By Day the Yaiyr
Yahshua (‘Jesus’), while answering a question posed by an elderly Hindu Yogi in India, provides information on what he called Seven Great Spiritual Realizations. This account is from The Holy Megillah: Nasarean Bible of The Essene Way, from a section that describes the adventures of Yahshua and his best friend, Yohanan, as young men traveling in India. I will provide the first four realizations and then comment on them. Then I will provide the last three.
The First Question and Seven Great Realizations
895. Yahshua and Yohanan visited a Hindu yogi in Benares.
896. There were several other young men, Buddhist and Hindu, sitting in the circle.
897. The old yogi asked as many questions as he answered.
898. He said to Yahshua, “You have been silent while I discoursed at length.
899. Now, I would like to ask You a question.
900. For, lo: You are a visitor to our land and I am curious in regard to Nasarean beliefs.”901. Yahshua replied, “I am happy to answer your questions.”
902. The yogi said, “When You answer, please use Nasarean terms, even Your own names of Deity; for, lo: I am not too old to learn new things.”
903. The Yogi asked Yahshua: “What is the first question that a spiritual seeker should ask?”904. Yahshua replied, “That would depend on the seeker and whether or not he had yet experienced The First Great Realization, which is ‘I Am’.
905. When one experiences ‘I Am’, one can begin serious spiritual work.
906. The First Great Realization is the realization of Self as spirit.
907. Spirit is ‘I Am’.
908. ‘I Am’ is Yah within, a spark of the Great Flame of Yah.909. “Behold, until one knows oneself as ‘I Am’, one is lost and without a true home.
910. Wherefore, a good first question to be asked by a seeker is ‘Who am I?’
911. The first tapas given to seekers should be those that induce the experience of ‘I Am’.”912. The old yogi replied, “Please continue to discourse on the topic of great realizations.
913. What realizations follow the first?”914. Yahshua replied,“The Second Great Realization is: ‘Consciousness is fluid, not frozen; it rises and falls, expands and contracts.’
915. This is the realization that our level of consciousness is not frozen on The Ladder of Consciousness.
916. That realization leads directly to The Third Great Realization, which is: ‘Our level of consciousness rises or falls not by chance, but according to Universal Law’.
917. We realize that what we put out, we get back: as we sow, so shall we reap.918. “After The Third Great Realization, one may make The Great Decision.
919. Behold: The Great Decision is the decision to bring one’s life into ever greater harmony with Universal Law.
920. At this point, one should study various spiritual traditions and sacred texts, looking for a path that best teaches harmony with the Way.
921. Having found a path that speaks to you, dedicate yourself to that path.
922. This choice of a path is called, The Great Affiliation.
923. By this choice we bond with a spiritual path, joining others in a spiritual fellowship based on that shared path.
924. Enter your spiritual fellowship on your knees, in great humility, offering your service without hidden motives and with no strings attached.
Each of you (my readers) that are diligent students and thus read that entire excerpt can now answer this question: Which seven consecutive verses above most obviously provide helpful information in regard to how to determine which ‘spiritual tradition’, which ‘path’, which ‘way’, which ‘yoga system’, is the right one for you?
In my view, the answer to the question I just asked is: verses 918-924. And if I ask you: Which two verses (consecutive) of those seven (verses 918-924) provide a specific method to help answer that same ‘path’ question, what is your answer?
My own answer is: verses 920-921; they read:
920. At this point, one should study various spiritual traditions and sacred texts, looking for a path that best teaches harmony with the Way.
921. Having found a path that speaks to you, dedicate yourself to that path.
In other words, once a person has decided to dedicate himself/herself to the spiritual path, that person is advised to study various spiritual paths/religions until he/she finds one that feels like the right fit. Once you have found a path that you sincerely feel called to follow, Yahshua advises that you fully dedicate yourself to it; in verse 922 he calls this The Great Affiliation:
922. This choice of a path is called, The Great Affiliation.
923. By this choice we bond with a spiritual path, joining others in a spiritual fellowship based on that shared path.
Verse 924 makes clear exactly how we should enter into that chosen spiritual fellowship:
924. Enter your spiritual fellowship on your knees, in great humility, offering your service without hidden motives and with no strings attached.
Although it was in the last seven verses of that excerpt from Yahshua’s dialogue with the elderly Hindu yogi that we found the answers related to ‘The Great Affiliation’, the earlier verses made clear that the process begins with becoming a sincere spiritual seeker, which often is accompanied by asking a specific question:
909. “Behold, until one knows oneself as ‘I Am’, one is lost and without a true home.
910. Wherefore, a good first question to be asked by a seeker is ‘Who am I?’
The first three of the Seven Great Spiritual Realizations are:
1) THE FIRST GREAT REALIZATION is the realization of Self as spirit; Spirit is I Am; this realization is linked to answering the question ‘Who am I?’ and is also called ‘The I AM Realization’.
2) THE SECOND GREAT REALIZATION is: Consciousness is fluid, not frozen; it rises and falls, expands and contracts; this is the realization that our level of consciousness is not frozen on The Ladder of Consciousness and leads, upon self-observation, to the third realization.
3) THE THIRD GREAT REALIZATION is: Our level of consciousness rises or falls not by chance, but according to Universal Law; we realize that what we put out, we get back: as we sow, so shall we reap; we notice, by observing the fluctuations in our level of consciousness, that the elevations and dips in that level are linked to our behavior, are linked to our degree of harmony with the laws of the universe; are liked to our thoughts, words, and deeds.
Although readers of my book, Magdalene and Essene Jesus: A Cosmic Love Story, are already familiar with my own account of answering that key question, I choose to also share that story here because it fits so perfectly. It is an example of the ‘I Am Realization’, number one on the list above.
I Meet My Essene Yoga Teacher: The First Sweat Lodge Ritual: ‘I AM!’
Though we might not be aware of it, we are perpetually engaged in the process of spiritual training. The entire universe is a cosmic school system for the training of souls, and even our bad experiences contain spiritual lessons. But there is a special type of spiritual training called, Intentional Spiritual Training. Intentional Spiritual Training occurs when we are aware of the fact that we are being trained, and choose to participate consciously in that training. When a being makes the decision to participate consciously in his or her spiritual training, that being is said to be “on the spiritual path.”
My intentional spiritual training began when I was seventeen. One night, I was camping in the mountains behind my home. Instead of sleep, for much of the night I lay awake contemplating the seemingly infinite canopy of luminous stars, awestruck. Within myself, I exclaimed: “What an incredibly vast universe!” As I lay there in rapture, many profound questions of philosophic and religious significance impinged upon my consciousness. The chief question, the one that most thoroughly occupied my consciousness, was: “Who am I?” I pondered that question for several hours; I was unable to satisfactorily answer it. Was I a soul or just a body with a brain? In prayer, I asked Jesus (the name I knew him by) to help me answer that question, and then I fell asleep. The very next day, Jesus sent someone who helped me discover the answer to that question. Jesus sent the holy one destined to train me for my life work.
I met my teacher on the freeway. I was driving my car, and I saw him sitting in the lotus posture (a meditation posture) on the side of the freeway ramp. He did not have his thumb out but I assumed that he was hitchhiking. At this point in my life, I had never picked up a hitchhiker; I was afraid to, due to prudent parental warnings. But something about this particular hitchhiker seemed different. He seemed safe. His eyes were soft and gentle, and on the front of his white tunic were the words: “BE KIND TO ANIMALS, DON’T EAT THEM!” I figured that an old man who would not hurt an animal, would not hurt me. I pulled over.
The hitchhiker climbed into my car. He said, “Thanks, Brother!” The way he spoke the word “Brother”, I knew he actually meant it. I asked, “If you were hitchhiking, why did you not have your thumb out?” His answer seemed rather mysterious: “Because I was waiting for you!”
It was obvious that this man was some sort of sage. His white beard nearly reached his waist, prayer beads hung from his neck, and in his hands he cradled a spiritual book as if it were a precious jewel. But it was not the long beard, prayer beads, nor spiritual book that caused me to conclude that this man was a sage. It was his aura of holiness. He actually radiated peace! He had a ‘glow’ about him. You have seen those old paintings of saints with golden halos around their heads. Those halos are not only symbolic of holiness; they are the spiritual light – the nimbus – that radiates from such saints. As I looked at this holy hitchhiker, I sensed a subtle light emanating from him.
I asked, “Where should I drop you off?” He replied, “I am going to a vegetarian restaurant in El Cajon.” I was seventeen at the time, and not yet a vegetarian. And so I asked him, “Does vegetarian food taste good?” He laughed a deep belly-laugh, then said: “It tastes much better than the carcass of a murdered cow!” He issued an invitation: “Come to the restaurant with me and I will buy you lunch. You can judge the taste of vegetarian food for yourself.” Pleased at the prospect of continuing our conversation, I said: “Sure!”
For lunch I ordered a vegetarian version of a hamburger, a grain-patty called a ‘Sunburger’. And I had to admit: It did taste better than the body of a dead cow! But even better than the food was the conversation: every word this man spoke had the proverbial ring of truth! I asked him about the spiritual book he was carrying. He said, “It is an ancient manuscript that includes many teachings of Jesus that have long been suppressed by his enemies.” And then I remembered the words of prophecy that Jesus had spoken to me when I was eight and had a mystical experience; he told me:
“You shall do a special work for me. Indeed, you will be a bright sun by which my true teachings shall be illuminated. You will cast light on teachings of mine long suppressed by the merchants of death….
“But first you must be trained: When the time is right, I will send a holy one to train you. You will know him when you see him: The eyes are the windows of the soul, and his eyes will reveal a gentle soul. He will radiate peace.”
I suddenly realized that I was eating lunch with the holy one sent by Jesus to train me to reveal his long-suppressed teachings. I asked him, “What teachings of Jesus were suppressed by his enemies?” He smiled and said, “Three of the chief doctrines of Jesus that have been suppressed by his enemies are vegetarianism, reincarnation, and the feminine aspect of God. The whole list of suppressed teachings is much longer.”
He was very elderly so I doubted that he still had any sort of job, but I wondered what had been his life path. So, I asked: “What is your occupation?” He said that he still earned a few dollars doing carpentry, but that was not his true occupation. When he told me his true occupation, I thought he was joking; he said: “I help people find the way home.” Later that day, I learned that he was not joking!
His birth name was Thomas, but his initiatic name was Malachi. His background was as follows. He was born in America to Lebanese parents. They lived for some years in the Midwest, and then moved to the east coast, always according to his father’s employment. His father was an engineer in the early American oil industry. When Thomas was in his teens, his family moved to Egypt because his father had taken a lucrative job there. Thomas spent most of the remainder of his life in the Middle East. Most of those years he lived in Alexandria, Egypt, where he became a member of an Alexandrian branch of Nasarean Essenes (an underground religion), but he also spent considerable time in Baghdad, a city in Iraq, since that is where the head teacher of that order lived. The Nasarean religion was ‘underground’ in both Egypt and Iraq, as both the Muslim majority of the population and the mainstream-Christian minority of those countries have for many centuries murdered and persecuted Nasareans. Thomas was in his late teens when he became a student of this Nasarean Religion of the Essene Way.
Though, for short, we refer to members of the spiritual order of my teacher, Thomas (a.k.a. ‘Malachi’), and his teacher (Abdul a.k.a. ‘Abdiel’) as ‘Nasarean Essenes’, the proper full name of that religion is: The Nasarean Religion of the Essene Way. The name of the religion is Nasarean (raise up/ascend), the way of the religion is Essene (healing way/healer).
The birth name of Thomas’ Nasarean teacher was Abdul, but his students called him by his initiatic name: Abdiel. Thomas was given the initiatic name Malachi by Abdiel, and studied with him for many decades. Abdiel was a member of an underground (i.e. ‘hidden’), still-surviving sect of the Nasarean Religion of the Essene Way. That religion has existed from before the time of Jesus, and has many times been persecuted by worldly authorities. Because of that long history of being persecuted, the Nasarean Essenes came to maintain strict secrecy, which is what is meant by the term ‘underground religion’. This religion – which, since the incarnation of Jesus, can accurately be called Nasarean Christianity – has preserved through the ages various Nasarean scriptures, as well as the authentic apostolic practices and initiatory rites of the Nasarean Religion of the Essene Way.
The fact that my teacher, Thomas of Alexandria, was given the initiatic name Malachi, is significant. In Hebrew, Malachi means My Messenger. And that is exactly what Malachi considered himself to be: the first Nasarean messenger sent to America. For, before dropping his body, Abdiel gave Malachi (who was by then quite elderly himself) a mission: He was to return to the land of his birth – America – and train a young disciple to found an above-ground, semi-public outlet for the teachings of the underground Nasarean Religion of the Essene Way. That young disciple – who turned out to be me (though I am no longer young!) – would be baptized into the living stream of Nasarean apostolic succession.
Malachi arrived in the United States in the late 1960’s, some years after the passing of his teacher. He carried with him not only the teachings and traditions of the Nasarean Religion of the Essene Way, but also copies of ancient Nasarean scrolls.
