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!