excerpts

This is the principle that the Universe of Wholeness represents a collective intelligence that can be personalized as a single Universal Entity. Thus, in this model of inference, there are only two entities in the entire cosmos: the individual entity and the Universal Entity. Inasmuch as the individual is impressionable and constantly changing to adapt to new information, so is the Universal Entity, which is a dynamic and living template of potential energies and experiences that are coherent and as knowable as a friend’s personality and behavior.

The Universal Entity is responsive to the individual and its perceptions and expressions. It is like a composite omni-personality that is imbued with Source Intelligence and responds to the perceptions of the individual like a pool of water mirrors the image that overshadows it. Everyone in a human instrument is indeed, at their innermost core, a sovereign entity that can transform the human instrument into an instrument of the Sovereign Integral. However, this transformation is dependent on whether the individual chooses to project an image of a Sovereign Integral upon the “mirror” of the Universal Entity, or project a lesser image that is a distortion of its true state of being.

The principle of universe relationship through gratitude is primarily concerned with consciously designing one’s self image through an appreciation of the Universal Entity’s supportive “mirror”. In other words, the Universal Entity is a partner in shaping reality’s expression in one’s life. Reality is an internal process of creation that is utterly free of external controls and conditions if the individual projects a sovereign image upon the mirror of the Universal Entity.

This process is an interchange of supportive energy from the individual to the Universal Entity, and this energy is best applied through an appreciation of how perfect and exacting the interchange occurs in every moment of life. If the individual is aware (or at least interested in having the awareness) of how perfect the Universal Entity supports the individual’s sovereign reality, there is a powerful and natural sense of gratitude that flows from the individual to the Universal Entity. It is this wellspring of gratitude that opens the channel of support from the Universal Entity to the individual and establishes a collaboration of purpose to transform the human instrument into an expression of the Sovereign Integral.

It is principally gratitude—which translates to an appreciation of how the inter-relationship of the individual and the Universal Entity operates—that opens the human instrument to its connection to the sovereign entity and its eventual transformation into the Sovereign Integral state of perception and expression. The relationship of the individual with the Universal Entity is essential to cultivate and nurture, because it, more than anything else, determines how accepting the individual is to life’s myriad forms and manifestations.

When the individual accepts changes in sovereign reality as the shifting persona of the Universal Entity, they live in greater harmony with life itself. Life becomes an exchange of energy between the individual and the Universal Entity that is allowed to play out without judgment and experienced without fear. This is the underlying meaning of unconditional love: to experience life in all its manifestations as a single, unified intelligence that responds perfectly to the projected image of the human instrument.

It is for this reason that when the human instrument projects gratitude to the Universal Entity, regardless of circumstance or condition, life becomes increasingly supportive in opening the human instrument to activate its Source Codes and live life within the framework of the synthesis model of expression. The feeling of gratitude coupled with the mental concept of appreciation is expressed like an invisible message in all directions and at all times. In this particular context, gratitude to the Universal Entity is the overarching motive behind all forms of expression that the human instrument aspires to.

Every breath, every word, every touch, every thought, every thing is centered on expressing this sense of gratitude. A gratitude that the individual is sovereign and supported by a Universal Entity that expresses itself through all forms and manifestations of intelligence with the sole objective of creating the ideal reality to activate the individual’s Source Codes and transform the human instrument and entity into the Sovereign Integral. It is this specific form of gratitude that accelerates the activation of the Source Codes and their peculiar ability to integrate the disparate componentry of the human instrument and the entity, and transform them to the state of perception and expression of the Sovereign Integral.

Time is the only factor that distorts this otherwise clear connection between the individual and Universal Entity. Time intervenes and creates pockets of despair, hopelessness, and abandonment. However, it is these very “pockets” that often activate the Source Codes of the entity and establish a more intimate and harmonious relationship with the Universal Entity. Time establishes separation of experience, and the perceived discontinuity of reality, which in turn creates doubt in the Universal Entity’s system of fairness and overarching purpose. The result creates fear that the universe is not a mirror, but rather a chaotic, whimsical energy.

When the human instrument is aligned with the Sovereign Integral and lives from this perspective as a developing reality, it attracts a natural state of harmony. This does not necessarily mean that the human instrument is without problems or discomforts, rather it signifies a perception that there is an integral purpose in what life reveals. In other words, natural harmony perceives that life experience is meaningful to the extent you are aligned with the Sovereign Integral, and that your personal reality must flow from this strata of the multidimensional universe in order to create lasting joy and inner peace.

