4. AUTOBIOGRAPHY – THE MIRROR
As
a child, just learning to read, the realization came over me one day that I had
lived before, and had left the learning from that previous life to assist myself
in this time – in the form of writings. My world at that time was rather small
– my parents’ farm and the village school two miles away – and it may be
understandable that I thought this earlier life had been lived within the world
that I now knew. Thus I was an avid reading student so as to – sooner rather
than later – be able to study the books in the family collection, amongst which
I would surely find wisdom from my former life. As I later explored the
family’s few literary treasures – a copy of “Trees of Canada”, an illustrated
medical guide and past Farmers Almanacs, I realized that the quest to find the
guide from my former life to the current one was not going to be the quick path
that I’d anticipated, nor was I able to pick up the trail in the libraries of
the primary, secondary or Sunday schools attended. And so over time even the
feeling that I’d lived before faded as the idea ran counter to cultural and
family belief structures, and the educative, social and working demands of this
present life absorbed my energies. It was not until after retirement that the
concept of reincarnation came before me again, listening to lectures at the
Association for Research and Enlightenment (ARE), studying the ‘readings’ of
the psychic Edgar Cayce, and critically reviewing the reincarnation findings of
Dr. Ian Stevenson, former Head of Psychiatry, University of Virginia. And as is
apparent to readers who have looked into other sections of this website, the
quest also expanded to review the findings of many others who marveled at the
natural and esoteric processes of this amazing world.
[In
time I came to the personal understanding that there IS a trans-life library,
but it is never one that we can subsequently tangibly find within a book – rather
the self’s messages are written on the frequencies of our very essence –
awaiting rediscovery by us in our current life when we have sufficient
experience and balance to accept their meaning yet still have the hunger for
further evolvement through applying them. Thus through gradual realizations we
‘re-member’ ourselves and advance our personal progress. Further, many people
have the sense that our lives are not themselves even sequential, but rather
are lived concurrently on different dimensions, and that we can even help
ourselves ‘inter-dimensionally’ with guidance and intuition when conditions are
right. The following story, from my own life, makes me ponder about this
issue.]
**
THE MIRROR
At
the time the series of incidents disclosed here commenced, I was 20 years old
and driving alone late at night from the farm to my shift work in a nearby
city, when I was compelled to stop the car, turn off the ignition, and step
outside under the moonless stars. Then, as in a trance, I took out a pencil and
paper and wrote in the dark over the car roof. Having no idea what was being
written, when I re-entered the car I found that I had written four
instructions, the first being – “Be Humble: there is your strength”, and the
second “Help others with your mind” (the last two instructions were
subsequently lost during ‘the aftermath’ period mentioned below). And then –
over the next three months – a fantastic grouping of personal experiences
occurred which to this day has more reality than my satisfying work in systems
and business banking and family formation, which aspects being now behind me,
seem almost a dream. For there came to me personal involvement in the
meta-world of psycho-kinesis, prescience, telepathy and astral travel (or OBE
out-of-body experience), for which I was neither prepared nor particularly
desirous. The latter experience – OBE – is the subject of this Perception
‘window’.
Firstly,
I would observe that – in my late teens when this three month period occurred,
aside from an occasional beer between square dance ‘sets’ at local Saturday
night barn dances (when shift work allowed), there was no alcohol nor drugs of
any nature in my life. After receiving the above list of instructions there
was, though, an intoxicating ‘feeling’ that I was going to be taught/shown
things not normally encountered by people. Not only during the days, but during
the nights too. In a way, I felt fully aware, and sensed that my life was
undergoing a comprehensive change. For instance, dreamtime became a wonder. By
comparison, it seemed that the daytime phenomena were basically for
experimentation; the OBE dreamwork was the main teaching device. Perhaps this
is because I related to psycho-kinesis, prescience, and telepathy as
self-discovery skill sets, while the dreamwork was an incredible show-and-tell
experience of which I was – by instruction – to observe all but interfere with
nothing. That is to say, not to intrude upon the realities nor change the
destinies of other sentient creatures in this, or other, realms visited. Entry
to the OBE process was, metaphorically, via mental access ‘codes’ / numerical
formulae – and infraction of the non-intrusion instruction would result in loss
of the code, preclusion of future OBE travel, and the possibility of being
stranded ‘in limbo’.
