The Cosmic Vision

The Cosmic Vision

The Cosmic Vision is an interesting aspect of the path to Self-Realization, Mysticism and Spiritual Philosophy.

This essay is not intended to guide you to Non-Dual Realization. There are today many excellent teachers and realizers such as Eckhart Tolle, Gangaji, Sailor Bob Adamson, Adyashanti and many more who can do the job much better than I.

I am somewhat 'experience-based' in my understanding so I tend to organize the various teachings I’ve encountered into three main realization categories. The most important realization and the one people might best orient themselves toward is called Sahaja Samhadi, The Natural State, also referred to as enlightenment, self-realization, waking up, etc. The teachings and philosophies that point to Sahaja sound and read a certain way, summarized in phrases such as "Be Here Now", "Chop Wood, Carry Water," "The World is an Illusion-Brahman alone is Real-the World is Brahman," "Heaven is this Earth," "You are Already Enlightened", “Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form,” “Nirvana and Samsara are the same,” [1] etc.

The next important realization I use as an organizing category is Nirvikalpa Samadhi. Nirvikalpa is a deep formless trance. Nirvikalpa samādhi, absorption without self-consciousness, is a mergence of the mental activity (cittavṛtti) in the Self, to such a degree, or in such a way, that the distinctions (vikalpa) of knower, act of knowing, and object known become dissolved — as waves vanish in water, and as foam vanishes into the sea.

"There are two kinds of nirvikalpa samadhi. The first is the classic form in Raja and Kundalini Yoga where the aspirant ascends through the chakra system and penetrates beyond the Sahasrar or crown chakra even unto the further reaches of the light, finally attaining Kaivalya, which is release or immersion into the void of mystic isolation beyond all created realms. Upon return from this state, however, the yogi, not having attained knowledge or Gyan, may still be confused by, and not understand the nature of, the ego-I and the world, and also retains a nostalgia for the bliss he enjoyed in his supreme ascended trance. This state is a limited one, and it soon passes. Therefore it is not the Reality or One-without-a-second. As Adi Da once wrote, in this state “attention is still extended outside the Heart as a gesture towards an independent object”, i.e., God. Ramana Maharshi said that even having repeated experiences of such nirvikalpa samadhi is not enough for liberation, because it will not erase the samskaras, or vasanas, the hidden tendencies for embodiment. Ramakrishna, moreover, berated Vivekananda over his desire to be put into nirvikalpa samadhi by saying, “You fool. There is a state much higher than that!”

The second type of nirvikalpa samadhi may be called Jnana or Jnana-Nirvikalpa Samadhi. In this trance the practitioner does not ascend but instead traces the ego-I or ‘I’-thought to its source in the Heart-root, felt relative to the body-mind as being two digits to the right of the midline but in itself formless and beyond time and space. Rather than ascending there may be a feeling of descent, bypassing the Sahasrar and the realms of light. This was Ramana’s initial death experience. Here, upon return to normal waking consciousness, the seeker, while still not fully enlightened, nevertheless retains the intuition of the Witness-Self, Ramana’s ‘I-I’ in the Heart, or, at least, is enigmatically fixated by its presence. The quester has witnessed the death of his ego-I in a way unlike the mystic in ascended nirvikalpa samadhi, who goes into the void, as it were, blind, without achieving Gyan. In this form of nirvikalpa, however, there IS knowledge about the nature of the ego-I and the world -- although still not complete knowledge, as a subtle sense of separation between Nirvana and Samsara still remains. Again, while a great deal of freedom is gained, this state is yet a halfway-house, although an important one, on the path to Sahaj or full enlightenment. [3]

Into the Nirvikalpa Samadhi category I lump the teachings of mysticism or philosophy that speak of merging in the Void, “there is only the One,” Pure Being alone above all, obliteration of the sense of separate self, or merging into the All. Also I think that most active spiritual seeking has this as its implicit goal: the desire to be extinguished, to die, to end personal suffering, to get rid of the problems of an imperfect personality once and for all. "Occasionally when someonesends us a post advocating the NonDual point of view, it seems to me with all the notions of the illusoriness of the self and self identity or merger in or union with the One that they might be speaking of Monism. They speak of really being non-existent (and say this right while they are addressing you. Can you imagine that?) or in the process of disappearing (the merger). So, if there is a concern about confusing NonDuality with Monism consider that it might sometimes be more appropriate to make use of the term PARTICIPATION instead of merger in or identity with the One."[4] As Cat Stevens once sang, "Why can't we just live in Bliss?"

The third type of realization – and this is where the Cosmic Vision comes in – is called Savikalpa Samadhi, referred to as Asamprajnata Samadhi[5] in the Yoga Sutras.

