perils of psychoactive drugs

I was going into the idea of truth once again and how we can make anything truth by just hypnotizing yourself with belief. It is kind of frustrating that we can’t just have absolute truths we can hang our hat on however I realized that’s what makes the game fun. We live in a universe that is a myriad of patterns of energy we objectify through our senses. We desired these senses so we could use our consciousness to perceive exactly what it is we exist within and subsequently self-reflect. Within our limited senses, we then discover and shape the findings into what we want to manifest. We seem to be capable of transforming energy into whatever we collectively put our minds' towards. I usually think of a washing machine at this point. I mean what drudgery it must have been in the old days to truck heaps of clothes on down to the river in the cold weather to wash your soiled wares.

Can you ever find objective truth? Only in something static like death, or a memory, can you ever find truth. This is because everything, which is energy, is on the move and forever changing. The memory that has stopped transforming has no more tentacles which may alter its remembrance unless we convince ourselves otherwise. How do you define truth on a rollercoaster? That is the beauty of this whole setup we call existence. To reference truth is to take a snapshot in time and assign truth to a memory. Objectification is clinging and desperation to hold on to what we have instead of embracing what may come. We objectify because we are desperate to find lasting meaning to this dream. Our physics is a grasping at trying to find the object at the centre of the universe which makes this all work. We measure and reduce; our measurements being accepted as objective though at their base they are objective by consensus. We bring about order and structure through measurement; though the units of measure are arbitrary and ultimately derived from chaos. Ultimately, to objectify is to lead one towards death. By creating a noun out of an eternal process of change is to turn it to stone. The genius of the eternal is to be in constant motion and transformation. The enemy called death is forever thwarted. Nouns makes us fear death. Ah grasshopper, you are an ever-transforming process moving on from one adventure to the next. Cultural indoctrination points us towards fearing death through identification with the body. Attachment, in this case, causing suffering. Let it go.

Belief is given credence through the power of intention. Desire creates the universe, creates the change, creates the suffering, and creates the destruction. Desire enables the cycle. This world is the result of desire and wanting this experience. Duality is experienced through desire. Eros travels upon the waves of eternity, sailing into and beyond the ports of life and death, light and dark, pleasure and pain. Energy is the transformational magic we seek and we can make it do anything we wish through belief and intention. Our world is a testament to the assertion. Eventually, instead of desiring and searching out knowledge, you become knowledge. Accessing the frequency of knowledge merges into becoming knowledge when you change your vibration.

To know you exist, you need an echo. A system of feedback. So, the clever invention of time which acts as a resonator. Time echoes so that you know you exist; thus, I am. We invent time and subsequently worry it is running out on us. The illusion is time. Time is a confidence game. You need motion to define time. Time is a plotted graph point on an undulating pattern of energy which is complete and timeless. Vibration is all there is. Everything has already happened; we are just defining moments through our peculiar ability to be able to perceive change. We are champions of objectification and therefore can live in duality which gives rise to the discernment of a passage of time. You might say then that we don’t have free will or basic freedom if everything has already happened. Paradoxically we do, though granted it is an illusion and one we can’t escape from. Try it out. Touch your nose at your own accord. Your actions might be baked into the singularity but you are shielded from it. The watercourse flows on. You can try to swim against the current but regardless it carries you along.

lesson from the heart

Course day. Ram Dass would relate this story about a "spook" friend Emmanuel, who was channeled. The astral being told Ram Dass he was in a body so why doesn't he take the curriculum? Why this desire to be ultra-holy and transcend this plane of existence? Obviously, you incarnated on earth for a reason and the reason seems to be to do some work.

This was my lesson for the day as I walked the path of discovery in the woods on this warm spring day. In the seven-level chakra system of energy, I intuited home is where the heart is, and that place is in the middle of the energetic subtle body of vibratory planes. The heart is always accessible, whether you are in the lower or upper plane of existence. I sensed I slowed down the vibratory rate of my energetic form to incarnate in the lower realms and do the work. I'm in a body in a world that is physically demanding, and I must balance the needs of my organism with the needs of everyone else. It is an ingenious setup and one that has no easy answers.

