Visualization News – August 2002
In this issue I would like to discuss faith and doubt. I have been hearing a great deal of discussion about that topic recently and find it very relevant. As we close in on the anniversary of 9/11, we hear discussions of how peoples’ faith in God was tested in the wake of that disaster. The battle between religion and science rages on in the wake of revelations about child abuse in the Catholic Church. Atheists and agnostics argue about whether or not agnostics are “hard-line” enough in their beliefs, and religious people find that their values increasingly put them at odds with the modern world. What does this have to do with visualization?
There is faith and doubt in you Spiritual practice and how you use it. How much can I believe in what I see with my mind’s eye? How much should I care about what I see? How much influence should it have on my life and beliefs? Why can’t I convey what I perceive through visualization to others? Why am I continually dragged back to the “real world” of pain and problems? Why don’t things get better? What’s the point?
When we are confronted by others and asked to defend or explain our beliefs, it can come as a shock. Spiritual visualization practice is a belief system, and it can be painful to put it up for scrutiny and potentially ridicule. You have a harder position to defend because you are talking about consciousness. Non-spiritually oriented people will argue that consciousness is purely a physical process and therefore to talk about consciousness as if it is a function that is independent of the body is absurd.
They go on to argue that everything is physical and the whole idea of free-floating consciousness is ridiculous. Having had many psychic experiences myself, I have my own body of evidence that has proven to me that consciousness is independent of the body, but also dependent on the body to interface with the physical world (physical level of consciousness). Drugs can effect the physical body and distort physical consciousness because perception in a physical world has to be physical itself, but the consciousness is basically independent of the body, although it is stuck in your body most of the time.
If you are not at the point where you truly know for yourself that consciousness is independent of matter, then keep working and practicing, and try your visualization to perform some psychic work with people who are at least partially receptive and friendly. Build a “body of work” in psychically reading others. With practice, you will realize a great majority of hits along with a few misses that will convince you of the reality of what you are doing. Until you reach that point, think of it as a new environment that you are exploring and learning about. Closing your mind will close the door on this environment and everything it has to offer.
As your belief in what you are doing increases, you will learn to value your experience more and more. If you don’t want to wait, you can explore “fulfillment of meaning”, which is a state that we will discuss at the end of this newsletter in the exercise section. As you progress, there is always ebb and flow of understanding that constantly has you at various states of belief. These determine how much you are willing and able to use what you know. For example, you might fill yourself with an understanding of who you are and what your direction in life is.
You enjoy this state for a while, and write down some insights about the state while you are in it. Later, when the state is gone, you might maintain a little more of that state because you have reached a slightly higher understanding of yourself. By reading what you wrote down, you can increase that understanding a little more. With practice, you come to learn the understanding and thus you embody it all the time. It goes beyond understanding and becomes who you are. This takes time and practice.
Because there is no single you with a single set of beliefs, it is really meaningless to talk about how much visualization should influence your beliefs. Your beliefs change moment to moment, to a certain degree. Some days “life sucks” and other days “life is a blessing.” You are a different person moment to moment, and your beliefs always change to a certain degree depending on mood and experiences. Faith is a certain kind of understanding, and lack of faith is a certain kind of understanding. Faith is a state of consciousness where you see through the eyes of your own belief as if it were transparent.
You perceive what you worship in a direct and immediate way with no intervention of mundane states of consciousness. You don’t perceive or examine your own belief process. Faith in certain ideas may demand that you deny the obvious reality around you. Or, your understanding of what you have faith in might need to be upgraded to fit into reality more accurately. Typically, the more intellectual and abstract your belief system is, the more shimmey-room it has in terms of being not in conflict with the physical world.
No system, including science, is above scrutiny or is beyond abuse. Therefore, the determination of a model of reality by scientific means is not always as absolute as it appears to be, although it sometimes is. There is an element of faith in science. You can enter a state of total faith in your beliefs at any time. You can use visualization process to see how your beliefs are in conflict with the reality around you, and you can see what your belief system would look like if you altered it to more closely match the reality you perceive. Faith is always available because it can always be imagined and as such can always be experienced. The experience of owning that faith will remain out of reach, however, if that state of faith strains your ability to believe.
