Journey To Knowing, concerns itself with the various issues and challenges which occur when a spiritual seeker consciously enters the path of inner development without the support of an established system of teachings. All guidance offered here arises from my own inner journey of several decades, and let’s face it, lifetimes.
I have on occasion joked that I am a one man mystery school, and that is not so far from the truth. Much mystical and metaphysical wisdom has traveled to us down through the centuries of dark repression from Egypt and Greece and ultimately Atlantis. There is nothing ‘established’ about the Western Esoteric Tradition, it is maverick, underground and iconoclastic. No teachers are revered, no doctrines considered sacred. The aspirant is always free to screw up and flame out on ego trips.
Good luck I say, see you next time around. Regard me as a game playing cheerleader, who always has your back but will not stop you from stabbing yourself. The fool is just as useful as the prophet. As the philosopher David Hume once wrote, suicide is no more significant than diverting the path of a river. The ocean will not refuse you, no matter how long you take to get there.
Being There Knowing
We have been exploring, this past year or so, the various conditions and challenges that appear to the aspirant on the journey to knowing, the hurdles and portals that manifest to irritate, undermine and provoke us into confronting the shadows of their mystery and lighting them up with our own illumination.
All Doubts Disappearing
In Leo Galland’s 2018 memoir, Already Here, we read of the challenging life of his brain damaged and developmentally challenged son, Christopher, and his subsequent shocking death from drowning while out hiking in his teen years. He tells of his son’s spontaneous visitations after passing, where he revealed himself as something of an older soul who chose a life with many limitations, to learn and teach by.
How We Become Convinced
As I detail my discovery and extended exploration of the mysteries surrounding our essential being, demonstrating the various methods of ditching the blinders and limitations of any and all belief systems assumed after birth and often inherited from past lives, I often compare my state of being convinced to those of others equally satisfied. The process of becoming convinced continues to fascinate the ‘me’ who finds himself so.
Surrounded By Stories
Everywhere we look, it seems, we are surrounded by stories. There’s the story of the war with its dead and wounded. There’s the story of the economy with its winners and losers, its owners and its exploited. All of this got me to thinking that our lives are indeed stories to be lived, told, and retold until the need for stories withers away. Are all our incarnations some kind of uber-narrative; the story to end all stories?
The God Consciousness
The god consciousness, that area which is not a place a sphere or a plane, but something that exists beyond all attributes of belief systems...
Moments Of Knowing
As we move through this journey towards knowing, assuming it is a progress towards greater understanding, there are these illuminated moments where knowing and understanding become so obvious we laugh at our previous efforts to attain that previously out-of-reach plateau they seem to exist on. Suddenly we seem to know it all and know it was there all along, should we have taken a moment to pause in our exertions.
Reflections on Retrieval Work
Attempting to assist in the retrieval work ongoing in the Ukraine war zone has brought into focus a number of issues I had not consciously considered for some time.
Having All Your Questions Answered
I remembered the other day the oft-repeated remark, at least in my adult years, and the number of occasions when someone of my acquaintance would comment wryly on "getting all your questions answered". Often reflecting on a sudden passing of a relative, acquaintance, some stranger or celebrity in the news...
Our Perceptions of Ourselves
Anyone on the inner journey can understand that our perceptions of ourselves vary from circumstance to circumstance. Once you begin to observe yourself in the throes of the actions and reactions and see, without the comforting blinkers that ego provides, the many faces we present to the world, there’s no turning back to the simplified notion of a single identity.
Meditation and Astral Projection
If undisturbed by the irritation of externals, you can move that psyche on a voyage of astral projection, passing through the levels that consciousness has created to inhabit and explore. You are not troubled by anything resembling fear, you know your home base will be there when you return.
More On: The Ancient Plan
On this "journey to knowing" that we have been following together, placing the puzzle pieces to make out the bigger picture, the notion/myth/fable of some ancient plan for mankind pops up from time to time, hinting at a much wider perspective than our daily focus on projects and practices of a psychic and spiritual nature. It has certainly crossed my path at various intervals through the decades and each time I feel I understand a little more.
