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Misplaced Lens Cap
occasionally subtle
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YOU ARE THE REASON
Jules of Nature
Peter Solarz

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DEAR READER
trying on a metaphor
ojovivo

Kaledo Art
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@goodsmokes
The Three Twin Rays
Once while camping on a beach in Kauai, reached by driving down a barely passable dirt road that few people knew about, a divine couple came floating through the walls of our tent in golden light bodies. This was in the late 1980s or early 1900’s time frame. Now, the thing is, far from being an idyllic moment, I was in the most painful argument of my life with my Beloved. It took me years to understand what Gaylord said next, “you have Three Twin Rays”, or as to why in all the possible moments this divine couple chose to come in on that one! The reason they came in at that moment, was because the underlying cause of the argument, even if I could not see it at that moment, was attachment, and that attachment I would eventually have to let go to continue. His partner later showed me in more detail through sharing her personal journey. In our know-it-all culture where everyone thinks they have it all figured out, people take great liberty to misinterpret the depth. This is a very, very profound statement which Gaylord communicated, and I did not even attempt to bring my mind into it. Letting the understanding unfold, and after a couple of years I understood. The first twin ray is yourself. The next one is that being we call the twin ray, and the third one is everything. Each of these stages of what we call the Twin Ray are of a vast evolutionary evolvement, and each contains the others to some degree with a building upon. For those of you who have not heard this terminology before, it was coined I believe by godfre ray king in the 1930’s. It denotes a dual play of forces that are really one, and is more commonly referred to as your eternal partner. When we came together, having consciously called each other forth and aware of this depth beyond soul, we just called it the beloved. There was no doubt, and never has been as to our nature, because we each knew ourselves before we met. Understanding yourself as the first twin ray, is not just knowing your emotional quirks, or a few past lives, or what it is you want in life, or that you are good in bed, or that you feel life currents spiraling up your body. This requires penetrating beyond your individual soul, and beyond its subtle body into what in Buddhism is called the Darmakaya and resting in it. Essentially you awaken to buddhic awareness in the process. This is the base, and establishes you in non-dual nature which is where Tantra starts. For the most part, this is an individual practice accomplished by transmission that helps you to get there by being there. The second twin ray is more than a perfect romantic partner, idealized support, or even a consort in very subtle realms (although that is close). Without understanding the first twin ray of yourself, the next one does not and cannot come into a meaningful play, and in fact there are no words that can describe it. ‘Twin Ray’ is just a term. The rocks, the atoms of your body, the nature of existence is this twin ray, and yet that it can have a specific form is something that cannot be described in a linear orientated language. This is who Shantara and I are together. The path to your twin ray is through yourself. It is not the split of a soul and other such ideas people come up with (in their understandable attempts to heal separation). People try to bind it into form without understanding what form even is, even the subtle form of our soul, and this is a mistake. Give up on such ideas and take joy in discovering who you really are! Wha! And if it is your disposition, treat whoever you are with - in the way you imagine your twin ray to be, but never stop with the base, and you will get there. Always value your individual practice. The third twin ray is everything. A number of advanced practitioner attempt to go from 1 to 3 with no 2. And while this is a grand idea, it is not complete. At the same time, attachment to 2, can stop 3. Some do not want to deal with any of it, and just want to go to 3 and love everyone with not a clue (and yet a wonderful and freeing aspiration). Some just want 2, and without depth end up being disappointed as the outer picture changes, as it always does. The third twin ray is a tantric application but with a bigger scope. Those who have done the complete journey, we call ascended masters, for they have brought this into the continuum of the physical, and every other realm of creation, through the fabric of their beings. Those beings are not just here to keep us from blowing ourselves up, something that eventually they have to allow. Rather they also help beings, hopefully you, enter more completely into this body of the One. There is an incredible skill to it. Let’s follow this through an example that sooner or later will occur in your practice. Once you have entered into a deep enough Samadhi, and you have awakened a vehicle within it, a part of your never comes back, i.e., you are always present in it. As an analogy (but only that) it is like a day dream that never stops, but somehow more than that, and when you rest you can go more fully into it again and pick up where you left off. Again this is only an analogy. Now your physical day to day consciousness may not be aware of