Why am I continually dragged back into the world of pain and problems? Problems in the physical world demand attention. The physical world is where your frame of reference is the strongest. This means that your physical consciousness is limited to circumstances that are the most meaningful to it. If you were at the appropriate state of consciousness, you would easily see why you are limited to this physical form and these physical situations. Sometimes you can only escape your circumstances by escaping your body, and that means you have to die.
But because that is such an irrevocable and uncertain step, it is fraught with risk and potential loss as well. So, we are stuck and we have to deal with things. Being stuck or limited is a state of being, which means it is also a state of consciousness. That doesn’t mean we can play God and alter our life automatically by changing our state of consciousness, because we don’t have that kind of total control over our state of consciousness. But we can imagine that we are not stuck and see what information that reveals that might help us. We have learned that we are constantly changing, and that we can improve any understanding at will. We also know that more accurate information improves any state of consciousness.
Therefore, it is important to be able to use visualization to draw in as much information as possible. We also have to leave behind the imagination to a certain extent and be able to use the part of ourselves that interfaces with the physical world. This is part of our conscious mind that is “extroverted”. The “introverted” and “extroverted” portions of consciousness are actually like body parts of our consciousness. Each serves a different purpose. If the introverted consciousness is the only one being used, the future is reflected on in the imagination, and you may confuse what you see in your imagination with what will actually be.
This can produce feelings of fear and powerless. The extroverted consciousness has the ability to deal with not knowing the future, and can also deal with stress and change in the external world to a certain degree. In other words, your ability to cope is partially held in your extroverted consciousness. Your introverted consciousness can’t handle the tasks of the extroverted consciousness and as you withdraw in stress and pain more and more, you will feel defeated by problems before you even make and effort. You need both consciousnesses in order to be your whole self and have all the information that is part of you at your disposal.
To identify only with either is a lower state of consciousness. In a state of rest, your extroverted consciousness can be at rest that allows you to fantasize or plan. Your introverted consciousness can rest during activities that don’t require thought, such as some forms of exercise. Having the maximum amount of your own consciousness to work with, combined with the highest state of consciousness relevant to problem you face and having the right physical information through research puts you in the best place to deal with problems.
Things don’t always get better, even though we overcome problems and reach higher levels of understanding. This is because we can think of our conscious mind as a moving frame of reference over a movie projection. The scenes change, but the part of the picture that we are involved in also changes as we change. From what we have discussed, we would come to the conclusion that we constantly become more and more conscious, and therefore our situation should constantly improve. But it doesn’t. There are always vast areas of knowing that we don’t currently have. Any such knowledge is often conveyed through physical experience.
We may be able to tap into the meaning of our problem and consciously make an effort to fulfill that understanding within ourselves (see Spirit pages for more in-depth discussion of that idea.) But, that usually happens after the problem is already a reality. If more of your consciousness becomes involved in what you don’t know, then your state falls as you have less and less information. It is like hiking at high altitudes where the air is very thin. The trick is to then vitalize that thin consciousness with understanding and thus raise your level of consciousness overall. Problems force you to plunge into certain areas of thin consciousness within yourself.
With no problems nipping at your heels, you might be able to consciously direct yourself into high states of consciousness. But even here a lack of real interest can inhibit you from that exploration. We always remain limited by our desires. And so, the endless process of learning drags us on and on, but as we progress we will experience a gradual improvement of state of consciousness overall, even if some periods in our lives stink. And the best news is that we can take all this with us, so that when we die we will know everything we learned in life and will thus be intimately identified with that knowledge to some degree or other and will have increased our level of consciousness and our state of consciousness in the world after death.
Below is an exercise that explores meaningfulness as a feeling.
