Jesus through John Smallman recently spoke my thoughts entirely and I have to draw a line under what he said. Consider this passage:
“As I told you in ‘A Course in Miracles,’ and as you well know at the depths of your being: ‘Heaven is here. There is nowhere else. Heaven is now. There is no other time.’ That knowing is to break through into your conscious experiential awareness, changing your perception of one another and of the world around you, permanently.” (1)
I know many people will say “I don’t understand what he’s talking about.” No matter. I am certain you will. Just hang in there and the energies and the teachings will unravel this mystery to us in a way that’s comprehensible – in time.
Jesus is describing life lived outside the mind, outside the constructed self. Consider that I called that space “conscious awareness” (following Werner Erhard, 2) and Jesus calls it “conscious experiential awareness.” No difference. As long as we’re inside our acts and numbers, we live in unconscious awareness. When we leave our acts and numbers behind and exit the constructed self, we live in conscious awareness.
Before we enter conscious awareness fully and permanently, we have to step outside the world of the mind, the self that we built out of our resolutions and convictions and decisions and desires, the unreal self, the illusion.
All the thoughts we think about ourselves, think about others, everything that defines, directs or guides us. It doesn’t matter how right it is. It’s the silence outside the mind we seek.
Now hear the passage again please: “‘Heaven is here. There is nowhere else. Heaven is now. There is no other time.’ That knowing is to break through into your conscious experiential awareness, changing your perception of one another and of the world around you, permanently.”
Heaven is here and now. When we leave the world constructed by the mind, the world where we look over our own shoulder and say “I want this and I’ll do that to get it,” the world of desire and design, self-assessment and judgment, image and pose and every other product of the mind – when we step outside that whole world, we find that Heaven is where we are and Heaven is our own here and now. It is no other place and no other time. We don’t get in a spaceship and fly to Heaven.
And if we want to be there permanently, we must step outside the chatter of the mind permanently. That for me is the first step.
The mind is like a spider’s web, which is made of thin but strong silk and can imprison an insect larger than the spider. We’re imprisoned in the web of the mind.
The mind ties us up with its constant comment on every facet of our lives, but its chatter is invisible to us. Only when we step beyond the din of its chatter can we see that Heaven, above the line between unconscious and conscious awareness, was always here now. After that presencing the Self becomes our new discipline.
Lin-Chi (Rinzai) is famous for metaphorically and literally describing the act of will that carries us out of the mind.
“Where the student is exerting all his strength, not a breath of air can pass, and the whole thing may be over as swiftly as a flash of lightning or a spark from a flint. If the student so much as bats an eye, the whole relationship could be spoiled. Apply the mind and at once there’s differentiation; rouse a thought and at once there’s error. The person who can understand this never ceases to be right before my eyes.” (3)
“Followers of the Way, if you want to be constantly in accord with the Dharma, you’ll have to begin by learning to be first-rate fellows. Be weak-kneed and wishy-washy and you’ll never get there.” (4)
Weak-kneed fellows never get there.
In part this describes being 1,000 percent through and finished with our act. Jesus called it our eye being single. (5) We’ve made up our mind to drop our act and there’s not the slightest holding back or disagreement with that resolve.
Not a contrary thought or any thought stirs in the mind as we step outside the web of the mind in an instant. Rinzai says it’s all over in the space of a shout. That shout can be “No!” That was my experience.
Two years ago this March during a meditation retreat, I sat in an elevated space, which I now see was the formless, and I acted without acting, moved without moving.
Much of that experience was held back from me, probably so I wouldn’t take the next train out of Dodge. There wasn’t a feeling component to it, no bliss. It was in black and white rather than color. Just as well, I now see. I would’ve vamoosed the ranch.
Lao-Tzu describes that space:
“Accordingly, the Wise Man
Knows without going,
Sees without seeing,
Does without doing.” (6)
In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna called it “the action that is inaction.” (7) Leaving the constructed self is done by moving without moving, acting without acting. It is done by an act of will but not a muscle of our body moves. And certainly our mind doesn’t move. It’s exactly what falls quiet.