In the state of savikalpa samadhi, the attention and the life force are switched off from the senses and are consciously kept identified with the ever-joyous Spirit. In this state the soul is released from the ego consciousness and becomes aware of Spirit beyond creation. The soul is then able to absorb the fire of Spirit-Wisdom that "roasts" or destroys the seeds of body-bound inclinations. The soul as the meditator, its state of meditation, and the Spirit as the object of meditation, all become one. The separate wave of the soul meditating in the ocean of Spirit becomes merged with the Spirit. The soul does not lose its identity, but only expands into Spirit. In Savikalpa Samadhi the mind is conscious only of the Spirit within; it is not conscious of creation without (the exterior world). The body is in a trancelike state, but the consciousness is fully perceptive of its blissful experience within.[6]

My contention is that the "Light" experience in the Near Death Experience (NDE) is savikalpa samadhi. A very deep type of NDE has been described where the Cosmic Vision is glimpsed.[7] Also the Cosmic Vision can happen at the occasion of enlightenment or self-realization or it can come as a stand-alone mystical experience.

"Indeed, the Cosmic Vision, which revealed the Presence of Infinite Intelligence throughout life, throughout the universe and throughout history, which explained so many of the Higher Laws to me, came incongruously enough while I was sitting in a hotel room in Chicago."[8]

Some of the elements of the Cosmic Vision experience would be a vision of "The Light of God", a vision of the Spiritual Universe and some understanding of it laws.

One of the most famous and traditionally accepted stories of the Cosmic Vision is from the Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 11, Verse 7.

Behold here today, O Gudakesa, the whole universe, of the moving and the unmoving, and whatever else you desire to see, all concentrated in My body. Today-It takes an ordinary mortal millions of births to grasp the universe in its entirety. And the Lord reveals to Arjuna's eyes the entire panorama. Whatever else you desire to see-Future events such as the ultimate outcome of the battle, about which Arjuna has been in doubt. The past, present, and future--nay, time itself--exist only in a fragment of the Lord.

All concentrated in My body-Related and unified in the Lord.

Sri Krishna is about to reveal to Arjuna the most staggering vision: the vision of the One in the many, the many in the One, the vision that shows that all are the One. This vision alone explains and justifies the apparent contradictions of the relative world and reconciles the antinomies of justice and mercy, fate and free will, suffering and divine love. It reveals all that was, is, and shall be. It relates and unifies the diversity of the world. Seeing God in all and all in God, man overcomes all doubt and perplexity and submits to the divine will. Thus even the most terrible thing in the world loses its terror and even the most hateful thing becomes a mode of the Lord's manifestation. The man blessed with this vision accepts the world with an all-embracing joy and great courage and goes forward with sure steps to discharge his appointed task. He sees all things in one view, and not in a divided, partial, and bewildered fashion. [9]

"We read in the Bhagavad Gita of Arjuna's cosmic vision. He was given a glimpse of a part of the universal order, the World-Design, the World-Idea. Others who have had this glimpse saw other parts of it, such as the evolution of the centre of consciousness through the animal into the human kingdom, an evolution which is recapitulated in a very brief form by an embryo in the womb." [10]

Previously relatively few descriptions of the Cosmic Vision were available from Plato's Republic, the Bhagavad Gita, the Divine Comedy of Dante, Madame Blavatsky's teachings, astrology, etc., but now with the flood of information coming from NDEs, the wave of self-realization accounts, and the greater availability of the world's sacred literature in general, a clearer picture emerges. If you take a look at the material in the appendixes, The Vision from Black Elk Speaks, Benedict Mellon's NDE, Arthur Yensen's "I saw Heaven," William Horden's Journey of Two Souls, not only are they enjoyable to read but you can see how different they are, dependent on cultural conditioning and individual dispositions, yet all were experienced as objective transcendental realities.

This raises the question of whether there is an “objective” Master Plan of the Cosmos, or if, instead, the Cosmic Vision accesses a Macrocosmic State that is essentially formless and the vision is generated culturally and individually conditioned.

One big contribution of T. Subba Row (based on the Mandukya Upanishad) is idea of the Macrocosm/Microcosm of the Three States of Consciousness, the states being Waking, Dream and Deep Sleep with the transcendental 4th state (see diagram).

"Cosmic Vision is of two kinds: (a) seeing the forms and objects around and feeling one with them, (b) seeing only the Idea of the universe. This is called identifying through worship with Hiranyagarbha. It is the subtle universe. It is an advanced experience, not the ultimate: ’So one ought not to stop there,’ said the Professor."[11]

This is where the Cosmic Vision comes from; the vision is of the World Idea in Hiranyagarbha, Cosmic Consciousness.

Because the primal realization here is of the Light of God and that which witnesses the Light of God, this duality of Soul and God is basic. The Soul is a lesser light included within the greater; it can't transcend the relationship with the "Higher", as it grows and evolves though incarnations around the Cosmic Circuit to greater perfection. Those who have had this initiation either through a Near Death Experience or as an event on the spiritual path will know there is still a rarefied thinking going on. Thinking which exclaims "This is God!" Thinking which will remember elements of the Cosmic Vision.