Exercise: Fulfillment of Meaning
In this exercise we will explore what it feels like to experience meaning as an emotional state of fulfillment in what we are doing. We will call this state “Fulfillment of Meaning.” In this state we can relax into an appreciation of any area of our life. I experience this as seeing any situation, relationship, emotional problem, desire, etc. as an object made out of some soft material, like fabric.
As I hold this small object, which represents a particular situation, I feel the innate value of the situation in a totally positive way. As I examine the most difficult experiences that I have been through in the last few years, such as bad jobs and bad relationships, I feel the value of each emotionally. I can see the limits of these situations as being the edges of the object. I feel the benefit I received from any suffering. I can see the good and the bad, but feel both positively. I see how events have changed me for the better. I feel love for the people who helped me and hurt me differently but equally. As I feel all these things I realize that life is for the better.
It is a good experience that can hurt like hell but is ultimately positive in its effect. If we can emotionally tap into these insights and feelings from time to time, we can nourish ourselves and reposition ourselves in our lives. We should use it to examine every dark corner of our emotional life and suffering. We can then take the high ground with the biggest perspective and appreciate the beautiful view.
Most importantly, it allows us to let go of the pain and feelings of betrayal than inevitably pile up over time. We can admire the huge sacrifices we have made for others, the huge changes we have made in ourselves, and the gifts we have given to the world. We can appreciate ourselves emotionally. We can see the work of art behind the facts of our life and admire the beauty. This is a place of calm and healing. When we have healed enough, we will move from heaviness into new desires and goals naturally. The wounds will close and we can clarify what we want out of life. Thanks for being part of the joy of my life!
Visualization News - September 2002
Hey everyone and welcome back to another month of Visualization News. I hope everyone is doing well and is ready for cooler fall weather, because I certainly am. In this issue, I would like to discuss where we are at this point in our discussion of visualization and Spirituality, and where we are heading. I have to look at the body of this material so far and say to myself that I am in some respects very satisfied with it and yet also very dissatisfied with other aspects of it.
I think my dissatisfaction arises in not being able to sell Spirituality, even New Spirituality, in any meaningful way. Although the exercises we have discussed have had real and practical value to us, it seems as if the impetus to be involved in a Spiritual practice at all comes from within. It’s difficult to sell Spirituality because by its very nature it resists being something you can “buy into” or sell to others. Spirituality is a devious process that seems to work out of lies and misdirection as much as it does from truth.
I find that Spirit lies to me to get me to do things and think things that lead me in a certain direction. That could lead to a loss of faith, but instead I find my trust grows in Spirit’s intentions for me even though I have developed a healthy cynicism about anything that Spirit tells me on a case-by-case basis. Like a sheep being corralled by a sheep dog, I often feel as if the message is less important than the impact that it has on me.
Looking at our world as it is today, I see a loss of faith and hope about society, and as goes society, so goes our personal lives as well. You can feel the dark cloud of doubt and fear and burnout that covers our world. Gone is the rosy-cheeked innocence of previous eras, replaced with a cold determination to survive and have “fun” in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles. People drive themselves harder and harder each year to achieve the same effect with less reward, their only goal to avoid seeing that change is here. How can we get high on our Spiritual practice if we are going down a spiral staircase in the world?
Well, first of all we have to question that we are really as doomed as we feel. A negative prevalent mood does not mean that we are doomed. Yes societal problems are real, but the umbrella of Fundamentalist Christianity has thrown this idea of “Apocalypse” over everything, and we have given up some of our power to that image. We find ourselves waiting for the big boom, the final crash when everything goes straight to Hell, and so in many subtle ways sit back and allow negative developments to arise without our protest. The End of the World may not be as much of a given as we think. Perhaps it is easier to think of the world as doomed rather than have to deal with the stress of being overwhelmed with so much news and information, and so much hype and media generated panic as well. We need to be careful what we buy into. To ignore the many shades of gray in our lives in favor of black and white is tempting but ultimately self-defeating.