Spirit Communication as a Path
When I am asked to assist a client with a spirit communication, I fall into my version of "opening to spirit" and do the best I can in the circumstances. And the circumstances can vary significantly from situation to situation. Both the client requesting and the spirit sought can be in any number of moods and manifest any number of attitudes and it’s only my experience as psychic medium that lets me juggle the options until a harmony is achieved.
Glimpses of the Ancient Plan
Sometimes it is referred to as the ancient plan for mankind, and sometimes as the ancient plan of all sentient beings. Either way it refers to evolving through many incarnations on all the planes here on Gaia and often planets elsewhere
The Prisons of Belief
It is an intriguing and persuasive metaphor, the notion that a belief can be imprisoning, and one I’ve often hinted it when discussing "belief systems", those religious, cultural and political ideologies that millions of us humans are partial to.
Please Be Patient!
Often, after a few breakthroughs in that bumpy and mysterious ride on the illusion-busting journey to more knowledge and less faith, we indulge ourselves in spells of excitement, and that excitement not only powers the desire for more but also rides roughshod over the calm receptivity that gives the transcendence a place to settle and show you its wonders.
Sudden, Unexpected Projections
As we move along through that inner journey such experiences can surprise us. Outside any formal meditation, no crossed-legged straight-backed mindfulness, they appear unannounced like surprise guests at the door, gifts in hand. One of those gifts can be a mild OBE, where what I suspect is the mental body, flips away from the active physical, like household chores, errands and driving, and gives visions, like yourself engaged in the current activity, viewed from above or some vaguer beyond, where you know without question, that’s you over there absorbed in your purpose, playing out one of the roles in the game, doing your bit for family, career or society.
Discussions of God
Most discussions of “god” are partial, focusing on one aspect of the divinity to the exclusion of all others. Usually that aspect is the anthropomorphic one, God a person, a very wise and all knowing person, who seems to have set the universe in motion a while back and through some combination of magic and very clever science, keeps it going.
Seeing the Balance
While on the journey, the inner one always unfolding, the situation, of you or the world, can seem out of whack, weighted in favor of the winners, monstrously unfair. The minuses outweighing the pluses in your own account, your faults competing with your wounds for dominance, and the chances for lasting insight, never mind enlightenment, farther than any horizon.
Stability Before and After
Our journeys through the mysteries of Being and our being within it can leave us quite mystified, somehow simultaneously inspired and baffled. It is sometimes quite the challenge to keep both feet on the ground while one’s head and heart are in the clouds. After visiting ‘there’, with all its charms and joys, coming back ‘here’ can feel drab and quite depressing. Is it all worth it?
Expanding Perceptions and Powers
As we practice our chosen discipline, here in the physical, and extend our explorations in the astral, our experiences seem to sharpen our perceptions and increase the power of our intuitions, most often by clearing out the blockages built by doubt and self-consciousness, leaving us with a clarity that can sometimes be quite shocking.
Graduates and Ascended Masters
At some point on our treks through the valleys and mountain paths crisscrossing the intriguing remains of mystical and esoteric teachings that come down to us from ancient times, many of which managed to survive repression by mainstream religions to be modernized by twentieth century teachers and facilitators into conveniently updated Zen, Vedanta, Magick, Sufism and the like, we come across references to the White Brotherhood, the Secret Chiefs, the Ascended Masters.
Applying the Wisdom
As we move along the various paths the inner journey unveils, we begin to examine, out of curiosity or concern, the lives of others. We seem to see them more clearly, now that out own delusions of grandeur have been modified by seeing the untidy and rather tacky aspects of the current ego and some of its past life cousins. The lenses on our vision seem sharper, less muddied by the prejudices of unconscious judgements and more influenced by the discernment conferred by true humility.
