Monday 8 April 2019

Movement But No Passing

          Over a period of one week at the end of the year 2005, whilst meditating on the vast spiritual reservoir "in which man lives and moves and has his being", [Acts of the Apostles 17:28] I made the following notes which, perhaps, are more relevant to my current thinking than to my faltering thoughts of those more distant days. I should add that the words I used were not mulled over, carefully thought out, but were recorded as they came spontaneously to mind. I suspect they were, therefore, more authentic and closer to the original experience than they would have been if my notes had been carefully constructed.

1.        "My spirit seems to be free to move where it will, like a wisp of smoke dancing on the surface of the deeps. Yet my world is constrained to move along a pre-ordained path, like a planet moving through a dimly-lit cosmos. I am subject to its spiritual laws. It is calm, alone, spheres within spheres."

2.        "I sense struggle, a longing. Something is trying to be heard, but I cannot hear what I see; it continually eludes me. Words seem frustratingly pointless, inadequate. The equal-armed cross hangs in the background, waiting."

3.       "It seems as if only my experience of my Higher Self, or God is truly real; all else is virtual, images. I move through life in a state of alone-ness, in the company of other 'alones'. This spiritual reservoir in which I move has both negative and positive aspects: the blind coexists with the aware. All opposites coexist and are one."

4.       "There is an image before me, now steady and unchanging. I see it during my waking hours: I awake in the night 'seeing' it. Below me a planet of water moves silently through the cosmos. A wisp of purple smoke dances on the surface of the waters; shadows glide below the surface. In the distance is the centre of my galaxy, bright like a cosmic sunset. All the while a silvery-white cross hangs in space. There is movement but no passing. There is serenity, timelessness."

5.       "The universe is a system of cohesive forces and includes all living creatures. What I perceive as real through my sense organs and brain is illusion because my perceptions are limited by the nature of my brain. Solidity then is illusory, being an effect produced by the repulsion of like atomic forces. What then am I? How can I really be aware?"

6.        "The foot of a Qabalistic Cross stands in the 'world of water' with its head engulfed by a white light, not the sun. I see a boat on a lake moving into the mist; a juxtapositioning of Glastonbury and Avalon; a coming together of spacetime and the spiritual."

7.         "I have been here before; my mind is tired but I am not bored. The images of the past six days have become transparent, and I am enveloped in a white mistiness which extends as far as I can sense. It feels like a 'Cloud of Unknowing' of an intensity I have never felt before. I have been beset by images I have struggled to hear, and at some point beyond my conscious awareness I sense something is happening."

          I have reproduced my words from that time in full, because there may well yet be something to refer back to which I may have missed.

          To continue with one of the points I made in my previous post, "A State of Stillness", it seems as if an experience on one level of meditation is a projection of the experience at a deeper level. The final projection is that of the consciously sensed world around us. World in this sense is everything outside the mind. Reversing the process means that the deeper one can travel in meditation, the further one moves away from projection and the closer one comes to reality, an experience that approaches absolute truth, yet one which cannot be ideated or described.
          No word, idea or image is the truth. They are fingers, as it were, which point towards the truth. It is a grave mistake, therefore, to so concentrate on the finger that one loses the direction in which the finger is pointing. Ultimately, I suppose there must be a state where no images can exist, and one is left staring into the face of God as the eagle stares into the face of the sun. I would be that eagle. Yet prior to that final state there is one last image, the experience of the Abyss.
          I have said elsewhere that God is not in the Abyss; God Is the Abyss. It is as if the Abyss is the fundamental psycho-spiritual continuum of life, and maybe of all existence, that lies outside time. God is that vast spiritual reservoir "in which we live and move and have our being. We are his offspring." That reservoir or continuum permeates everything and may have preceded everything. It impinges on our daily lives at every turn, whether or not we are aware of it or even believe in it. It is hidden in plain sight. It is so close that most of the time we do not even sense it; but if it should end then, I am certain, the life of the spirit, of the mind would end also.