The question is how useful are these distinctions? When fielding questions and conflicts regarding Non-Dual teachings and teachers I am finding that the questions arise from a standpoint in one of the other realizations but particularly the Light of God/Cosmic Vision. For example: What about reincarnation, what happens when you die, what about the destiny of the self-realized being, do they disappear, what about Higher Principles like Plato's Ideas, Steiner's Cosmic Evolution, The Teachings of Theosophy, Plotinus' Levels of Being, Tibetan Buddhist Theology, The 10 Bhumis of the Bodhisattva, etc.? What about vast metaphysical systems, clairvoyance, psychic powers, levels of initiation and attainments, the Gods, Nature Spirits, and all these other teachings? It helps simply to point out that each of these three realizations has its own logic and that the three often contradict each other as contexts. For example it would be blasphemy to say you are the Light of God, the Creator of the Universe in one context, yet Thou Art That is truth in another context. Some of the dynamic which leads to self-realization comes from jostling the two contexts. On the one hand you conceive of the individual soul growing and perfecting itself though eons of births, and on the other hand is the statement to the effect that there is no person and never has been, and you are already Awareness itself. The vast stretches of the universes require the subjective element Awareness which is the I-Am in order to exist at all. It’s a paradoxical logic.

“This transparent light-world is the source of creation, the cosmic birthplace, the home of dazzling primal energy. Galaxies, universes, suns, and planets come forth from here. The revelatory, blissful vision of God's Form may happen only once in a lifetime. Beyond it all is God without Form--the still void.”[12]

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[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana

[2] Zimmer 1951 quoted in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvikalpa

[3] Peter Holleran contributed the previous two paragraphs

[4] Bert S. in correspondence

[5] http://www.indianetzone.com/19/asamprajnata_samadhi.htm

[6] Yogananda, Paramahansa: God Talks with Arjuna http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savikalpa

[7] Heading Toward Omega - Kenneth Ring, an excellent resource for this type of NDE

[8] Paul Brunton - Notebooks Category 1: Overview of the Quest > Chapter 5: Self-Development > # 285

[9] Notes on The Bhagavad Gita by T. Subba Row online http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/gita-sr/nbg-hp.htm

[10] Paul Brunton - Notebooks Category 22: Inspiration and the Overself > Chapter 6: Experiencing a Glimpse > # 368

[11] Paul Brunton - Notebooks Category 25: World-Mind in Individual Mind > Chapter 2: Enlightenment Which Stays > # 107 (the Professor referred to is V. Subramaniya Iyer.

[12]Paul Brunton - Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation > Chapter 7: Contemplative Stillness > # 315

Appendix 1 -- The Great Spirit

Black Elk's Near-Death Experience, as described at:

http://www.near-death.com/elk.html

When Black Elk was a boy of nine, he collapsed with a severe, painful swelling of his legs, arms and face.

He lost consciousness and lay in his tipi dying. He was called by two men coming from the clouds, saying, "Hurry up, your grandfather is calling you."

He was raised up out of his tipi into the clouds, feeling sorry to leave his parents. He was shown an elaborate vision oriented around a classic Native American mandala:
the circular hoop, the four directions, and the center of the world on an axis stretching from sky to Earth, numerous neighing, dancing horses, surrounded by lightning and thunder, filled the sky at each direction.

He was told to behold this, then to follow a bay horse, which led him to a rainbow door. Inside, sitting on clouds, were six grandfathers, "older than men can ever be - old like hills, old like stars."

The oldest grandfather welcomed the boy and said: "Your Grandfathers all over the world are having a council, and they have called you here to teach you."

His voice was very kind, but the boy shook all over with fear now, for he knew that these were not old men, but the Powers of the World.

Each Grandfather gave Black Elk a power.

The first Grandfather gave him the power to heal.

The second Grandfather then gave the boy the power of cleansing.

The third Grandfather gave the boy the power of awakening and its peace.

From the fourth Grandfather the boy was given the power of growth.

The fifth Grandfather, the Spirit of the Sky, gave the power of transcendent vision.

The sixth Grandfather, a very old man, incredibly grew backwards into youth until he became the boy, Black Elk.

Growing older again he said, "My boy, have courage, for my power shall be yours, and you shall need it, for your nation on the Earth will have great troubles."

Then the boy hears a great Voice say: "Behold the circle of the nation's hoop, for it is holy, being endless, and thus all powers shall be one power in the people without end."

Then Black Elk, standing on the highest mountain, surveying the grand vista of the hoop of the world, said: "I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being."

After returning to the six Grandfathers once again to receive his powers, the boy was sent back to his dying body. When he awoke, his overjoyed parents told him that he had been sick twelve days, lying as if dead the whole time.

Black Elk was afraid to tell his experience, and moped around as a shy, withdrawn boy for eight years. Finally he told a medicine man who helped him reenact the vision as a ritual. At that moment he became a powerful medicine man or shaman, healing, he said, many people of illnesses from tuberculosis to despair.

