Awakening to a Deeper Truth
In my book, Soul Whispers, I recount my experiences of altered states of mind, as well as those of some of my closest friends. Extraordinary as these appear to be, such experiences are not limited to a select few people. As more people are introduced to the possibility that the world we see is only a small part of the picture, more people who have had out-of-body and near- death experiences, mystical visions, intuitive and synchronistic guidance, are overcoming their reluctance to share their experiences.
I think of it (with tongue firmly planted in my cheek), as coming out of the Cosmic Closet.
Neuroscientists around the world are firmly on a mission to determine what consciousness is … and isn’t. Emerging from many of their studies is a concept that places consciousness not in the brain, as past theories have postulated, but external to the body. They see the brain as a filter that reduces our experience of awareness to a manageable flow of information, excluding the type of visions that mystics throughout time have described—a reality far beyond what our normal senses perceive. I concur.
In his recent book, A World Appears, the renowned journalist Michael Pollan, interviews many of these scientific pioneers and their astounding discoveries. I highly recommend it.
In Soul Whispers, I relate the true story of a California housewife who, while taking a morning walk on the Pacific seashore, suddenly experiences a shift in her perception. The waves, the beach, everything around her takes on a glowing quality and she hears a very loud announcement from an unseen source. It says: “Pay attention. These are the three injunctions: Make no judgments. Make no comparisons. Delete the need to understand. Each injunction is repeated three times. Then everything around her returns to normal.
Powerful, no?
Each of these injunctions harken back to ancient directives echoed by mystics throughout the ages. These tenets are at the core of the teachings proclaimed by numerous religions and spiritual practices. They point to the essence of unconditional love and to the essentiality of having faith, of trusting in and accepting the presence of unseen forces that are active in our journey through life. They are a recipe for spiritual growth. I leave to the reader the discovery of the passages in the great religious texts that expound on this guidance, this presence of something greater than our conscious mind that is guiding and informing us of our deeper experience here.
Most people I know are cognizant of something very powerful at work in our world right now. Chaos and awakening are happening simultaneously all around and within us. Old beliefs, institutions we thought were solid, assumptions about reality, all are in transition. The big question is how will we greet this phenomena? Fear and despair calls to us in loud voices, anxiety threatens our sense of normalcy and wellbeing. Sirens on the rocks as we journey wend our way homeward?
I’ll share one story here of a fellow I met, a pilot I met who, because of his debts, accepted an assignment from Mafia drug smugglers to fly in shipments from various places in South America. Upon landing with his second load, he was busted by DEA agents in Florida. Because the DEA was pressuring him to snitch on his bosses and the Mafia was trying to kill him before he could, he managed to take on an assumed identity and flee to another state.
There he lived for several years, making friends, living a normal life until one day the knock on the door came. He had been tracked down and was facing more than 20 years in prison. The DEA agent allowed him one phone call before he was whisked away. The man decided the only person to whom he could reach out was a spiritual teacher he had recently encountered. When he made the call and admitted his crime, his false identity, and told the teacher how long his sentence was going to be, he said there was a long pause on the other end of the line. Then the teacher said, simply, “How exciting!”
In that moment the smuggler said he understood that he could either despair or embrace the challenge as an opportunity. For three years in incarceration, he became a mentor and helpmate to many of his fellow prisoners, teaching them to read, how to file appeals, generally becoming a friend to some of the scariest people he had ever known. Then one day the very DEA agent who had imprisoned him told our smuggler that he believed his sentence was too harsh, that he had proven himself to be worthy of a reduced sentence. The agent even appeared with him before a judge, and the rest of the sentence was commuted.
The great Sufi poet, Rumi, told a story of an old man whose home was invaded and plundered by thieves. Despite his initial despair, the man eventually reflects on the nature of his loss and finds a deeper understanding of himself and the world, realizing what actually matters in life, that true wealth lies within.
My wish for you is that such insight, wisdom, and trust be your guiding light in these troubled times.