Know Thyself

...Going within, they must go deeper still, into the depths of being, the heights of the soul, passing beyond to enter into the inmost part of the soul, that holy sanctuary of the unique essence . - Tau Malachi

Perhaps for all of us, the biggest challenge we face in life is finding who we really are. Distilling our essence. When you truly know who you are, you will know your unique essence. When you know your unique essence, you have to operate from a point of integrity, it is simply no longer possible not to. I am not talking about thinking about who you are, but to know who you are, thus to have gnosis of yourself. This is akin to the difference between Theology and Theosophy. Theology means “thinking about god” and Theosophy means “God's wisdom.” Yet, in both cases we are trying to fathom the unfathomable. In regard to Theology we are trying to reason who are, and in regard to Theosophy we are trying to experience who we are.

Yet, even when through life's experiences combined with knowledge, we begin to gain a perspective into who we are, we will reach a stage when we find ourselves in a state of confusion, as one experiences in the Dark Night of the Soul, and you have to admit that who you thought you were, you not really are.

It has been a long while since I have written anything on my blog. My last blog entry was Part 6: Regeneration/ Re-incorporation/ Return - The Sidpa Bardo

That entry was indeed a very accurate reflection of where I found myself on the spiritual path; the poem I concluded it with is both a reflection and a personal prophesy. Often when one goes through a Dark Night of the Soul it only affects a particular area of your life, for me it was total, affecting every aspect of my life. Coming out of a Dark Night of the Soul is not an instantaneous affair, just as an incarnation of a soul is not instantaneous. I am reminded of the story St. Paul – Saul on the road to Damascus - “And he was three days without sight, and neither did eat nor drink.”

I felt myself struck dumb, with no real desires for anything, except the “have-to things.” I felt no desire to express myself, for who am I really, what am I expressing? I experienced life as if in a womb, aware of what is going on but unable to make any direct feeling connection.

The Sidpa Bardo or Inter-mediate period of rebirth, is indeed that a Bardo state, where what was is no longer and what will be is not yet. During this bardo the consciousness descends and chooses a new body to be born into. Once the “new body” has been chosen, it is still not instantaneous before the birth happens. After a life has been conceived in the womb it takes nine moths of development before it is born into its new matrix, its new paradigm.

Being in Becoming within creation, Divine Being, Supernal Being is coming into being, is becoming that which it is – fully Divine, fully Supernal; such is the Divine Play of Creation Evolution.

"... commune with your soul on your bed, and be silent ...” Psalm 4:4

I awoke this morning and I did not move, neither did I open my eyes, I remained still and became aware of time moving from my past to the present and to the future. As I remained still, and allowed the past and the future to swirl around, it is continuously changing, creating a present moment that is always different. Yet here I still am and while I am doing nothing I am changing, just as a rock that remains unmoved for thousands of years in one place, still, yet is changing. Perhaps in another thousand years it will become grains of sand, and perhaps through some fierce burning fire even change into glass.

I continue to remain still and motionless seeing thoughts and emotions swirl around my awareness. As long as I remain still, I remain between asleep and awake and am just a being in becoming. As soon as I move I will be incarnating into my being a set of beliefs of who and what I am, of what I am becoming, or of what I hope I am becoming. As long as I remain still I abide in just becoming in the fluidity of meaninglessness, as soon as I move a paradigm of meaning will shape my awakening and as such a set of beliefs, whether true or false. In truth my beliefs are based on arbitrary hopes of possible becomings birthed in hidden desires. All I can really know for sure is that I am becoming whether I remain still or not. Right now I have a choice to remain still and still become, or I can awake within a chosen paradigm of becoming, true or false, only time will tell.

I have dreams and desires of becoming more than what I think I am. I have heard rumours and legends of other humans who are and have been more than human, more than I perceive now. Yet I have also heard that they who were more than human said that to be in the moment of being is to find the transcendence of being human. By becoming no-thing, we become everything, Infinite, the Eternal – hence, the Being of the Becoming. We are Being in Becoming. We can choose to be in the eye of the storm of our becoming, or on the extremities and experience suffering.

“Pain is unavoidable, suffering is not.”

No becoming is without pain, knowing and observing your becoming ease the suffering.

In the Kabbalah Binah consciousness is the mind and heart actively engaged in thought and desire, akin to our ordinary state of consciousness, and Hokmah consciousness is the mind and heart completely silent, without thought or desire - a state of pure awareness, thus just being.

There is a term called Hashmal which indicates the simultaneous experience of Binah and Hokmah consciousness which is a "Speaking Silence," or what is often called Dynamic Silence. In this state of consciousness it is said, one actually experiences a silence of the mind and stillness of the vital, yet, at the same time, thoughts and desire-energy continues to flow - one is in a supramental state of pure awareness and at the same time one continues to experience the mental and vital states. This allows a linking of the various levels of consciousness and thus a free flow and exchange between them. It is said that in this state the Gnosis Mind manifests and we are able to behold the true nature of reality; hence Reality as It Is. To cultivate this experience, however, we cannot seek it directly so much as learn to create the conditions necessary through which it may naturally and spontaneously arise - for seeking it directly often obstructs it all together. The experience of Hashmal or Speaking Silence is, it is said, the experience of being in the now - a zone of complete silence in the mind and vital, which is in the midst of the mind yet also beyond it, and at the same time there are thoughts and images and emotion - a complete stillness and motion at the same time. There is silence and there is voice, and there is no contradiction between them, but they are one and the same.

This “speaking-silence” appears in Ezekiel, at the culmination of Ezekiel's vision, when it says God speaks to him out of silence. In Exodus 20:18 it is written; “and all the people saw the sounds.” In order to experience this requires a radical change in consciousness. This is also said to be the experience of direct knowing.

Just as being is to be at the beginning and the end. Being a being in becoming, we observe our pain and happiness as flickering moments shaping our becoming which still remain an essential mystery.

I am a being becoming. I know what I am not, but not what I am. Yet, I am.

Thoughts returns to their arising. A bare tree in the icy winds of winter. All drawn within. In days long ago a mighty wizard cut a wand from its branches, gathered Mistletoe clinging to its limbs. Owls reared their chicks in its safety. Lovers whispered sweet caresses in its shade. Be quiet now and rest in a winter's dream as your acorns dreams in the dark body of the Mother. Dream of mighty trees swaying in the Spring's enlivening breeze. Softly I heard the Mother hum a song of dreaming, of dreams arising, within her womb.

Distilling your unique essence is in the awareness of the Alchemy of Living.

tags: self  gnostic  dreaming  pain  suffering  present  being  becoming  evolution  womb