Closing The Circuit
The circuit? That’s the one where we return to where we started and see our very own footsteps in the sand that we presumed had washed away in the tides of many incarnations, those passages through personalities and cultures that we assumed had left some indelible marks, but then find, much to our pleasurable surprise, that they can fade to insignificance once we shuck the comfort zones their gates and fences provided. Poverty and wealth, illness and health, ignorance and education, they all drop away as the feathers on Icarus’s wings as he closes in on the sun. Perhaps he dies on that final descent, or maybe he merges with the divine fire, a spark surrendering?
The Adventures We Don’t Recall and Why
I have previously advised on the practice of patience when those dreaded ‘dry spells’ interrupt the joys of crazy adventures in dreamland, leaving us high and dry with no enigmas to unravel. Certainly, effort, of the strenuous sort, seems not to resolve the blank canvas that upsets us. It’s not pushing ahead determinedly that catches the elusive butterfly in flight, but a unfocused yielding to whatever may come which presses the right buttons. And that yielding, that submission, may take some time to manifest the unseen. You know, days turning into weeks and maybe months before a breakthrough.
Night and Day
They are two different worlds aren’t they? Or are they? One is packed with schedules and duties, commitments and challenge, the other is some kind of magical mystery tour, entertaining, annoying and mostly mystifying. One abides by the rules of making sense and the other most definitely does not. One is lighted and demanding of attention, the other is shadowy, shifty with trickery. One is rule bound with cultural norms, the other operates as though some fun-loving anarchists wrote the guide book.
Laughing At Ourselves
I once titled a collection of essays, Laughing At The Universe Of Lies. As many of them addressed the many instances of deliberate political and economic fraud, conspiracy and cover-up, it seemed more than appropriate. Our experience of the world, filtered most often through the corporate media, is one of public figures, drawn from the ranks of government, corporations, banking and intelligence agencies, is one of denial, double talk and bare-faced lying, only some of which is later tackled by the forces of law enforcement and justice.
Just Another Place To Be
If enlightenment is just another "plight in three dimensions" but the endless implications of transcendence when we exit, then is it any more than another stage on the unfolding of our flower blossom? As blissful and serene as the experience may be, with the itch of desire and ambition no longer needing scratched, is it to be prized any more than the inching towards it that many aspirants endure, or the daily dramas and comedies that we all find ourselves in, regardless of our status in the spiritual playground?
Enlightenment… and What Then?
A friend, then in the grips of Buddhist practice and philosophy, once asserted to me that we all are enlightened several times a day, but in the rush of perceptions and reactions, forget the content and how effortlessly profound it seemed. I suspected they were correct in their assessment and set myself to locating some methods whereby those inspired moments could be collated and conserved.
Hitting the Sweet Spot of Being Here Now
Being complete and whole in the moment without crutch or dependency to the past or the future, either recent or distant, has been a goal of several spiritual traditions, perhaps Zen most noticeably. The western popularizer of that tradition, Alan Watts, certainly established it in his many books of the 60’s and 70’s, several of which came my way back then. I also recall Ram Dass (aka Richard Alpert) spreading the notion with his popular book Be Here Now in that same decade.
The Subtle Traps Of Spiritual Pride
As we evolve beyond the acceptable and approved norms of our society and class, risking criticism, mockery and outright rejection every step of the way, we collect various wounds along the path, those slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, and we learn to deflect the blows, even as we come to recognize the old wounds they reactivate. We become careful as to what we say and to whom...
The Ladder, The Elevator
Almost any energetic or spiritual practice will lead you to the opening door of expanding consciousness. I have met many runners, swimmers, team sports players and yoga practitioners over the years who tell of sudden leaps in what they assume is perception, where watching themselves from near or afar becomes the new norm for at least a few seconds and sometimes minutes. They see another self, seemingly independent of the one who stretches and sweats, one who is calm, bemused, observant.
Higher Self and Soul Probes
When Higher Self envisions us, it sees divine beings lost in belief systems. Systems like democracy, progress, agriculture, manufacturing, worshipful subservience to science, prophets and deities. It sees children playing, frightened and ignorant, educated and desirous, mystified but lost in enchantments.
