A Fall to Grace Page 4

  The little man, with a resolute expression on his face and love in his voice, says: "As long as I have known you—and that has been much longer than you think— you have wanted everything on the spot. No instant enlightenment is enduring, however. The state of consciousness you wish to attain is a life path. And the best approach to it is to develop a practice in which you can learn to step out of yourself and slowly bring your awareness back to who you are.

  "When you get caught up in jealousy or anger or fear, remove yourself from the situation. Become an observer at a play—that's what life is, after all. You have a choice: You can take the actor's part so seriously that you become lost in the drama, or you can remember that you are simply acting out a script. Be patient; this perspective requires practice. For now, keep coming back to your true self.

  "The same goes for what you think of as your silent anger. Actually, there is no such thing as silent anger, my dear. An unspoken emotion sends quite a reverberation into the universe, because behind every emotion is an energy. So the task is to learn to express your emotions without catapulting them through space. This is a message you will receive many times in your current journey.

  "How can such a feat be accomplished? First, by acknowledging that the 'little self is afraid. Then, by coming back to who you really are—for who you really are cannot be hurt.

  "It's all very simple. You humans make life so much more complicated than it is. You look for extraordinary experiences to be awed or rescued by. But all you really need to do is remember who you are."

  I recall a similar message from the first teacher I met. "I hear your words," I reply. "But I haven't yet gotten them from the inside out."

  "How can you understand them if you haven't begun your practice?"

  "How do I practice this?"

  "Let's take a journey to your essential soul."

  The tree man instructs me to lie on the blanket and close my eyes. Then in a gentle singsong voice he says, "Just concentrate on your breath. Watch your breath. As you do this, don't try to stop the activity going on in your mind; simply notice any thoughts that come up."

  I follow his suggestions, relieved that I need not attempt to squelch my ever-present mind chatter. As I breathe, however, my mind begins to quiet on its own and I feel a sense of peace in my body.

  "Try breathing a little deeper into your body. Draw your breath down from your lungs to the bottom of your belly. Breath is life, so let it fill every cell of your body."

  I am glad to be lying down, for I'm beginning to feel lightheaded.

  "While breathing, continue to notice your thoughts and feelings," he adds.

  I observe that the deeper I breathe, the more I lose my sense of boundaries. I cannot differentiate between where I end and the ground begins. I feel expanded, like a balloon blown up but unable to contain the air within it.

  My instructor's voice is growing faint. "I am going to clap two sticks together. The sound will help keep you focused. As I do this, I want you to repeat the following intention to yourself: 'I wish to learn who I truly am.' Don't worry about who you are stating this intention to; just put it out as a silent call to the universe."

  Still in an expanded state, I sense a vision forming somewhere in the middle portion of my body. In the vision I am approaching a fire. Circling the flames are a lion, a tiger, an eagle, and a boa constrictor. Growling and hissing, they invite me to come closer. Somehow I know I have nothing to lose in advancing toward these threatening animals. I am in a state of either no fear or stupidity—I am not sure which, and the uncertainty does not bother me.

  As I move forward, they take attack positions. The lion bares his teeth, draws back his ears, and swings his huge tail around as if preparing for a kill. The tiger roars fiercely, raising the hairs on my skin. The eagle swoops up with his claws extended, aiming straight for my eyes. The boa flashes his fangs and hisses. From behind, a great force comes and pushes me through the circling creatures and into the fire. I am being burned alive. My worst fear in life has come to pass!

  I feel nothing as layers of skin are burned off the bone and charred to ash. I am nothing.

  As pure consciousness, I travel to a state that precedes consciousness. This indescribable gray place exists prior to thought, prior to the Creator, prior to nothing, as nothing itself is a thought. My mind stops.

  No time passes here, for nothing is present. No death exists here, because nothing has yet been born. I have no awareness of myself.

  At some point I leave this place, though I have no idea how. Thought could have taken me out, but no thought was able to enter this sphere. All I know is that I am now floating in the pitch-black void and I am hearing a message: "This is where creation comes from."

  Here I sense a different kind of nothingness. Nothing, yet everything, is present—no life, yet all of life.

  A thought takes form: How could this be? The thought is met with a deafening silence.

  Another thought: Who is this "I" floating through the void? Again no answer.

  I float toward a brightly shining star. I merge with it. I am a star. Or am I?

  A choir sings out: "You are a star. You are a shining light. Go to earth and shine. That is your mission. Go to earth and shine."

  I am light—that's all I am. I have no desires, no emotions, no thoughts. Everything I need is contained in this light of pure love. It confers no judgment, no awareness of others, no consciousness of self.

  As light, I continue to float through space. Then I begin to descend, whereupon an awareness starts to form—a perception of mission. With this emerges a sense of separation from the source of my being. Nothing troubling; just an awareness. First I was a light connected with everything, and now I am a single light.

  Drifting downward, I spot planets around me. One of them is earth, a planet of blue water. I want to shine in this world of water, I decide, but how do I get there?

  I continue my descent until I am out of the darkness and amid light-covered clouds. Here I arrive at a fountain resplendent with twinkling lights. I see that I am in a crystalline basket along with other shining lights. Although separate, we are all the same.