Also, we need to look at the Spiritual life we are leading and see the Golden Staircase that is leading us upwards as well. Regardless of where we seem to be going, we are ascending a Golden Staircase of Spirit that rises higher and higher, if we are actively engaging our higher consciousness, exploring our consciousness and working on ourselves. We are guaranteed that as long as we can see and acknowledge that staircase, we can continue to see that we are constantly ascending it. In my professional life, I have always been plagued by the heaviness and psychic darkness I find in business settings. Professional offices seem to be seeped in a toxic ocean of palpable negativity. My life in the “real world” has always felt like a struggle, as if I was a salmon swimming upstream. If I can know at this point in my life that I am ascending and see that staircase, I can acknowledge my progress and joy in that progress on a daily basis. This upward current of energy runs contrary to the downward flow of materiality, and I can see how the material setting exists to stimulate and frame my Spiritual experience. By defining my attention and moving my focus to various concerns and ideas, I am constantly challenged and inspired by even the worst days and dreariest circumstances.
To give an example, I don’t own a car, and recently sat at a bus terminal waiting for my bus to show up. It was a gray day, and trash and graffiti covered everything. I sat on a stone bench choking back polluted air from the nearby traffic jam. Normally this would have thrown me into depression, but today it didn’t. Spirit consciousness showed me that by identifying with my higher consciousness I was able to cut through the imaginary bubble that tended to draw me into my depression, by falsely placing depression in objects and circumstances in my environment. It showed me how I associated my depressed feelings with the environmental triggers that exacerbated my depressed feelings, and how this created a false sense of depression as being external to myself, when it was actually an entirely a creation of my imagination. I have begun to see how higher consciousness is not just Spiritual, but is also our ultimate model for mental health and sanity. I was able to experience happiness that day mired in those miserable conditions, and I then knew I could eventually be more or less happy in my life regardless of my circumstances, within reason. Now, for the first time in twenty-four years, I am beginning to think it is possible for me to live outside of a depressed state.
So, I am beginning to see the Golden Staircase and acknowledge my progress up it, and simultaneously I can see in context the waterfall of physical circumstances and events that flow down that staircase around me. I know that you as well are ascending the Golden Staircase and each day you are making progress. However, you may not FEEL that progress until you actively engage in perceiving the staircase. So, now is the right time to start doing that. You know that we will be poor or well-off, healthy or ill, employed or unemployed and that your circumstances will always be changing. If we can continue to get in the habit of seeing and acknowledging our Golden Staircase, we can put all this loss and gain in context, and find the underlying happiness of being Spiritually self-conscious. And, most importantly, we will be able to live a “Spiritual” life rather than a material life with a grain of Spirituality in it. The cloud becomes silver and the lining becomes gray.
In the following exercise I will discuss how to see and acknowledge this staircase, and how to relate it to your Spiritual work. If the model I provide doesn’t perfectly suit you, feel free to tweak it to meet your own needs. Remember that no one can take away the tremendous gains and progress you have made in your life. Every sacrifice you have made and every obstacle you have overcome is now part of you forever, and it is etched into your being. Spiritual happiness is the grand prize of being able to walk into that place where you are happier, more conscious and alive and more free.
Exercise: Find the Golden Staircase
In this exercise, we will use the idea of Spirit. If you are not familiar with the idea of Spirit, please go to http://www.geocities.com/visualizenews/spiritindex.html and read the introduction pages before using this exercise.
Begin by having your journal and a pen handy, and get into a comfortable position. This exercise is a bit complex, and requires a certain amount of focus, so be prepared for that. We will begin by taking some steps to actually knock down the walls between your own Spirit consciousness and your “normal” state of consciousness. We will expand you self-definition to include your Spirit consciousness. Your old state of consciousness will not be pushed aside. Rather, the Spirit consciousness will be added on top of it. We will then tie this augmented identity together under a new ego that operates out of your Spirit consciousness, rather than your mundane state of consciousness.