It has been many years and gnashing of teeth to accept that I have a desire body and I will never transcend it while alive on earth. I fretted about never becoming holy due to the demands of the form while trapped in this body. I wanted to run away from the flesh and denigrate the body temple as sinful instead of a holy shrine which houses my essence. The body is the dormitory for this forever student taking the life course.  An easy way out is to become ultra-holy and transcend the morass. Climb the mountain of spiritual appearances and declare yourself enlightened. From my vantage point, that method is pathology and a form of escapism. You can alter your vibration and ascend the energetic ladder, though for most it's impossible to stay there. But that's not the point; there's a time and place for that experience.

This was a big part of the lesson. When I drop the body where will I go? I'll do the next course which is to hang out in the spiritual planes and get so high. I'll have to come down to get to the heart. Being high sounds great. Well, I'd hazard to guess it's a whole new set of problems. Instead of focusing on the problems inherent in having a body, one will have to deal with the trouble that comes from being free and indestructible. There're problems associated with that? I intuit after you let out a big breath from discovering you are omnipotent, you develop an overbearing righteousness combined with judgment. You peer down into the lower planes of existence and cast damnation on all those in material form who are leading lives of greed and avarice. You forget where you just came from and project all that you experienced still onto the other. That's not me anymore; I'm holy! You can also do this trip while in the body and it's even more hypocritical because the body is the desire body, and you'll never transcend the experience.

From understanding, there is an acknowledgement that what we call religion is the spiritual path of a man. Personally, I chafed at the Abrahamic religions and wondered why for the most part there is no divine feminine presence in them. I thought religious stories were disparate myths; edited by ancient social scientists in order to create a nation and culture. This is demonstrably true, especially in the Old Testament. The New Testament takes global the construction of a powerful group dynamic based on an idea. However, with understanding I saw the Bible as the pinnacle of the spiritual journey of a man. The structure of the Old and New Testaments as separate but related is an ingenious setup that I've discovered as I have walked my own independent path. God the father is an asshole, and the Old Testament perfectly captures this character. Jesus is whom we strive to become. The constant theme on the spiritual journey, as expressed in the Bible, is the holy man and his righteousness and judgment of others.

The cruelty of the righteous is untethered in judgment as it is sustained by righteousness. The punishment is deserved! The example of becoming like the father after embracing the holy path is revealing and instructive. I can now point the finger at myself and ultimately laugh. When I ascend the ladder of the energetic planes and find myself in the upper worlds, I see how easy it is to judge others and become righteous because I have become the most high. I am my father and the way God judges in the Old Testament is perfect. I forget where I came from in the lower world and all the mistakes I made on my journey and declare the peasants trapped in form degenerate! How could they be so vile and selfish? Ha ha, it's all perfect! That's the work to do for the holy man who gets so high he accelerates past the heart. Do you see the ingeniousness of the mother? She's in the middle. High and low are classes in the course of the heart. The cruelty of the high and the degeneracy of the low are equal in their extremes and are to lead you to the heart. Love is the teacher and will let you oscillate between extremes in order to get you to realize where it is you eventually want to be.

I wonder if there are the equivalent of plant medicines in the astral plane that instead of getting you high will bring you down to the bliss of the heart. Wouldn't that be a shocker?

Ever wonder why the typical holy person escapes to the mountains, becomes a hermit, and abandons civilization? It's because they are running away from doing the work. The work involves the other and treating them the same way you treat yourself. Repeated failure at these lessons, with a desire to be holy, leads one to escape the academy and so off you go! It's way better to live among your sisters and brothers and work towards unity. There is a similarity between the upper and lower planes of existence in that the path to be discovered and followed leads to the heart. In my experience, it is a long time to get to the point where you can walk the path of the heart in earnest. The road is long and winding. Is Paul McCartney referring to the heart when he sings, "The Long and Winding Road?"

