination. Instead, a massive taboo stood in the path of anyone who yearned in that direction.
(You can feel that yearning in writers like Thomas Merton. But as you read his books you see him constantly looking over his shoulder at the authorities who governed his religious vocation. He is always adjusting what he intuits and thinks to fit their controlling game of approval-disapproval. If Spirit had broken through in him, wakened the voice of the Self in him, it would have met with incomprehension, anger, and shocked finger-wagging. After all, there is nothing more threatening to those whose identity is composed of "spiritual authority", then the voice of the Self.)
Anyway, to come full circle, the first task of self-knowledge is to free yourself from the false mind and its hallucinatory world. (An hallucination which includes the official Churches.)
The Spirit of God is right here to help, every step of the way. Your true "I" wants to be restored to its rightful position in the life of the body, like a King returning from exile who finds his Castle overrun with idiots and posturing fools.
Just seeing what is going on is the first step. Everything follows from that.
Elias
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