2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. 3 He restoreth my soul:
The Human, as part of his|her created identity, are forever moving, forever seeking, forever attempting to know. The Human hates stillness; the Human hates passivity and rest, both physically and within the mind and soul.
So I have started to read and apply the practices from the book “The Direct Means to Eternal Bliss, by Michael Langford along with the accompanying volume of the “Seven Steps to Awakening.” This morning I actually spent twenty minutes being bathed in the rising rays of the sun falling upon me, restful and at peace… So I know you are all sniggering. Twenty minutes! The author prescribes at least two hours and if you’re so inclined twelve or more.
What would I do for twelve hours in an empty cave? A cave with no shadows, only love and light. Which is all very interesting, because all the mystics implore us to turn our soul-being around so that we can observe the light, rather than the shadows on the wall.
“The Direct Means to Eternal Bliss,” feels a little like an Alcoholic Anonymous manual, not that I’ve ever attended AA meetings. The author repeats his important points over and over again; I mean like hundreds of times, in slightly different ways, sometimes, so that your soul will absorb the words and have a defense against the mind. He also advises that the reader should read each chapter three times, very slowly. You can just imagine the racket and cursing that my Monkey Brain raised at that advice. You do remember, the Monkey Brain that rules the imaginings of the Human.
“The most effective means to stop the tricks of the imposter self is to increase your desire for liberation, The desire for liberation is the desire for freedom from: 1. The Imposter Self (or the monkey brain as I prefer to call it). 2. This false dreamlike world. 3. All forms of suffering.”
“The desire for liberation is also the desire to live as the true Self so that you can enjoy Awareness-Love-Bliss forever.” Yes I want this!
“Eternal-Awareness-Love-Bliss is an infinitely better choice than being controlled by an imposter self that pretends to be you, but is not really you.” The imposter self is Plato’s shadows on the wall of the cave; your true self is and is enveloped by the source of the light.
“Therefore you are not thought. However, thought pretends to be you.”
And there were the words of correction, aimed right toward my heart and a casting down of the things my mind loves. Many, many people study spirituality as an intellectual exercise alone; they never grab hold, and live the words, but are instead compelled and led by the need to experience the next spiritual intellection. And the imposter self; the monkey brain that masquerades as you, is more than happy to keep you trapped in this stage…because it can control you thereby.
“The spiritual meaning of the term ‘Self-inquiry’ is directly looking into one’s self, which can also be described as self attention. Since the true self is awareness, this can be described as attention to Awareness or Awareness aware of itself. Itself is Awareness, This Awareness of Awareness. Directly looking into one’s Self is directly looking into Awareness because the Self is Aware.
Awareness, Aware of Awareness. It is the I am, that exists beyond and before ideas or words of the ego.
So I know, I know, twenty minutes of meditation does not a sage or mystic make. So for years I have thought of God as crystal, a totally null, a void of neutrality, containing all things. Yet I rebel against this vision of the heart. However, I know that all things are contained within the Akasha, the world of forms in the ethereal realm that descend out of the One, containing all possible opposites.
In twenty minutes, I cast down all the words (or thoughts) that attempted to lure me, and capture me, concentrating instead on my own awareness. I am really not good at this because I love the mind, and I love words, they delight my being. Yet, when I defended my awareness against the words (thoughts); as I escaped the soldiers of my mind that attempted to chain me to their ideas, I was aware of crystalline light. It was an emptiness and a void, yet was fully empowered and alive. As I slayed the words that entered my head, to concentrate on my awareness, I was unchained. I turned around, and was able to observe the light of my own awareness; or my own godhood, enveloped by the light of the One. As I slayed the word carrier, every time he appeared, the shadows of my intellect slipped away and I was captured by the brilliance of the light at the center of my being. I became crystalline.
As it is written, so it shall become and be.
Monkey Brain has just stated that; “you know all that in just twenty minutes, sure you do, you are such a fool and you know you need me!”
I was made to memorize the 23rd psalm in Sunday School. We are all called to restore our souls. Yet how many of my fellow 23rd Psalm, Sunday School memorizers, ever take the words to heart. How many of us have allowed the One to make us lay down in the green pastures of self-awareness; and to lead us to turn around and escape the mind so that we can witness the light of still waters. How many of us have tread to the center of our being, where the One God dwells, so that our soul is restored within ourselves.
2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. 3 He restoreth my soul:
It was all there, revealed to you, if you had only turned around.