The long and winding road

That leads to your door

Will never disappear

I've seen that road before

It always leads me here

Lead me to your door

I love the story of the Garden of Eden in the opening chapter of the Bible and how Adam and Eve are tossed out it when they eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Eating the fruit of the tree results in the expulsion from the Garden because they lose the ability to see all as one. The Garden is the heart, I've previously revealed the metaphorical nature, and the story is telling us the pursuit of knowledge will lead you away from the heart. This is my story and why I am at the point in my life where I must head back to my home - the heart. My life has been defined by an intense desire to know. This is why I have incarnated into a body on earth. I wanted knowledge of self; self being everything. I'm not foolish enough to believe I will get all the answers but Hoo Boy I've received all the knowledge I could hope for. I've quenched the desire to know. I'm satiated. The path in front of me is the path of the heart and I know how to find and follow it.

There's nothing physical about the location of the heart or the Garden of Eden. The heart is love and love is a feeling. The power of love will unveil the path and will lead you home. That's why when Adam and Eve were tossed out of the Garden, they could never re-find it. Yahweh put a cherubim with a flaming sword at the eastern entrance to guard re-entry so the pair could not access the tree of life. Intuition tells us eternal life is accessed through the heart and unity while duality and knowledge involves cycles of life and death. The Israelites intuited they needed to head East to get back to the land of milk and honey and set their sights on Jerusalem. Jerusalem is also the metaphorical heart however the Israelites would always turn the city into a worldly economic centre and thus ensure its destruction and a catastrophic scattering of the nation once again. History is a surprisingly good teacher and knowledge unveiled gives you the answers you desire. Mass suffering as a result is a hell of a teacher to show you how hard it is to find the path and walk back home to the heart without sullying it.

I have a personal story to tell about coming home from work late one Friday. I was taking a bus back home and now that we are post-pandemic, the normal heavy traffic has resumed, and the bus was crawling home along the highway while I distracted myself with my phone. I briefly looked out the window and saw a car with the license plate "Medusa." There're no more coincidences in my waking dream and I knew this was a teaching moment, but I didn't know what. In fact, I was like, "what the fuck does that mean?" for a few days. I have noticed understanding lags a couple of days. So, get this: The Greek myth of Medusa is another story of the heart and the Garden of Eden. Medusa was the most beautiful woman in all the lands. The god Poseidon, the masculine life force in the lower worlds, ravished Medusa at the temple of Athena in Athens - a metaphor for profaning the wisdom of the feminine. As punishment, Medusa was changed into a hideous gorgon, with the ability to transform all who look at her into stone. What is meant by stone? It means incarnation. Energy is slowed down and becomes solid and we take physical form. We are a skeletal system of hard bone! As the epitome of beauty, Medusa was mimicking the Garden of Eden but once violated she doomed humanity to the lower worlds. Instead of seeing her beauty, we see only the ugliness. To get back to the heart is to be able to see the divine feminine for her beauty and not the form she dooms us to. To again see the beauty requires one to have walked the path of the heart back home to love. When I am there, I will once again see the beauty of Medusa.

Medusa was a good teacher in the course. I really liked the lesson. I see that we are in the Garden of Eden and the openness of our heart will allow us to see the beauty and thus return. I'm sure there are many more lessons to come and I'm always on the lookout for the next chapter in the course handbook.

Everyone likes a challenge. You have something better to do? Do you want to play the accumulation game only to see your finite life end and find you can't take it with you? You can take love with you. You can find home through this incarnation and at expiration of the body walk in the front door. Or you can remain ignorant and try your luck in the upper planes of existence. Like an intrepid explorer, I've found the path back to the heart and I'm going to walk it. I found the path of power and realized what I could have and do. When you realize you are in a dream, your own dream, and control the dream what will you do? My self once told me, "I could make your plane crash if I wanted to." Yes, I, we, he, they can. When I realized I had the power and control I exchanged it for free will in order to get back to the heart. I let power go because I sensed something greater. Love is the fount. It is such a great test. Kudos to me for designing a game where you are offered ultimate power to beat the game only to hide within the discovery that if you turn down the offer of the ring of power you get the girl. And the girl has the power of love, which dwarfs all power!