In the mountains east of San Diego, Malachi found an old abandoned hotel that had been condemned. It was condemned because the buildings were rotted, collapsing, and thus dangerous. The land was owned by an out of state real estate corporation. Malachi began camping on the land, an illegal ‘squatter’. He took the old hotel apart piece-by-piece, and then built a cabin. Likewise piece-by-piece, he dismantled with a sledgehammer the old, cracked parking lot, and planted beautiful gardens in the newly exposed soil. He was old but still strong. He turned what had been an ugly junkyard into a paradise of natural beauty.
The day I met him he had been hitchhiking into town to eat at his favorite vegetarian restaurant. And now, here I sat with him, enjoying my first vegetarian burger! He smiled as he listed for me the many names he was called by various hippy friends. Each of the names seemed to fit him perfectly. I told him that the hippies were pretty good at choosing names! He laughed. (I used to call him by the hippy names – after all, I was a young hippy in the school year of 1975/76. I was seventeen years old, with long hair and a ‘back-to-nature’ philosophy when we met. But over the years, as I came to realize the spiritual significance of the name given to him by Abdiel, I settled on calling him Malachi. For, indeed, Malachi was the Messenger from the underground Nasarean religion to modern America. By passing to a young American – me – the teachings given to him by Abdiel, Malachi served literally and effectively as Abdiel’s ‘messenger’ to America.)
The First Sweat Lodge Ceremony: “I AM!”
After lunch, I accepted Malachi’s invitation to visit his home. He lived in a cabin in the mountains east of San Diego. The land he lived on was the closest thing to the Garden of Eden imaginable. There were vegetable patches in the shapes of various spiritual symbols, oriental rock gardens, fruit trees, flowers in bloom everywhere, and a beautiful stream of bubbling water. The wild rabbits and birds that lived on this land had no fear of Malachi: The rabbits bounced happily around his feet; the birds greeted him with sweet songs. Nothing I write can adequately describe the Eden-like atmosphere that surrounded Malachi’s cabin. Truly, it was beyond words!
Behind his cabin the holy man had built a sweat lodge out of wood and clay. After an afternoon spent learning the rudiments of yoga, I experienced my first sweat lodge ceremony. You will recall that the night before, while camping, I had asked the question: “Who am I?” During this sweat lodge ceremony, I discovered the answer to that question.
We entered the lodge, spoke some words of prayer, and then sat in silent meditation. From time to time a question would come to mind and disturb my meditation. Each time, the holy man answered the question, before I verbalized it. It seemed that he could read my thoughts! After our silent meditation, we began to chant mantras. Mantras are sounds or words of spiritual significance, sound vibrations of great spiritual efficacy or words of transcendental import. After a long period of chanting the sacred mantra ‘Om’, the holy man asked me a question:
“Who are you?”
“David”, I replied. [‘Day’ is a short nickname for my birth name ‘David’]
“Who are you?” he repeated.
“A high school student”, I answered.
“Who are you?” again he asked.
“An American.”
“Who are you?” he persisted.
“A body with a brain.”
“Who are you?” he asked yet again.
“The brain.”
“Who are you?” he demanded.
All of a sudden, I felt like a heavy weight had been lifted from me. All of my ‘veils’ were lifted: I was not “David”; that was just a name I wore. I was not “high school student”; that was my occupation but it was not my basic self. “American” was not my basic self. “Body” was not my basic self. “Brain” was not my basic self; I have a brain to use, but the very fact that “I” am using the brain indicates that there is an “I” that is not the brain. Only one thing was left. Only “I” was left. And that “I” was pure awareness, pure spirit.
I looked into the eyes of the holy man and said, “I AM”. Malachi smiled and said, “Welcome home!” He then said, “Class is dismissed.” I had not even realized I was in class! And in regard to the words “Welcome Home”, I now understood what he had meant at the restaurant when he described his true occupation as helping people “find the way home.” Having experienced myself as ‘I AM’, I had found my true home.
In the Bible, God tells Moses: “I AM the I AM….Go to the people of Israel and tell them I AM has sent you.” The Bible also informs us that, “God is Spirit”. Thus, I AM is Spirit, the Spiritual Self. And the Bible makes clear that we are each an embryonic duplicate of what God is, that we were “created in the image and likeness” of God. Thus, each of us is a spark of the eternal flame of I AM, a spark of God. We are each a drop of the infinite ocean of I AM.
You do not have a Spirit that will live on after you die. Rather, you are a Spirit that will live on after you drop your current body. This is a crucial distinction: You do not have a Spirit; you are a Spirit. In the same way that you wear clothes but are not the clothes, you also wear a body but are not the body. The body is the house you live in, but you are not the house. In the words of the Bible: “The body is the temple of the Spirit.” Always remember: You do not have a Spirit; you are a Spirit.
That first sweat lodge ceremony was a major turning point in my life. Having experienced myself as a spark of spiritual I AM, I chose to become a conscious participant in my spiritual development. I began Intentional Spiritual Training. I dedicated my life to spiritual practice. I became a student of, and eventually a teacher of, the particular spiritual ‘path’ of ESSENE YOGA, the spiritual practice of the Nasarean Religion of The Essene Way.
Recall that in our previous excerpt in which Yahshua refers to ‘Seven Great Spiritual Realizations’, we have so far studied the first three and will, as this article progresses, also study the other four. By way of reminder, those first three are as follows.
1) THE FIRST GREAT REALIZATION is the realization of Self as spirit; Spirit is I Am; this realization is linked to answering the question ‘Who am I?’ and is also called ‘The I AM Realization’.
2) THE SECOND GREAT REALIZATION is:
Consciousness is fluid, not frozen; it rises and falls, expands and contracts; this is the realization that our level of consciousness is not frozen on The Ladder of Consciousness and leads, upon self-observation, to the third realization.
3) THE THIRD GREAT REALIZATION is: Our level of consciousness rises or falls not by chance, but according to Universal Law; we realize that what we put out, we get back: as we sow, so shall we reap; we notice, by observing the fluctuations in our level of consciousness, that the elevations and dips in that level are linked to our behavior, are linked to our degree of harmony with the laws of the universe; are liked to our thoughts, words, and deeds.
We learned that after THE THIRD GREAT REALIZATION, we may make THE GREAT DECISION: the decision to bring one’s life into ever greater harmony with Universal Law. Typically, that is followed by a period of general spiritual study and investigation of various spiritual paths that, in turn, is followed by THE GREAT AFFILIATION, the choice of a particular path, a particular system of yoga that we feel called to focus on, even if we remain – as we should – lifelong students of universal spirituality.
In regard to that last point, there are two extremes to avoid: One extreme is to be like the typical ‘New-Ager’, flitting from one path to another, never focusing on any one spiritual path long enough to experience its potential benefits. The other extreme is that of the typical mainstream religious person: whatever religion they are born into – the religion of their parents – is automatically accepted and joined without ever investigating the other world religions.
Having examined those first three of The Seven Great Realizations, now we will read the rest of that dialogue between Yahshua and the elderly Hindu yogi and begin our study of the next four. In the verses below, Yahshua is the speaker; we pick up right where we left off:
925. “At any time after The First Great Realization, one may experience the fourth.
926. The Fourth Great Realization is called, ‘We Are’.
927. Behold: Once one knows ‘I Am’, let him discover ‘We Are.’
928. For, lo: there are countless sentient Beings in Yah, all deserving respect.
929. One who affirms ‘I Am’ but not ‘We Are’ is experienced by others as egotistical.
930. It is good to recognize Yah within ourselves, but we must also recognize Yah within others.931. “Only after consistently acting on The Great Decision for some time, and thus rising on The Ladder of Consciousness, will one truly know God and Goddess.
932. Until then, one has but a collection of opinions and beliefs, some true, some false.
933. While no one can know the entirety of God and Goddess, one who experiences the Mahazeh Gedolah, the Great Revelation, is called God Realized.
934. Whenever one knows Jah-Jah and Elohim by virtue of the direct experience of the Mahazeh Gedolah, one has attained The Fifth Great Realization.
935. That realization is called, ‘God Realization’, and leads directly to The Sixth Great Realization.936. “The Sixth Great Realization is called ‘The Revelation of Divine Grace.’
937. This is the realization of The Gracious Gift, the gift of being, wherein we realize that we came into being as an act of grace, according to The Creative Wish.
938. Though we number this the sixth realization, it occurs whenever it occurs, not necessarily according to any listed sequence.
939. It is one thing to intellectually affirm the sixth realization, and quite another to actually experience it.
940. Nobody experiences the Mahazeh Gedolah without truly realizing The Gracious Gift.941. “With The Revelation of Divine Grace comes the experience of The Great Humility.
942. At the time of The Great Humility, one dedicates oneself fully as a servant of Jah-Jah and Elohim in a new and powerful way, not due to hope for eternal life, yea, and not to earn eternal life, but in joyous response to The Gracious Gift that is eternal life.
943. Now one is motivated by pure love for the Creator in the heavenly bliss of The Great Appreciation.
944. Now one may join in the heavenly chorus that is the Creative Enchantment, which is the ever ongoing Creative Wish, the mantra of YHWH: ‘Let Being expand, now in forever, amen!’
945. And this great love for Yah gives birth to a great love for the creation of Yah, yea, and a desire to serve Yah by serving all of creation.
946. And if we act on that love, we will experience The Seventh Great Realization.
947. “Behold: The Seventh Great Realization is called ‘Realization of our True Work.’
948. That ‘Work’ is linked with The Mantra of the Christ Family, also called The Healing Enchantment, which is: ‘Let there be ever-expanding well-being for all Beings in the highest Love, now in forever, amen!’
949. This realization is The Magic Key to the Highest Heaven.
950. These seven realizations are not the only realizations of significance, and they may unfold in various sequences, though the above is typical.”
Recall that, in our first excerpt from this dialogue between Yahshua and the elderly yogi, we learned that The First Great Realization is the realization of Self as spirit, and learned that Spirit is I Am. Recall that this first realization is linked to answering the question ‘Who am I?’ and is also called ‘The I AM Realization’. Now, our second excerpt from that dialogue has begun with The Fourth Great Realization which, quite clearly, is intimately related to that first realization:
925. “At any time after The First Great Realization, one may experience the fourth.
926. The Fourth Great Realization is called, ‘We Are’.
927. Behold: Once one knows ‘I Am’, let him discover ‘We Are.’
928. For, lo: there are countless sentient Beings in Yah, all deserving respect.
929. One who affirms ‘I Am’ but not ‘We Are’ is experienced by others as egotistical.
930. It is good to recognize Yah within ourselves, but we must also recognize Yah within others.”
Just as I did with The I Am Realization, I will share an account of my own experience of The ‘We Are’ Realization. As I will explain, it took place not long after that first sweat lodge ritual.
The Second Sweat Lodge Ritual: Sister Bug and Brother Wino: ‘We Are!’
During my first sweat lodge ceremony with the old sage, I learned a profound truth: I Am a Spark of Spiritual IAM! Our second sweat lodge ceremony led directly to a related, very significant, second spiritual realization: WE ARE! And that ‘we’ is inclusive of even non-human beings, as you will learn shortly when introduced to a ladybug I once met! All beings are sparks of spiritual ‘I AM’. All beings – even bugs and lizards and winos – are our Brothers and Sisters in I AM.
If the Key Realization of the first sweat lodge ritual can be called, ‘The I AM Realization’, we can call the Key Realization of the second sweat lodge ceremony – which I am about to describe – ‘The We Are Realization’.
A couple of days after that first sweat lodge ceremony, I eagerly returned to the Eden-like organic gardens of Malachi. Remember, I was a seventeen-year-old high school student and lived at home with my parents, a long but doable walk or very short drive from Malachi’s organic garden paradise. (My mom was an avid organic gardener and so came to have a good connection with Malachi based on that shared interest; as the seasons became years, my mom and Malachi traded garden wisdom that benefited each.) Like my first visit, on my second visit to Malachi’s ‘Garden of Peace’, again he invited me to participate in a sacred sweat lodge ritual.
Inside the mud and wood sweat lodge, we prayed potent prayers, chanted cosmic chants, and sat in sacred silence. And then he asked me a question. Whereas in the first sweat lodge ceremony he had asked me, “Who are you?”, this time the question was slightly different. This time he looked deeply into my eyes and asked, “Who am I?” Well, the answer was not real difficult. The reverence I already felt for this sage caused the answer to flow freely from my heart: “Like me, you are a spark of God, a spark of spiritual I AM.”
“Good”, he replied, “you are centered. Stay centered as you follow me out of the sweat lodge.” I followed Malachi out of the sweat lodge and, after briefly bathing our sweaty bodies in the cool, crystal-clear mountain creek behind the lodge, we again entered the lodge. We repeated that cycle for a total of three ‘rounds’.
Now, at this point in our story, the three rounds had concluded and Malachi had instructed me to ‘stay centered’ as we exited the sweat lodge, rinsed, and then walked to a circular vegetable patch.