this. So this independent existence that you developed continues onwards and you meet back up in your deeper sittings. When that simultaneous awareness remains while you are doing just normal stuff that is a breakthrough. It can be stronger or weaker in the consuming bliss, but the awareness is there. With deep friend-adepts, and especially consort practice into the subtle bliss body, you can help each other with maintaining this subtle awareness and its activities into the physical part of the continuum, in a meaningful interconnected manner. There is no greater penetration of that through all the realms of existence including the physical, than your twin ray. The whole game is up, and it brings understanding. It can reach into your very root of creation and all its samsara’s, and with this you can chart through the trappings in the subtle and maintain that base of spirit, Darmakaya. The twin ray into the physical develops the base for the third twin ray, and with that base, this allows a greater reach of love and compassion, skill, and awareness, in an embodiment than could not be before. You are simply expanding what you already are, and this is how the universe evolves. This is like, God, simply because language has broken down, and yet it is still natural. Too much attachment stops this next step of the third twin ray, hence full circle into the beginning of this article. Not enough attachment at the right time and you go nowhere. Whether needing one partner to sit in a cave for a year, or for other consort relationships, or changes of mood while embodying various transformations in the bigger picture, there needs to be the ability to move in this growth, all revolving around the infinite base of who we are as spirit. It all comes back to the depth of that first twin ray, your own discovery. Like a hologram little understandings become big, the little moments are important, and the passing show takes on perspective all gained from your initial application, but now embodied into the eyes of Divine Mother. Now this is all really high talk, and some of you, hopefully, might be wondering how do I start, or how does this have any meaning to me? Do I call that person forth? To begin this exploration you need to activate deeper and deeper into what is called your Kundalini, which will give you the abilities and atmosphere to make this all come alive. The first twin ray is yourself, and the first steps to discovering yourself requires the refinement in which that discovery can be made. Besides, when you really want it, this can be a lot of fun. Kundalini will be my next post Virochana – May 9, 2015
Personal Update: One Year Post-Kundalini Awakening Ramblings
It’s been a year since Kundalini Shakti awakened within me and began its work on my entire body-mind-spirit system. This transformation of consciousness has been challenging, interesting, blissful, scary and weird. I share with you a rambling update on my process – where I came from, where I am now, and where I feel I am going.
As a disclaimer, the spiritual awakening process is highly specific and personal to each individual. There are certainly commonalities in experiences, but each person’s path is different. For some, their timeline may be accelerated with high intensity challenges over a short period of time. For others, their timeline may be more drawn out with less intensity. It all depends on what a person brings to the table in terms of conditioning and their willingness to surrender to the process.
What has taken me a year to grow into, may take another a decade. What has taken me a decade to grow into, another may have embodied since birth.
The relative details of spiritual path are unique for each individual. The Absolute Truth is universal for all.
Eight years ago, during a period of depression, I discovered mindfulness meditation at age fifteen. The practice of active meditation, observing my thoughts and emotions throughout the day, became the number one priority in my life. For the next four years, I explored various spiritual teachings. I learned and practiced Vipassana meditation and experimented with psychedelics.
The date, December 21, 2012 was given, with talks of the beginning of a new age, of a planetary shift, and of ascension. Open minded yet skeptical, I entertained these ideas as possibilities and felt an existential desperation to awaken before this date, lest I be left behind. I practiced earnestly and desperately. During the first or second week of December 2012, I underwent a non-dual spiritual awakening involving the realization of emptiness and no-self. What I once perceived to be the world and my self vanished as if they never were at all. I spent the next few years within this non-dual state, initially dismissing everything as merely illusory, to eventually consciously integrating my realization into everyday life as a real human being in a very real world. Despite this non-dual awakening, something in me knew that there must be more. I continued further with my exploration and practice. In early 2015, I began to experience a series of subtle energetic symptoms occurring within my body. Spontaneous spasms, extremely powerful head rushes, mysterious chest pain, emotional breakdowns and the like. I had a handful of mystical experiences and was bombarded with mind-boggling synchronicity. The world that I once dismissed as illusory came alive and seemed to be extremely intelligent, mysterious and benevolent. I began to be drawn to the word ‘Kundalini Shakti’ and to resonate with the mystery of this divine force.