He kept his vision alive with daily practices, such as meditation on the daybreak star. But the great sadness of his life was his inability to stop the destructive onslaught of industrial culture, in search of gold and land that almost destroyed his people.

Appendix 2 -- Near-Death Experience of Mellen-Thomas Benedict

Journey Through the Light and Back
http://www.mellen-thomas.com/stories.htm

In 1982 I died from terminal cancer. The condition I had was inoperable, and any kind of chemotherapy they could give me would just have made me more of a vegetable. I was given six to eight months to live.

I had been an information freak in the 1970’s, and I had become increasingly despondent over the nuclear crisis, the ecology crisis, and so forth. So, since I did not have a spiritual basis, I began to believe that nature had made a mistake, and that we were probably a cancerous organism on the planet. I saw no way that we could get out from all the problems we had created for ourselves and the planet. I perceived all humans as cancer, and that is what I got.

That is what killed me. Be careful what your world view is. It can feed back on you, especially if it is a negative world view. I had a seriously negative one. That is what led me into my death. I tried all sorts of alternative healing methods, but nothing helped.

So I determined that this was really just between me and God. I had never really faced God before, or even dealt with God. I was not into any kind of spirituality at the time, but I began a journey into learning about spirituality and alternative healing. I set out to do all the reading I could and bone up on the subject, because I did not want to be surprised on the other side. So I started reading on various religions and philosophies. They were all very interesting, and gave hope that there was something on the other side. I ended up in hospice care.

I remember waking up one morning at home about 4:30 AM, and I just knew that this was it. This was the day I was going to die. So I called a few friends and said goodbye. I woke up my hospice caretaker and told her. I had a private agreement with her that she would leave my dead body alone for six hours, since I had read that all kinds of interesting things happen when you die. I went back to sleep.

The next thing I remember is the beginning of a typical near-death experience. Suddenly I was fully aware and I was standing up, but my body was in the bed. There was this darkness around me. Being out of my body was even more vivid than ordinary experience. It was so vivid that I could see every room in the house, I could see the top of the house, I could see around the house, I could see under the house.

There was this Light shining. I turned toward the Light. The Light was very similar to what many other people have described in their near-death experiences. It was so magnificent. It is tangible; you can feel it. It is alluring; you want to go to it like you would want to go to your ideal mother’s or father’s arms.

As I began to move toward the Light, I knew intuitively that if I went to the Light, I would be dead. So as I was moving toward the Light I said, “Please wait a minute, just hold on a second here. I want to think about this; I would like to talk to you before I go.” To my surprise, the entire experience halted at that point. You are in control of your life-after-death experience. You are not on a roller coaster ride.

So my request was honored and I had some conversations with the Light. The Light kept changing into different figures, like Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, mandalas, archetypal images and signs. I asked the Light, “What is going on here? Please, Light, clarify yourself for me. I really want to know the reality of the situation.” I cannot really say the exact words, because it was sort of telepathy.

The Light responded. The information transferred to me was that during your life- after-death experience your beliefs shape the kind of feedback you are getting before the Light. If you were a Buddhist or Catholic or Fundamentalist, you get a feedback loop of your own stuff. You have a chance to look at it and examine it, but most people do not. As the Light revealed itself to me, I became aware that what I was really seeing was our higher Self matrix.

We all have a higher Self, or an oversoul part of our being. It revealed itself to me in its truest energy form. The only way I can really describe it is that the being of the higher Self is more like a conduit. It did not look like that, but it is a direct connection to the Source that each and every one of us has. We are directly connected to the Source. So the Light was showing me the higher Self matrix. I was not committed to one particular religion. So that is what was being fed back to me during my life after death experience.

As I asked the Light to keep clearing for me, to keep explaining, I understood what the higher Self matrix is. We have a grid around the planet where all the higher Selves are connected. This is like a great company, a next subtle level of energy around us, the spirit level, you might say. Then, after a couple of minutes, I asked for more clarification. I really wanted to know what the universe is about, and I was ready to go at that time. I said “I am ready, take me.”

Then the Light turned into the most beautiful thing that I have ever seen: a mandala of human souls on this planet. Now I came to this with my negative view of what was happening on the planet. So as I asked the Light to keep clarifying for me, I saw in this magnificent mandala how beautiful we all are in our essence, our core. We are the most beautiful creations.

The human soul, the human matrix that we all make together is absolutely fantastic, elegant, exotic, everything. I just cannot say enough about how it changed my opinion of human beings in that instant. I said, “Oh, God, I did not know how beautiful we are.” At any level, high or low, in whatever shape you are in, you are the most beautiful creation, you are.

The revelations coming from the Light seemed to go on and on, then I asked the Light, “Does this mean that Mankind will be saved?” Then, like a trumpet blast with a shower of spiraling lights, the Great Light spoke, saying, “Remember this and never forget; you save, redeem and heal yourself. You always have. You always will. You were created with the power to do so from before the beginning of the world.”

