This is the story of my full awakening.
t’s 4 a.m. in San Francisco. I am at a greasy spoon in San Francisco after a single, dark night of the soul. I’m drinking watery coffee and just passing time after a sleepless night during which I read the entirety of “Self Realization- The Knowledge of the Absolute”- a slim volume gleaned from the teachings of Astavakra, ancient Vedic sage. After all that transpired in my very recent history, this esoteric, metaphysical teaching made perfect sense to me. It has added to the litany of events that signaled my initiation into another world.
I’m waiting for the shuttle from my motel to the airport. I feel gloomy, a heaviness about me.
As I ride the Shuttle and as we stop for each new passenger, I lighten up, merging with each person (fellow light being) until I feel the last of the gloom lift and it was gone.
By now it’s 6 a.m. As I stand in line to check in, I feel a sense of happy anticipation: “Whatever’s coming it’s going to be very, very good”. At that very moment, a rooster crowed. Wait, a rooster in the San Francisco Airport? At 6 a.m.?
Somehow I know that crow is just for me and just so I wouldn’t miss it, a boisterous chorus of the Gospel Hymn “In that Great Getting Up Mornin’, Fare The Well, Fare Thee Well” plays in my head. I somehow intuit with certainty that the action, sounds, occurrences – it’s all a backdrop– the soundtrack and cinematic expression of my inner state.
I had become accustomed of late, to this wild, perfectly sensible, synchronicity that characterizes every illuminate happening….a kind of internal communication that is at once, reverent, hilarious, holy, extremely communicative, and intimately personal. Everything speaks of God all at once; in every communication medium that is available. Music, the voice in my head, “other” people, street signs, happenings—everything is a deep communion.
I approach my seat on the plane, and am joined by an older couple. I sense that the man would like to sit in the window seat, where I am seated.
A curious kind of faculty of light starts to act upon the three of us. As I realize I have a story about these two: older couple, nagging wife, cowed husband, maybe from the Midwest…my thoughts are changed for me by a light energy that seems to come from my midsection and whorl into and out of me, then into the couple and back to me until my stories about them are erased. I do not find this strange, it seems natural, working of its own accord, and, impersonal. This light is self-intelligent and has nothing to do with my ego-identity.
As my descriptions of this man and his wife disappear, I notice that there is a deep, holy light that emanates from their eyes, exposing their true identity, as I now understand that all beings are holy.
As the airplane takes off and rises in the sky, I notice a new feature in my experience. The ascension of the aircraft is accompanied by a feeling of sublime heavenliness. An internal/external floating feeling with a distinct peaceful and blissful undertone flooded my being as I gazed at the gorgeous cumulus formations in shades of grey and sunrise pink. Not the usual takeoff while looking at the pretty clouds. No, somehow, I am the takeoff, the rosy clouds, heaven.
The Voice inside my head tells me that I am complete with my encounter with these two seat companions, and to go to the back of the plane. I tell the couple, “Thank you, I won’t be disturbing you again.” Glancing over my shoulder, I see the old guy waste no time moving to the window seat.
In the very last row, a woman is dozing in the aisle seat. The middle seat is vacant. I sort of swoop down into it…she dozes on.
Again, the whorls of light swirl in and out of my energy field and into and out of hers as I reclaim my story about my new seat companion. “Blond, a little too, pretty, privileged, office type, etc.” When I sense that this process is complete, she is suddenly wrenched awake.
“Hi”, I say, “remember me?” She looks around and then back at me, confused.
“Not from here. From before that, you know…Heaven?”
She looks like she’s divided between refuting my claim and being open to what I say.
I continue to speak to her intimately on a spiritual level. As each thought is presented, she nods, I “see” into her. A light has come on in her eyes; something in us joins and becomes one. I offer her a copy of the Hidden Words and tell her that I will surely see her again.
I am once more instructed by the Voice clearly telling me to move to the front of the aircraft where an empty seat has appeared next to a friend. In my current state of certainty, I do not question how odd changing seats three times on a plane would have been under previous circumstances.
I speak with my friend fondly of matters of Light and Spirit. She starts to sing an ancient Vedic chant in Sanskrit. At precisely that moment, the flight attendant’s grating voice comes into the overhead speaker and beings to announce the details of our arrival in Albuquerque.