Gratitude is a critical facet of love that opens the human instrument to acknowledge the role of the Universal Entity and redefine its purpose as a supportive extension of sovereign reality, rather than the whimsical outreach of fate or the exacting reaction of a mechanical, detached universe. Establishing a relationship with the Universal Entity through the outflow of gratitude also attracts life experience that is transformative. Experience that is richly devoted to uncovering life’s deepest meaning and most formative purpose.

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Excerpted from Wingmakers Ancient Arrow Project: Philosophy Chamber One

In the city of Sāvatthī in northern India, the Buddha had a large centre where people would come to meditate and to listen to his Dhamma talks. Every evening one young man used to come to hear his discourses. For years he came to listen to the Buddha but never put any of the teaching into practice.

After a few years, one evening this man came a little early and found the Buddha alone. He approached him and said, “Sir, I have a question that keeps arising in my mind, raising doubts.”

“Oh? There should not be any doubts on the path of Dhamma; have them clarified. What is your question?”

“Sir, for many years now I have been coming to your meditation center, and I have noticed that there are a large number of recluses around you, monks and nuns, and a still larger number of lay people, both men and women. For years some of them have been coming to you. Some of them, I can see, have certainly reached the final stage; quite obviously they are fully liberated. I can also see that others have experienced some change in their lives. They are better than they were before, although I cannot say that they are fully liberated. But sir, I also notice that a large number of people, including myself, are as they were, or sometimes they are even worse. They have not changed at all, or have not changed for the better.

“Why should this be, sir? People come to you, such a great man, fully enlightened, such a powerful, compassionate person. Why don't you use your power and compassion to liberate them all?”

The Buddha smiled and said, “Young man, where do you live? What is your native place?”

“Sir, I live here in Sāvatthī, this capital city of the state of Kosala.”

“Yes, but your facial features show that you are not from this part of the country. Where are you from originally?”

“Sir, I am from the city of Rājagaha, the capital of the state of Magadha. I came and settled here in Sāvatthī a few years ago.”

“And have you severed all connections with Rājagaha?”

“No sir, I still have relatives there. I have friends there. I have business there.”

“Then certainly you must go from Savatthī to Rājagaha quite often?”

“Yes sir. Many times each year I visit Rājagaha and return to Sāvatthī.”

“Having travelled and returned so many times on the path from here to Rājagaha, certainly you must know the path very well?”

“Oh yes, sir, I know it perfectly. I might almost say that even if I was blindfolded I could find the path to Rājagaha, so many times have I walked it.”

“And your friends, those who know you well, certainly they must know that you are from Rājagaha and have settled here? They must know that you often visit Rājagaha and return, and that you know the path from here to Rājagaha perfectly?”

“Oh yes, sir. All those who are close to me know that I often go to Rājagaha and that I know the path perfectly.”

“Then it must happen that some of them come to you and ask you to explain to them the path from here to Rājagaha. Do you hide anything or do you explain the path to them clearly?”

“What is there to hide, sir? I explain it to them as clearly as I can: you start walking towards the east and then head towards Banaras, and continue onward until you reach Gaya and then Rājagaha. I explain it very plainly to them sir.”

“And these people to whom you give such clear explanation, do all of them reach Rājagaha?”

“How can that be, sir? Those who walk the entire path to its end, only they will reach Rājagaha.”

“This is what I want to explain to you, young man. People keep coming to me knowing that this is someone who has walked the path from here to nibbāna and so knows it perfectly. They come to me and ask, ‘What is the path to nibbāna, to liberation?' And what is there to hide? I explain it to them clearly: ‘This is the path.' If somebody just nods his head and says, ‘Well said, well said, a very good path, but I won't take a step on it; a wonderful path, but I won't take the trouble to walk over it,' then how can such a person reach the final goal?”

“I do not carry anyone on my shoulders to take him to the final goal. Nobody can carry anyone else on his shoulders to the final goal. At most, with love and compassion one can say, ‘Well, this is the path, and this is how I have walked on it. You also work, you also walk, and you will reach the final goal.' But each person has to walk himself, has to take every step on the path himself. He who has taken one step on the path is one step nearer the goal. He who has taken a hundred steps is a hundred steps nearer the goal. He who has taken all the steps on the path has reached the final goal. You have to walk on the path yourself.”