The
second requirement was a caution to not overextend the duration of an OBE trip,
so as to ensure proper safety and servicing of one’s physical body and
re-connection therewith. The signal to the ‘astral’ quester that it was time to
return home and restore consciousness to the physical body, was when passing
before a mirror, to notice whether or not one’s reflection materialized. In
astral or OBE travel, one does not have substance, hence cannot cast either
reflection or shadow – one is fully transparent physically and also devoid of
Shadow (ego). To see either the materialization of one’s reflection or the
casting of one’s shadow would mean that one’s physical aspect was materializing
in that foreign realm – if fully materialized, one would be stuck there and
unable to transit home. (There are many interesting places to visit, but one
wouldn’t want to live there.)
It
might be thought that one couldn’t observe much in a single night, but time
has some interesting features. Remember how in normal dreams, major
transactional periods which in the dream state seem to cover decades, actually
occur within a moment or two of clock time? In the same manner, extensive
durations and complex experiences in other realms were compressed within a few
hours of OBE dreamwork, so that many places or realities could be accessed and
observed before warning from mirror or shadow imposed the necessity of return.
While on the subject of time, it was also the case that ‘visits’ could be taken
to not only anywhere, but anytime, past or future, as easy as
passing through time zones in an airliner. In the OBE, one is traveling in a
transparent vehicle through the timeless. And try as I might, there was just no
way to transit physical material from one realm to another, but the transiting
of information was another thing. And this is as it should be, for what one
truly knows in one’s own experience is of more value than material
contexts.
In
this regard, I recall that one time a dear old relative was preoccupied with/dreading
the thought of death – the OBE guides acceded to my code request and the realm
of death – and those realms beyond it – were visited. I found that there was no
heaven nor hell, only ongoing learning and evolvement. But how to communicate
this acquired information to the interested relative, for that information – if
even believed – could profoundly alter that person’s reality and destiny, which
was contrary to the contract. My solution was to present the findings to
the other through dream relay, and to present the dream to her at a time when
she would most likely be able to recall it. And because we all view our dreams
as personal (as we do our thoughts), she saw the message as intuitive, or as a
teaching from within, and believed it in a way that one doesn’t believe a
statement from another mortal. I overheard this person telling her spouse about
this dream; they both marveled at the comfort gained from such a ‘perennial’
outlook together – the dream recipient lived on for several decades, and while
she had her share of physical suffering, forever after she was unshaken in her
certainty of ongoing life and evolvement, and never gave in.
There
was an implicit instruction not to tell others of any realizations;
however this is like the mythic prohibition in the Garden of Eden against
partaking of knowledge; the alarming reality is that a realization of any depth
carries a terrible burden: Those who are allowed to see are
simultaneously saddled with the obligation to communicate that vision.
That is the paradox. One is allowed to see the truth and concurrently is in a
double-bind in communicating it to others. Yet, if one has seen, one
simply must speak out. Speak out with naiveté, or compassion, or angry wisdom
or with skillful means, but speak out one must.
So
I, thinking my experiences were unique and new and for the help of others,
naively discussed them with my family, especially my three siblings who were
much older than I. Here my intuition failed, for I didn’t pick up on how unsettling
my experiences were to others. They
suggested that I should bring my ‘gift’ to the rest of humanity by having the
processes clinically examined, and I agreed. I won’t go into the aftermath of
the three month psychic or spiritual emergence experience except to say that in
due course I was ‘normalized’ involuntarily, with extensive losses in memory,
cognitive impairment and loss of psychic skills. In time I was able to put
several hundred miles between this family and myself, find Marnie who fell in love
with me and caused me to again believe in myself, and progress in recovering
logic and reasoning skills through hard but gratifying work in systems and
business banking, assuming leadership and supervisory responsibilities along
the way. Over time I did reconnect with my first family, but the earlier
feeling between several members and myself was never the same as before. Also
along our conjoint struggle, Marnie and I raised our own children, some of whom
will not be aware of aspects of the foregoing unless they read this page.
Philosophically stepping back, I see my spiritual evolution as that from a
state akin to drowning in some amorphous whole, through an
intensification of individuality into realizing the complex non-dualism
of existence. ALL does seem to be within ONE. And somehow, ONE IS THAT.
How
have I come to understand the ‘mirror’ experience? For me, it’s been a slow
process, threads here and there. Study some/ travel some/ live and assimilate.
One
thread was discovered first-hand that in some Mesoamerican cultures (e.g. the
Mayan of southern Mexico and Guatemala, the community members affix mirrors to
the statues of their saints – one’s reflection in the statues’ mirrors is a
reminder that one is mortal, and to be humble before the invisible spirit
represented by the statue.