In that instant I realized even more. I realized that WE HAVE ALREADY BEEN SAVED, and we saved ourselves because we were designed to self-correct like the rest of God’s universe. This is what the second coming is about. I thanked the Light of God with all my heart. The best thing I could come up with was these simple words of total appreciation: “Oh dear God, dear Universe, dear Great Self, I Love My Life.”

The Light seemed to breathe me in even more deeply. It was as if the Light was completely absorbing me. The Love Light is, to this day, indescribable. I entered into another realm, more profound than the last, and became aware of something more, much more. It was an enormous stream of Light, vast and full, deep in the Heart of Life. I asked what this was.

The Light responded, “This is the RIVER OF LIFE. Drink of this manna water to your heart’s content.” So I did. I took one big drink and then another. To drink of Life Itself! I was in ecstasy.

Then the Light said, “You have a desire.” The Light knew all about me, everything past, present and future. “Yes!” I whispered.

I asked to see the rest of the Universe; beyond our solar system, beyond all human illusion. The Light then told me that I could go with the Stream. I did, and was carried Through the Light at the End of the Tunnel. I felt and heard a series of very soft sonic booms. What a rush!

Suddenly I seemed to be rocketing away from the planet on this stream of Life. I saw the earth fly away. The solar system, in all its splendor, whizzed by and disappeared. At faster than light speed, I flew through the center of the galaxy, absorbing more knowledge as I went. I learned that this galaxy, and all of the Universe, is bursting with many different varieties of LIFE. I saw many worlds. The good news is that we are not alone in this Universe!

As I rode this stream of consciousness through the center of the galaxy, the stream was expanding in awesome fractal waves of energy. The super clusters of galaxies with all their ancient wisdom flew by. At first I thought I was going somewhere; actually traveling. But then I realized that, as the stream was expanding, my own consciousness was also expanding to take in everything in the Universe! All creation passed by me. It was an unimaginable wonder! I truly was a Wonder Child; a babe in Wonderland!

At this point, I found myself in a profound stillness, beyond all silence. I could see or perceive FOREVER, beyond Infinity.

I was in the Void.

I was in pre-creation, before the Big Bang. I had crossed over the beginning of time/the First Word/the First vibration. I was in the Eye of Creation. I felt as if I was touching the Face of God. It was not a religious feeling. Simply I was at one with Absolute Life and Consciousness.

When I say that I could see or perceive forever, I mean that I could experience all of creation generating itself. It was without beginning and without end. That’s a mind expanding thought, isn’t it?

Scientists perceive the Big Bang as a single event which created the Universe. I saw during my life after death experience that the Big Bang is only one of an infinite number of Big Bangs creating Universes endlessly and simultaneously. The only images that even come close in human terms would be those created by super computers using fractal geometry equations.

The ancients knew of this. They said God had periodically created new Universes by breathing out, and recreated other Universes by breathing in. These epochs were called Yugas. Modern science called this the Big Bang. I was in absolute, pure consciousness. I could see or perceive all the Big Bangs or Yugas creating and recreating themselves. Instantly I entered into them all simultaneously. I saw that each and every little piece of creation has the power to create. It is very difficult to try to explain this. I am still speechless about this.
It took me years after I returned from my near-death experience to assimilate any words at all for the Void experience. I can tell you this now: the Void is less than nothing, yet more than everything that is! The Void is absolute zero; chaos forming all possibilities. It is Absolute Consciousness; much more than even Universal Intelligence.

The Void is the vacuum or nothingness between all physical manifestations. The SPACE between atoms and their components. Modern science has begun to study this space between everything. They call it Zero point. Whenever they try to measure it, their instruments go off the scale, or to infinity, so to speak. They have no way, as of yet, to measure infinity accurately. There is more of the 0 space in your own body and the Universe than anything else!

What mystics call the Void is not a void. It is so full of energy, a different kind of energy that has created everything that we are. Everything since the Big Bang is vibration, from the first Word, which is the first vibration. The biblical “I am” really has a question mark after it. “I am—What am I?” So creation is God exploring God’s Self through every way imaginable, in an on¬going, infinite exploration through every one of us. I began to see during my near-death experience that everything that is, is the Self, literally, your Self, my Self. Everything is the great Self. That is why God knows even when a leaf falls. That is possible because wherever you are is the center of the universe. Wherever any atom is, that is the center of the universe. There is God in that, and God in the Void.

As I was exploring the Void during my life after death experience and all the Yugas or creations, I was completely out of time and space as we know it. In this expanded state, I discovered that creation is about Absolute Pure Consciousness, or God, coming into the Experience of Life as we know it. The Void itself is devoid of experience. It is pre life, before the first vibration. Godhead is about more than Life and Death. Therefore there is even more than Life and Death to experience in the Universe!

When I realized this I was finished with the Void, and wanted to return to this creation, or Yuga. It just seemed like the natural thing to do. Then I suddenly came back through the second Light, or the Big Bang, hearing several more velvet booms. I rode the stream of consciousness back through all of creation, and what a ride it was! The super clusters of galaxies came through me with even more insights. I passed through the center of our galaxy, which is a black hole. Black holes are the great processors or recyclers of the Universe.