This ties in with the idea of liberation. Being free means being able to traverse the energetic planes of existence. It means not attaching oneself to ego identity and realizing you are so much greater. You've made a stop at the academy of physical life to learn the lesson of loving the other in a world full of suffering. The fire gets hot, and you feel the heat. It may be a dream but oh is it ever real to ascend the energetic ladder while in the body, which necessitates giving up on the idea of who you think you are. There's a reason consciousness explorers will reference ego death during these other worldly mystical experiences.

I have knowledge and I understand it. I have demonstrated it. The course is going to get harder and challenge me to walk the path of the heart. I am not going to get a perfect grade; however, I have risen to all the challenges as presented to get this far. When I stray off the path to fulfill worldly desires, I still see the heart path. My desires still present themselves to me, waiting for fulfillment. Failure at this point would be very disappointing. The heat is turned up because I know the answer to all I have searched for. I left the fount of love and tasted the fruit of the tree of knowledge. I have a ticket that will allow me to get back into the Garden. The call to adventure resumes!

divine feminine teacher

When you are born, you are tied to the mother through the umbilical cord. Once the cord is cut, you are free in this world. Immediately, you are measured and named. Identity takes away momentary freedom.

We spend our lives searching, not knowing what we are searching for. Here's a clue: A return to the freedom glimpsed in the chaos of birth. Where will that freedom lead us to? Simple. Back to the mother. Back to our heart.

Walking the path of the heart involves recognizing our polar extremes and how we bring the world to life through the opposites. Objectification of the other allows for duality which creates the many. Celebrating diversity and bringing all back to one imbued by love is the eternal game of the universe. It is the reason why we are here and why we created the universe. We find our greatest bliss when we let go of differences and come together. We find the greatest suffering when we are apart and treat all as the other.

The path back home leads to the heart.

I know the next course in my spiritual education has started. I was in the woods yesterday and my dog started barking. I couldn’t see anything, so I walked a bit through the clearing. I saw in the distance a woman sitting on a log. I thought I recognized her and wondered where her dog was? I navigated through the brush into the clearing and walked towards her at the place I like to call “Witch’s Cove”, named after a couple of women who held ceremony at the place back in 2015 in which they lit a fire and burned their bras and panties. I’ve kept the area up as a shrine of sorts to the Great Goddess; always being respectful of the place. I burn incense and make tobacco offerings. The woman I had seen in the distance had vanished. I wondered if it was a mirage. I remembered back to when I saw the dancing light in the winter of 2016 that came from this same area. What I’m trying to explain is there’s magic in this area of the forest and the Goddess has let me know she is teaching this semester.

This ties in with the new lesson plan which has begun because the path of the heart is the Goddess' intensive teachings. My heart is my mother, and she is welcoming me to walk the path of the heart. My heart has physically hurt over the past few days. I know something’s up. The classroom of life keeps getting more difficult and I know in a way this doesn’t make sense. Loving all should be easy and instead it’s the most difficult thing to do. I know, I’ve tried, and for some reason it is the hardest thing to put into practice. So far in this curriculum of awakening I’ve faced great fear. I have shown courage, bravery, perseverance, and fortitude. I’ve understood the lessons. I’ve explored my darkness. I’ve stopped objectifying my capacity for evil as the other while embracing only my higher self. I’ve gone into the mystery and have been bequeathed all the answers I desired. I know the last path to walk is the path of the heart and to take my polar extremes and reconcile all into the centre, into the heart space as defined by the symbol of the axis mundi.