Old Souls and Young Souls
As we explore the various highways and biways of the esoteric teachings that guide our inner journeys, we eventually come to the notion that some souls are ‘young’ and others ‘mature’ or ‘old’. The distinctions manifest in a number of ways. One is derived from the discussions arising from life-between-life regressions where some recall careful planning with guides for the upcoming incarnation, while others tend to rush in enthusiastically without much forethought, often hell bent on resuming a life dramatically cut short by violence, accident or addiction. The feeling of being denied one’s life experiences through trauma and tragedy can be overwhelming, often dominating the ‘bliss’ potentials of astral life.
Citizens of the Soul
While some of us find citizenship to be "surplus to requirements" for the pressing business of career and family, and others are so disgusted with the fabrications and deceptions of politics, religion and big business they happily drop out of any such commitment, some seek to be citizens of their society, however seemingly corrupted, striving to be informed and actively engaged with the issues and challenges of the day. Others seek to be citizens of the planet, embracing the ideals of multiculturalism, brotherhood and internationalism, hoping to replace hunger with plenty and strife with harmony. And yet others strive, in one way or another, to be citizens of the soul, that amorphous enigma inhabiting all forms with the sentient spark we have come to call consciousness.
Prophets And Their Visions
Many of us have found our way to the inner journey of spirit after either rejecting conventional religious structures and practice, finding them self contradictory and unsatisfying, or seeing that the scientific materialism we grew up with failed to explain our personal experiences with the mystical and mysterious situations that repeatedly irritated our culture’s assumptions and norms...
Observing the Self and Bearing Witness
Various meditation techniques strongly emphasize the importance of calmly observing the self in acquiring the real knowing of who we are, where we come from and what actually motivates us to thought and action. The term ‘mindfulness meditation’ is the most commonly used in this context. It’s one that almost everyone on the inner journey recognizes, regardless of path or tradition. In aiding our understanding of who we really are, as opposed to who we think we are or would like to be, it is incomparable.
Exercising That Empathy Muscle
Many of us do it, whether we are consciously on the inner journey or not. As one of the many aspects of compassion, it is instilled in us from an early age, as well as many past lives, where we either employed it intelligently and saw its benefits, or failed to, and realized too late how we’d short changed ourselves and others by its glaring lack.
Choices Before Birth
I reckon it was at least forty years ago when I first started seeing references in past life regression books to groups of guides that the recently deceased would consult in reviewing their recent performance on earth. Entities like Seth spoke freely and illuminatingly about the purpose of many lives, and many of us were aware that both Buddhist and Hindu teachings spoke of the phenomenon without apology.
Confusing Dreams And Direct Contact
At whatever pace gives us comfort and a sense of learning we are all moving along in our inner journeys. And whatever stage you find yourself present is of less importance than the act of doing the travel as consciously as possible. We all have our preferred methods of exploration, rituals we enact when the time is ripe and the urge is on us.
Opening Up To Higher Self/Monad
As we move along our inner journeys towards what we assume is deeper understanding of the enigmas and mysteries of our real lives, sometimes racing along without the least bit of resistance, sometimes stumbling about, absentmindedly looking for clues, we come across mentions of the Higher Self, the Monad, the source self, a being whose existence seems as remote as archangels and ascended masters to our apprentice ears, about as distant as a PhD to a kid in grade five.
History and The Akashic Records
It would be difficult to recall a time when I had not heard of the Akashic Records in one or other of the many metaphysical books I was reading in my youth. Whether inspired by teachers or channeled through spirits, the references were unmistakable. In the astral, mental and causal planes at the very least, it was possible to attend a place, a situation, a focus of consciousness, where all the "events" of what we call history could be viewed and re-experienced without the willful deceptions of political and economic power plays that distort the reportage of historical reality here on earth. Beyond the proud trumpeting of the victors’ triumph and innate moral superiority and the insulted, wounded whining of the losers and the endless ruthless cruelties of the struggles to achieve dominance, whether on a personal, tribal or empire level, lies the actual details of the process laid bare for all to see.