Feeling a deep heart ache, I was intuitively guided to add a new dimension to my simple meditation practice. I began to visualize my heart center as a beacon of liquid-love-light. Expanding and contracting with each breath, I experienced my heart center radiating this liquid-love-light throughout my whole system. I spent hundreds of hours with this practice, with no goal in mind. It simply felt right and irresistible. In the summer of that year, I visited a friend in the hospital. There, I met one of my mentors for the first time, Jeanette Wayne. She was doing some energy healing work on him before his surgery. She was mysterious and yet open, radiant and straightforward. She resonated with me deeply.
Some months later in October, during a very intense romantic relationship, while practicing the heart centered meditation during a psychedelic mushroom trip, I experienced the awakening of Kundalini Shakti. Following this experience, I entered into a very dark and intense period of my life.
My relationships and work life all soon fell apart. I began to experience a phase of emotional purging and release to such an intense degree that I didn’t think was humanly possible. I experienced a wide range of psychological and physical symptoms, mystical encounters, strange phenomena and deep bliss. I visited Jeanette and told her about this Kundalini Shakti awakening experience that I had been undergoing. Initially, she was doubtful that it could have really been that, but with a bit of probing, she understood it to be so. She said the same thing happened to her fifteen years ago. I began to cry with relief. She looked me in the eye, and said “You’re doing well.” At this point in my path, I had known deeply that everything really is unfolding according to divine will, but the difficult experiences that I was having were causing me to doubt. I asked her, “Look, I’m pretty sure it’s all a divine orchestration, but you gotta tell me, is it really?” She said, “In this Universe, there are some accidents and there are some things that are random, but for you, everything is a divine orchestration.”
I can’t express about how deeply those words have gone on to transform my entire existence.
Everything is a divine orchestration.
Over the next year, I spent time exploring the teachings of a handful of masters – Matt Kahn, Master Chrism, Igor Kufayev, David Spero, Jan Esmann and Mary Mueller Shutan.
I would go on to experience a series of ups and downs, in emotional states, life circumstances, energy levels, inspiration, health and states of consciousness.
I fell into deep states of depression that were soothed by a bliss that transcends words. This same bliss also had me impaired, lying in bed, in tears of ecstasy for lengthy periods of time. During this time, I had no consistent income and yet was consistently supported in many ways.
I felt divinely inspired and driven and at other times I spent upwards of fourteen hours a day sleeping. My overall health was up and down, with two very intense periods of fevers that I thought were going to kill me.
I experienced extremely emotional events within my immediate family that allowed me to heal deep familial and ancestral wounds, to cultivate and refine my compassion and empathy, and to see the face of God in all.
Through these intense experiences, I have deepened my friendships immensely, have found myself in a heart-centered relationship with a beautiful woman, and refined my ability to serve as an intuitive healer and spiritual teacher.
Over the past year, I became creatively inspired and have been expressing myself through photography. I have rediscovered some musical talents. With these arts, I am learning now to relax, to allow inspiration to come in, and to humble myself before the Muse.
Things have also gotten weird at times. Sometimes I laugh thinking about how I began exploring spirituality because I simply was looking for a practical means to get out of depression. Eight years later, this path has led me to have had experiences of some of the strangest phenomena, mystical experiences, visitations and blessings from powerful beings and even contact with ETs.
My memory has fallen away and the amount of thoughts that pass through my awareness have been drastically reduced. I am aware that there is still further to go, and so I continue to practice.
I move in and out of certain states of consciousness in which everything is directly experienced as one, as divine and as not separate from what I am. Each breath sends bliss throughout my entire body. Sometimes it’s subtle, sometimes it’s intoxicating.