  Gently, we are emptied out of the basket. Then we swim vigorously down the waterfall of light.

  The next thing I know is I am in a tunnel—a dark tunnel. I want to get out. I want to get out!

  Swimming through the darkness, I notice a light and begin to move toward it. The light is too bright. The light is too bright! It's not my light, but rather an artificial one. Wait, I cry silently, I made a mistake! I want to go back.

  Lights, walls, harsh voices, and then a slap.

  Where am I? I want to know. Who am I? I have no recollection of the star from which I came.

  Suddenly I am aware of the clicking of sticks. They are beating rapidly. Then I hear words: "Return, return. Slowly return. Follow my voice back home. I am here waiting for you. I am here to celebrate the remembrance of who you are. I am here to welcome you home to yourself."

  The voice is loving and inviting. Unable to refuse its bidding, I follow the beautiful words back to the land of trees and sun and the little tree man with his devoted companion.

  I sit up and, feeling the blanket beneath me, try to adjust to being in my body again. My ears are ringing and my vision is unclear. The tree man, aware of my condition, gives me water to drink. Then he hands me a cup of green liquid.

  "What is this?" I ask.

  "It is an herbal mixture made from plants that have volunteered to help you come back."

  "I don't understand this concept of plants volunteering to help me come back, but I have so much on my mind at the moment that I will have to take your word for it. Would you please remind me to ask you about this later?"

  "Sure," he replies. "For now, simply drink the mixture and open yourself up to receive the gift of the plants."

  I drink the mixture, and soon I am no longer between worlds or peering through a veil into my surroundings. The buzzing in m
y ears is gone. The fog has cleared from my eyes.

  "Let's walk," the tree man says.

  I get up slowly, feeling a need to hold on to my experience; the last thing I want to do is shake it loose. We then begin our walk through the forest. The ground beneath my feet feels nurturing and supportive, as if the soft earth were welcoming me home. My usual heaviness is gone. In fact, there is grace to my movements. Stepping lightly along, I feel connected to the earth and much less clumsy than before.

  "You have been teaching me about separateness," I say to the little man. "In my journey I remember being at one with the source and then falling into separation. My understanding comes from a deep place now. But please tell me more."

  Without slowing down he begins, "You have been wondering time and time again how the beings you meet seem to know what you are thinking. You are captivated by telepathy, aren't you?"

  "Yes," I answer. "When I was a little girl, 1 was intrigued by psychic phenomena. In sixth grade I wrote a paper on telepathy and found the subject fascinating."

  "When I know what you are thinking, it is not because I read your mind, but rather because I am part of you. I am not a separate entity trying to understand you; I am you experiencing yourself. So I feel what you are feeling and I hear what you are thinking. Your thoughts are not silent to me. They are as loud as if you were thinking with your voice.

  "You have been told that you didn't speak until you were nearly four years old. Well, all that time you were speaking. You were hearing what people said to you and responding in what you might call an inaudible way. But the density of those around you blocked their capacity to hear your words. As a result you shed this mode of awareness and adopted that of the adults around you.

  "In your culture silent communication and invisible worlds are no longer accepted. A major portion of consciousness has been cut off. But the point I want to make now is that we are all one, or one mind. With an understanding of the one mind, it is easy to hear the thoughts of others.

  "You keep wondering where you are. You started in a hospital room in your ordinary world and believe you have traveled to many different places. Where are these places? If you'll recall, the first teacher you met said that 'in' and 'out' are the same." He stops to give me a chance to recall her teachings.

  "Yes, I remember that. And I do question where I am. Did I travel out to another world? Am I dreaming?"

  "Whether you traveled outside yourself or inside yourself, the effect is the same. As above, so below—as within, so without—this teaching is popular among the metaphysicians of your time. There is no separation. So I am outside of you; and yes, I am inside you; and yes, I am you. Don't you see that these are all the same?"

  "I should be confused by what you are saying, but I understand it—probably because of the powerful journey you led me on. I just don't know what to do with it. Please continue."

  "Okay," he says. "Now let us look at the inverse of this perspective. Let's look at allergies."

  "Allergies?" I am shocked that he would allow something so mundane to enter our conversation.

  "You consider yourself a victim of allergies, don't you?"

  "Yes." I am still waiting to see what this has to do with the one mind.

  "When you have an allergic reaction, your brain tells your body that it is under attack by an outside agent. Perceiving the body to be in danger, the brain triggers the release of histamines to fight off the presumed invader. Hence the body goes to war with an enemy that is really not an enemy. This is an extreme response to perceiving oneself as separate. Everything outside is seen as an enemy against which to wage war.

  "If you could merge with the apparent enemy and see that it is life itself, there would be no threat. With no threat, there would be no need to wage war and a sense of harmony would ensue."

  "If this is true," I reply, "then the same concept would hold true for my cancer. If I could see my tumor as part of me and not as an enemy, it would not threaten my well- being. Could I carry on a conversation with my tumor?"

  "Yes, you could, if you had cancer."