Again,
in my work interviewing business clients and staff, I inducted from the OBE
experience that if one is going to get beyond the superficial and understand
both the forces behind the presented facts and the strengths of the
presenter, one had to set oneself aside in the moment, and be as the other
– there would be a later moment in one’s own solitude to be able to transit the
deeper forces embedded within the interview data, into one’s evaluation scales.
Focused intuition.
And
a few years ago, after attending a dreamologist’s lecture on dream symbolism, I
later met with the lecturer and asked her about the symbolism of the mirror,
and alluded to the nature of my interest. The lecturer stepped back and said,
somewhat frightened, that she had no personal knowledge of that matter but
strongly recommended that I read Robert Monroe’s books – the first of three
subsequently read being ‘Journeys Out Of The Body’. Monroe died in 1995, but
the Monroe Institute in Faber, Virginia is still alive and well with a Board of
Directors including such eminent psychologists and consciousness researchers as
Charles Tart.
**
Some
of the more realized therapists and spiritual teachers state that one can’t
understand – let alone help – another while full of self opinion, that one has
to completely forget oneself, i.e. become transparent to oneself, to the extent
that one casts no reflection (or shadow) over the other’s narrative. The same
occurs in good, effective conversation between friends – they forget
themselves, get caught up in an open dialogue without agenda or prefixed goal,
and ‘feast’ on the insights that arise not from either, but from between
them. In a strange but functionally real way, one becomes the other – true
empathy – or as Robert Heinlein described it in “Stranger In A Strange Land”,
one ‘GROKs’ the other. Otherwise, if one were not ‘en rapport’ with the friend,
one will only pollute the other’s realm with one’s own self-images and biases,
and the other may already have enough baggage of his own. Often people do not
want solutions to their problems from outside, but rather want to know that
they are sufficiently valued by another to be heard by them. That is often
sufficiently re-assuring to a troubled one to dig deeper to discover his own
solutions, and thereby empower himself for future challenges.
There
is no danger in losing oneself in the other, just pass in front of a mirror and
you will quickly be yourself again.
** illustrations by Marnie
Addendum:
While on the subject of Out-of-Body Experiences, there are the somewhat unique circumstances surrounding the death of Paramanhansa Yogananda (1893-1952). Yogananda, author of ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’ which had been read by millions of people, came to America in 1920 for the express purpose of teaching Kriya Yoga, which entails both visualization and breath-work exercises designed to attain enlightenment (Samadhi). Over the years his following expanded, and several ashrams were set up in California for aspirant devotees. On March 7, 1952, immediately following the delivery of a speech at a banquet in Los Angeles honoring Dr. Binay Sen, India's Ambassador to the United States, Yogananda collapsed and – in the absence of any vital signs – was pronounced dead of apparent heart failure. This event had previously been predicted by Yogananda to his disciples, and in accordance with his instructions to them, no autopsy nor embalming of his body was allowed, and the disciples attended his body at the mortuary, Forest Lawn Memorial Park in LA, to ensure it was not disturbed.
Later, a notarized statement signed by the Director of Forest Lawn testified: "No physical disintegration was visible in his body even twenty days after death....This state of perfect preservation of a body is, so far as we know from mortuary annals, an unparalleled one....Yogananda's body was apparently in a phenomenal state of immutability." On the 23rd day, however, a green mould appeared on his upper lip, and the disciples relinquished the remains for disposition. This phenomenon is referred to as mahasamadhi, wherein a God-realized soul makes its final, intentionally conscious exit from the body.
We
discussed this phenomenon with a friend, former Yogananda adept, now living in
retirement in a Mexican sea-coast village. He explained that, according to the
writings of the ancient Indian Rishis, no matter how advanced a yogic
practitioner was in fasting and respiratory/metabolic suppression through
Samadhi exercises, there was a time limit beyond which body and consciousness
could not rejoin, and the limit, as stated by the ancients, is 22 days. My
friend also volunteered that he himself had practiced OBE for as long as 7
days, but, in accordance with the dictates of the Order, had always had a
trusted friend guarding his body, not only from intruders, but to arouse him
via pre-arranged words – the ‘soul’ would otherwise be so deeply entranced
with/embedded in other fascinating realms that it would forget to come back and
the body could well be mistaken for a corpse and buried.
Keith and Marnie
Elliott’s “REMEDY” Site
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