I rely on intuition and feeling to move through the world and continue to refine and develop my ability to trust it. Certain empathic and intuitive abilities continue to blossom within me as I surrender myself to this transformation and dedicate myself to the service of all, as a teacher, healer, mentor and friend.
Jeanette told me one year ago, to get on my knees and surrender myself to service. I have done this a few times since, with each time involving a deepening of what that word – service – really means. Today, I see no other option but to serve.
This awakening, this bliss, this love and this understanding are far too vast to be solely for this limited body-mind that I call my self. It has to be for the whole world and so it is. Having served myself to a certain degree, I am here now to serve others, guided by the divine that is both within and without.
I’ve been absent from this blog for the past few months because I haven’t been able to bring myself to write. Whenever I tried to, the Shakti within, the Divine Mother, would tell me to rest and that there’s no rush. I’ve been through an intense journey, over many lifetimes, and though at times I have resisted it and felt guilty about it, that rest has been due. Now, finally, I feel rested and inspired once again to return into action.
There is a planetary ascension well underway that is accelerating before our eyes. I have recognized my purpose to be here as a grounded anchor of Love for this global transformation as together we move into a higher, heart-centered dimension of being. Under the guidance of the Universe, the Shakti, and my teachers, I am excited to be here to travel with you all whilst offering support as we move into these turbulent yet thrilling times of great change.
May all beings come to know and embody themselves as Love. Sessions | Instagram | Facebook
I’ve been following you for quite some time now – since the non-dual days you mention – and this has been a really really enjoyable read. It has deeply touched me and is uplifting – thank you. Much love
You think how humble Lord Shiva is, how great He is, because of His humility, that He becomes so imperfect, so impure, so lost, in such pain, so completely undisciplined, that he becomes every one of us. We are all Lord Shiva, and His greatness is in His humility to be you and me.
Mark Dyczkowski
The Way To Peace
Take refuge in your breath, Let go of the mind and rest in the breath. Like the very dearest of friends, Your breath has accompanied you through all the pains, sorrows and joys of your life. Take refuge in your breath, With loving attention follow its every movement, Unravel the mystery of where the breath finds repose.
Listen with rapt attention to your dear friend, The breath has been speaking to you since you were born, Discover the mantra it whispers to you continuously, Affirming the infinitude of your Being, HAMSA is the ground on which this mad dance of existence pounds on... Unravel the mystery of where mantra arises, and where it dissolves.
Abide in Stillness – the refuge of the breath, the source of mantra, the womb of all, where form and emptiness embrace, where Truth alone is revealed. where Love dissolves the illusion of differences.
By Kalidas (Lawrence Edwards)
"Until you realise God, attain God-consciousness and become established in God-consciousness, ever strive to keep yourself by continued, unbroken effort in a state of awareness of your divinity, at least upon the intellectual level. May there not even be one moment when there is any doubt about your divinity in your mind or intellect. May your intellect be firmly based, with absolute conviction, upon this truth: 'I am divine. I am immortal soul, birthless and deathless, beyond time and space, without name and form. I am Atman, formless. I have no limitations. The body does not limit me. The mind does not confine me. I am the limitless, all-pervading Divine-consciousness. This is my true identity. This is my real nature.’”
– Sri Swami Chidananda –
An excerpt from Satsang with Facilitator of Truth Aisha Salem, where she talks about the Expansion of the Heart
If it seems like the planet is a place where there simply isn’t room to be sensitive then it’s not true. It really comes down to the (identity of a) "someone" being sensitive. Sensitivity in itself is a great and beautiful capacity, quality. It only becomes a quality which senses into space and fleeing into the Absolute.
If we can’t learn how to allow the swallowing up of everything in a way where it passes through us. If we can’t realise ourselves to be that open window that everything passes through, then that part of embracing Truth becomes an attempt to get out of here because one simply cannot contain what’s going on here.