  "But I do. That's how I got here. I was undergoing surgery to remove a cancerous tumor when all of a sudden an earthquake sent me into your world, or my world, or whatever," I say, exasperated.

  "You don't have cancer," he insists. "The doctors made a mistake. When you come out of surgery, you will be told there was no tumor in your body. The surgeon will apologize profusely for the error."

  "How do you know this?" I ask excitedly.

  "Because you told me. You knew it all along. The part of you that extends beyond personality has always known it; you just don't know how to access that part of you yet. This is a tremendous amount of information to absorb at once. Do you want me to stop?"

  I look at the clear blue sky. My head does feel quite full. Still, I want to know more. I want to get to the end of the story.

  Again the little man knows my thoughts. "There is no end to the story. As soon as you think there is an end, you will discover a new beginning. There is no place to get to, my dear. There is only the journey.

  "Why don't we take a short break. Let's walk back to the lagoon in silence. There's someone I want you to meet."

  We begin walking, with the doe in the rear. Thoughts are swimming around in my head—separation, telepathy, allergies. How complex and simple it all seems.

  Soon the image of Lao-tzu enters my mind. Gazing into his eyes, I see a beautiful long river. The river flows into a waterfall. The waterfall returns the water to its source, the mighty ocean.

  This vision ends as quickly as it began. A part of me, I realize, has opened up, and thoughts, feelings, and rememberings of all kinds are surfacing.

  We reach the lagoon. Turning around, I notice the doe has disappeared. I am alone with the tree man for the first time since my emergence from the cave.

  "Come over to the water with me," he urges. "Kneel down and look at your reflection in the pond."

  I do as he says and study my face in the still, clear water.

  "Now dive through your reflection and follow me," he declares, jumping into the water.

  Without questioning, I dive through the image of my face and descend into a steep tunnel. Breathing underwater comes naturally as I swim through the passageway. Ahead of me I see a light. Uh-oh, another light at the end of a tunnel, I think to myself, recalling my trauma of being born into the world.

  Following the tree man, I swim out into a new realm. I am now on foot in a beautiful green meadow. The sun is shining, and the wind is blowing the high grasses. Scattered about us are tall wildflowers. This is a place of beauty, magic, and untouched nature.

  Something begins moving rapidly toward us. The ground vibrates. The swaying grasses rustle. They are so high I cannot see what is approaching. I can barely see the little tree man.

  Finally, the movement slows and the meadow returns to its natural vibration. A new energy is coming to join us. I wonder what, or who, it could be.

  Suddenly, a tiger emerges from the meadow to greet us. A tiger welcoming us, I think to myself. I must be dreaming.

  As the animal draws closer, I notice something unusual about him: he has one blue eye and one green eye. He bounds up to me and gazes into my eyes. "Stroke my head," he says silently.

  In my wildest imagination I never thought of myself petting a great cat like the one standing before me. I stroke the top of his head, surprised at the softness and moistness of his fur. With my other hand I stroke the warm, moist fur on his back. What a sense of power I feel from the vibration of his body. It's quite overwhelming.

  Silently he instructs us to get on his back. The tree man climbs up behind the great creature's head, then I climb up behind him. He holds on to the skin around the tiger's neck. I hold on to my dear friend's body.

  The tiger begins to run through the meadow. As we fly along, the wind caresses my face, taking away the thoughts that have filled my mind. The grasses and flowers bend before us in welcome. Ye
llow, red, and purple flower heads seem to dance against the greens of the meadow and the blue sky overhead.

  As we continue on our journey, I see the faint outlines of a mountain range in the distance. It will probably take us days to reach it, I calculate, unaware of how swiftly the tiger is moving. In fact, we are there in no time at all. The mountain before us is small, compared with those I am familiar with. And it is treeless, composed solely of brown-black earth and rocks.

  As we draw closer, I notice an opening in the side of the mountain. Oh, no, I tell myself, not another cave. I want to be done with darkness for a while.

  "Relax," says the tree man. "We are going to a special place."

  The tiger stops directly in front of the opening. The little man jumps off, whereupon the tiger kneels to let me down. Because we have been riding for quite some time, it takes me a while to get a sense of my legs. Still a bit wobbly, I follow the tiger and the tree man to the mouth of the cave which, unlike the previous one, is wide enough to let in the outside light.

  We step inside. I am amazed by the spectacle before me. The ceiling and walls are covered with huge crystals of clear quartz, amethyst, green fluorite, and yellow and pink topaz. Lining the crystals are rubies, emeralds, and fool's gold. This is nothing short of a mineralogist's dream, I muse. But for now it is my dream to be inside this place of power. The cave is shallow, and its earthen floor grounds me as I stand within the energy fields of all these crystals.

  "I told you I was taking you to a special place," the tree man says. "Now sit down on the earth, close your eyes, and soak up the light from the crystals. This is a healing cave, and it is a place you can travel to whenever you feel the need for well-being. Just let the light flow around you and through you. This light will help you remember your own light."

  I follow his instructions, feeling the light throughout my body. Instantly I experience a soothing calmness as a gentle energy flows through the air about me and through the cool, living soil beneath me.