I can put two and two together when given some time. I was listening to a Ram Dass lecture where he was discussing something profound which I had heard before but did not understand what he was talking about. He was relating a story where the Buddhist teacher Trungpa Rinpoche had told him he must take responsibility for his incarnation. Ram Dass protested and said it’s all God’s will. Well, who’s God? Anyway, Ram Dass went on in the lecture to explain two ways of looking at your incarnation. Basically, life can happen to you, or life can happen for you. When you play it small in the game of personality and ego you go through life reacting to the gains and misfortune that come your way, trying to construct a worthy character to be successful in the game of life. The other way of looking at life is to realize your essence, whether you want to call it soul or whatever you choose, has created the world and the curriculum you now find yourself navigating. Everything is happening for you in order to wake you up and get you to follow the path of the heart because this is what you wanted. You are the eternal and exquisite divine being made of love and light. All the suffering in this world is because you made it this way. The suffering is from the depths of a love so deep enacted to forge transformation in the fires of this hell. Suffering is the greatest tool for awakening and transformation that we have.

“Your conflicts, all the difficult things, the problematic situations in your life are not chance or haphazard. They are actually yours. They are specifically yours, designed specifically for you by a part of you that loves you more than anything else. The part of you that loves you more than anything else has created roadblocks to lead you to yourself. You are not going in the right direction unless there is something pricking you in the side, telling you, “Look here! This way!” That part of you loves you so much that it doesn’t want you to lose the chance. It will go to extreme measures to wake you up; it will make you suffer greatly if you don’t listen. What else can it do? That is its purpose.”

― A.H. Almaas

I’ve realized over the last year that I hold the power in my hands and can manifest a world of my desire and choosing. If I wanted it all and to fulfill all my carnal desires, I can do it. I’ve tempted myself and let it slide. I know why I have dreamt this universe into existence and it’s not to fulfill a desire for power. I have the cheat codes to life. If I wanted, I could rig the game. It’s not what I want. I want free will and to walk through the fires of transformation so that when faced with vast suffering I choose love and walk the path of the heart back home.

This world is Hell. It's a collective accomplishment where we as a species can make it Heaven or Hell and we choose Hell. When you die, you don’t go to Hell, you leave Hell. Nobody sees this; well, at least not in my privileged part of the world. The pain and suffering in the world are immense. The temptations and suffering caused by the chasing of desire and power creates the hellscape where we don’t share with our sisters and brothers. In order to have more and get our fill someone else gets less.

I’m the magician who created the universe. I bring this all to life. I destroy it all. I take the rewards of my game and live out my fantasies knowing full well this a zero-sum game and if I prosper someone else is suffering. If one of my avatars takes it all then there is mass suffering.

I will never know all the answers. I'm a knowledge junkie and a great deal of the impetus behind my spiritual path has been an intense desire to know. I wanted to figure it all out. Some of us are content with the puzzles and games we have on earth, which satisfy the intellectual pursuits and curiosities which get my type out of bed in the morning. I have realized this design is the way it has to be. In other words, the absolute truth and confirmation of this existence must remain a mystery that is open to speculation. My speculation can come close to touching and solving the mystery. The universe may smile back at me but then there is a wink reminding me of the agreement that says you'll never know just like you don't know what's beyond the veil until you drop the body that restrains you from finding out in this lifetime. There are certain chemicals that when ingested may give you a peek; however, the understanding of what you experience and how you want to spin it is totally up to you.

The Goddess knew of my heart and desire to walk the path from the start and encouraged me to follow my path of awakening. She knew I would try and destroy myself before figuring out the mystery. Well, here I am. I walked the path and discovered all I was seeking. I started exploring the psychological darkness within and flipped my understanding of who I am.

The great maestro don Howard was fond of saying, "You don't find Heaven, you realize it." The path of the heart will lead you home back to the primordial Garden of Eden. Heaven. Home is where the heart is and it is a magical place which is realized, not a physical journey. Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, all you must do is click your heels three times in earnest and you will return.

There's no place like home.

mother's day

Knowledge combined with clarity is a hallmark of establishing a relationship with tobacco. The latest download occurred on a sunny spring day as I was out in the woods smoking while sitting on a log. I noticed a tree which had fallen years ago and was now completing the rotting phase and becoming more ground fodder. Any trace of the life force energy had left the husk and the log was disintegrating. I stared at the wonder of this process for a while and then started to process the knowledge by applying it to the masculine energetic life force and my own body.