He motioned for me to sit down, and I did.

“There is something I want to tell you,” Dou Xing said, “but first, you must do as I instruct. Are you willing?”

“Yes.”

“Then you are not ready.”

I looked at him, and though there were no mirrors around, I imagined my face was completely puzzled.

“Tell me about your experience?” he asked.

“What just happened? Did I do something wrong?”

He flashed a smile. “You were ready to take my instructions without question—”

“But I trust you, why wouldn’t I?”

“Trust is fine, but always question. Never give away what is yours, any more than you would take away what is mine.”

I could still feel puzzlement on my face.

“You are sovereign. Your world will try its best to tell you otherwise, but you are this—sovereign. You are also integrated with all others within your realm. So you are both sovereign and integrated. In this state, you are able to operate as a singular being that is connected to all other beings through the network of personal responsibility, which is to say, the virtues of the heart—it is the only covenant.

“Do you understand?”

I nodded. “But questioning… even you?”

“It is not a sign of disrespect. It is a sign that you understand sovereignty. It is not willful disobedience to an authority; it is the practice of your heart aligned to what is called in some worlds, the Sovereign Integral. This is the consciousness that we all aspire to, whether we call it by this name or not.”

“You are aware, I take it, that I’m living in a mental hospital right now…”

“Yes.”

“And I am anything but a Sovereign Integral. Right now, I wear clothes that aren’t mine, I’m locked inside a room, I eat when I’m told, and I have no real freedoms, so how do I live as a Sovereign Integral?”

“You align with it.”

“And how do I do that?”

“Everything is about alignment in a world that is ordered hierarchically. Because there are levels or layers of the world, alignment is critical. I will show you… with your permission.” He nodded to me, and I nodded back.

In an instant we were flying by some invisible means above a place that was absolutely pristine in its beauty. There was a large waterfall, plunging into a dense, tropical jungle, and we flew into a pool of water that was only a few yards downstream from where the waterfall exploded into the river.

The sound of the rushing water was exhilarating. I could feel the power of the water pushing us downstream as we bobbed like apples floating down the river. In a few moments, the roar of the water subsided and the current diminished sufficiently, so we could swim to the river’s edge where we hoisted ourselves up and lay on our backs on the warm sand of the embankment.

“Do you see it?” Dou Xing was pointing upwards to some tree branches that hung high above us like green canopies, blocking the sky. I looked and saw only leaves, nothing peculiar or unusual.

“You mean the leaves?” I asked tentatively.

“Look closer.”

I squinted, but again saw nothing unusual. “I see only leaves.”

“Try not to look at the leaves, but rather, look at the movement of the leaves and what gathers at their lowest point.”

The spray from the waterfall kept the leaves in a perpetual state of glistening green and drops of water were falling from them, and I watched as these drops of water fell down on us. It was hypnotic. I kept watching, occasionally I’d feel a water drop hit my arm or face.

“Keep watching,” Dou Xing said. “Patience is rewarded.”

Then it happened, I was watching one drop form high above me, knowing somehow it would land on me. I watched it curling its energy into enough mass that it would suddenly burst from its leafy post and let gravity have its way with it. It began its descent, and I watched it fall into my eye with great relish. As it hit my eye, I immediately felt my body, such as it was in this world, become like water. It was a very strange experience, I began to dissolve, and I flowed into the river and felt myself merging into the water that flowed downstream.

I rushed by stones and boulders and smooth branches that poked out of the river like bones of trees that had long passed to a new world. I heard the sound of rushing water; I felt the movement, unburdened of any desire or will. It was utterly freeing to flow like this. To feel movement and yet no will. To be separate yet part of a whole. It was ecstasy. It was alignment.

The instant the thought hit me I was back sitting in front of Dou Xing’s modest fire pit with the faint outline of distant mountains in the background.

“I… I understand,” I muttered distractedly.

“Alignment is flow. But what do you flow with?” Dou Xing asked.

“Love?”

“Is it a question?”

“Love.”

“And where does this love come from?”

That was a good question. I thought about it for a few moments as I was readying my answer, feeling like a test was being played out. “It comes from here.” I put my hand over my chest.

“Remember the waterfall?”

“Yes.”

“It’s like the heart, but before the waterfall, there was a source, what was it?”

“The whole river was the source,” I said.

“So we align to love’s unity instead of the small drop—the one ego. We align to the part of us that is the whole river.”