Do you know what is on the other side of a Black Hole? We are; our galaxy, which has been reprocessed from another Universe. In its total energy configuration, the galaxy looked like a fantastic city of lights. All energy this side of the Big Bang is light. Every sub atom, atom, star, planet, even consciousness itself is made of light and has a frequency and/or particle. Light is living stuff. Everything is made of light, even stones. So everything is alive. Everything is made from the Light of God; everything is very intelligent.

As I rode the stream on and on, I could eventually see a huge Light coming. I knew it was the First Light; the higher Self Light Matrix of our solar system. Then the entire solar system appeared in the Light, accompanied by one of those velvet booms.

I could see all the energy that this solar system generates, and it is an incredible light show! I could hear the Music of the Spheres. Our solar system, as do all celestial bodies, generates a unique matrix of light, sound and vibratory energies. Advanced civilizations from other star systems can spot life as we know it in the universe by the vibratory or energy matrix imprint. It is child’s play. The earth’s Wonder child (human beings) make an abundance of sound right now, like children playing in the backyard of the universe.

The Light explained to me that there is no death; we are immortal beings. We have already been alive forever! I realized that we are part of a natural living system that recycles itself endlessly. I was never told that I had to come back. I just knew that I would. It was only natural, from what I had seen during my life after death experience.

I don’t know how long I was with the Light, in human time. But there came a moment when I realized that all my questions had been answered and my return was near. When I say that all my questions were answered on the other side, I mean to say just that. All my questions have been answered. Every human has a different life and set of questions to explore. Some of our questions are Universal, but each of us is exploring this thing we call Life in our own unique way. So is every other form of life, from mountains to every leaf on every tree.

And that is very important to the rest of us in this Universe. Because it all contributes to the Big Picture, the fullness of Life. We are literally God exploring God’s self in an infinite Dance of Life. Your uniqueness enhances all of Life.

As I began my return to the life cycle, it never crossed my mind, nor was I told that I would return to the same body. It just did not matter. I had complete trust in the Light and the Life process. As the stream merged with the great Light, I asked never to forget the revelations and the feelings of what I had learned on the other side.

There was a “Yes.” It felt like a kiss to my soul.

Then I was taken back through the Light into the vibratory realm again. The whole process reversed, with even more information being given to me. I came back home, and I was given lessons from my near-death experience on the mechanics of reincarnation. I was given answers to all those little questions I had: “How does this work? How does that work?” I knew that I would be reincarnated.

The earth is a great processor of energy, and individual consciousness evolves out of that into each one of us. I thought of myself as a human for the first time, and I was happy to be that. From what I have seen, I would be happy to be an atom in this universe. An atom. So to be the human part of God... this is the most fantastic blessing. It is a blessing beyond our wildest estimation of what blessing can be. For each and every one of us to be the human part of this experience is awesome, and magnificent. Each and every one of us, no matter where we are, screwed up or not, is a blessing to the planet, right where we are.

I went through the reincarnation process expecting to be a baby somewhere. But I was given a lesson on how individual identity and consciousness evolve. I was so surprised when I opened my eyes. I do not know why, because I understood it, but it was still such a surprise to be back in this body, back in my room with someone looking over me crying her eyes out. It was my hospice caretaker. She had given up an hour and a half after finding me dead. My body was stiff and inflexible. She went into the other room. Then I awakened and saw the light outside. I tried to get up to go to it, but I fell out of the bed. She heard a loud “clunk,” ran in and found me on the floor.

When I recovered, I was very surprised and yet very awed about what had happened to me during my near-death experience. At first all the memory of the trip that I have now was not there. I kept slipping out of this world and kept asking, “Am I alive?” This world seemed more like a dream than that one. Within three days I was feeling normal again, clearer, yet different than I had ever felt in my life. My memory of my near-death experience came back later. I could see nothing wrong with any human being I had ever seen. Before that I was really judgmental. I thought a lot of people were really screwed up, in fact I thought that everybody was screwed up but me. But I got clear on all that.

About three months later a friend said I should get tested, so I went and got the scans and so forth. I really felt good, so I was afraid of getting bad news. I remember the doctor at the clinic looking at the before and after scans, saying, “Well, there is nothing here now.” I said, “Really, it must be a miracle”’ He said “No, these things happen; they are called spontaneous remission.” He acted very unimpressed. But here was a miracle, and I was impressed, even if no one else was.
During my near-death experience I had a descent into what you might call Hell, and it was very surprising. I did not see Satan or evil. My descent into Hell was a descent into each person’s customized human misery, ignorance, and darkness of not knowing. It seemed like a miserable eternity. But each of the millions of souls around me had a little star of light always available. But no one seemed to pay attention to it. They were so consumed with their own grief, trauma and misery. But, after what seemed an eternity, I started calling out to that Light, like a child calling to a parent for help.