We will start by getting relaxed. Take a few minutes to get into a relaxed state to prepare for visualization work. We are going to start with an introductory level of Spirit awareness called “Spirit 1”. Begin by imagining yourself as sitting on the edge of a swimming pool, your legs dangling into the water. This is not actually water but your own quality of consciousness. Stand up and see a line painted on the floor perpendicular to you in gold paint. You will walk across this gold line, and as you do, you will enter Spirit 1 state of consciousness, where your sense of self will include your own basic Spirit consciousness.
Walk slowly across this line. Now, notice your shift in consciousness. Walk back to the edge of the pool and plunge in. Notice the quality of your water/consciousness. It doesn’t feel like physical water exactly, but has some of its qualities. You will use this pool as a frame of reference as you ascend to higher states of Spirit consciousness, to get a feel for the changing quality of that consciousness.
Get back out of the pool and stop for a moment to take any notes that you feel you need to take, if any, on this experience. Now, we will cross the gold line again, shifting our consciousness up one level, which in this case will be to Spirit 2 level of consciousness. What is the difference? Higher levels of Spirit consciousness come more and more into focus. You will find that they are more sharply defined, more articulate, feel more real and alter your imagination and consciousness more radically. Each shift will bring your Spirit consciousness more and more to the forefront. Go ahead and repeat this process of going into the pool, exploring your quality of consciousness there, and then getting out and stepping across the line to go up one level of consciousness until you reach Spirit 6 level of consciousness. Now we are going to make a change.
This is where things get a bit complex, so bear with me. We have added a level of consciousness on top of our mundane consciousness. Now we need to interconnect those levels of consciousness in one continuum of consciousness. This new continuity of consciousness will be like a spectrum of consciousness from our highest to lowest levels of consciousness. This continuum will give us one identity with many levels that interact dynamically. Begin by going into the pool at Spirit 6 level and exploring that state of consciousness if you have not already done so. Now, get out of the pool and cross the gold line, but this time knowing that you will cross over into Spirit Continuity of Identity Level 7.
Do so without over-analyzing what that means. Now, having crossed the line, notice how your consciousness has shifted. Do you feel and understand the difference between your previous and current states? Go back to the pool and get in the water, exploring this new state of consciousness. From this point forward, you will notice that your Spirit consciousness will progress in terms of coming to the forefront of your consciousness and running it. It will be helpful to stop at this point and play question-and-answer with your Spirit consciousness, which is in a sense now yourself.
You can ask yourself questions and answer them as Spirit consciousness. Take notes on what those answers are. You will notice that as you engage your Spirit consciousness more and more in this type of interaction that your sense of Spirit consciousness will be heightened and you will experience an unusual lifting of heaviness in your consciousness. In other words, you will have “high” experiences, directly feeling Spirit consciousness as a reality within you.
This movement into both higher levels of Spirit selfhood as well as your progress into higher definitions of selfhood will all constitute the Golden Staircase that we have referred to before. The question and answer process is also an important part of that. Applying this consciousness to your depression, anxiety, issues about your life situation and getting feedback on choices that you make will help develop this self within yourself.
The core thing to remember here is to go to higher and higher level of Spirit Continuity of Identity, and as you explore, ask you Spirit consciousness how to bring you closer and closer to the experience of pure Spirit consciousness. Take notes on what you are told, and modify your practice accordingly. Remember that your identity has always been a habit of perception, and now you are creating new habits of perception that will hopefully over time modify your identity. Without daily effort the staircase will miss a step and you might lose sight of it. Put this advancement upwards in consciousness at the center of your identity as much as possible.
The final step here is to actually give your Golden Staircase a visual component. Imagine yourself standing on a huge spiral staircase made entirely out of gold. Look down below you to see how far you have traveled on this staircase in this lifetime. You should get a sense of how far you have come so far by seeing how far the ground is beneath you. Look at the staircase and get a feel for it. Realize that you will constantly ascend this staircase, even when circumstances are difficult. You will constantly get what you need to ascend this staircase and all the circumstances you encounter will help you in your climb rather than hampering you. You will get exactly what you need. Try to check in on this staircase daily and make it a part of your daily awareness. Onwards and upwards!