Dry Spells and Patience
As we open up to our "gifts of the spirit", our seemingly unlimited potentials, there are episodes of intense excitement, stages where astonishment is almost the familiar state of being, where we seem to be transcending ourselves every other day. We feel boosted into an orbit previously unimagined years before when we pottered about with psychic abilities first encountered in books and courses. We glide into unfamiliar territory, charmed with our new flexibility and ease of access. Growth seems unchecked, the border guards retired for the night.
Illusion and Graduation
At some point in this inner journey, at some stage in the shifting of poses that present themselves as personalities in the play-acting of our incarnational dramas, maybe even now as we turn to acknowledge that fly on our dinner plate or that lying skunk on the tv screen, we suddenly see the illusion of it all, and our foolishness in believing that the dream was somehow real. The bubble that you took for granted has burst.
Playing the Game
As we reveal ourselves, with open hearts attuned by discernment to what seems like fresh opportunities for growth, we come across those younger folks, who may not be younger souls, and in fact most likely are not, and are but unrealized seekers fumbling about for paths and portals that are not tricked out with shabbily trendy gurus and self-improvement cults, we are challenged to come up with the goods that fit the keyhole to their seemingly locked doors.
Transmuting the Energy of Tragedy
Once we have attained a level of serenity and acceptance in the face of life’s turmoil and committed ourselves to some level of compassionate action, - chakra balancing, distance healing, regression work, psychic circles, prayer groups, hugging, listening, in fact any of the modalities of sympathy and empathy, we are deposited at the door of discernment and choice.
Called To Service
On the inner journey of self-discovery and self-development, the call to service often comes when you are ready to reach out to others less fortunate than yourself. Of course, that’s the social gospel version. On the inner journey the ‘others’ appear lost, confused, mired in illusions. Whether it’s the recently dead, wretched in ignorance, wandering in some fog of despair, or the living, wounded by the cruelties of life’s seeming injustices, the energies of compassion draw us to their plight
Knowing Without Doubt
We can see, all too clearly, how we entered incarnation, full of aspiration, but succumbed to that treasure trove of fears, anxieties and doubts as our inner bulb of knowing lit up their shadows. We covered up with the "common sense" that family, education, religion and society piles up around the anarchic spirit that all humans come armed with, the one that frightens those who have already absorbed some decades of rational conformity and feel wise in passing it along
Clinging to Doubts
For many it comes down to this: we are born, we live and then we die. Anything else is wish fulfillment fantasizing. Their certainties gives them a firm foundation to meet the various challenges life offers, one of which is the obvious: every beginning must have an end, even if it’s hiding somewhere. He who is born must inevitably die.
Our Illusions Of Importance
Even as we progress on the journey of self-revelation, casting away, one by one, the old definitions now pretty much useless, we still cling, albeit unconsciously, to our various notions of significance: (a) that we are achieving worthwhile goals, (b) that we are becoming a receptacle better able to serve the needs of humanity, (c) that our understanding of possibilities is ever deeper and wider, and (d) that our compassion for others is selfless and discerning. All these are easily recognizable to those on the inner journey as we cover our tracks with careers, families and citizenship
Passport to the Afterlife
Whether you need the pleasures of paradise or the hell realm your guilt and grinding angers demand, it's all ready and available when you finally employ that aging passport. You choose your bliss, pick your poison, enumerate your preferences and indulge
A Game of Cosmic Proportions
All of us are moving, at our own chosen speed, towards greater and greater understanding of the mystery of incarnation and the consciousness which seems to propel it all...
A Second Visit to Source
"Source" is the place of our inner divinity, shorn of the add-ons of incarnation, all those purgatories, paradises, heavens, hells, cultures, epochs, physical forms and their functions. It’s the radiant void, the ocean of is-ness, where you are and I am drops of that is-ness, that divinity, without form or distinction.