“The Sovereign Integral…” I half-whispered.

“Yes.”

“But if it’s just a concept, if I’ve never experienced this state before, how do I align to something that’s a mere thought or concept?”

Dou Xing looked heavenward for a moment. “This will come as a surprise to you, but you, in your human instrument, are a mere thought or concept, too. You have only accepted it as your reality. It is the only difference. So when you align to a larger picture of your true self—the whole river—you assign a new sense of priority to your interaction with the universe. This can be done on a subconscious level; it doesn’t require you to will it into manifestation with prayers and visualization. Just hold the desire to be aligned… to be the whole river. The rest, as they say, will follow.”

As his words finished I opened my eyes and saw the drab outlines of my room hazy in its darkness. I was once again alone.

Uncle stood to his feet, signaling with his hand that he wanted me to follow him. “I want to show you something.”

I shadowed him as we went outside, walking along the cliff wall about thirty feet to another entrance—this one much better hidden. Inside was a similar room, though its ceiling was only about twelve feet high. Uncle kept walking while I glanced around, wishing I had more time to explore the chamber.

“Don’t worry you’ll have time to explore later,” Uncle said over his shoulder. I heard a click and saw he had a pen-sized flashlight in his hand. “It gets dark as we move deeper into the cave.” He looked down at his small flashlight. “It doesn’t provide much light, but I know the way. Just stay close to me.”

“How far does it go?” I asked.

“Only a few hundred feet, but where we’re going is about half that distance.”

Uncle walked along a narrow corridor of eroded rock that looked like water had carved it out. There was a metallic smell in the air, but it was not unpleasant. The corridor was banded in layers of rock each about ten inches thick. We picked our way through the narrow corridors in silence, and then Uncle stopped and turned around to face me. “Something happened when we were talking earlier. What was it?”

I stuttered miserably. “I… I was… in a… a… I don’t know… how to… I left… it… it’s really—”

“It’s okay,” Uncle said, putting his hand on my shoulder. “Sometimes the tongue trips on the worlds outside the body.” He turned around and continued without another word.

A minute later the corridor opened up into a circular-shaped chamber. On the right side, Uncle stooped over something that was protruding from the wall. It was a massive skull about eight feet long, perhaps three feet high at its highest point. It was broken in a few pieces, but otherwise it was perfectly preserved. It was the same color of limestone-encrusted bone as the skeletons of the Quantusum I saw in the previous chamber.

“It’s huge!” I exclaimed.

“Do you recognize it?”

“Of course, how did you find it?”

Uncle pointed to the entrance to the chamber. “When I first found this site, Lame Deer and I were exploring this area… maybe for the second or third time, and I noticed this little protrusion, right here.” He pointed to the front of the skull. “It stuck out only a few inches, and at first I thought it might be a shell, but we chipped away at it with our knives, and we realized it was something much bigger than a shell.

“Over the years, we kept chipping away.”

“How did you dig it out?”

“We know a bit about archaeology. Kohana studied it in school for just that purpose. We bought the tools.” He pointed to the far wall and let his flashlight beam make a faint sweep to reveal a makeshift table with various tools resting on its surface, including lanterns.

“It’s been almost twenty years in the making. We’d come here for three, sometimes five day trips, and work twelve-hour days. It required more patience than I have, but it’s been a good teacher.”

“It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.”

Uncle nodded with a smile.

“And no one’s seen them?”

Uncle shook his head. “Only Kohana, Lame Deer and now you have seen this.”

Uncle handed me his flashlight. “Take a closer look.”

I knelt down and looked inside the skull. Its haunting presence almost took my breath away as I looked deep within the huge cavity that once held a brain the size of a large man.

“One thing puzzles me—” I said, “if this is your most sacred site, how come no one knows of it?”

“In every culture there are those who know what’s happening—what’s truly happening, and there’re those who don’t. The Unktegila are feared in our Nation to the extent they’re even known anymore. They’re believed to be evil water reptilians that were ultimately destroyed by the thunderbirds.”

“How did they get maligned like that?”

“The same way the snake in the Garden of Eden was made out to be Satan.”

Uncle paused and gently patted the head of the giant Quantusum skull in front of us. “It happens because those in power shape perception; they take the liberators and make them appear evil, immoral and self-serving. This is why we’ve had no choice but to keep the site hidden.”

“What about Lame Deer?”