What struck me was the overwhelming evidence of a purification process. The process of the husk of the log falling away into dirt as the energy vacated the form seemed to be revealing a process of energetic purification in this world of form. The earth is a special place in the universe, one of the pit stops on the circuit for energy to become trapped; dare I say imprisoned. The cyclical forces and gravitational pull enacted by the unifying magnetic pull of feminine desire uses the masculine life force against himself by creating the maelstrom of pull which entraps the energy in form. The subsequent striving to be free then creates the natural state where the biological form will eventually fall apart and release the life force in due time. The remnant of form is the dross which falls away after the process of purification. The remaining putrefaction of the life form is recycled to create the habitation for subsequent journeys into the realm of form. The imprisonment into form of the life force is a cleansing process which is burning away desires and leading to a pure and holy state. The ancient meaning of purity is more in line with the state of stillness and clarity as opposed to the definition of morality we have attached to the word.

The ancient semitic word qodesh is the name given to this state of masculine purity.  Strong's Concordance reveals the following meaning:

Strong's #6944: qodesh (pronounced ko'-desh)

from 6942; a sacred place or thing; rarely abstract, sanctity:--consecrated (thing), dedicated (thing), hallowed (thing), holiness, (most) holy (day, portion, thing), saint, sanctuary.

The concept is describing the sacred; a state of purity or a sanctuary which would house the holy. The act of qodesh is to clean and purify. The related derivative Qudshu is the appellation for the Canaanite goddesses Asherah and Athirat and such a goddess is found in the annals of dynastic ancient Egypt. She has a striking appearance that is similar to the ancient Egyptian Great Goddess Hathor. Academic disciplines uncover the knowledge of the goddess and the sacred; however, it is up to the individual who walks the path of the heart to find the true meaning of the concept of qodesh.

The rotted-out tree log on the floor of the forest points me towards the esoteric meaning of purity. The Great Goddess creates the form, and this form is our body which is a holy sanctuary. The sacred vessel receives the masculine spirit thus enlivening the form. Becoming consecrated with the holy form of the Goddess is the most sacred act one can perform. Through this process of successive incarnations, the spirit becomes purified and can indeed walk the path of the heart, the holy path of the Great Goddess.

As I have previously written about, the exalted city of Jerusalem is this veiled Goddess and represents the purity of the heart found in the Garden of Eden. The most common Arabic name for Jerusalem is al-Quds, referring to the most sacred of temples. Humanity sullies the city and makes it unclean, thus rousing the anger of Yahweh who successively destroys the city throughout history in a cleansing fire of purification. Within each of us is the ability to return to the Garden of Eden; a magical place only accessed through the heart. It is hidden and to find the path takes much faith in the power of love.

Successive incarnations into the hot fire of mortality burns away the dross and purifies us to the holy state which will allow us to see the path of the heart and set out on the journey back home. The transformed hero has become a warrior at the hands of his demanding father and returns to the loving arms of his heart. My heart is my mother.

final exam

I was taught that within I house Jesus and also Satan. I was taught who I think I am is a concept. I'm an actor so involved in playing my part, I forgot who I am.

I enrolled in the consciousness course about a decade ago and like most good teachings, you are given a little bit of knowledge at a time. From the knowledge, comes understanding, and once you gain that level of mastery of the subject you can move forward in the course with confidence. Too much knowledge at once will just further confuse the student. I've had glimpses of advanced knowledge I did not understand which in turn would lead to conclusions which were destined to change. My blog space here is a testament to that assertion in that I would get ahead of myself instead of letting everything unfold in due time. This is part of everyone's process and it is important to acknowledge that your beliefs will change a thousand times as you accumulate knowledge and understanding. Remaining open to change is among the most important of attributes to carry with you on the educational journey.

