St. Francis, levitating in ecstacy – our future? Credit: GI Kids
Yesterday I described how the structures of my mind disappeared. (1)
There are at this moment no internal barriers, no categories, no mental linearity, no preset structures (or processes) of any kind arising in the mind.
When I close my eyes, my mind immediately becomes quiet and still. It feels like Day 7 of a 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat to me and I haven’t even begun to meditate – I just shut my eyes this minute.
The Zen image of the hollow bamboo describes this state.
I spoke to Archangel Michael this morning on An Hour with an Angel and he confirmed that I was not imagining things, that this experience was happening.
His talk was on the continuing transition we’re going through, with its gradual ascent punctuated by sudden events like the one that happened to me. Am I being used as an example? Could be. Do I mind? Not at all!!!!
Here I am a day later, able to breathe slowly and deeply without encountering any triggers or obstacles to my breathing. So the results of the experience have lasted this long.
My breath is smooth. I can access love and bliss gently and without restraint, which indicates that there are no vasanas going off, even subtly, even in my subconscious.
Archangel Michael said on AHWAA that what he means by “joy” is the same as what I mean by “bliss.” I do feel joyful when I’m blissful. But it does explain why I have not “gone after” joy – I was already experiencing it and didn’t know it.
I suppose I had some difficulty being joyful when young; I suppressed myself over some disciplinary measure, probably around being careful or settling down or something. It’s all lost to me now and of ever-decreasing interest and importance.
When we got together for lunch or dinner long ago, drama was often all we talked about. Now it holds little fascination. I hear others around me enjoying the ups and downs of drama and I feel sad. But I also know that the love of drama will pass the minute they get a taste of its alternative – bliss or joy.
Everything starts with the breath. I close my eyes, with my mind quiet, and take a slow, deep breath. Immediately the love arises.
I send it out to the world on the outbreath and breathe in again. I now feel a stronger sensation, which I call ecstacy.
It totally commands my attention. I’m not just sitting here, as in bliss, and feeling self-satisfied. I’m gathered together by ecstacy. Bliss pleases me, but ecstacy summons me.
I let the ecstacy flow down my body, from the crown chakra, where I’m first aware of it, over my head.
The first thing I notice about this space is that I feel an ever-deeper healing of all residual emotional complaints. I feel even more complete.
Everything in my family life, after the point where violence began, was for me skewed or abnormal. All of it involved patterns based on compensation for periodic violence that broke all trust and promises. I’m now picking up again with my life as it was before age six and painting it this time with normal brushstrokes.
Once again, when I look or feel with my awareness I find myself feeling – I have to say it – normal again. I know. I know. Some people are saying, “Normal? All that work and you only end up feeling normal?”
Well, this is the balance point between the deficits of anger, hatred, jealousy, etc., and the surpluses of love, bliss, and ecstacy. Everything good flows from the center, the heart. To rest in the balance point is an outcome dearly wished by all spiritual aspirants who (really) know the relevance and importance of the heart. (2)
I don’t talk about my intimate relationships. I don’t think that would be fair to them or wise of me. But I can say that, because of certain relationships in my life, I’m learning to be gentle, straightforward, and non-manipulative – happy rather than right.
And the “practice” I’m getting is perfectly synchronous with the collapse of mental structures and the emergence of love, bliss and ecstacy.
I’m trying to keep my feet on the ground so I can write this, but it’s a losing battle. I may not be floating in the rafters with Francis and Clare, (3) but I’m soaring inside.
Footnotes
(1) See “No Natural Barriers,” Oct. 24, 2016, at https://goldenageofgaia.com/?p=282693
(2) By “really” know, I mean know not just intellectually and not even just experientially, although that knowing is deeper, but realizationally.
(3) St. Francis, who later incarnated as Mahatma Gandhi, and St. Clare, who later incarnated as Mother Teresa, would levitate to the ceiling when they shared a meal together.