I mean the reality of that is simply that there is not enough space in the heart. So that heart-space needs to expand because there is still "someone" there. Purification of the heart-space is equal to the disappearance of love actually, the recognition of Pure Life and the Pure Seeing in heart. But it’s not something you can do, you can only surrender to it because it doesn’t involve you.
~ Aisha Salem
Mirko Hanak illustration, Bambi, 1967
Even if there are mighty trees all around you, Let them be shady, let them be huge, But, even for the shade of a single leaf, Beg not, beg never, ask never! The path of fire you shall tread! The path of fire! Yes, That Path of Fire!
You shall never tire, You shall never slow down, You shall never turn back, This oath you will take today! This oath you will fulfill in your life! Take this oath! And walk the Path of Fire, every single day! The oath of fire! Yes, That Path of Fire!
What greater spectacle, Than to see such a man walk, Who in tears, sweat and blood, Is soaked, covered and coated; And still walks on in the Path of fire! Walks the path of fire! Yes, That Path of Fire!
Agneepath, a poem by Harivansh Rai Bachchan, translated into English by Riku Sayuj
Meditation guides us in perceiving and understanding the movement of the heavenly forces relative to our relationship with the cosmos, reflecting the secrets of our psyche and our inner most Self!
Yogini Shambhavi
Just as the Vedas reflect the revelation of the Divine in nature, yogic wisdom is a doorway to the greater universe of consciousness that both embraces and transcends all forms. It is not a matter of merely one tradition, discipline or another. That is why the Yoga tradition always teaches, “Truth is One, but the paths are many.” This understanding goes back to the Rig Veda which states, “That which is the One Truth, the seers teach in manifold ways.” In this tradition, God is first of all our friend and beloved companion, our co-traveler on our sacred journey, who leads each one of us along our appropriate path. The sacred fire exists in all life as the light that sustains everything. It cannot be reduced to any particular religion, philosophy or spiritual path; though it can work through many of these as well. We must remember that only what is sanctified in our own inner fire becomes real food for our souls, whatever name we may choose to call it. The fire of the soul is the power that gives life to all forms, starting with our own bodies. The sacred fire is ultimately the universe itself, defining all processes of matter, energy and mind that exist anywhere in time and space. This cosmic fire underlies our own life processes of eating, breathing, sensing, feeling, knowing and being aware. It is the true speaker, seer, knower and doer within us, of which our current human personalities are but a reflection or a shadow. All that we see is the sacred fire in its various incarnations, starting with ourselves.
Yogini Shambhavi
“The essence of Guru Yoga is simply to remember the Guru at all times: when you are happy, think of the Guru; when you are sad, think of the Guru; when you meet favorable circumstances, be grateful to the Guru; and when you meet obstacles, pray to the Guru, and rely on him alone. When you are sitting, think of the guru above your head. When you are walking, imagine that he is above your right shoulder, as if you were circumambulating him. When you are eating food, visualize the guru at your throat center and offer him the first portion. Whenever you wear new clothes, first offer them to the guru, and then wear them as if he had given them back to you.”
H.H. Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
All Meditation is pretense without Love. All knowledge is shallow without Love. Infinite is the wealth of Love. Through Love one meets the Supreme Creator. All Dhyan [meditation] is pretense without Love. All knowledge is shallow without Love. All scriptures are sham without Love. Kal [the lord of time/lord of death] and Karma are overcome by Love. Mana [mind] and Maya [illusion] are subdued by Love. Surat [the soul] ascends to higher regions by Love. Love dispels all evils. One is detached from world by Love. Refulgence within, one perceives by Love. Every heart overflows with Love. Most exalted is the glory of Love. All endeavours are in vain without Love. All activities are void without Love. One is redeemed by Love and Love alone. May Radhasoami grant the gift of Love! May Radhasoami grant the gift of Love! May Radhasoami grant the gift of Love!
Prem Bani Radhasoami, Volume 4 (Hymns of Love to the Lord of the Soul), by Huzur Maharaj (Rai Saligram, 19th Century Mystic and Spiritual Master of Agra)