My friends voice sings sweetly of the Oneness into my right ear, as my left ear is dominated by the harsh sound of flight attendant’s voice. Somehow, this causes my mind to have a sensation of splitting open. As I notice this opening, a rich, golden light substance flows over my forehead, like an anointment. It feels glorious. The Voice quietly lets me know that this is necessary to the next phase.
As we begin to deplane and head away from the arrival gate I glance back and see the blond woman I had been speaking to earlier. Her eyes are alight and she smiles at me, clearly realizing that she is in an experience different from her previous repertoire of experiences. I sense gratitude and recognition.
As I walk through the Albuquerque airport halls, flanked by my two travelling companions, I hear the Voice say to me, you are going to speed up now, you be passing those you are with. I seem to know that this means that I will function at a higher, more-rapid frequency. I feel calm and certain. There is a sense of detachment and quiet in the center of my being as I continue to the gateways to baggage claim.
While passing through the first of two large, glass doorways, there is a quite noticeable and sudden disintegration of the static, familiar surroundings—just like a curtain made of energy parting.
I notice that things—air, energy, objects–seem to vibrate at a faster speed. I barely have time to take in this change when…blooop! Another veil strips away.
And now “I” have disappeared. My body, and all sensation of having a body or a separate identity have blown away with the last parting of the veil. There are no objects, bodies, familiar sights, The only vision I have is to witness an exquisite, oceanic, field of waving lines that emanate from the horizon of my field of “vision” in all directions. They flow into and through me (I feel this, but only through my light body, not physical) and roll up behind me like waves upon a shore…bubbling and dissolving, vanishing into nothingness.
I am aware that this ocean is me, or rather my union with God. I know that the waves rolling up on the shore behind me are nothing but the non-existent past, demonstrating to my mind that there is no time. Each moment comes accompanied by a total thought of God. There is no link of memory to each passing thought, just a completely new thought. All of this is being experienced on what seem to be many dimensions. All is ecstatic, filled with love, pure light…impossible to adequately describe. It is also impossible to say how long this ocean of light experience lasted, as there was no reference for time. I knew I had stepped into the furthest valley. I was now in direct communication with God, and, I recognized Baha’u’llah at the helm of this experience. The Voice for God, His mouthpiece, spoke to me with so much content simultaneously, that, to attempt to describe any of it would fail entirely.
But what happened next, revealed much.
I had a thought apart from God.
I said to myself, “One would have to maintain great sobriety to sustain such an experience”. I was now “one” apart from God, planning for the future and desiring something for “myself”. And then… the whole world arose again and the ocean disappeared. I could once again make out objects.
I held up my arm and looked at it, thinking “arm”. I did not yet recognize whose arm it was. Then I looked at the carpet and thought “floor”, then ”escalator”. Then I realized something stupendous had just happened to me. I sat down on a short containment wall nearby. I understood that this process of naming things was part of how I must have made and continued to sustain my “world”. Reality as I had previously experienced it, did not exist. Only the Ocean of Love was real!
I noticed wisps of remnant thoughts swirling in my head that were phrased in “high speak”. A way of speaking that was more like formal, King James Bible language than casual English. I knew this to be how my ascended master self would speak…only now I was under the auspices of limitation again. These wisps of thought faded away after a few minutes.
I stood up to head to baggage claim and my two travelling buddies appeared beside me. As we rode down the escalator, there was a huge sign at the bottom of the escalator that read: “KNOWLEDGE OF GOD”… in case I was in doubt about the nature of my experience. I found this highly amusing gesture to be a signal to my mind not to question the experience I had just been given.
I noticed below the sign, a table filled with books. Apparently some religious books were on sale in the airport that day.
It was as though this version of me, the fully-realized spiritual master self that God created whole and perfect, had been living in a parallel universe, an alternate timeline, all along. The watered-down, fake version of myself was part of the illusionary world of things.
I retrieved my bag, parted with my friends, and headed out to find my car in airport parking. As I drove away from the airport and started my ride home, I felt a sudden pop, Somehow “I” was now outside this kind of bubble I’d been living inside. My heart, cartoon-like throbbed with love and gratitude. My wish had been fulfilled. I had met God and spoken with Him, face to face…only the “face” was mine.
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