Path of the Healer

In my experience, the solution to pain is the same as the solution to separation from God. It is complete and absolute surrender. In fact, the two paths may lead to the same end. For most of us, surrender to the Divine is simply not practical or possible, since we really don’t know the object of our devotion well enough to surrender thereto. Pain, on the other hand, is perfectly familiar to most of us, in one form or another, be it spiritual, mental, emotional, or physical in nature, or a combination thereof.

Further, it is my experience that, by surrendering to pain, we actually accomplish the goal of oneness with Spirit in a way that few other paths offer with such certainty. Here’s how I’ve come to see it:

Pain, while commanding huge amounts of attention, is limited and mortal. There is an end to it, even if that end arises from the death of that which experiences it, which can only happen to the body, the mind, or the emotions which are feeling it. Happily, our truest essence, which by nature is infinite spiritual awareness, is not limited or mortal. So by meeting pain with attention, attention can always grow to become larger than the pain – so large, in fact, that the pain ultimately becomes unnoticeable to the point of nonexistence. Meanwhile, growing awareness moves us closer and closer to eventual identity with that awareness which shines like the sun unto all things great and small, evil and good, selfish or selfless…

This has been my path: To take the time to focus on whatever pain presents itself on whatever level in which it exists, and to then become unrelenting in identifying with and existing as that pain, breathing my awareness into it and breathing it into my awareness, until the boundaries between myself and the pain disappear. In this way the pain becomes embodied in me fully and expresses itself through me, and I become identified with this pain to the point of understanding its origins and purposes, its beginnings and its ends…

In the process of identifying with it, the pain may grow stronger, larger, taking up more space and attention, and yet this very expansion triggers the continued birth and growth of something within me: the attention necessary to quell its endless hunger. In that process, some limited aspect of my attention may have to die – some limited and limiting identity which served a useful purpose at some time, but which now impedes the continued growth of free (available) attention needed to address the present crisis. And eventually, the outcome is always the same. At some point the expansion of the pain into me and the expansion of my attention into the pain result in the two becoming one. In that instant, the pain is instantly gone and the flow of freed energy and informed awareness flood through me in a euphoric flood of sweet understanding, and I have become something I never was before, consciously, or always was before, unconsciously – a happy collection of expanded awareness whose only agenda is more peace, love, and beauty.

I should add that, in the long run, the pain we so heroically embrace is none other than a significant part of ourselves which at some point became ignored and then abandoned as undesirable. Welcoming them home as our own creations is only fitting, since that's where most of them come from. Recognizing this to begin with is not necessary, however, What is required is to recognize that, wherever it appears to have come from, the pain is now within us, and can only be dealt with therein. It is our creation NOW even if we deny authorship of it in its very beginnings. And by owning it thus in the present, we become both its creator in the past and its discreator in our future.

The Power to Move Mountains

A dream this morning reminded me of a thought I first heard in meditation many years ago:

The reason we don’t see very many mountains moving is because the power to move them is only given to those who first acquire the wisdom to know why they are where they are now.

To be more precise within the limits of words, I might now say it this way:

The reason we don’t see very many mountains moved is because the power to move mountains is only given to (regained/remembered by) those who first (re-)acquire the wisdom to know why they are (the most quintessential identity within us all created them) where they are in the first place.

Time and Timelessness

The Eastern philosophies distinguish, rightly, I think, between God unmanifest: undefined and formless, and God manifest and evolving. The first state is prior to time, previous, if you will, to the Big Bang, forever changeless, self-fulfilled, definitionless awareness. The other is God manifest, which essentially is us, the one child of God (there's really only one of us here), manifesting first in an explosion of individualized souls, growing and evolving in form and function, differing in chosen purpose, but cut of the same cloth - a spray of individual water droplets all forming the same wave - creating changes in this realm of time where change can be observed, though it is all happening in this single moment we call now. Time is the measurement of changes that seem to occur in us, with us, and through us, yet we are, in essence, changeless, definitionless awareness, and all that seems to change, be born, blossom, and die, is an appearance, an illusion, but one with meaning, like a sentence full of carefully selected words that together convey just one simple meaning. The individual words, or expressions, or moments of our lives have limited significance, but when they are taken together in a series, they spell out a meaning in their totality that they lack in any other order. Carlos Castaneda's Don Juan Mateus, the brujo, suggested a technique of reviewing one's life, from this moment backward, in order to notice the significance of one's life with adequate perspective. My teacher Paul recommended the same, noting that any incident which brings up laughter or tears in the telling might still need to be further integrated, and also recommended doing a nightly review of the preceding day before falling asleep.

The Role of the Guru

This article by Ram Dass describes what it was like for me to bask in the love of my guru, Jesus, when he came to us as we gathered in a circle for a few blessed months up in Toronto. It is helpful to understand that the role of the guru is to serve as an example of, and eventually, a symbol for, the embodiment outside of us of the Creator's love for us as individuals, and within us as our truest impersonal and limitless nature. This role can be equally played by someone who is incarnate in the body as by someone who has left the body, but whose image and beingness, even if the product of our own imagination at first, can serve as the bridge to our oneness with the infinite, ineffable, unimaginable Divine nature.

This article by Ram Dass elaborates:
http://www.ramdass.org/the-entrance-to-oneness/

Basic Meditation

I will recommend Paul Solomon's Seven Terraces meditation. In addition to using the colors of the rainbow to orient you to the chakras and their functions, it is also sprinkled throughout with guided imagery. When you regularly build an internal world of specific imagery of your own making, Spirit (Higher Self) or spirits (spirit guides and teachers) can both use this structure by inserting symbolic imagery which can be interpreted along the lines of dream imagery (simple, really, when you get the hang of it). In this way messages can be added within the simplicity of the framework of imagery you have built. And since they are guided meditations, they allow you to focus on the verbal content of the CD rather than on creating the entire session yourself in abject silence. A lot of people who have trouble meditating can follow along to a guided meditation with much less difficulty. The original Two-CD set or instant download is here:
http://www.paulsolomon.com/cds_singles.html

This page has a visual description of the levels of the 7 Terraces, and a description of the full Inner Light Consciousness Course on CD. I don't know if you can buy the two CDs, that cover just the 7 Terrace Meditation, separately from the rest of the ILC course, but you could ask the webmaster on the site:
http://www.paulsolomon.com/ilc.html

And here is a page with links to the Edgar Cayce-like readings that Paul Solomon did on subjects such as meditation, sex, relationships, earth changes, etc., all at no cost:
http://www.paulsolomon.com/readings.html

Sun Gazing for Sustenance

I was taught to do this from within one very overcast day in Canada when I was visiting Kay and communing with Jesus. It was near noon; I had had no breakfast; and I was starving, waiting for Kay to finish some business with some friends she was visiting. I even went to a McDonalds, only to find that they would not take my American money (as they were handing me the sandwich bag)!

Finally I meditated while walking, and was moved to feel grateful for the day and the moment. In doing so, I looked up to see the overcast sky with the sun shining behind the clouds. As I gazed at this beauty, I felt the vibration of the sunlight move into my eyes, down through my tear ducts and into my stomach, full-filling me with energy and wholeness as I learned to breathe it down into my body. I lost every trace of hunger and was at peace.

This overcast condition is the only exception I would make to doing this within an hour before sunset and within an hour after sunrise. The key to that is that the ultraviolet index is below 1 (or 0) at those times. If you're ever really hungry, and only have GMO food to eat, remember this story. It's true, I swear. This is another example of something I learned on LSD (while cooking eggs to eat, which, I realized were rubbery Substance, not energy), and later realized without the drug's assistance.