Attempting to remain centered as Malachi had advised, I followed him to the edge of a vegetable garden patch that was shaped like a circle. (As previously mentioned, the 35 Eden-like acres tended by Malachi had numerous vegetable and flower patches, many of them in the forms of various spiritual symbols and geometric shapes: a flower patch shaped like the Taoist yin-yang symbol; a patch of corn shaped like the Christian cross; triangular patches; etc.)
As we stood at the low archway entrance to the garden patch shaped like a circle, Malachi, with a voice very reverent, said: “This garden is the universe in microcosm; enter it with reverence.” And with reverence sincere, I entered as he waited. To do so, I had to bend down low; for the low archway entrance would permit only one with a bent-at-the-waist position that evokes a sense of humility to enter the circular garden.
As I stepped through the entrance into the circle, I nearly stumbled over a strangely placed –or strategically placed – rock in the path but regained my balance in I AM/We Are. Malachi remarked, “Good, you are still centered; you are in balance.”
But then he did something that almost caused me to lose my centeredness! Malachi pointed at a lizard sunbathing in lazy splendor on a warm rock and asked, “Who is he?”
Truly, I almost lost my center; but only almost. I exclaimed: “Well, he is certainly wearing a different body-type than myself! Yet even so he is my brother in I AM; he is a spark of God, a spark of spiritual I AM, as are you, as I AM!” I did not merely offer that answer because I thought it was the answer my teacher wanted to hear; rather, as I gazed at Brother Lizard with the eye of my spiritual center, I truly did recognize the spark of life and light, the spark of spiritual I AM, even within this scale-clad reptile!
Then, with a smile that declared his amusement, Malachi pointed at a red ladybug perched on a green leaf and asked, “Who is she?” The answer was now quite obvious, yet still profound: “She is my sister in spiritual I AM! Sister Ladybug, like myself and yourself, and like the lizard, is a spark of spiritual I AM housed in a body, a bug body!” Malachi said, “Good! You are centered!”
So far, I had made great progress: I had recognized myself as a spark of God but had also transcended myself enough to recognize my teacher as being equally a spark of God, even recognized a lizard and a bug as manifestations of spiritual I AM. But the hard part of the lesson for this day had not yet presented itself! I will now describe that hard part.
A moment after my recognition of the ladybug as my sister, Malachi declared: “Now we will get into your car; we are going for a drive.” As we climbed into the car, he said: “Drive to the skid-row section of downtown San Diego, down to Horton Plaza.” As I absorbed his words, my knees knocked, stomach quaked, and my mind rebelled… but I managed to keep my mouth shut!
I drove down the dirt driveway that led off the mountain and away from Malachi’s garden toward the skid-row section of downtown San Diego. We were heading to the one place in the county that I always had tried to avoid: the hell-pit known as “skid-row”. (In subsequent years, the city of San Diego redeveloped much of this area and cleaned it up; in the 1970’s, it was pretty bad.)
The dictionary defines “skid-row” as “a district of cheap saloons frequented by vagrants and alcoholics.” That is accurate, but too skimpy on details! Such details as: the disease-laden prostitutes unable to compete for business in better parts of town; the gun-carrying muggers lurking in nearly every shadow late at night and often in broad daylight; the newly-tattooed teenage sailors that come looking for the cheap prostitutes but are very likely to also meet the muggers; the emaciated heroin addicts that make no attempt to conceal themselves as they pierce with deadly-dirty needles what little flesh remains stretched over their bones; and, of course, an abundance of alcoholic ‘wino’ bums like those that grace similar downtowns. Such were the mental images that I contemplated during the one hour drive down the mountain to skid-row.
No alarm bell rings in our head to warn us when we lose our center! Thus, when we lose that place of inward ‘centeredness’, we usually are not aware that we have lost it. I am referring, of course, to beginners on the yogic path. Fortunately, as we progress on the spiritual path, we become more stabilized in our spiritual center: We lose it much less often, are quickly aware when we do lose it, and know exactly what to do to regain it. At that stage of spiritual progress, we are said to be “living at the level of the soul”.
It is possible to reach a level of spiritual development at which we never lose our center, or at least very rarely. Jesus was inwardly centered even while being nailed to a cross! How is that for not losing your center in an intense situation? But in the story at hand, I was seventeen and only just beginning my intentional spiritual training. And though I had been centered while in Malachi’s beautiful garden, I had lost that center the moment he told me to drive to skid-row. I was now so thoroughly engaged in the process of running previously recorded mental ‘fear-tapes’ that I was not aware I had lost my center.
As we entered the skid-row district, my fearful eyes searched the streets for a relatively safe place to park. Malachi’s peaceful eyes smiled playfully as he pointed to a relatively unsafe place – directly in front of a biker bar – and said, “Park there.”
I pulled up and parked beside a row of Harley Davidson “choppers”. Standing on the sidewalk near my parking place were several burly bikers, their greasy Levi jackets proudly adorned with the logo of their club: “Hell’s Angels”.
The biggest of the bunch truly looked like a red demon: His stringy red hair was bound by a red bandanna with the word “DEATH” printed on it; His rust-red beard was shaped into the type of goatee worn by Hollywood movie versions of the Devil. His cruel eyes were bloodshot red. And, to top it all off, each of his red-freckled arms (his Levi jacket had the sleeves cut off at the shoulders to reveal the arms) sported a devil tattoo. The biker’s right arm was tattooed with a dagger under which were the words, “SATAN RULES!” His left arm featured an upside down version of the Christian cross with a devil-figure standing atop of it.
I sat very still and stared at this devilish biker for several silent moments. Malachi’s compassionate yet strong voice interrupted my reverie: “Follow me.” I almost launched a protest but instead bit my tongue and decided to act brave. As I swung open the car door my mind was full of thoughts about trying to look as rough and tough, as lean and mean, as dangerous as those bikers!
Full to the brim with such false bravado, I strode menacingly from the car… and promptly tripped over my own foot!
I fell flat on my face on the sidewalk, directly in front of the black-booted feet of the big red biker. So much for my attempt to look macho! While I sheepishly picked myself up, the bikers had probably their biggest laugh of the day. My bruised ego hurt more than my bruised knee.
As I followed Malachi down the sidewalk, I asked, “Why did you want to come here?” He replied, “I am here to visit some relatives.” I silently marveled that this sagely man could have relatives residing in such a sick environment. The worst people in San Diego County lived here. Such were my un-centered thoughts as we walked down the sidewalk of this filthy street.
I noticed that the people we passed seemed to have dead eyes. And dead skin. The buildings were equally corpse-like. Most of the glass windows were long since broken and replaced by boards and jail-like metal bars.
Across the street, strutting her skinny stuff, was an obvious prostitute. Her short red skirt revealed the boniest, amphetamine-emaciated legs I had ever seen. As I gazed upon her with obvious disgust in my eyes, Malachi asked, “Who is she?” I replied, “She is probably a prostitute. And she’s so skinny, she is probably a speed-addict, too.” We continued walking.
After a while, we came upon the most disgusting human being I had ever seen. He was sprawled across the sidewalk, face down, passed out. An empty gallon-size bottle of cheap wine lay next to him. He was an old wino, an alcoholic bum. But not just a typical old wino bum, but the worst you can imagine: his tattered shirt was coated with vomit, some fresh, some old and hardened; his filthy trousers were torn in the seat, exposing his rump. Both rump and trousers were covered with feces. And the smell!!!
In the midst of all my negative thoughts was one positive (sort of!) affirmation: “Thank God, I am not this guy!” And then the bum rolled over onto his back, exposing his face. The evil biker at least had a semblance of power – albeit false power – but the wino epitomized only weakness. Truly, this bum was the poorest excuse for a human being that I had ever seen – or smelled! I wanted to step over him and walk away, fast.
But Malachi did not walk away. He pointed to the bum and asked, “Who is he?” I was about to say that this disgusting bum was exactly what he appeared to be: a disgusting bum; but then Malachi tapped me firmly on the forehead with a sagely finger, like a Zen master bopping a student with a bamboo wand. And I was again awake… I was again centered.
I looked upon the wino with new eyes. I said, “He is my brother in spiritual I AM. Like me, like you, like the lizard and ladybug, he is THAT which WE ARE. Certainly, he has not been living wisely, and clearly he is suffering the consequences. But he is still a spark of spiritual I AM. He is my brother.
Malachi smiled and said, “Welcome back! You are centered. You are home.” I replied, “How do I stay centered?” Malachi answered, “To be established in the Crown Chakra in a stable way – which is to ‘be centered’ – you must master yourself. Master yoga, and you master yourself.” He then said, “There is a detox center around the corner. We will take our brother there to get cleaned up and dried out. Then we will continue visiting relatives.”
Later that night we returned to the Eden-like atmosphere of Malachi’s home in the mountains. While he built a fire, I went to the garden to pick our dinner. I was very hungry. In fact, I had not had a single bite of food all day, as I had chosen to fast. As I picked the vegetables, I reflected on the lessons learned this day. It had been easy to acknowledge that my teacher is my brother in I AM. But to acknowledge my kinship with the prostitute and wino had been harder than acknowledging my kinship with a lizard and a ladybug!
When I returned to the cabin with our salad makings, Malachi was sitting in front of the fire with two books on his lap. He handed me one titled Light on the Path and said, “Sit and place your hand over the front cover of this book.” I did so. He said, “Say these words: ‘Jah-Jah, reveal to me that which is my lesson for this day. Let that revelation be my bread.’” I repeated the words. Malachi then said, “Now open the book with a certainty that whichever page you open to is the very page that Jah-Jah has selected for your lesson this day.” I opened the book randomly, and with the requested certainty. The page that looked me in the face was certainly appropriate for this day; it declared:
Do not fancy you can stand aside from the bad man or the foolish man, they are yourself…. Remember that the sin and shame of the world are your sin and shame; for you are a part of it; your karma is extricably interwoven with the great karma…. Therefore, remember that the soiled garment you shrink from touching may have been yours yesterday, may be yours tomorrow….
When you have found the beginning of the way the star of your soul will show its light; and by that light you will perceive how great is the darkness in which it burns…. Be not appalled and terrified by this sight; keep your eyes fixed on the small light and it will grow. But let the darkness within help you to understand the helplessness of those who have seen no light, whose souls are in profound gloom. Blame them not – shrink from them not, but try to lift a little of the heavy karma of the world; give your aid to the few strong hands that hold back the powers of darkness….
Having received this spiritual “bread”, I was too full to eat any salad. I sat by the fire while Malachi munched raw zucchini and romaine lettuce. Thus ended the day of my second sweat lodge ceremony with the elderly Nasarean Essene Master, the man that had become my yoga teacher. No, I had not enrolled in an ‘official’ yoga class, but I had entered a guru-disciple relationship with an Essene Yoga Master and was practicing being centered in the Spiritual Self while practicing compassionate kindness. That, my friends, is what I call PRACTICING YOGA.
The words I contemplated that night in bed were: WE ARE!
The attainment of The ‘WE ARE’ Realization makes possible a mature expression of the I AM Realization, an expression that honors the truth that all other beings are Sparks of God, not only ourselves or those of our species or those of our religion. It is the realization of the Universal One that some mystics call THE ALL, the inter-connected whole that is all-inclusive. You can mean the same thing when you say I AM, but only if your definition of ‘I’ includes THE ALL.
I am going to touch on other aspects of THE SEVEN GREAT REALIZATIONS that are pertinent to our topic and have not yet been fully treated. But first, let us drive home two important points: 1) Yahshua is not saying that these seven realizations always unfold in this exact sequence for each person (though they often do); and, 2) He is not saying that these seven are the only significant spiritual realizations. Recall verse number 950 from the dialogue between Yahshua and the Hindu yogi:
950. “These seven realizations are not the only realizations of significance, and they may unfold in various sequences, though the above is typical.”
Similarly, recall that Yahshua said in verse 925:
925. “At any time after The First Great Realization, one may experience the fourth.”
Recall that The First Great Realization is The I AM Realization, and The Fourth Great Realization is the intimately related ‘We Are’ Realization. In my own account of my first two sweat lodge experiences with my Essene Yoga teacher, Malachi, I experienced the first and fourth realizations back-to-back, with not many days between them. At that point, I had already been studying various spiritual paths and world religions from age fourteen to seventeen. I had even been studying yoga – from books – for a year or so before meeting Malachi the Nasarean and being introduced to Essene Yoga. But up until meeting Malachi, it was mostly ‘head knowledge’ (‘head knowledge’ is not a bad thing; having ‘head knowledge’ – information – about spiritual practices often precedes ‘putting it into practice’).
So, as you study and work with The Seven Great Realizations, the important thing is not that they unfold in any particular sequence, BUT THAT THEY UNFOLD!