What I find fascinating is the beginner lessons of a decade ago laid the groundwork for the advanced teachings of the present. If I was given the advanced teachings at the outset, they would have been wasted as I would have marvelled at the knowledge but would have no understanding of what I was shown. Subsequently, I'd be left twisting in the wind, spouting knowledge I had no idea how to articulately convey to another, or even reconcile within my own mind. At the outset of the course I was taught to free myself. I was treated as a separate being who needed to throw off the chains of culture. I wasn't given understanding of my true nature as of yet; but instead, encouraged to become the hero and slay the dragon. The subsequent adventure into the labyrinth of self uncovered the truth of who I am.

The latest teachings, which began in earnest around March 2020, have been quite the journey. I can explain the course as composed of delving into the duality of self with the first stop being a deep dive into the shadow. My benefactor spent a lot of time preparing me for the eventual cordial meet and greet with the darkness. Previously, I had run scared from the encounter and as a response, had learned courage and bravery from the master earlier in my education. I was ready for the advanced lessons now that it was clear I wouldn't run screaming from what I would be shown. I had been preparing for a while and had experimented with short trips into my own darkness but kept its presence at arm's length. I knew I had to let go and go deep and was preparing for this eventuality. The worldwide pandemic hit at this point and my teacher had other ideas. And so he taught me about the shadow and let me come to terms with my own bad self through self-reflection. When I was ready, he introduced the sacred mushroom and presented to me my shadow.

At first, I still objectified my shadow as the other. I did not want to accept I was the bad guy and responsible for all the suffering in the world. I did not want to accept that the presentation of the world is an accurate reflection of just who I am and who we are collectively as a species. The world as is, is the truth. You may deny it. You may say this is crazy and we are not like this. We don't individually inflict this level of suffering. However, the proof is in the pudding. This is the world we have constructed when left to our own devices. You can bury the shadow but you can't bury the consequences of your actions.

Immediately after this encounter I posited that I was the good guy and he was the bad guy. I knew he was me but I didn't want to fully accept it; so, I still retained the dualistic interpretation of the masculine human psyche and claimed the good guy for myself. I had some of the truth but didn't understand. I have noticed a pattern with my lessons in that they are the opposite of what the external group dynamic is. When we collectively teach religious ideals in culture we point towards the light. From this perspective, the student takes on the role of the degenerate who needs the salvation as offered by the light. The student identifies with the bad and works towards becoming the good. My teachings, on the other hand, allowed me to identify with the light and pointed me towards understanding the dark as opposed to cultural methods that further bury that part of you.

Once I accepted I was also the bad guy and started to internally process this knowledge, I was presented with the concept of the light within. I was given the understanding of the role of a figure such as Jesus Christ in the external and internal world. It was pointed out the encounters I had with this power were undeniable and so I had to sit with the lessons of being shown not only the darkness within but also the light. I was shown the two brothers within my psychic makeup and how over the course of my lifetime they have always been contending for the role of captain on this vessel. The ship had been given a name and cultural identity in a world I became form over 50 years ago.

Subsequently, I was reminded that who I think I am is just a construct made up for the convenience of culture. I was given a name and identity and told I was nothing and had to make it in this world. I play it small because I think I'm small. I have spent the majority of my life not knowing who I am! From the teachings of the master it was revealed to me I am everything. He showed me fundamentally I am not only Jesus but also the Devil, all wrapped up in a bag of skin. I am the creator and the destroyer. I am all, manifest. Neato!

This is the teaching and the knowledge allows me to write the final exam on this course and pass with flying colours.

Now that I have this understanding, the obvious question is why am I here and what am I going to do about it? The teachings are going towards transformation from intellectual understanding to actually putting them into practice. I know why I did this. I created the universe through the interplay of my polar extremes, to wit the light and the dark, in order to understand self. I see I perpetuate the division because of the nature of self. The next part of the course is the path of the heart. I am to temper my extremes with love and find balance. The Great Goddess has always encouraged me to continue on this path of discovery. She encouraged me to slay the dragon once I had the courage to engage. The futile act of trying to slay self was an eye opener and led me to investigate the monster within. At every point she was there to make sure I continued on, offering me protection and refuge when necessary, as well as giving me the impetus to move forward in my quest.