8 comments:

  1. Hi Tom,
    Even though you’re contextual basis is Acts 27/18 from the NT, your post reminds me more of the poetic nature of the psalms in the O T Hebrew Bible. They are of course, heavily reliant on symbolism, and many, such as Psalm 42 - As the Deer Longs, covers specifically some of the terms, or at least they are similar in exploring concepts, as your symbolism does.
    But Acts 27/18 is also an interesting passage in that scholars link the idea of pantheism (GOD in everything) with further poetic references to the chief Greek GOD Zeus. That is because St Paul, most likely wanted to impress his well-educated audiences abroad, that he understood their philosophy and poetry, so as to talk about ‘The Christ’ analogous to their culture, but then introduce the new way of being. But as you know the idea of being ‘in Christ’ that appears so many times, (about 150 I think) but he never really explains what that specifically entails does he?

    Best wishes

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    1. I have read and reread Psalms 42-43 over the last few hours and sense the same kind of longing that I felt when I first wrote those words in this post. Yet I am also aware that that longing, if maintained, can be rather debilitating for the soul. There are so many examples of this in mystical writings, outside scripture as well.

      It is very difficult for me to describe the feelings I have, which quickly transform into emotion, when faced with the possible contact with that sense of divine 'other' yet feeling it is still too far away. The words I reproduced above are, or so I think, arise from some of the deepest experiences of God that I have ever had. Arising from a meditational state of course they were experienced without emotion. It is only later......but then the experience is no more than memory.

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  2. From Me to Me: A Mini-Post On 'Movement But No Passing'.

    It has become clear to me that Einstein's Spacetime concept has its spiritual counterpart which, for the want of a more appropriate description, I have called a Psycho-spiritual-timeless continuum. Such a concept appears to answer various features that are associated with our thoughts of God, and of the Christ.

    However, I am aware that what appears to be Truth in this instance [and I do think of Truth, Life and God as essentially the same, and also the Christ who from the 'beginning' was with God, and was God] may only have the semblance of Truth. Yet I am aware of an inner struggle as if Truth is trying to be heard, trying to break free from mere semblance.

    My world is constrained because I must follow the laws of science, whether I know them or not, as also I must follow the less definable laws of the spirit and evolution. Free will doesn't come into this, being an intellectual concept somewhat removed from fundamental divine experience.

    This whole experience was, among other things, an expression of timelessness: not outside time or eternal, but without time, as if time does not exist.

    The Qabalistic Cross in many ways represents the essential psycho-spiritual make-up of a conscious being. As such it has connections to the universe of spacetime and spiritual-timelessness. The sense of the juxtaposition of the physical world of Glastonbury [associated with Joseph of Arimathea, the Holy Grail and King Arthur] and Avalon [where Arthur was taken to be healed of his battle wounds] is an extremely powerful image. There is no space or time here to discuss what all this means for the human journey, but I cannot escape the conclusion that I am required to follow this Path, preferably as a willing participant in the search for Truth. "......at some point beyond my conscious awareness I sense something is happening."

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  3. "It has become clear to me that Einstein's Spacetime concept has its spiritual counterpart which, for the want of a more appropriate description,"

    Tom, more than coincidentally, before reading your post I was thinking about the black hole photos currently in the news, looking up diagrams of Einstein's spacetime concept and re-visiting notes I've made over the years on possible ways to convey in images whast I feel intuitively (but do not know intellectually)to be connections between the physical cosmos and the Unknown or spiritual cosmos of which we are part. At some point, I want to try and paint (or build) something which represents that internal/external dimension. This is just to say, again, that we are on the same path, even if in different modes. Thank you for sharing your meditations.

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    1. Natalie;

      This is a wonderful endeavour. I look forward to the time, or possible time, it bears fruit.

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  4. I ran across this expression while Googling based on your post: "Dreams are the illusions in the book your soul is writing about you." I'm not sure if that pertains to your thoughts but I thought it was interesting though perhaps banal. Good fortune with your search, Tom.

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    1. Hello Bruce;

      That expression conjures up all sorts of interesting thoughts. Thank you for your good wishes.

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