Recall that: The Seven Great Realizations were given by Yahshua in response to a specific question from the elderly Hindu yogi; that question was: “What is the first question that a spiritual seeker should ask?” Yahshua’s answer began with a sort of preface; he said: “That would depend on the seeker and whether or not he had yet experienced The First Great Realization, which is ‘I Am’.” He then continued to answer, saying:
905. “When one experiences ‘I Am’, one can begin serious spiritual work.
906. The First Great Realization is the realization of Self as spirit.
907. Spirit is ‘I Am’.
908. ‘I Am’ is Yah within, a spark of the Great Flame of Yah.909. “Behold, until one knows oneself as ‘I Am’, one is lost and without a true home.
910. Wherefore, a good first question to be asked by a seeker is ‘Who am I?’
911. The first tapas given to seekers should be those that induce the experience of ‘I Am’.”
In the first of the two paragraphs of verses directly above – verses 905-908 – we learn four things, one thing per sentence: 1) We learn that serious spiritual work can begin once we have the I Am Realization; 2) We learn that what is meant by that term – the I Am Realization – is: REALIZATION OF SELF AS SPIRIT; 3) ‘Spirit is I AM’; and, 4) ‘I Am is a spark of Deity, a Spark of Yah.
So, if the ‘spiritual seeker’ referred to in Yahshua’s preface to his answer has already experienced himself/herself as SPIRIT, as a Spiritual Self, as a Spark of Yah, he or she can begin “serious spiritual work”, SERIOUS YOGA.
But what if the ‘spiritual seeker’ has not already realized himself/herself to be a Spiritual Self? Well, even then Yahshua has two rather serious yoga assignments/suggestions; they are revealed in verses 910 and 911 above:
910. Wherefore, a good first question to be asked by a seeker is ‘Who am I?’
911. The first tapas given to seekers should be those that induce the experience of ‘I Am’.”
In regard to verse 910, recall that I asked that question – Who am I? – the night before meeting my teacher. and subsequently being repeatedly asked the question “Who are you?” Recall that Malachi kept repeating the question “Who are you?” until I realized that I am a Spiritual Self. But we have not yet paid special attention to verse 911: “The first tapas given to seekers should be those that induce the experience of ‘I Am’.” WHAT IS A TAPA?
In his Sermon on Essene Yoga – that sermon appears as Chapter Sixty-One in The Holy Godspell [Nasarean New Testament] portion of The Holy Megillah: Nasarean Bible Of The Essene Way – Yahshua defines ‘tapa’ as follows:
260. “Tapa, literally means Heat but here implies Straightening by Fire and refers to practices – often austerities such as fasting or eating only uncooked foods or various acts of asceticism – that Train and Refine oneself by the purifying fire of self-discipline.
261. A Tapa is a temporary, occasional, extraordinary act that goes beyond your normal practice; otherwise it would not be experienced as ‘adding heat’ to the alchemical cauldron.
262. Thus, it is ‘Unrestrained’ in the sense that, consistently throughout your life, you occasionally, when appropriate, perform temporary acts of extraordinary asceticism.
263. Typically, most yogis perform their most ascetic tapas – such as fasting – in young adulthood, prior to marriage and the raising of children.
264. Even so, there are appropriate tapas for all ages and purposes.
265. For example, it is not generally appropriate for an elderly woman to fast from all food.
266. But if she notices that she has been engaging in gossip, it is appropriate that she choose to abstain from all non-essential speech for one day as a Tapa.267. “The purpose of the ‘heat’ of a Tapa is to render our ‘base metals’ pliable so as to be shaped into something beautiful, eventually to be transmuted into Spiritual Gold.”
Now that we know what a Tapa is, let us again consider verse 911 of the excerpt on ‘The Seven Great Realizations’. Yahshua said: “The first tapas given to seekers should be those that induce the experience of ‘I Am’.” So, if you are an Essene Yoga teacher like Yahshua was, and like Malachi was, and like I currently am, and a sincere spiritual seeker comes your way, you are advised to provide that seeker with tapas, teachings, questions, circumstances, etc. that are likely to induce – encourage, promote – the realization of oneself as Spirit. There are countless things that might induce that realization, and reading this article is one of them.
Having considered the word ‘Tapa’, let us consider the term ‘spiritual seeker’. In Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, ‘seeker’ is defined as follows:
Seeker, noun. 1. One who seeks; as inquirer; as a seeker of truth.
A “spiritual seeker’ seeks spiritual truth. You are likely familiar with that old adage, “He that seeks, will find.” At the time I met Malachi, I had already become a sincere spiritual seeker. I had already come to believe that I might be or have a Spirit/Soul, but did not absolutely know that I was a Spirit via the direct experience of that fact. Precisely because I was already a sincere seeker – and was ready for that direct experience – Malachi had a pretty easy job in ‘helping me find the way home’. That first sweat lodge ritual experience was enough to induce The ‘I AM’ Realization, and the second sweat lodge ritual – including the fieldtrip to downtown San Diego that followed it – was enough to induce The ‘We Are’ Realization. A yoga teacher might meet a seeker who takes many months or years of various tapas to experience those realizations; everyone is different. Everyone has had different amounts of previous preparation.
One reason that I was so ready to ‘find the way home’ – to experience myself as Spirit – was that, shortly before meeting Malachi, I had recently had two experiences that had intellectually convinced me that I might very well actually be a Spirit/Soul. Both of those experiences had to do with reincarnation. Both experiences – which I will now describe – were very convincing instances of people that I personally knew seemingly remembering past lives. The first story is related to my little brother, Steve.
Reincarnation And My Little Brother Steve
I was about fourteen at the time, and my little brother, Steve, was only three years old. I was standing in the kitchen; little Steve sat at the kitchen table. Our mom had just come home from the store with a bottle of Cod Liver Oil (my family was not vegetarian), a product she had never before purchased, having heard from a neighbor that it was good for small children. Cod Liver Oil – which is from the liver of a fish – tastes terrible!
My mom approached three-year-old Steve and tried to give him a spoonful of Cod Liver Oil; he pushed the spoon away and said: “My other mom used to make me take that stuff and it tastes yucky!”
My mom was stunned. She asked little Steve: “What other mom?” He said: “The mom I had when I lived in another body.”
My mom asked: “When you had another mom and another body where was I?” I watched as my three-year-old brother told our mom: “You were just a little girl when I was a man in another body.”
That conversation was only the first in a series of similar episodes that stretched over a several year period in which my little brother spoke in great detail about his past life. He gave all sorts of specific details – including names of cities in Mexico and names of people, which my parents were able to track down and confirm. In a nutshell, his previous incarnation had gone as follows.
In his previous life, little Steve had been born in Mexico, near the border with Texas. (My family lived in California and little Steve had never been to
Texas.) He said that when he had been a baby in Mexico, his parents, needing work, took him with them and crossed the border into Texas; there, his parents found work as farm laborers. Thinking that it would be best for their small boy to grow up using English – for they had no intention of returning to Mexico – they only spoke English to him and made a rule that, if he were to speak at home, he must use English. While his parents meant well, that rule ended up leading to problems for him when his parents were killed while riding in the back of an old-time pickup truck that crashed and rolled. He was not in the truck – his parents had been on the way to work – and, having no relatives in America, he was sent to live with an uncle back in Mexico.
Steve – who in this incarnation was named Jose – was age nine at the time of his return to Mexico. He told us that his life from that time on became very hard. Especially, he had a hard time in the Mexican school. He described the school as having just one classroom with children of various ages. Because his parents had forbidden him to speak Spanish while living in Texas for the first nine years of his life, he was not very fluent in Spanish and did poorly in school. The other kids teased and tormented him. All except one little girl who, living near his uncle, regularly walked home from school with him.
I told you that my little brother had described his past life not all at once at one sitting, but over a several-year period beginning when he was three. My parents never tried to force Steve to talk about his past life; but whenever he started talking about it on his own, my mom would ask him questions and he responded with very detailed answers. And pretty soon we noticed something; almost every time he started talking about his past life, it was when he was coloring or doing some sort of artwork at the kitchen table. There was something about doing artwork that would cause him to slip into this other state of consciousness and spontaneously begin speaking about his past life. Over this several-year period – between the ages of three and six – he did this about ten times. But then something happened – something rather strange – that put an end to it. From that moment on, he never spoke about his past life again. I will now describe what happened.
Six years old, Steve was at the kitchen table coloring with crayons. As had happened before, he began to talk about his past life. My mom, mildly without pressuring him, asked several questions.
MOM: “Did you stay living in Mexico the rest of your life after finishing school?”
STEVE: “No; when I was a grown man, I moved back to Texas.”
MOM: “Did you ever go back to Mexico to visit?”
STEVE: “Once, when I was an old man with white hair, I went to visit but it was not very fun. The house I used to live in was torn down and so wasn’t there anymore. The school was not there anymore. And none of the people I knew lived there anymore. So, it was a short visit and then I came back to Texas.”
And then my Mom asked a question that caused little Steve to explode in rage! It seemed like an innocent question, but it obviously pushed some sort of button within Steve. Here follows that question, the last question she ever asked on the topic of his past life.
MOM: “Did you ever get married?”
When she asked that question, Steve clenched his fist and broke the crayon he had been holding. Then the blood veins bulged out on his neck and forehead, and he looked up at my Mom with rage in his eyes and shouted the following last comment on that lifetime:
STEVE: “No, I never got married and don’t you ever ask me that again!”
Steve never spoke about his past life again.
However, having witnessed all of this, I began to research reincarnation while in my teens, and that led directly to my investigation of eastern religions, yoga, and mystical Christianity.
It seemed to our family that Steve must have had some sort of traumatic experience in that life that got stimulated by my mom’s question. We could only speculate on what that ‘something’ might have been. Had he been a poor, migrant farm worker who never earned enough to have a home and support a wife and family? Or had he asked someone to marry him and got turned down? Perhaps he had been married and suffered a painful divorce.
These sorts of unresolved, painful, past life experiences – of which we probably all have some – can be positively processed and healed by certain types of past life regression, though much of what passes for past life regression is bogus or even dangerous. The only wise reason for doing past life regression is to heal ourselves of past traumatic experiences that are negatively impacting our current life. WE SHOULD NEVER PARTICIPATE – as therapist or patient – IN PAST LIFE REGRESSION SESSIONS THAT ARE DONE SIMPLY FOR KICKS OR TO SATISFY CURIOSITY.
That warning given, I will now share an example of a friend of mine, Kurt, that did receive healing of a past life, painful trauma that was bothering him in this lifetime by receiving past life regression therapy. This story dates back to just a little before my first meeting with Malachi, and, along with the account I just shared about my brother, Steve, is likely linked to my having been so ready to acknowledge myself as a Spirit/Soul in that first sweat lodge experience.
Kurt And Past Life Regression
Shortly after I got my driver’s license at age sixteen, I began attending big rock and roll concerts with my teenage friends. At two of those concerts, my friend Kurt, had what appeared to be heart attacks. The first one was at a Rolling Stones concert at the Los Angeles Sports Arena. The crowd was cheering wildly when, suddenly, Kurt – a teenager himself – grabbed his chest in obvious pain. He said that he was having terrible, stabbing chest pains, and that he believed it was a heart attack. Kurt was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. But the doctors at the hospital found nothing wrong with his heart. They told him that he was not having a heart attack and sent him home.
A few months later we were at another Sports Arena, this one in San Diego, to see another big rock concert. This time the band was Led Zeppelin,
and the same thing happened: While the crowd was cheering wildly, Kurt began having terrible chest pain. Once again, he was rushed to the hospital. And, as before, he was told that he was not having a heart attack.
A few weeks later, Kurt was with his dad at a professional football game at San Diego Stadium. Again, the same thing happened: As the crowd wildly cheered a touchdown, Kurt began having stabbing pains in his chest. Again, he was rushed to the hospital, and again he was told that there was nothing physically wrong with him. The doctor suggested that Kurt might be having some sort of psychosomatic illness, since the pain felt so very real.
It just so happened that Kurt’s parents were close friends with a psychotherapist that specialized in treating psychosomatic illnesses. His parents arranged for Kurt to have a session with the therapist. Kurt later described to me what happened with the therapist.
The therapist had Kurt describe each similar experience of chest pain, beginning with the most recent and working backward. After Kurt described an incident, the therapist each time asked him: “Can you recall an earlier instance of similar chest pain?” They continued with that until Kurt had described all the similar experiences of this lifetime, and the therapist again asked: “Can you recall an earlier instance of similar chest pain?”
Not having expected to experience a past life recall – after all, this was not intended to be a past life regression – suddenly Kurt did recall a previous instance of similar chest pain, AND IT WAS IN A PAST LIFE!
In this past life, Kurt was in the Roman Coliseum. He was a drunk spectator, part of a big crowd watching the gladiator fights. He was so drunk that he began getting obnoxious and causing trouble in the stands. One of the guards in charge of crowd control came over to intervene, and drunken Kurt – I do not know what his name was during this life – made a very big mistake. He punched the guard!
Several other guards threw Kurt over the railing onto the floor of the coliseum. His last memory of that incarnation was looking up at the wildly cheering fans in the arena as a guard shoved a spear through his chest. He died with a stabbing pain in his chest as he watched the fans wildly applaud.