“He died many years ago.” Uncle’s voice turned suddenly distant. “He spoke only once of this site to elders of our Nation, but kept his words vague. He told them I was in charge, because I had discovered it. His influence as a Holy Man was unmatched at that time, so the elders put me in charge of the site, but only because they assumed it was just a few bones of the Unktegila, and none of them had any interest in visiting such a remote site.”

“So what makes it so sacred then? Isn’t it a waste of its sacredness if it isn’t shared?” I asked.

“Yes, it’s a waste in one way,” Uncle said. “But the power of this site, like anything that’s truly powerful, isn’t contained in the number of people who touch it. The power of this place isn’t about place.”

“What do you mean?”

“The field of the Quantusum is everywhere. Its presence is the very reason that so few know anything about them.”

“Freewill?”

Uncle looked at me with eyes that signaled surprise, but he simply nodded, and brought his finger slowly to my forehead, touching the place between my eyes, just above the bridge of my nose. “Sit down comfortably—I’ll show you something.”

I sat down, unsure of what he was doing, but trusting him completely. “Close your eyes,” Uncle said. “Breathe as shallow as you can. Concentrate on slowing down your breath… imagine that you’re self-contained without any attachment to this world… even breathing the air is unnecessary…”

As I listened to his voice I began to feel my body dip into drowsiness. Somewhere inside me, I was already seeing a whole new world appear, and even Uncle’s voice bent down to this new reality.

A forest of ancient trees surrounded me. I was held tight in the thick tree trunks that bounded me. I looked behind me as I heard Uncle’s voice. “This is where many people live, in the tight constraints of a dense forest.”

“A forest… I don’t understand?” I said.

“It’s a metaphor,” Uncle chuckled. He looked noticeably younger and wore a beige- colored tunic, but his presence felt the same. Uncle raised his hand and touched my forehead. “Look now.”

I felt no movement, but I was now in a meadow with high grass rolling to the light breeze that swept across a vast plain beneath the light of a golden sun. In the far expanse I could see a beautiful mountain awash in the atmospheric haze of a blue- gray vastness.

Uncle remained at my side, and I noticed his arm was pointing to the distant mountain. “That is known in this land as the mountain of consciousness. Look around you.”

To my surprise there were other people in the field with us. Some were painting pictures of the mountain, some were composing music, and others had turned their backs and were looking to the forest behind us.

Uncle shrugged, anticipating my thoughts. “They admire the mountain, but they prefer to paint pictures of it or write melodies and poems, than to climb it.” He pointed behind us. “Those people… they don’t like the open spaces… too much vision. They feel naked out here.”

Uncle placed his finger on my forehead again. “Now look.”

We were at the base of the mountain; in the shadows of a deep valley. The mountain was enormous. I had never seen anything so magnificent… so massive. The mountain’s presence was awe-inspiring, and all I could do was crane my head and admire its soaring reaches. Its summit appeared unattainably high.

“Does anyone ever climb it?” I asked, turning to Uncle.

“Some. Some try and give up. Most never even get this close. The presence of the mountain scares them.”

“Why?”

“Don’t you feel it? The presence of its consciousness?”

I nodded my head slowly. “Yes, but I want to see more… higher.”

Uncle smiled. “It’s in your nature. When you’re at the base of something as enormous as this, you either fear it or you want to climb it and know the view at the top. What do you see now?”

I looked suspiciously at Uncle, wondering as to the nature of his question. Wasn’t it obvious? “There’s only one thing to see—the mountain.”

Uncle touched my forehead again, and again I felt no sense of movement, but an instant later we were on a thin ledge midway up the mountain.

“Beautiful views, wouldn’t you say?” Uncle asked with a rhetorical tone.

I looked up and down the mountain. The thin ledge we were on felt vulnerable. We were thousands of feet above the floor of the valley. We were in a place uninhabitable by any but the bravest of animals. I was nearly afraid to move for fear I would fall to my certain death. “It’s hard to enjoy the view when I’m afraid I might fall.”

“Exactly,” Uncle said quietly—almost a whispered construction. “When you climb the mountain of consciousness you encounter sheer cliffs like this one—tiny ledge, big view. The question is whether to look out or keep the focus on the climb. Certainly you don’t want to look down.”

“You’re saying that people who climb this mountain don’t care about those below?”