The problem is that our mind is usually divided and the divided mind – the house that’s divided – cannot stand. It quarrels with itself. It cannot generate the willpower to step outside the mind. It cannot effect the spiritual movement that I call leaving the constructed self. Only the undivided mind can, the eye that is single.
The moment of release for me was like stamping my foot mentally. It was a standing forth, an emergence. I came forth at the sound of my “No!” from a mind that was truly sick of itself, dropped its act, and fell silent.
When we release ourselves from the mind, I expect us to march forward to level after level of conscious awareness, even reaching levels of reality where we are very much aware that we move without moving, act without acting. The whole ladder of consciousness that stretches out before us seems characterized by more and more moving without moving, acting without acting.
How exciting to hear Jesus describe it.
And the rest of what he says in that reading is so reassuring and exciting, I can hardly sit still.
“Much is happening worldwide that will amaze you when you hear of it. The field of divine Love works constantly and surreptitiously to enable and bring about the essential behavioral changes that will ensure that an end to grinding poverty, contagious diseases, and desecration of the planet is achieved smoothly and effectively.
“As that happens, planet-wide healing of the earth herself and of all the life forms she supports will accelerate as the constant damaging activities that have encouraged and maintained those wretched conditions cease. That cessation of widespread damaging activities will release enormous quantities of energy to assist in the necessary cleansing and renewal that needs to occur to return your planet to a state of tranquility in which her health, beauty, and abundance can thrive so that the needs of all who rely on her wellness for their own well-being can be fully met.” (8)
Jesus has graciously described for us where to go next. Never mind circuit riders; these celestial riders have our situation in hand.
What a time to be alive! How can anyone remain asleep in the face of the energies and revelations of the masters, galactics and angels?
I must add that I don’t consider “conscious awareness” enlightenment. It may turn out to be the farthest we can go before God takes over and steers the boat home. But not enlightenment itself. So I continue to be unenlightened as do any like me.
Out of my agreement to go through Ascension publicly as a journalist of awareness, I can say that as far as I can see, the masters are telling us exactly what we need to know to flow with the rising wave of consciousness and exactly what we ourselves are discovering. If they didn’t tell us, we might still have our discoveries but overlook them, dismiss them, or sell ourselves short.
The masters are gently waking us through their energies and teachings to conscious awareness from unconscious awareness, to life outside the constructed self from life inside, to the world as it is from the world the mind thinks it to be.
Footnotes
(1) “Jesus: A Sea Change in the Way Information is Released into the Public Domain is Underway,” As channeled by John Smallman, April 26, 2013, at https://goldenageofgaia.com/2013/04/jesus-a-sea-change-in-the-way-information-is-released-into-the-public-domain-is-underway/.
(2) “Above the line: conscious awareness” in “Above the Line between Conscious and Unconscious Awareness” in Est Dictionary at https://goldenageofgaia.com/spiritual-essays/the-path-of-awareness/est-dictionary/.
(3) Lin Chi [Rinzai] in Burton Watson, trans., The Zen Teachings of Master Lin-Chi [Rinzai]. A Translation of the Lin-Chi Lu. Boston and London: Shambala, 1993, 58.
(4) Ibid., 41.
(5) By our eye being single, Jesus was probably referring to the opening of the Third Eye, but his terms usually have many more meanings than just one. Here I interpret it to mean our “seeing” being single, our perceptions and thoughts being undivided, focused, determined.
(6) Lao Tzu, The Way of life. The Tao Te Ching translated by Raymond B. Blakney, 1955, at https://terebess.hu/english/tao/blakney.html
(7) Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood, trans., Bhagavad-Gita. The Song of God. New York and Scarborough: New American Library, 1972; c1944
(8) “Jesus: A Sea Change in the Way Information is Released into the Public Domain is Underway,” ibid.