Think about it…. Do you remember where Kurt was the three times that I described him as having stabbing chest pain as a teenager in this current lifetime? Each time he was in an arena or stadium with wildly cheering fans. Obviously, these situations were so similar to the way he had died in that previous lifetime that he was experiencing psychosomatic pain. Having processed in present time the past life trauma, Kurt never again experienced the psychosomatic chest pain!
In regard to the science of reincarnation, I want to share one of the best explanations that I have read; it was written by a dear friend of mine, Viktoras Kulvinskas. I hereby thank Viktoras for his kind permission to use such a lengthy excerpt (and other long excerpts) from his book, Survival In The 21st Century: A Planetary Healers Manual (the book was formerly called Survival Into The 21st Century but, once we reached that century, Viktoras changed the word ‘Into’ to ‘In”).
Viktoras Kulvinskas Excerpt on Reincarnation
Viktoras writes:
In the process of human development, there comes a time when the physical body is worn out like an old suit of clothes and can no longer serve as a useful tool for gaining evolutionary experience on the physical plane. At this time the soul and the subtle bodies must withdraw from the physical body in the process called death. When this happens, there is no energy or guiding principle to sustain the physical body and it disintegrates back into the chemical elements from which it was organized. The soul takes with it in the form of a small compact vibrational energy pattern the complete record of all the experiences of the physical body. This is called the permanent seed atom of the physical body.
One by one the subtle bodies disintegrate, keeping a complete record of their experiences in the permanent atoms. In this way the soul retains all the experiences of each of the incarnations past as part of its evolutionary development. In the process of dropping each of the subtle bodies, all the experiences which have transpired in those bodies during the lifetime that has ended are reviewed and passed before the person’s vision so that the soul may garner the full karmic lessons of those experiences.
For instance, in the astral body the person must live through direct contact with all the astral forces and emotional vibration patterns which he or she has created during the physical embodiment which has just ended. He or she must experience in the astral body the consequences of these forces. Thus the human being records in the memory of his or her soul, the discrimination between harmony and disharmony, good and evil. The human being is thus taught by karmic law to create harmony and happiness and to work in cooperation with the cosmic laws.
Death is not an instantaneous process; it happens by stages. As each of the subtle bodies is discarded, the energy of the plane to which it belongs receives its substance. The etheric body is the first to disintegrate, next comes the astral body, and finally the mental body. These subtle bodies are temporary bodies, just as is the physical body. Finally, the soul stands naked on its own plane but retains all the experiences of the incarnation just past. The soul remains in this condition for some time until the experiences of the previous incarnation have been fully assimilated and it is ready for a new incarnation. The length of time required to discard each of the subtle bodies will depend on the point in spiritual evolution of the individual involved. If the soul is highly evolved, they will be discarded quickly.
When a time and place providing suitable astrological conditions is found… the process of incarnation begins again. The soul chooses a time and place suitable for fulfilling the karma incurred in past in-carnations and for its further evolution. The process is planned in such a way that any qualities in which the soul is under-developed will be strengthened, while mistakes made in previous incarnations can be corrected….
The question always arises that if there is such a thing as reincarnation, why is it that we do not remember our past incarnations? This is not universally the case. Many people under hypnosis have been able to recall in detail their previous incarnations and have been able to speak in ancient foreign tongues which they had never studied and had no knowledge of in their previous lifetime…. There are recorded cases of children in many parts of the world who have been able to remember their previous incarnation and give accurate facts concerning it….
The reason that most of us do not re-member our past incarnations is because, for the most part, the mental body is the primary seat of memory. As explained above, after each incarnation, the mental body is dissolved and the record of it is maintained in the permanent seed atom of the mental body. This seed atom exists on a higher octave of energy than does the mental plane since the permanent seed atoms are part of the soul. Most people are not in sufficiently good attunement with the soul on its own level to be able to read the permanent records of the previous incarnations which exist on that high level of vibration.
When human beings have fully developed a body of intuition on the Buddhic plane, they will be able to re member all their past incarnations because this body of intuition will remain intact from incarnation to incarnation….
At our present stage in evolution, we would not be able to withstand the emotional pressure and all the mental confusion that total memory of all our previous incarnations would cause. It is a divine mercy that we do not remember them…. Rest assured that nothing is lost in the evolutionary process. The soul on its own level remembers everything. When we reach a stage in evolution where it is useful for us to remember these things, we will remember them.
In time, a soul learns the laws of each confining form, assumes control and uses the form for soul perfection. Once he or she has outgrown the form, he or she discards it for higher forms.
Viktoras’s reference to ‘development’ and ‘evolution’ above refer to the ongoing process of spiritual evolution on The Ladder of Consciousness. Recall our previous quotation of the following verses from the dialogue between Yahshua and the Hindu yogi on The Seven Great Realizations:
914. Yahshua replied, “The Second Great Realization is: ‘Consciousness is fluid, not frozen; it rises and falls, expands and contracts.’
915. This is the realization that our level of consciousness is not frozen on The Ladder of Consciousness.
916. That realization leads directly to The Third Great Realization, which is: ‘Our level of consciousness rises or falls not by chance, but according to Universal Law’.
917. We realize that what we put out, we get back: as we sow, so shall we reap.918. “After The Third Great Realization, one may make The Great Decision.
919. Behold: The Great Decision is the decision to bring one’s life into ever greater harmony with Universal Law…..
And verse 931:
931. “Only after consistently acting on The Great Decision for some time, and thus rising on The Ladder of Consciousness, will one truly know God and Goddess.”
I am now going to share another experience I had right before meeting Malachi and experiencing The I AM Realization. This experience is directly related to the above verses on ‘The Ladder of Consciousness’ and ‘The Great Decision’. I hope that you will find the following account of my ‘stolen library books’ and subsequent ‘Karma Repair Actions’ to be not only educational but humorous! And I hope that you can handle the fact that I am about to describe my first marijuana experience (age seventeen) as very positive!
My First Marijuana Experience: Karma Repair Actions and The Realization That Consciousness Is Fluid Not Frozen
Recall that Yahshua, in a previous excerpt from The Seven Great Realizations, said that they – the seven realizations – do not always unfold in the exact order that he listed them. In my case, I experienced both the second and the third realizations prior to the first and fourth. The second is: ‘Consciousness is fluid, not frozen; it rises and falls, expands and contracts.’ And the third is: ‘Our level of consciousness rises or falls not by chance, but according to Universal Law’.
When I was seventeen, not long before meeting Malachi, I was in my bedroom about to smoke my first marijuana cigarette. I was a high school student and lived with my parents. A friend had gifted me the ‘joint’ (that is slang for ‘marijuana cigarette’) and I was about to light it up – with my bedroom door shut, of course, so my parents would not know what I was up to. I knew where my Dad was; I could hear the lawn mower running outside. He had come home from a long day at work and, because I had not yet mowed the lawn, he had begun doing it.
I knew my mom was out with the horses, so the coast was clear. I lit the joint.
After a few puffs, my consciousness was dramatically altered. I looked around my bedroom and noticed the tall stack of stolen library books I had accumulated. Back in those days, there were no electronic devices in public libraries to ‘buzz’ or ‘ring’ or otherwise alert the librarian if you were walking out without having properly checked-out (borrowed) the books. Ironically, these stolen library books were on spiritual topics. Because my younger brother, Steve, and my friend, Kurt, had apparently experiences past life recall, I had become interested in studying reincarnation. When you go to the library to look at books on reincarnation – this was many years before the era of the personal computer or smart phones etc. – it turns out that many of those books are about eastern religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism since those religions believe in reincarnation. Those books included related topics such as yoga, meditation, and karma, so, having begun to investigate reincarnation, I had soon found myself studying mystical spirituality.
Before those puffs of marijuana, I had noticed nothing odd about my stack of stolen library books on spiritual topics related to love and truth! Now, with my consciousness almost instantly altered – for the good – due to the marijuana, I saw the books with new eyes…. I realized how wrong it was to have stolen the books in general, and how ironically humorous it was that I had stolen books about truth!!!
I grabbed a spiral notebook and a pen and, at the top of the first page, I wrote the following words: Karma Repair Actions. At the top of what became a rather long list, I wrote: 1) Return the stolen library books! I went on to list many things that came to me in those first minutes of marijuana-induced higher consciousness. All of those things were related to improving my behavior for the better. And then, with new ears , I noticed the sound of that lawn mower my dad was out there pushing….
I hurried to where my dad was mowing our GIGANTIC yard. We lived on a small farm of several acres and the area to be mowed was considerable. Because, up until that moment, I had been an extremely lazy teenager (except when doing things I liked such as going surfing, playing sports, or doing things with friends), my dad was pleasantly surprised – perhaps even shocked when I told him: “Dad, you put in a hard day at work already; let me take over the mowing.”
Later that night, while looking at my list titled, Karma Repair Actions, I considered how amazing it was that I could so quickly shift my level of consciousness: one minute, I was oblivious to the stack of stolen library books about truth and my laziness, the next minute I could see so very clearly not only the error of my ways, but also was having a whole series of profound spiritual realizations. I realized that this altered state of consciousness was reflective of the following lyric from a song – now an old song but then fairly new – by the rock band, The Grateful Dead; the lyric was:
Sometimes the light’s all shining on me,
Other times I can barely see….
While marijuana is not a permanent substitute for yoga and spiritual practices, it had served a purpose in my own spiritual unfoldment: It made quite clear that I am capable of experiencing very different states of consciousness, that there are higher, more spiritual levels of consciousness than what I had been previously experiencing.
Before bed that night – the night of my first marijuana experience – I grabbed that spiral notebook and, at the top of another sheet of paper, I wrote the words: ‘An Experiment in The Fluctuation of My Levels of Consciousness. The idea was that, for a minimum of one month, I would reflect upon any fluctuations in my level of consciousness each day with the goal of noticing whether the fluctuations – the ups and downs – occurred for specific reasons or just by chance.
In other words, now that – due to the marijuana experience – I knew that I was capable of experiencing higher levels of consciousness in which I was aware of deeper levels of reality and behaved in a more loving, kind, helpful, ethical manner, I wanted next to know what things (if any) besides marijuana might result in elevated consciousness, and if there was any observable causes for dips in consciousness.
This ‘Great Experiment’ produced rather quick and extremely convincing results. After just one month, I had noticed the following key findings, and each subsequent month merely confirmed them:
1) Each time I deliberately engaged in thoughts, words, or deeds that were loving, kind, helpful, ethical, etc., my level of what I began to call ‘spiritual consciousness’ increased.
2) Each time I acted overly selfish, stingy, lazy, unethical, etc., upon review I could see that it resulted in my experiencing a dip in my level of ‘spiritual consciousness’.
3) I noticed that the instances of ‘good behavior’ not only led to increased ‘spiritual awareness’ – in the form of higher understandings, deeper insights, increased intuitional capabilities etc. – but also led to what I began to call by the terms ‘BLISS CONSCIOUSNESS’ or ‘HEAVENLY CONSCIOUS-NESS’ but could just as accurately be called Spiritual Happiness.
4) I noticed that the reverse of number three was also true: stingy, poor behavior, led to unhappiness.
After the first month of noticing these facts, I began to greatly accelerate my deliberate practice of ‘good karma’ thoughts, words, and deeds, trying to find creative ways to be loving, kind, helpful etc. each and every day. After three months, I was firmly set upon this path that I had begun calling ‘The Good Karma Path’. It was also after three months of this ‘Great Experiment’ that I met Malachi the Nasarean Essene Yogi. I was now ready to hear what he had to say. A few months earlier, I would not have been ready. The following old proverb is very true: WHEN THE STUDENT IS READY, THE GURU APPEARS!
I want to share another teaching of Yahshua from his time in India, a teaching that supports the idea that ‘Consciousness is fluid, not static’. Recall that in the account of the dialogue between Yahshua and the Hindu yogi, Yahshua described ‘Seven Great Spiritual Realizations’. The second and third realizations on that list were as follows:
914. Yahshua replied,“The Second Great Realization is: ‘Consciousness is fluid, not frozen; it rises and falls, expands and contracts.’
915. This is the realization that our level of consciousness is not frozen on The Ladder of Consciousness.916. That realization leads directly to The Third Great Realization, which is: ‘Our level of consciousness rises or falls not by chance, but according to Universal Law’.
917. We realize that what we put out, we get back: as we sow, so shall we reap.
In The Holy Megillah, shortly before Yahshua had that dialogue with the Hindu yogi, he provided related information on the rising and falling of levels of consciousness in another dialogue in India. This dialogue includes a phrase that you will recognize from the dialogue with the elderly yogi; that phrase is: consciousness is fluid, not frozen. I am going to share a rather lengthy excerpt from that related dialogue on the rising and falling of consciousness. I ask that you not only challenge yourself to read the entire excerpt, but too pay real close attention to every detail. It is an amazing example of Yahshua’s style of teaching-story, and you will only receive the several important teachings in it if you pay close attention to every sentence. It appears in the Megillah under the heading given below.
