A Fearful Warning, Part 2 of 2

My Vision of Torment

There have been very few times in my spiritual life when I have felt truly afraid. This was one such occasion. It occurred at the time when I realised that there was no future in my relationship with the person in my life, suffering from advanced alcoholism, unless I could effect some changes. As it happened, the following two weeks were to show me that there was to be no future with her at all. But that is jumping too far ahead. At that time I could only see, but dimly, a few hours ahead at a time. Without going into any more detail, I will return to the guest house where I was alone in my room.  I seemed to be so very wide awake........   

"..........I stood, alone, watching the cosmos from a circular window in space. Galaxies wheeled in disinterested splendour, stars shone in self-contained aloneness. And I looked into the depths of silence. To one side hung a huge baggage of energies, and heaven alone knows what deeper aspects of my Self, parcelled into four bulging quarters with strangling cords. Every now and then lightning strikes ripped inwards causing the baggage to throb with frustrated fury, eager to break free. To my left, a green and golden curtain forged from hexagonal, carbon-shaped, molecular links rippled gently as if rhythmically disturbed by a cosmic breeze.

  But ahead floated a figure, terrible in his strength and determination. Garbed in the light brown habit of a monk, he watched me with a frightening intensity. As my gaze travelled downwards I saw that his body was becoming extended and his legs stretched and drawn. Below him whirled a cosmic maelstrom. Horrified, I felt the silent vibrations of millions of stars being ground into oblivion in a voracious, black hole. I looked up again into the face of the monk, and I felt so deeply, so terribly afraid.........."

 (From my private diaries.)

That experience almost defies explanation, except that it was clear that I was in great psychological danger. I needed, regardless of all my struggles to understand, simply to observe and accept what I saw. Somehow, the experience went beyond any form of inner language written in imagery. It needed to be accepted in its own right, on its own terms. Any attempted interpretation would have intellectualised and thus degraded the experience. Somehow, something seemed to be attempting to communicate with another and inner part of me, desperate in its need to warn me of my extreme danger. So it is that I have presented the experience just as it happened.

Interestingly for me, that was the first time I ever had such an experience, but it wasn't to be the last. It seemed as if, in my extremity, something needed to make itself known, and having done so I was then able to engage in the imaging process I have reported in my posts, almost at will. Indeed, from that moment onwards, I was never truly able to stop the imagery appearing whilst simultaneously maintaining a meditative state, or to prevent being overwhelmed whenever that inner 'presence beyond the veil' required my attention. It has been called a gift, and I think it probably is. It is also a privilege to be invited to converse, even if only one-sidedly, with my deeper Self.

The following weeks were to be a time of great spiritual turmoil and pain, in which my personality was dissected in painful detail. Gradually I learned to see myself as I really was, rather than how I had imagined myself to be, and out of that experience came a recognisably spiritual need, a drive to Be. Having learned something of the egoistic falsities of the life I was living, I began to long for something deeper, more true and worthwhile in life. Beyond those longings I could not know what it was I was really seeking. That was to come later. It was the beginning of a journey that I have never for one moment considered giving up. It has had its moments of difficulty but also times of great joy and exhilaration. Yet the living of this Way is not something that I have, because there is always the possibility that one can lose a possession. Rather it is the Being of the Way that is important, and my being, in all its totality, will not be lost.