Tag Archives: waking state

The Flag

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Two friends were watching on as a flag flapped around in the wind.  “It’s the flag that’s moving”, said one of them.  “No, it’s the wind that’s moving”, said the other.  They could not decide amongst themselves who was right, so they decided to consult a Zen master who lived in their region.  They went to the master and explained the story, saying, “please tell us, is it the flag or the wind that moves”?  “It is neither the wind nor the flag that moves”, said the master, “it is the mind.”

Ramana Maharshi refers to the mind (ego) as a “phantom” that rises up from the Self during waking state, and disappears back into the Self during deep, dreamless sleep.  It is also that which is found to be non-existent on realisation of the Self.  In consciousness (Self) there is no form; just pure being.  All objectification is a product of mind, and all movement takes place in mind, which is a projection of the Self.  Consciousness is constantly in motion, therefore objects rise up and fall away again.  Like the millions of waves that take form and then become immersed once again in the oceans. 

When you gaze upon the beauty of a landscape, all you are actually looking at is consciousness (energy) existing at varying degrees of vibration.  It is the mind that interprets and objectifies these vibrations, and projects the form perceived as landscape, which is seen by the eyes.

 

A New Experience

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544965_242122179232987_1867947155_nWell! It seems like ages since I’ve communicated with you. My PC problems have been sorted and here I am with my first blog post of 2015. It’s been quite a crazy time for me really; I feel like I’m going through a weird kind of transition period and I’ve just not been in the mood to write. For those who have been following my work for some time, you will know that I tend to write a lot about my actual experiences; and as I stated before Christmas, spectacular experiences, especially of the out-of-body type, have been at an all time low. So, it was with great relief that something of note; albeit something completely new, happened to me on the morning of January 21; something that I could actually blog about. Now before I get into the main theme of this post, I will just recap slightly because I’ve noticed that I have a number of new followers and I don’t want to leave them confused.

Since 1999 I’ve had so many out-of-body experiences that it would be impossible to recount them all.  They became so common-place that these days I only write about the truly amazing ones. I’ve also had many, many other experiences of a (sorry for using this word) “supernatural” nature; the likes of which most people only dream about. I say supernatural because it is a word people understand; unfortunately, it is a word that’s quite often used to describe all the stuff that gives someone like me a bad name. So, there I was, minding my own business…

It was the very early morning of January 21 and I started to dream. I was in a theatre, it was very dark and I was laying on my back on the stage. There was other people with me but I could not see them; I simply had a knowing sense that they were there. As we lay there, there was beams of what I understood to be harmful microwaves shooting out at us. My understanding of these was that they were being projected towards the Earth by aliens (yes, I know it sounds crazy, but I’ll get to the point soon). The microwaves missed us because we were laying on our backs. All of a sudden, I experienced a state of being that was completely new to me; and I shall explain.

Our dreams may be crazy most of the time, however, the emotions that we experience are very real; indeed, the only real difference between dream state and waking state is that in dream state we tend to experience rather intense emotions and are unable to physicalise. Also, some of you reading this will be familiar with being able to experience yourself as pure consciousness (our natural state) during meditation. When we achieve this state of awareness, it is as though the physical form has simply dissolved away and we become all expansive; we become “all that is” and at the same time, nothing. The key words in that last sentence are “all expansive”. Why? Because, in my dream I experienced the opposite of being “all expansive” whilst at the same time being just that.

Even though I was dreaming I was aware of what was going on. The story may have been nonsense (yes, yes, I know, it probably contained some kind of profound message) but the feeling was very real indeed. I felt myself entering a state of awareness that I had never experienced before; I actually felt quite apprehensive at the onset. Then I found myself in this incredible state; I was “all that is”, but I was within “all that is” as a mere atom. So, in simple terms, I experienced myself as an atom within the infinity that is creation, whilst at the same time experiencing being all expansive. Then the dream just got more and more ridiculous and less and less profound until I woke up.

I’m hoping this is the start of something new and exciting that will give me subject matter for another book! Thanks for following me and supporting my work. Please do leave a comment!!

Aum A Bit Confused

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Aum
The Vedic sound of Om, also known as Aum and Pranava, is considered to be the most powerful and significant of all mantras. It is The Sound Of The Universe, The Holy Spirit of vibration holding the entire creation together. It is pronounced in the same way as the “om” in “from”. Even though it is a single syllable, it has what I can only describe as three sub-syllables; A – U – M. It is for this reason that Om is sometimes incorrectly chanted as “orm” or “awm”. The letters A – U – M are, in fact, highly sacred and symbolic in that they represent the three “states” of being for humans encased in flesh, having a physical experience; namely waking state, dream state and deep-sleep state.

“A” represents waking state; because it is considered in the Vedas to be the first state of consciousness. “U” represents dream state because the “U” is next to the “A” in the order of sounds and dream state is considered to be the second state of consciousness; lying in between being “awake” and “asleep”. “M” represents deep-sleep state because it is the closing sound of the Om and deep-sleep is said to represent the final stage of the mind in rest. When chanting the Om there will inevitably be a slight pause between each single chant, and it is this brief period of silence, known as the “turiya”, that completes the cycle and does itself have a highly sacred and symbolic meaning.

Om represents the “Self”; encompassing the Self as a whole. The A, U and M represent the realm of the relative, the world of form or the illusion, whilst the turiya represents the formless, The Universal Absolute or God. Because all is God anyway, the Om as a whole represents the totality, the Oneness and the simple truth that “All and Everything is God”. Sound only exists because of silence, so the Om emerges from the silence, moves through the sub-syllables to the M where it reaches its peak. It then subsides into the silence; the state of perfect bliss; thus symbolising the world of form merging once again with the formless.

Since ancient times the Om has been used as an aid to meditation and medium with which to connect the spiritual aspirant to God. It is also called ‘Pranava’, meaning, that it is something that pervades life, or runs through prana or breath. There is a passage in the Vedas that states “In the beginning was the word and the word was Om (Aum)”, thousands of years later this ended up in the Christian Bible as “In the beginning was the word and the word was with God”. Om (Aum) is also the origin of the Christian “Amen”.