A Discourse by Yahshua on the Ladder of Consciousness
834. Yohanan and Yahshua stood near a market in Benares.
835. A man told them, “I have often observed that when people tell me obvious lies, they seem to think that I will not know they lie.
836. Once, a man lied to me even though certain facts that both he and I were aware of proved his story false.
837. He should have realized that I would contemplate those facts and recognize his lie.
838. And yet he seemed not even to consider that possibility.
839. He walked away believing that I had swallowed his lie.
840. His foolishness is beyond comprehension.”841. Yahshua replied, “Behold: consciousness is not frozen, but fluid.
842. The level of consciousness of one person is not the same as another.
843. Yea, and the level of consciousness of each person changes, rising or falling according to their thoughts, words, and deeds.
844. Wherefore, imagine four men.
845. The first man tells a lie like the man you described, a lie that the other three men all should recognize as a lie.
846. Yet the man who told the lie is oblivious to the reality that the other three men recognize his lie.
847. Lo: his lack of recognition of what seems obvious to some others is due to his lower level of consciousness.
848. At his level of consciousness, he does not even recognize the obvious things that prove him a liar.
849. And at his level of consciousness, he does not realize that his hearers are of a higher level of consciousness, a higher order of being.
850. Behold: he is not even aware that higher orders of being exist, let alone recognize a higher consciousness than his own.
851. I tell you truly, many believe that the levels of consciousness begin and end at their own level.
852. That is the meaning of the adage, ‘Some men believe that consciousness begins and ends in their own armpit!’853. “I told you to imagine that three men heard the obvious lie of the liar.
854. The first of the three hearers of the lie was at a little bit higher level of consciousness than the liar.
855. He recognized the lie and wondered why the liar would tell such an obvious lie.
856. He wondered, ‘Does not this liar realize that I am aware of the facts that prove him false?’
857. The second of the three men who had heard the lie was at a little bit higher level of consciousness than the first hearer of the lie.
858. He understood why the liar did not realize that others would easily recognize his falsehood.
859. He realized that the liar was of a relatively lower level of consciousness than his hearers.
860. And he realized that what is obvious to Beings at a higher level of consciousness is not obvious to a Being at a lower level.
861. Realizing his superiority in consciousness, he felt egotistical pride and, without knowing it, took a tumble in consciousness.
862. The third hearer of the lie, like the second, recognized the obvious lie and understood why the liar was oblivious.
863. But unlike the second, the third hearer did not feel egotistical pride.
864. Rather, the third hearer understood that, though he was of higher conscious-ness than the liar and the other hearers, it was equally true that above him were countless rungs on the Ladder of Consciousness.
865. Yea, that ladder is the Spiral Stairway to the highest heavens.
866. And the third hearer, in honest humility, realized that there must be as many Beings higher than him on the Ladder as there are below him.
867. Feeling no egotistical pride, his honest humility resulted in an immediate elevation on the Ladder of Consciousness.868. “Now let us imagine that there was a fourth hearer of the lie.
869. This fourth hearer was of a similar level of consciousness as the liar.
870. He did not recognize the lie.
871. After listening to the liar, this fourth hearer told the liar a lie.
872. And the first liar did not recognize the lie of the second liar.
873. The two liars bargained, made deals, signed contracts, and secretly exalted in their cunningness.
874. As the first liar departed, he stepped into the street and was run over by a carriage that he did not notice.
875. The second liar died the following week.
876. He was beaten to death by a man whom he had previously cheated.
877. Lo: He had not realized that the man would discover that he had lied.878. “I tell you truly, consciousness is indeed fluid, not frozen, as illustrated by the following story first told by Gotama Buddha.
879. There was once an old sage who enjoyed sitting beside a large goldfish pool.
880. One day he sat there with a new student.
881. The old sage, watching the several goldfish swim, said, ‘They are very happy.’
882. The student said, ‘You are not a goldfish.
883. You do not speak their language.
884. Wherefore, you cannot know if these goldfish are happy.’
885. The old sage replied, ‘You are not me.
886. How do you know if I know whether or not the goldfish are happy?’”
That short story is known in Taoist writings but, according to Yahshua, it was first told by Buddha and then made its way into Taoist circles.
I will share one more excellent teaching from the Megillah on that same theme. Read this one carefully and not only will it reinforce that theme but will also alert you to the existence of some very high-level (relative to most of us!) spiritual abilities.We are even treated to a surprise visit from a very real Elf! (Nasarean singular Alef; plural Alefim.) This story is a teaching by the Nasarean martial artist who was assigned to protect Miriam the Magdalene when she was a child in Ethiopia; his name was Ma’or. That martial art is called Zahyen and its practitioners are called Lions of Zahyen.
1. Behold, Ma’or was a brave Lion of Zahyen.
2. Yea, he was the bravest of the brave, and the strongest of the strong.
3. Many times Ma’or used Zahyen to defend the innocent from the harmful, often fighting several attackers at once.
4. But he was not only a brave Lion, Ma’or was also very wise!
5. Here follows an account of Ma’or teaching two students different lessons simultaneously.6. Ma’or was visited by two Lions of Zahyen from a distant land.
7. They asked him to teach them about ‘awareness’.
8. They expected Ma’or to make a long discourse, explaining the many intricacies of ‘awareness’.
9. But, lo: Ma’or did not speak.
10. Rather, he sat in silence with the two visitors for an entire day.
11. Behold: this was not ordinary silence; this was not the mere absence of talk.
12. This was the silence of Tzafah, the silence of Inner Gazing.13. Late in the evening, after sitting in silence all day with Ma’or, one of the visitors said to him: “I traveled many miles to hear you speak on the topic of ‘awareness’.
14. But you did not speak.”15. Ma’or replied, “I am awareness.”
16. The visiting Lion now realized that Ma’or had been teaching awareness by demonstrating awareness.
17. And that realization was true.
18. However, it was also true that the other visiting Lion did receive a discourse from Ma’or on ‘awareness’, though his companion was unaware of it.
19. For, behold, this second Lion had perceived thought-forms emanating from the crown of Ma’or, yea, and had been taught many profound lessons about ‘awareness’ by those thought-forms.
20. Lo: these thought-forms were like sunbeams from the crown of Ma’or, and one visiting Lion could read them but the other could not.
21. For, after some time outside of time, in the transcendental bliss of Tzafah in which he generated no thought-forms, Ma’or was moved to emanate thought-forms that could be perceived only by those with eyes to see.
22. The first Lion was unaware that this had occurred, though both Lions had sat together with Ma’or all the time.23. Such is the truth about ‘awareness’.
24. That truth is that there are various levels of awareness and that each Being is at a particular level at any given moment.25. After the two Lions departed, behold, a holy one of the Alefim appeared before Ma’or, saying: “Peace is with you!
26. I am Gahwenjahman, but am called for short ‘Gwen’.
27. You can see and hear me, but most men do not.
28. For, behold: only those who have attained a certain level of awareness can see and hear me.”
29. Ma’or replied, “Even so, there are those above me who see wonders that my eyes cannot yet perceive.”
30. Gahwenjahman smiled and said, “Wherefore the wise remain humble, yea, and in their humility are exalted in awareness, even as Ma’or.”
We have now studied the first four of The Seven Great Realizations given by Yahshua to the Hindu yogi in detail, providing related supplemental material such as the above. We will now pay quality attention to the last three of those seven realizations, and will then conclude this article with an examination of Yahshua’s invitation to ‘Take His Yoke’. As we will make clear, that invitation is none other than THE INVITATION TO BECOME HIS YOGA STUDENT!
Here are those last three from the list of ‘Seven Great Realizations’; previously we listed them but have not yet closely examined them:
931. “Only after consistently acting on The Great Decision for some time, and thus rising on The Ladder of Consciousness, will one truly know God and Goddess.
932. Until then, one has but a collection of opinions and beliefs, some true, some false.
933. While no one can know the entirety of God and Goddess, one who experiences the Mahazeh Gedolah, the Great Revelation, is called God Realized.
934. Whenever one knows Jah-Jah and Elohim by virtue of the direct experience of the Mahazeh Gedolah, one has attained The Fifth Great Realization.
935. That realization is called, ‘God Realization’, and leads directly to The Sixth Great Realization.936. “The Sixth Great Realization is called ‘The Revelation of Divine Grace.’
937. This is the realization of The Gracious Gift, the gift of being, wherein we realize that we came into being as an act of grace, according to The Creative Wish.
938. Though we number this the sixth realization, it occurs whenever it occurs, not necessarily according to any listed sequence.
939. It is one thing to intellectually affirm the sixth realization, and quite another to actually experience it.
940. Nobody experiences the Mahazeh Gedolah without truly realizing The Gracious Gift.941. “With The Revelation of Divine Grace comes the experience of The Great Humility.
942. At the time of The Great Humility, one dedicates oneself fully as a servant of Jah-Jah and Elohim in a new and powerful way, not due to hope for eternal life, yea, and not to earn eternal life, but in joyous response to The Gracious Gift that is eternal life.
943. Now one is motivated by pure love for the Creator in the heavenly bliss of The Great Appreciation.
944. Now one may join in the heavenly chorus that is the Creative Enchantment, which is the ever ongoing Creative Wish, the mantra of YHWH: ‘Let Being expand, now in forever, amen!’
945. And this great love for Yah gives birth to a great love for the creation of Yah, yea, and a desire to serve Yah by serving all of creation.
946. And if we act on that love, we will experience The Seventh Great Realization.947. “Behold: The Seventh Great Realization is called ‘Realization of our True Work.’
948. That ‘Work’ is linked with The Mantra of the Christ Family, also called The Healing Enchantment, which is: ‘Let there be ever-expanding well-being for all Beings in the highest Love, now in forever, amen!’
949. This realization is The Magic Key to the Highest Heaven.
950. These seven realizations are not the only realizations of significance, and they may unfold in various sequences, though the above is typical.”
Since the first verse above – verse 931 – says that “only after consistently acting on The Great Decision for some time” will one “truly know God and Goddess”, let us remind ourselves that The Great Decision was previously described by Yahshua as: “the decision to bring one’s life into ever greater harmony with Universal Law….” That is the same as saying ‘the decision to begin deliberately cultivating ‘good karma’; for, whether we know it or not at the time of making that decision, we are beginning to practice ‘ Karma Yoga’. When I made that first ‘Karma Repair Actions’ list and began acting on it after smoking that first joint, even though I had not yet formally enrolled in an ‘official’ or ‘formal’ yoga class, I was indeed beginning to practice karma yoga. I was beginning to bring my life into ever greater harmony with Universal Law. Beginning to do that is linked to the third realization, but only if we consistently stick to that Great Decision for a period of years, do we then experience the ultimate goal of yoga: GOD REALIZATION.
Before experiencing GOD REALIZATION – direct realization of THE ULTIMATE REALITY – we have a collection of beliefs and/or theories, perhaps even some true intuitions about God/Goddess, but do not yet KNOW DEITY BY DIRECT EXPERIENCE. That is because, the first thing we need to do, is to ‘clean up our act’, which is to ‘clean up our karma’, so that we rise on The Ladder of Consciousness and ACTUALLY COME TO KNOW GOD AND GODDESS EXPERIENTIALLY.
Don’t get me – and Yahshua – wrong: theoretical ideas, beliefs, intuitions, etc. about God are not ‘bad’; rather, they typically proceed – and help birth – the ACTUAL EXPERIENCE OF GOD REALIZATION.
Unless you are already a reader of The Holy Megillah: Nasarean Bible of The Essene Way, you likely have never heard the term given in verse 933 of the above excerpt: MAHAZEH GEDOLAH. It means Great Revelation (note: revelation not realization and is linked to The Fifth Great Realization: God Realization) and is described in detail in other sections of the Megillah. In brief, the Mahazeh Gedolah is a profound mystical experience available to all human beings but only experienced by those humans that sufficiently ‘clean up their act’ via karma yoga and other yoga/spiritual practices which, in each generation, has typically been a small minority (though the Great Hope is that, eventually, via spiritual evolution, all of humanity will experience the Mahazeh Gedolah and the related God Realization).
According to the details provided in the Megillah, this particular mystical experience – the Mahazeh Gedolah – replaces opinions about Deity and Creation and Cosmology with direct realizations of those things. It seems that, in the interest of well-being, Deity has arranged the universes so that, when a Being is ready, they are shown in mystical vision the most important aspects of universal creation that have already occurred, and shown how the Divine Plan is currently unfolding – including on our planet – as well as being shown future alternate realities that we are each even now co-creating, all while directly experiencing Deity.
It is as if Ultimate Deity/Ultimate Reality decided that it was in the best interest of the All for every constituent part of the All to have the opportunity to experience – in a seemingly timeless flash of true insight – in the form of a Great Realization the most important aspectsof all thathas been (the main facts of Universal Creation that we most need to know), all that Now Is – including ourselves and Deity – and all that May Be, all of which will culminate in UNIVERSAL SALVATION due to the Ultimate Fact that, as it turns out (and always actually was and is and will be) UNIVERSAL LOVE IS THE SUPREME REALITY.