Then the Light opened up and formed a tunnel that came right to me and insulated me from all that fear and pain, That is what Hell really is. So what we are doing is learning to hold hands, to come together. The doors of Hell are open now. We are going to link up, hold hands, and walk out of Hell together. The Light came to me and turned into a huge golden angel. I said, “Are you the angel of death?” It expressed to me that it was my oversoul, my higher Self matrix, a super ancient part of ourselves. Then I was taken to the Light.

Soon our science will quantify spirit. Isn’t that going to be wonderful? We are coming up with devices now that are sensitive to subtle energy or spirit energy. Physicists use these atomic colliders to smash atoms to see what they are made of. They have got it down to quarks and charm, and all that. Well, one day they are going to come down to the little thing that holds it all together, and they are going to have to call that ... God. We are just beginning to understand that we are creating too, as we go along. As I saw forever, I came to a realm during my near-death experience in which there is a point where we pass all knowledge and begin creating the next fractal, the next level. We have that power to create as we explore. And that is God expanding itself through us.

Since my return I have experienced the Light spontaneously, and I have learned how to get to that space almost any time in my meditation. Each one of you can do this. You do not have to die or have a near-death experience to do this. It is within your equipment; you are wired for it already. The body is the most magnificent Light being there is. The body is a universe of incredible Light. Spirit is not pushing us to dissolve this body. That is not what is happening. Stop trying to become God; God is becoming you. Here.

I asked God: “What is the best religion on the planet? Which one is right?” And Godhead said, with great love: “I don’t care.” That was incredible grace. When Godhead said, “I don’t care,” I immediately understood that it is for us to care about. It is important, because we are the caring beings. It matters to us and that is where it is important. What you have is the energy equation in spirituality. Ultimate Godhead does not care if you are Protestant, Buddhist, or whatever. It is all a blooming facet of the whole. I wish that all religions would realize it and let each other be. It is not the end of each religion, but we are talking about the same God. Live and let live. Each has a different view. And it all adds up to the big picture; it is all important.

I went over to the other side during my near-death experience with a lot of fears about toxic waste, nuclear missiles, the population explosion, the rainforest. I came back loving every single problem. I love nuclear waste. I love the mushroom cloud; this is the holiest mandala that we have manifested to date, as an archetype. It, more than any religion or philosophy on earth, brought us together all of a sudden, to a new level of consciousness. Knowing that maybe we can blow up the planet fifty times, or 500 times, we finally realize that maybe we are all here together now.

For a period they had to keep setting off more bombs to get it in to us. Then we started saying, “we do not need this any more.” Now we are actually in a safer world than we have ever been in, and it is going to get safer. So I came back from my near-death experience loving toxic waste, because it brought us together. These things are so big. As Peter Russell might say, these problems are now “soul size.” Do we have soul size answers” YES!

The clearing of the rain forest will slow down, and in fifty years there will be more trees on the planet than in a long time. If you are into ecology, go for it; you are that part of the system that is becoming aware. Go for it with all your might, but do not be depressed. It is part of a larger thing.

Earth is in the process of domesticating itself. It is never again going to be as wild a place as it once was. There will be great wild places, reserves where nature thrives. Gardening and reserves will be the thing in the future. Population increase is getting very close to the optimal range of energy to cause a shift in consciousness. That shift in consciousness will change politics, money, energy.

After dying, going through my near-death experience and coming back, I really respect life and death. In our DNA experiments we may have opened the door to a great secret. Soon we will be able to live as long as we want to live in this body.

After living 150 years or so, there will be an intuitive soul sense that you will want to change channels. Living forever in one body is not as creative as reincarnation, as transferring energy in this fantastic vortex of energy that we are in. We are actually going to see the wisdom of life and death, and enjoy it. As it is now, we have already been alive forever.

This body, that you are in, has been alive forever. It comes from an unending stream of life, going back to the Big Bang and beyond.

This body gives life to the next life, in dense and subtle energy.
This body has been alive forever already.