“I’m saying it’s a natural tendency. Focus on the climb, don’t look down. Feed your soul. Feed your mind. Keep moving. Learn, learn… and learn.”

“Isn’t it necessary to do that?” I said. “If I looked down all the time, caring about those in the forest, the fields… in the valley below, I’d probably fall. I’d never complete my climb. Right?”

Uncle looked at me with sudden aloofness, and pushed me. I felt my heart suddenly sink, as my body struggled to regain its balance and stay on the ledge. Then I felt another push, this one harder, and I knew I would fall. I fell in complete and utter terror, screaming as loud as my voice would go. I fell like a piece of iron seeking the firmness of earth.

A mere ten feet from meeting the grassy, blood-smeared end that burst into my imagination, I stopped and floated quietly to the ground. Uncle was already there, his arms folded across his chest.

“That’s done,” he announced.

My terror-stricken face felt permanent as I looked around my surroundings, wondering if I was really alive.

“You’re okay,” Uncle said. “You needed that.”

“I needed that?”

“Get it out of your system, and reset your mind.”

“Next time you need to reset my system, can you ask permission first?” My glaring eyes were no doubt difficult to look at, because Uncle turned away and pointed to a group of people who’d gathered to make prayers to the mountain.

“They praise and worship this mountain. They never really climb it, but they sure love to talk about it.”

“What was that about?”

“What?”

“Pushing me off a cliff?”

“You needed to experience the fear of these people. See it through their eyes.”

“This is all metaphors… can you speak plainly?”

“In this place, metaphor and reality are the same thing.”

I was perplexed. I half understood what he was saying, but the other half was like a black hole sucking the half I understood into its gravitational field. I looked at him, a scowl still in control of my face. “What is it you want me to learn?”

“I want you to see. Learning will come after.”

Uncle suddenly scooped down with his hand and brought up a closed hand. He then brought it to a glass box that stood on a pedestal I hadn’t noticed. He slid one of the box’s glass planes open and placed an insect inside. It looked like a grasshopper. “This creature lives its entire life in these fields without limitation. I just ended that.”

I watched as the grasshopper jumped inside the glass box hitting against the top and some of the sides. The grasshopper stopped as if he was stunned by the new circumstance of his environment.

“To the grasshopper,” Uncle said, “all is well. He is alive after all. He sees his normal environment all around him. He can’t see the glass. If I keep him in here for a few days he will stop his jumping and become acclimated to the dimensions of his new home. All he needs is food and water, and he can survive.”

“So you’re saying these people are acclimated to simply survive?”

Uncle slide one of the side panels of the glass box open. “If you were a grasshopper, what would you do?”

“I would jump through the open panel.”

“But how would you know it was open? It’s perfectly clear glass.”

I thought about it for a moment. “I’d jump in every direction… I’d experiment.”

Uncle took a stick and pointed it at the grasshopper through the open side panel, and the grasshopper jumped into the opposite wall, hitting his head and falling to his side. “Do you see that I offered him an exit and he fled? He could’ve climbed on the stick, and I would have freed him.”

“Yes, but he doesn’t know that.”

“True.”

Uncle opened another side panel. “What you said is right. You experiment. You try different ways to climb the mountain of consciousness. You don’t settle on one way… one method… one teacher. If you devote your entire life to the worship of one thing, what if you find out when you take your last breath that the one thing was not real.

“You find that you lived inside a cage all your life. You never tried to jump out by experimenting, by testing the walls. The people who never bother to climb this mountain are inside a cage, and they don’t know it. Fear is the glass wall. Wakan Tanka comes and opens one of the glass panels, perhaps offers a stick for them to climb out, but they jump away, going further inside their soul-draining boundaries.”

Uncle brought the stick out again and lightly jabbed it in the direction of the grasshopper, who hopped through the open side panel, and was instantly lost in the thick underbrush that surrounded us.

Uncle turned his eyes to me. “Are you ready to do the same?”

“Jump out of the cage?”

Uncle nodded.

“Why not,” I said, trying to sound brave. “This is the equivalent of your seeking my permission, isn’t it?”

Uncle walked up to me, and as he’d done before, placed his finger on my forehead. “This is the equivalent of having no equivalent.”

In a flash we were both standing high above the valley, looking down from the mountain at the curved earth below. The height was staggering. I looked up and could see the summit was just a short climb, but already the view was mesmerizing. Uncle’s final words were still echoing in my mind.