As we come to realize, the reason that we have to first ‘clean up our act’ via Karma Yoga and related yoga practices before we experience Supreme Reality/Ultimate Reality is that LOVE IS THE SUPREME REALITY and we only truly experience that once we have become sufficiently KIND, COMPASSIONATE, and LOVING as to activate the Mahazeh Gedolah.
In the Megillah, both Divine Mind and Divine Heart are equally involved in the Divine Plan and the subsequent act of Creation – the setting in motion of that plan – but, in various places throughout the Megillah we learn that DIVINE WISDOM ‘gave the nod to DIVINE LOVE, when deciding what aspect of Deity is the SUPREME POWER, the ULTIMATE REALITY. It was in that realization by Wisdom – the Nod of Wisdom to Love – that the Highest Wisdom was revealed.
So, the Way to be GOD REALIZED, is to be LOVE REALIZED. All of which brings us face-to- face with the sixth and seventh of ‘The Seven Great Realizations’ given by Yahshua in his dialogue with the Hindu yogi:
The Sixth Great Realization
936. “The Sixth Great Realization is called ‘The Revelation of Divine Grace.’
937. This is the realization of The Gracious Gift, the gift of being, wherein we realize that we came into being as an act of grace, according to The Creative Wish.
938. Though we number this the sixth realization, it occurs whenever it occurs, not necessarily according to any listed sequence….941. “With The Revelation of Divine Grace comes the experience of The Great Humility.
942. At the time of The Great Humility, one dedicates oneself fully as a servant of Jah-Jah and Elohim in a new and powerful way, not due to hope for eternal life, yea, and not to earn eternal life, but in joyous response to The Gracious Gift that is eternal life.
943. Now one is motivated by pure love for the Creator in the heavenly bliss of The Great Appreciation.
944. Now one may join in the heavenly chorus that is the Creative Enchantment, which is the ever-ongoing Creative Wish, the mantra of YHWH: ‘Let Being expand, now in forever, amen!’
945. And this great love for Yah gives birth to a great love for the creation of Yah, yea, and a desire to serve Yah by serving all of creation.
946. And if we act on that love, we will experience The Seventh Great Realization.
God… What an amazing, fascinating topic! Everyone has an opinion about God. And many of those opinions conflict with each other. In this chapter, you will be introduced to the Nasarean opinion on God AND GODDESS.
I have found that when I mention our belief in both a God and Goddess to the general public, their first reaction is shock. That is because the public is so conditioned to the idea of God the Father, that the idea of a God the Mother is at first shocking. In fact, I have had many people react by saying that the idea of both a God and Goddess seems “unusual” or “unnatural”. But after I talk to them a while about the idea, many of them get over their shock and find that they like the idea. In fact, many who have at first called the idea unusual or unnatural have come, after a discussion with me, to consider the idea of both a God and Goddess to be in accordance with common sense and absolutely natural.
Why is it common sense? Well, look around you…. Everywhere we look we see the sacred dance of the masculine and feminine principles. We see boy dogs and girl dogs making puppies. We see boy cats and girl cats making kittens. We see the masculine electrical force and the feminine magnetic force dancing together to create what science calls electromagnetism. We also see the little plus signs (+) and minus signs (-) in chemistry. Certainly, each of us had a father (+) and a mother (-), and were conceived by the dance of sperm and egg. Even the plants and creatures that reproduce without a partner of the opposite sex can only do so because they possess within themselves both the masculine and feminine traits. Everywhere we look, both in the macrocosmic world of big things and the microcosmic world of small things, we see the dance of the masculine and feminine principles.
The only reason most people are initially shocked at the idea of both a Masculine Deity and a Feminine Deity is conditioning. We are conditioned from youth to think of God as an old man with a long white beard. If we were not conditioned to think of God as a man, it would be perfectly natural to assume that there exists both a Divine Father and Divine Mother, because that fits the usual pattern we see in nature.
I tell people (after I have shocked them by mentioning the Goddess!) that, to me, the mainstream Christian idea of God and creation seems unusual or unnatural. Consider: they believe that a male God gave birth to all of creation. Though that may not be impossible, it certainly would be unusual compared to what we see all around us in nature.
Also consider the mainstream Christian belief in an all-male “Holy Trinity” consisting of “the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.” They consider even the “Holy Ghost” or “Holy Spirit” to be male, as in their English Bible the Holy Spirit is called “He”. I think the unusual thing would be for an all-male Holy Trinity to give birth to creation. That just is not the usual pattern we see in nature. Contrast the mainstream Christian idea of an all-male Holy Trinity with the Nasarean concept of the Holy Creative Trinity as Divine Father (God), Divine Mother (Goddess), and Divine Child (Creation). Which version of the Holy Trinity is truly unusual or unnatural? It seems to me that the Nasarean belief is much more in line with common sense and natural intuition, and that the mainstream Christian concept of an all-male Trinity giving birth to all of Creation is far more unusual and unlikely.
After I explain all the above (and more) to people that were initially shocked by the Nasarean belief in a God and Goddess, many realize that, in fact, the Nasarean belief is much more in harmony with everything we see in nature.
The Seventh Great Realization: The Magic Key to the Highest Heaven
We will end this article by examining the last of ‘The Seven Great Realizations’ given by Yahshua in his dialogue with the Hindu yogi. This examination of The Seventh Great Realization will be the context in which we address ‘The Yoke’ of Yahshua and will end with an invitation to become a student of his Essene Yoga.
Recall the words of the seventh of The Seven Great Realizations given by Yahshua to the Hindu yogi:
945. “And this great love for Yah gives birth to a great love for the creation of Yah, yea, and a desire to serve Yah by serving all of creation.
946. And if we act on that love, we will experience The Seventh Great Realization.947. “Behold: The Seventh Great Realization is called ‘Realization of our True Work.’
948. That ‘Work’ is linked with The Mantra of the Christ Family, also called The Healing Enchantment, which is: ‘Let there be ever-expanding well-being for all Beings in the highest Love, now in forever, amen!’
949. This realization is The Magic Key to the Highest Heaven.”
It is important to understand that in the Nasarean Religion of the Essene Way, simply knowing the authentic teachings of the Lord Christ and Lady Christ does not make one a disciple. DISCIPLESHIP TO THE LORD CHRIST AND LADY CHRIST IS BASED ON LEARNING AND FOLLOWING THEIR SAVING TEACHINGS. In the terminology of Yahshua and Miriam, this sort of ‘discipleship’ begins when a willing student chooses to ‘TAKE ON THE YOKE OF CHRIST’. And that, my friends, brings us face-to-face with the word YOGA.
The word ‘Yoke’ is used in this context to mean ‘Union’. The root of the Sanskrit word ‘Yoga’ is ‘Yuj’ which also means ‘Yoke’ in the sense of ‘Union’. The invitation of Christ to ‘take my Yoke’ is an INVITATION TO DISCIPLESHIP as students of Their Yoga.
Remember that a ‘disciple’ is one that becomes a student of some particular ‘discipline’. The word ‘disciple’ is directly related to the word ‘discipline’. A disciple is a student of a Master craftsperson of some discipline; in the spiritual context, a student of a Spiritual Master. Since all Spiritual Masters teach some form of beliefs and practices, some ‘way’ of experiencing Union with the Divine, students that choose to accept –‘Take On’ – a particular set of spiritual disciplines are said to have ‘accepted the Yoke’ of that teacher and/or religion.
When a student ‘takes on the Yoke’ (teachings/practices/disciplines) of a particular Spiritual Master, that student thereby enters what is called in yoga, ‘The Guru-Disciple Relationship’. In the case of the Lord Christ and Lady Christ, they present themselves as equal partners in a Co-Teachership. When we willingly choose to become their students, we ‘Take Their Yoke’ and enter The Guru-Disciple Relationship. That is how one becomes their yoga student, a student of their version of Nasarean Essene Yoga.
Here are several examples of their – Yahshua and Miriam – use of the term ‘Yoke’. In the Nasarean original version of what is called ‘Sermon on The Mount’ – the Nasarean original is called Sermon on The Cliffs Above Ein Gedi – we read:
56. Miriam said: “You have been yoked to false masters!
57. Throw off the false yoke and experience The Yoke of The Gospel of the Lord Christ and Lady Christ.
58. We force none to take Our Yoke.
59. We force none to become Our disciples.
60. We will teach you Our Saving Way – Essene Yoga – if you truly want to be taught.
61. If not, leave now, with no condemnation or negative judgment from Us.
62. For, each person must answer their own inner calling.”63. Miriam paused, and seeing nobody depart, continued to speak.
64. “Those that become Our disciples must be willing to continue learning for the duration of their life, step-by-step, initiation by initiation.
65. For, lo: the levels of initiation within Our Mystery School, yea, and within life itself, are many.
66. We are ‘Nasareans’ not because we are ‘perfect’, but because we live and teach The Way of ‘Ascension’ via The Four Pillars of Discipleship in Essene Yoga.
67. That ‘Way’ is ‘The Essene Way’, which is the Way of Holistic Wellness in Supernal Love as Hands of Merciful Kindness, The Hands of Christ.68. The Hands of Christ serve Yah, Jah, and Jahlah, the First Holy Trinity, by serving Their creation.
69. Nasareans reach low to raise others up, remaining humble and always willing to continue learning.
70. For, behold: at each level of ascension on The Golden Spiral Ladder there are new lessons to learn and continued opportunities for spiritual growth.”
In that same Sermon on The Cliffs of Ein Gedi, Yahshua’s words on ‘the Yoke’ are in harmony with those of Miriam’s given above:
43. The Lord again spoke: “Know that ‘My Gospel’ is ‘The Gospel of the Lord and the Lady’.
44. Wherefore I say unto all who wish to be My disciples: ‘Only those that fully receive the Lady Christ fully receive the Lord Christ’.
45. Open yourself equally to the Lady Christ Miriam!
46. I tell you truly, Miriam the Magdalene was My wife even before this lifetime, yea, even before the birth of this world!
47. We are co-Messiahs looking for coworkers!”48. The Lord said, “Come unto Us, all who are weary of the ways of the fallen world!
49. We will teach you the ways of the heavenly realms.
50. Take Supernal Love as your Yoke, and express that in this world as disciples of the Lord Christ and Lady Christ in Our Nasarean Religion of The Essene Way.
51. That religion is Our Yoke.
52. Embrace Us – both of Us – in The Four Pillars of Discipleship.
53. Receive The Holy Megillah: Nasarean Bible of The Essene Way, for that is Our Bible by which We train Our disciples in Supernal Love.”
One more reference to ‘the Yoke’ from Yahshua; this one is from his Megillah sermon titled, The Yoke of Discipleship:
1. Yahshua said to His twelve disciples, “The Yoke of Discipleship is not from without.
2. The Yoke of Discipleship is from within.
3. Wherefore I say, think not that I place My yoke on anyone other than Myself.
4. Any who take My yoke take it willingly, by choice.
5. Any other yoke is not My yoke.6. “And think not that you can place a yoke on any other than yourself without damaging yourself spiritually.
7. You will tumble a rung on the Ladder of Consciousness.
8. And that is damage, indeed!
9. For such is the way of the Way.10. “When you yoke your heart and mind to the Way, only then are you truly yoked.
11. Until then you are in spiritual poverty and worldly chains!
12. Better to have no moneybag than one that is stuffed with golden chains!13. But it is better to be chained by the oppressor than to chain others to oppression.
14. Better yet is to wear no chains and oppress no-one.”
Two things that are made clear by these references by Yahshua and Miriam to ‘the Yoke’ are that: 1) Accepting their ‘Yoke’ is an option that must be self-chosen; and, 2) Doing so is linked to becoming their disciple as a student of Essene Yoga.
Whether it be as a disciple of the Lord and Lady and their Sadhana – their Spiritual Practices collectively called Essene Yoga – or another set of yoga practices with another teacher or group – it is this dedication to God Realization that leads to the The Seventh Great Realization: REALIZATION OF OUR TRUE WORK.
So, it seems timely to describe the ‘Essene Yoga’ I began studying over fifty years ago with Malachi, and today both practice and teach as a dedicated disciple of the Lord Christ (Yahshua) and the Lady Christ (Miriam the Magdalene).
For the remainder of my seventeenth year, I regularly visited Malachi of Alexandria and continued to attend high school. When I turned eighteen, I moved into a cabin – I helped build it – on Malachi’s land and helped him found a small spiritual ‘monastery’ called Essene Garden of Peace.