Appendix 3 -- Near Death Experience: Journey of Two Souls

I was fully awake when my heart stopped beating and my last breath passed my lips.
In the Spring of 2003, a genetic time bomb went off and my body's time came to an end. The moment of death was upon me at age fifty-three and I found it a curious thing indeed. People around me grew quite excited but an untroubled calm came over me, carrying me further and further away from the scene, as if moving me to an invisible but familiar place just sideways to where my body lay. The sirens of the ambulance were soft and melodic, the questions of the emergency room doctors sounded like a different language.
Minutes after they placed me on the emergency room table and fit an oxygen mask over my face, I felt my heart stop beating and I sighed my last breath. There was the briefest pause while my conscious personality puzzled that I did not gasp for breath nor seem concerned that my body had just died -- and then it was suddenly cradled in my higher soul and I was catapulted, for that is the only word for it, catapulted, wide awake, out of my body and into the Sphere of Universal Communion.
My whole life, it turned out, had been practice for the moment of dying: my higher soul stepped forward, speaking reassuringly about how it had been through this so many times before. While my lower soul, this lifetime's personality, went mute in the face of the vast Unknown, my higher soul catapulted into It with one last sigh of joy and gratitude: What a glorious Creation!
I was fully awake when I entered the Sphere of Universal Communion.
How do I know that is it's true name? I don't. I'm not even sure it's possible for it to have a single true name. But the Sphere of Universal Communion is what I saw and what I felt and it's the only true name I can imagine, the only one I can use to describe it at all.
It appeared to me as a sphere of light, but light that is aware. Light that is awareness. Not something so much seen -- since we have no physical eyes without a body -- as sensed. Something like the warmth of sunlight even when your eyes are squeezed shut. But with the additional sense of someone present, close by, their attention resting on the edges of your awareness gently. An aware light that is both the substance and the medium of communion within its own spherical spaciousness. An aware light that creates and sustains the possibility of shared awareness on a universal basis.
I was fully awake when I realized I was myself a sphere of communion. A sphere of aware light. Surrounded by an infinite number of other spheres of aware light.
As I experienced it, then, the Sphere of Universal Communion is an infinite space of aware light that is occupied by all the individual spheres of aware light that ever have or ever will exist. As if it were One Mind, occupied by all the individual Ideas it ever has or ever will conceive. Or a timeless, limitless, Oversoul, occupied by all the individual souls that ever have or ever will enter the realm of time, space, and personality. As I said, I do not pretend to know what it's true name is, but the relation between the Whole and its parts -- and between parts and parts -- this I can still see with diamond clarity.
What can I still see of that bodiless state?
Each of us, as an individual sphere of communion seems the embodiment of two complementary halves: Understanding and Memory. While Understanding seems the principal characteristic of the higher soul, Memory seems to be the principal characteristic of the lower soul. As I experienced it, Understanding is our individual portion of the limitless Knowledge of the One Soul, the evolving insight we possess into the Way of the One, our individual spark of immortality. Memory, on the other hand, is the accumulated impressions of all the lifetimes we recall, the sum of all the personalities we have yoked to our soul, our enduring storehouse of mortal treasures.
I was fully awake when I realized that whenever another sphere of aware light came into contact with me, there was an immediate and spontaneous exchange between us of our respective Memory and Understanding. This is why I say we are individual spheres of communion within the Universal Sphere of Communion. Because when we come into contact there, all that we know and all that we are passes uninhibited between us in a natural and open communion of shared being. Spheres of aware light touch and so exchange the totality of their experience and assimilate one another's experience into their own.
I was fully awake when all the individual spheres of communion came into contact with one another at the same time, breaking through every dam of individuality and flooding us all in the totality of our shared being. This is why I suspect its name is the Sphere of Universal Communion--because when all the individual spheres of aware light periodically come into contact at the same time, every individual awareness that ever has or ever will exist is spontaneously and immediately At-One with the One. I cannot say what it is that periodically draws all of us together at the same time but, cause aside, its effect is the complete and overwhelming experience of every drop of awareness in the ocean suddenly merging into the single sea of awareness.
My body was dead for two minutes but for me, the time passed as if it were many years.
Other individual spheres of aware light, many of great depth of Understanding with the Memory of thousands of lifetimes, generously taught me lessons to bring back and make use of in this lifetime. Such, it seems, is the loving-kindness of our collective ancestors, who care so deeply that this era of transformation is one of metamorphosis and not one of atrophy.
There is one last thing I have come to believe since returning to this realm of the body and its five senses--

Although it is much more difficult to perceive here than in the Sphere of Universal Communion, we are no less individual spheres of communion here than we are there. Once I had experienced what it feels like to recognize myself as a sphere of aware light in the bodiless state, I found I had become sensitive enough to perceive myself as that same sphere of communion here with a body. And sensitive enough to recognize that everyone else is a similar sphere of aware light, as well.
Moreover, although it is more difficult to perceive the spontaneous and immediate exchange of Understanding and Memory that occurs when we individual spheres of communion come into contact here, I believe it occurs nonetheless, even if not in our conscious awareness.
So what I have come to believe moving from life to death and back again is this: just as learning to live is actually preparing to die, it seems clear that preparing to die is actually learning to live.
It's been nearly eight years since I died and I have been reticent to speak about it too soon, for fear of coloring my account with the profound emotions of the experience. As with so many others who have undergone such an experience, the depth of those emotions has moved me to dedicate the remainder of this lifetime to giving expression to the lessons I learned while outside this lifetime.
There you have it, that's the best account I can give. It's all still as fresh today as it was when it happened. By now it doesn't seem strange at all to say things like, Dying is one of the most meaningful events in life. Clearly, the near-death experience has changed me, filled me with a deeper appreciation of the sacredness of everything. And I apologize ahead of time for the clumsiness of my report: Words that were invented to describe this world fail to paint a picture of that other realm.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts about this matter that is part of our common humanity.

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