In Which I Have My Being

..........Below me, an airless world of water moves silently through the cosmos.  A wisp of dark, mauve smoke glides across the surface of the deeps.  Shapes, dark, menacing and unidentified, glide below the surface.  In the distance is a galaxy, shining like a brilliant sunset, or a cosmic dawn.  All the while a silvery-white, equal-armed cross hangs in space above the planet. Movement, but no passing.  Serenity, a sense of eternity.  Timelessness.  Spheres within spheres..........

                                                                                 (Images from a meditation journal)

My world, in which the spirit moves, is constrained to move along a preordained path like a planet moving through a dimly lit cosmos.  I am, and must remain, subject to its spiritual laws. Calm.......Aloneness.  

I sensed a struggle, a longing, something trying to be heard.  I would see this imagery in my normal waking hours, and then awake during the darkness of the night to see it yet again. Try as I would I could not hear what I saw:  it continually eluded me.  It was the equal-armed Cross, not a Calvary Cross, that was the seat of the problem.  My words, frustratingly pointless and inadequate, must no longer be called 'mere words', for words are all I have.  Beyond those words lies experience, and beyond experience lies truth.  Perhaps my need is for new words.

It is as if my ego glides over the surface of my beyond-consciousness, that realm that lies at the very foundation of my being.  Whilst maintaining some contact with the watery surface of the planet, the wisp of smoke glides and dances its way wherever it will.  The impression around this image is one of distraction, lack of awareness of its surroundings and self-absorption.  Although it is from the waters below that the smoke appears to draw its substance, it is sustained in its being, its form and motion, by the energy flowing from the distant galaxy.  Behaving as if it were complete within itself, a self-contained entity, my ego or virtual self is no more than a reflection in kind, or imperfect projection of the galaxy that sustains it.  Connected in some way to the remainder of the cosmos this virtual self may well be, but it is only the immediate galactic environment in which the ego lives, moves and has its being, that has any significant impact on that self.  And who can tell what dark and menacing forces may, at any moment, erupt from the deeps to devour the wisp of smoke that moves here and there, so uncaringly and uncomprehendingly?  

The region around the planet appears to become steadily darker the further one moves into the void of space, as if in travelling toward the distant galaxy the beyond-consciousness is itself emerging from a surrounding and yet even deeper unknown.  Unlike the water planet, the airless environment of space neither reflects nor absorbs any energy from the galaxy whatsoever.  It is simply the abyss in which the galaxy also lives, moves and has its being. The galactic light is not that blinding emanation to which one is accustomed when observing the material sun but a gentler, spiritual light into which one can look directly.  It shines as if to herald a coming universal night or maybe the beginning of a new cosmic day.  Perhaps both options are available, a descent into the abyss of spiritual darkness or an ascent into the light.

From an egoistic vantage point, I find it impossible to gain a clear sighting of this galaxy, this symbol of my Higher or Real Self, particularly when viewed directly.  It is only when viewed in a more covert way, that any awareness of shape can be discerned and even then not clearly.  Seen in this manner the Self displays a sense of asymmetry or incompleteness, some otherness that is still in a process of becoming.  At its very centre lies that which cannot, or may not, be seen, some state or energy, a black abyss of Self-ness, that recognizes some affinity to, or even part of, a far greater Abyss.  

The "silvery-white, equal-armed cross that hangs in space above the planet" was not very large, but clearly evident.  This form of Cross has been described as embodying the concept of unification between the ethereal and the material.  It is this image that appears to be associated with the idea of the Centre or inner observer.  Although movement is clearly implied, there is also a powerful feeling that this imagery, or perhaps more correctly the process that this imagery represents, stands outside time.  It seems that there is a psycho-spiritual state, or even maybe a truly spiritual force, involved here which makes its appearance as an illusory psychological form, and which is either independent of time or for which time is a meaningless concept.

I sensed a struggle, a longing, something trying to be heard.  Out of the silence comes the word; out of the calm comes the struggle.  What is trying to be heard?  Is it I?  Or is it something far beyond?

When I view the total experience of that which this imagery says I am, I wonder why I would ever have wanted to focus only on that wisp of smoke, my ego, and allow it to assume the status of God.

(N.B.     The 'mood' pictures were take from the internet.)