My spiritual training was a dynamic balance of class study and fieldwork. First, I will describe the class study, then the fieldwork. By the term ‘class study’, I mean ‘formal in-class lessons in which I studied specific subjects under the guidance of my teacher.’ These class lessons occurred most days and often included such traditional teaching instruments as books, paper, chalkboard, lecture, and periods of question and answer. Sometimes class was held indoors, other times outdoors. The subjects I studied in these formal class lessons were all related in some way to Nasarean spiritual practices. By the term ‘spiritual practice’, I mean ‘yoga’ or ‘true religion’. Here is my twofold definition of Yoga; number one is the GOAL and number two is how we GET TO THE GOAL.
1) The conscious and blissful union of a Being with The Ultimate Reality that is The Universal One that Includes All And Is The Source Of All; and,
2) The means – the practices – by which that union is sincerely pursued, progressively realized, and ultimately deeply experienced.
A common short version of the definition in number one above – ‘common’ in that it is found in many yoga books – is Union with the Ultimate. In the Nasarean Religion of The Essene Way that I studied with Malachi, the ‘Ultimate’ refers to the Nasarean Deities and the Universe that they created. We are each a Living Spark of THAT! Experiencing that is GOD CONSCIOUSNESS or, in Nasarean lingo, GOD AND GODDESS CONSCIOUSNESS.
In regard to part two of our full definition of the word Yoga – the means (the practices) by which that union is sincerely pursued, progressively realized, and ultimately deeply experienced – I will now provide only a brief sketch; all of the following yoga practices – and more – are described in much greater detail in my book titled Sadhana: Essene Spiritual Practices.
In my formal class lessons with Malachi of Alexandria, I studied all of the yoga systems taught by the great masters. I will briefly describe some of those yoga systems that are embraced both by Hindu yogis and Essene Nasarean yogis.
Hatha Yoga: Hatha Yoga is a system of physical exercise that leads to the enlightened control of the body and mind by the Spiritual Self. Many people on this planet are not in control of body and mind and therefore suffer the consequences: physical and mental illness. Hatha Yoga leads to physical and mental wellness. It is the yoga system that most people think of when they hear the word yoga. It is associated with the postures – asanas – that are taught in most yoga classes.
Laya Yoga: Laya Yoga is the science of using the chakras to bring about progressively higher states of spiritual realization. It is the raising up, and transformation of, subtle energies via work on the chakras. This is the yoga of kundalini and tantra.
Karma Yoga: Karma Yoga is the art of flowing with, rather than resisting, universal law. The practitioner of Karma Yoga understands the spiritual axiom “As you sow, so shall you reap” (universal law), and therefore endeavors to sow only seeds of goodness such as love, joy, peace, and mercy. Karma Yoga manifests itself as creative work for the benefit of all. It is the yoga of work and service.
Bhakti Yoga: The word bhakti means devotion. Bhakti Yoga is the yoga of devotional worship of God/Goddess. It is the practice of loving God/Goddess so much that everything we do, think, or say is an expression of that love. In other words, our entire life becomes an act of worship. Bhakti Yoga is characterized by devotional singing, often incorporating the chanting of the names of Deity. Bhakti is the motivational context in which we aim to practice all the other yoga systems. In fact, it is the motivational context in which we aim to live life!
Jnana Yoga: The word jnana means to know. Jnana Yoga is the yoga of true knowledge, of divine wisdom. It is concerned with the ultimate questions of life, because those questions lead to the ultimate answers. The practitioner of Jnana Yoga asks such questions as: “What am I?”; “What is God?”; “What is the purpose of life?” Through contemplation and study, the answers to those questions become clear. But the purpose of inquiry is not to know just for the sake of knowing; rather, it is to know for the sake of serving. The better we know God, the better we can serve God. Jnana Yoga is characterized by the systematic study of spiritual texts and spiritual discourse with fellow seekers.
Mantra Yoga: Mantra Yoga is the yoga of “THE WORD”. It is the yoga of prayer and invocation. It employs mantras – ‘Words of Power’ or ‘Sounds of Power’ – to raise the vibrations of the practitioner and his/her environment.
Raja Yoga: Raja Yoga is meditation associated with the Crown Chakra, the seat of spiritual I AM. That meditation is often preceded by asking the questions of Jnana Yoga. It may also be preceded by some of the other yoga practices, such as Hatha. But its culmination is in peaceful meditation and contemplation centered in the Crown Chakra. Because it is associated with the Crown Chakra, it is called ‘The Royal Yoga’, as the word raja means royal and implies crown.
Essene Yoga Includes all seven of those common yoga practices within a larger system that includes a total of Fourteen Primary Yoga Practices collectively called ‘Essene Yoga of the Tree of Life’. Each yoga system listed above addresses one or more important aspect of the spiritual life and, therefore, can assist a being in the quest for conscious union with God/Goddess/The Ultimate. But I consider the Nasarean Essene Yoga taught by Yahshua and Miriam the Magdalene to be the most effective system of all. It is the most effective, because it is the most complete: It does not ignore the other yoga systems; rather, it unites them in one grand synthesis called Essene Yoga of the Tree of Life. It includes aspects of each yoga system listed above – and includes other yogas as well – and is presented in a simple, gradient fashion, so that anyone – even small children – can practice it. It is the yoga system I currently practice and teach. A much more detailed description of Essene Yoga of the Tree of Life is given in my book Sadhana: Essene Spiritual Practices.
It may surprise you to hear a Sanskrit word like yoga paired with an Aramaic word like Essene. Though some Nasarean Essenes – including Yahshua (‘Jesus’) and Miriam (‘Mary’ Magdalene) – studied for a time in India and thereafter chose to use some Sanskrit words – including the word yoga – in their teachings, they also continued to use their own Hebrew word for yoga: YIHUD.
Previously in this article, I provided the following excerpt from the Megillah on The Seventh Great Realization:
945. “And this great love for Yah gives birth to a great love for the creation of Yah, yea, and a desire to serve Yah by serving all of creation.
946. And if we act on that love, we will experience The Seventh Great Realization.947. “Behold: The Seventh Great Realization is called ‘Realization of our True Work.’
948. That ‘Work’ is linked with The Mantra of the Christ Family, also called The Healing Enchantment, which is: ‘Let there be ever-expanding well-being for all Beings in the highest Love, now in forever, amen!’
949. This realization is The Magic Key to the Highest Heaven.”
Let us now focus on the following four terms from the above verses of The Seventh Great Realization:
1) “If we act on that love, we will experience The Seventh Great Realization”;
2) “The Seventh Great Realization is called ‘Realization of our True Work’”;
3) “That ‘Work’ is linked with The Mantra of the Christ Family, also called The Healing Enchantment, which is: ‘Let there be ever-expanding well-being for all Beings in the highest Love, now in forever, amen!’”; and,
4) “This realization is The Magic Key to the Highest Heaven.”
In regard to number one above, the significance of the first word – if – must be fully understood. Only IF we ACT (to ‘act’ relates to Karma Yoga) ON THAT LOVE (‘Love’ relates to Bhakti Yoga) will we experience The Seventh Great Realization. The word ‘If’ implies that we have freedom to make a key choice: we can choose to ACT ON THAT LOVE – or not; we each face that choice and no one can make that choice for you. The type of ‘love’ that we must ‘act’ on was previously stated in verse 945 of The Seventh Great Realization:
945. “And this great love for Yah gives birth to a great love for the creation of Yah, yea, and a desire to serve Yah by serving all of creation.”
So, brothers and sisters, only if we do the above and act on that great love can we go on to experience the ‘Realization of our True Work’. The nature of our ‘True Work’ – the very essence of The Seventh Great Realization – is described in the third of those four key terms in the following manner:
3) “That ‘Work’ is linked with The Mantra of the Christ Family, also called The Healing Enchantment, which is: ‘Let there be ever-expanding well-being for all Beings in the highest Love, now in forever, amen!’”
The Mantra of the Christ Family – also known as The Healing Enchantment – is not the only mantra chanted by members of the Christ Family, but is a sort of epitome and standard-bearer, an overall White Magic mantra that all other Christ Family mantras are in harmony with, and supportive of, being directly related to UNIVERSAL LOVE (which is not only the HIGHEST LOVE, but also is THE HIGHEST POWER, the very POWER OF ETERNAL LIFE THAT MANIFESTS AS AN EXPANDING SPIRAL OF PROGRESSIVE ASCENSION INTO HEAVENLY CONSCIOUSNESS.
And THAT, my friends, is why the fourth of the four key terms listed above, says this of The Seventh Great Realization:
4) “This realization is The Magic Key to the Highest Heaven.”
Dear readers, you have been handed a Magic Key; will you use it? If so, you become part of a very special circle of Beings, a circle called The Christ Family. Whether or not you are yet at that ‘Christ Consciousness’ stage of your spiritual unfoldment/spiritual evolution, if you now choose to experience the fullness of The Seventh Great Realization by either continuing to be, or becoming, A SINCERE DISCIPLE OF THE LORD CHRIST AND THE LADY CHRIST AS A MEMBER OF THEIR SCHOOL OF ESSENE YOGA, you have chosen The Christ Path.
All that remains is to act on that choice, to actually walk the ascending path of Essene Yoga as sincere, diligent, persistent, loyal, and loving disciples of Yahshua and Miriam.
Welcome home!
So, our TRUE WORK is revealed to be: SERVING ALL OF CREATION IN LOVE CONSCIOUSNESS.
But guess what? There are many different ways to do that, and, according to the Lord and Lady, ‘The man or woman who has found their true work need ask no other blessing!’
Your personal ministry, your personal ‘work’ on behalf of goodness, may take many forms. Finding your individual calling in the many ministries of Universal Love is called ‘finding your Dharma’. Read more about that in my book on Karma Yoga.
For your convenience, I end with the following list of all Seven Great Spiritual Realizations given by Yahshua in his discourse with the Hindu yogi.
SEVEN GREAT SPIRITUAL REALIZATIONS ACCORDING TO YAHSHUA
1) THE FIRST GREAT REALIZATION is the realization of Self as spirit; Spirit is I Am; this realization is linked to answering the question ‘Who am I?’ and is also called ‘The I AM Realization’.
2) THE SECOND GREAT REALIZATION is: Consciousness is fluid, not frozen; it rises and falls, expands and contracts; this is the realization that our level of consciousness is not frozen on The Ladder of Consciousness and leads, upon self-observation, to the third realization.
3) THE THIRD GREAT REALIZATION is: Our level of consciousness rises or falls not by chance, but according to Universal Law; we realize that what we put out, we get back: as we sow, so shall we reap; we notice, by observing the fluctuations in our level of consciousness, that the elevations and dips in that level are linked to our behavior, are linked to our degree of harmony with the laws of the universe; are liked to our thoughts, words, and deeds.
4) THE FOURTH GREAT REALIZATION is: At any time after The First Great Realization, one may experience the fourth. The Fourth Great Realization is called, ‘We Are’. Once one knows ‘I Am’, let him discover ‘We Are.’ For, there are countless sentient Beings in Yah, all deserving respect. One who affirms ‘I Am’ but not ‘We Are’ is experienced by others as egotistical. It is good to recognize Yah within ourselves, but we must also recognize Yah within others.
5) THE FIFTH GREAT REALIZATION is: God/Goddess Realization.
Only after consistently acting on The Great Decision – the decision to dedicate oneself to being in progressively greater harmony with universal spiritual laws – for some time, and thus rising on The Ladder of Consciousness, will one truly know God and Goddess. Until then, one has but a collection of opinions and beliefs, some true, some false.
While no one can know the entirety of God and Goddess, one who experiences the Mahazeh Gedolah, the Great Revelation, is called God Realized. Whenever one knows Jah-Jah and Elohim by virtue of the direct experience of the Mahazeh Gedolah, one has attained The Fifth Great Realization. That realization is called, ‘God Realization’, and leads directly to The Sixth Great Realization.
6) THE SIXTH GREAT REALIZATION is: The Revelation of Divine Grace. This is the realization of The Gracious Gift, the gift of being, wherein we realize that we came into being as an act of grace, according to The Creative Wish. Though we number this the sixth realization, it occurs whenever it occurs, not necessarily according to any listed sequence….
With The Revelation of Divine Grace comes the experience of The Great Humility. At the time of The Great Humility, one dedicates oneself fully as a servant of Jah-Jah and Elohim in a new and powerful way, not due to hope for eternal life, yea, and not to earn eternal life, but in joyous response to The Gracious Gift that is eternal life. Now one is motivated by pure love for the Creator in the heavenly bliss of The Great Appreciation. Now one may join in the heavenly chorus that is the Creative Enchantment, which is the ever-ongoing Creative Wish, the mantra of YHWH: ‘Let Being expand, now in forever, amen!’ And this great love for Yah gives birth to a great love for the creation of Yah, yea, and a desire to serve Yah by serving all of creation.
And if we act on that love, we will experience The Seventh Great Realization.
7) THE SEVENTH GREAT REALIZATION is: Realization of our True Work. That ‘Work’ is linked with The Mantra of the Christ Family, also called The Healing Enchantment, which is: ‘Let there be ever-expanding well-being for all Beings in the highest Love, now in forever, amen!’ This realization is The Magic Key to the Highest Heaven.