“Amazing,” I said, feeling the wind curl around the narrow summit. I knew I should be cold, but I felt comfortable. I knew the oxygen levels should be all but depleted, but I could breathe fine.

“Follow me,” Uncle said.

We walked quietly to the very top of the great mountain, hearing the winds, but nothing else. When we arrived at the very top, the panorama took my breath away. Uncle and I stood awestruck, looking out to the far horizons.

“Do you see that?” Uncle asked, pointing.

There was a sea glistening in the far horizon line. “I didn’t know there was a sea,” I said.

“Do you see that?”

I followed Uncle’s pointing arm to a city in the far distance with glass buildings that reflected the sky. “Millions of people live in that city.

“Look there.”

Again, I followed Uncle’s finger and saw another mountain range, way in the distance. None of the mountains looked as high as the one we were sitting on, but it felt good to see more.

“None of these places you knew existed until you arrived right here.” Uncle punctuated his statement by pointing down to the gray, lichen-covered rocks we stood on.

“Have you thought about the mountain?” Uncle asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Since we came upon the summit, have you thought about the mountain?”

I shook my head. “To be honest, I’ve only thought about what’s out there.” I pointed to the various sights we had just looked at.

Uncle squinted; his eyes told me his soul had been summoned elsewhere. “You climb this mountain of consciousness for the vision from its summit, but when you arrive, you no longer think about the mountain. It’s the view… the vision. You can see how everything is part of the tapestry that weaves all life forms, all matter, even time and space into a single fabric. We call that fabric by many names—those who’ve climbed this mountain, but we all see the same thing. We all experience the one force that connects all.

“Those who stay in the forests, the fields, the valleys, they like their sense of separation. They feel comfortable there. The effort to see this… requires too much adjustment. What is coming will change that. The Grand Portal will remove the sense of separation.”

He paused and looked at me, his eyes open again. “The glass box… it will become visible. People will see the box they live in, and they will jump out of it.”

“To what?”

Uncle held out his arms in an all-encompassing gesture. “The world of vision.”

I began to feel light-headed, and wondered if the oxygen levels were indeed having an effect on me. I crouched down, hoping to avert a painful collapse on the jagged rocks underfoot.

“Look here,” Uncle said.

I struggled to raise my head in his direction, and for one last time I felt his finger touch my forehead.

The next thing I remember was the smell of the cave, the relative darkness, the deep quiet, and Uncle’s hand on my shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“I think so,” I managed to say. “Where did you take me? What was that place?’

“It was a place I created from my imagination.”

“How could I be in it?”

“I invited you.”

“But how? I don’t remember your invitation.”

Uncle crouched down beside me and put his arm around my shoulder. “Let’s go outside, walk awhile, maybe get some water. We should check on Kohana, too.”

He helped me to my feet as I wobbled a bit standing up. I caught a glimpse of him in the dim light of the cave and felt such a powerful sense of his caring. Sometimes you meet people whose sense of mission is so clearly etched on their persona that you try to rise to their heights, to become entangled in their passion. I felt this entanglement, and even though I was weakened physically, another kind of strength was entering me.

Let us give the example of the man who sees all the poker hands. He then knows the game. It is but child’s play to gamble, for it is no risk. The other hands are known. The possibilities are known and the hand will be played correctly but with no interest.

In time/space and in the true-color green density, the hands of all are open to the eye. The thoughts, the feelings, the troubles, all these may be seen. There is no deception and no desire for deception. Thus much may be accomplished in harmony but the mind/body/spirit gains little polarity from this interaction.

Let us re-examine this metaphor and multiply it into the longest poker game you can imagine, a lifetime. The cards are love, dislike, limitation, unhappiness, pleasure, etc. They are dealt and re-dealt and re-dealt continuously. You may, during this incarnation begin — and we stress begin — to know your own cards. You may begin to find the love within you. You may begin to balance your pleasure, your limitations, etc. However, your only indication of other-selves’ cards is to look into the eyes.

You cannot remember your hand, their hands, perhaps even the rules of this game. This game can only be won by those who lose their cards in the melting influence of love; can only be won by those who lay their pleasures, their limitations, their all upon the table face up and say inwardly: “All, all of you players, each other-self, whatever your hand, I love you.” This is the game: to know, to accept, to forgive, to balance, and to open the self in love. This cannot be done without the forgetting, for it would carry no weight in the life of the mind/body/spirit beingness totality.