The Project: Part One

My original project began in 2010 and lasted through most of 2011. It spanned from reading about the formation of the earth from both the scientific and mythical perspectives, the evolution of plants, animals and the hominoid species, the levels of consciousness described by Ken Wilber and others, ancient stone structures, the pyramids, Edgar Cayce readings, Zecharia Sitchin’s books about the creation of the Sumerian culture which he believed was due to a race of extraterrestrials from the planet Nibiru…and much more.

Nothing was beyond the scope of my research. I read and read, took lots of notes, and sat by the lake conversing with herons as I tried to absorb the information. I even started writing chapters for the book.

Then, Jenny and I went to an animal shelter, rescued a Goldendoodle with lots of physical and emotional problems, and named her Sophie. Next, thinking that she needed a companion, we rescued another dog and named him Muttley. Soon I was spending more time walking and playing with dogs as my research fell into the background.

I AM–The Sound of Consciousness

Earlier today I noticed that someone read the following blog entry which I had posted on May 4, 2011. It brought back lots of memories: I was living at Lake Douglas in Dandridge, TN, spending hours meditating, reading, taking notes, and attempting to write a book explaining my theory of the All That Is. The book wasn’t written, but I did spend a lot of time sitting by the lake watching herons catching fish. That was thirteen years ago, and I’m still, in one way or another, working on the same project. Below is the entry as it was written:

Yesterday I had an interesting experience during my Jewel Tree Meditation. In the section “the spirit of enlightenment with wisdom, love and compassion” I came to the third level of wisdom which is meditation. There, using the technique called the Diamond Drill, I pursued the question “Who am I?” Normally I defer to Eckhart Tolle’s answer which is “I am the space or the field in which form appears” but sometimes I answer with Thou Art That or the ground of being or the All That Is.

First Explanation of dream 2-19-2024

Recently I have been focused on the concept of the Life Force, Unconditional Love and Skillful Means. Then along came the dream of February 19 which confused me, so I’m still looking at its symbolism and meaning, but I have no idea what the broom, rushes and alligator represent.

For the first time in many years I feel on firmer ground with my view of…well…everything, although I’m not ready to write the book titled The World According to Charles. One piece of the puzzle that remains has to do with loving a Creator, but I’m always perplexed by what the Creator is. If it’s consciousness, Ain Sof, or the Wheel of Life which turns because of karma and ignorance, how is one supposed to love that? If form is emptiness and emptiness is form…or the All That It Is is everything and nothing, what is there to love?

So, in the dream the aunt, niece and nephew suddenly have faith in God when they receive a vision from Him somehow telling them everyone is safe and protected. In my mental world I see this as subject-object consciousness because an objective God is outside of them and His word reassures them that all is well.

Another interesting middle-of-the-night dream

February 19, 2024

It’s 2:19 a.m. and I just had another dream I have to remember. I awakened from the dream and needed to use the bathroom, but as I lay in bed I realized I was still watching the dream unfold. So, I stayed, watched, and listened as long as I could.

Somehow I knew the woman in the dream was an aunt, but not a very good one although I didn’t know those details, and she was on her way to visit her young niece and nephew. When she arrived at their house the children were outside on the sidewalk and there was a huge alligator approaching them. The aunt leaped out of the car, grabbed both of the children in her arms, somehow opened the door and put them inside. There was a broom on the porch which she picked up instantly. Then without fear she approached the alligator and swept it off the walk into the grass. It scurried away. Although she wasn’t religious, she immediately thanked the Lord.

Next she ran back into the house looking for the children but they weren’t there. Thinking they had gone out the back door, she ran through the house and out into the field. In the dream she used the word “rushes” which I understood to be tall weeds in which other alligators could be hiding. She was so scared as she ran frantically calling the children when, suddenly, she looked up at the house and could see them standing at the window watching her.

Morning Meditation 1, 10, 2024

This morning as I began my meditation I used the method described in my previous blog entry—that of dissolving the objective world by letting go of the patterned-ego, the self, and the Self as I focus on Subjective Consciousness without an object and imagine High Indifference.

Partway into today’s meditation it was as if someone changed the channel and provided a clarification—a necessary one. And it came via the soul levels of the Kabbalah. I should add here that, for me, High Indifference is akin to Mt Everest which can be reached by way of several paths but, primarily, by way of the Northeast and Southeast routes. So, High Indifference can be reached through Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam or Christianity because their mystical or esoteric paths all arrive at the summit.

Morning Meditation 1, 9, 2024

Sometimes I wish I had a device that could record my meditations and provide a printout. Today in particular because my meditation actually began about 3 a.m. when I suddenly woke up and began thinking about Merrell-Wolff’s explanation of subject/object consciousness. I fell back to sleep, but the thought process began again when I sat for my official meditation. I’ll do my best to remember.

Everything begins with Consciousness or Light and here I must mix philosophies. I believe the Kabbalah explains it best: There is Ein Sof which is everything, and it sends its Light into Keter and then to the first sephirah which is Hokhmah or Wisdom. Ein Sof retains its Essence. So for my understanding, we do not know, and maybe never will know, what Essence is. I think of it as the unknowable Creator which means we only know its Creation made from Consciousness or Light.

Franklin Merrell-Wolff’s book Pathways through to Space

After a month or more dealing with physical pain that has now subsided, my mental clarity returned. My first thoughts focused on Franklin Merrell-Wolff’s book Pathways through to Space and his experience with what he called “High Indifference”. I have returned to this book many times and continue adding pages to my notes because each time I understand more clearly.

But, as frequently happens, or more accurately, as it always happens, one book leads to another and another. At the time of Merrell-Wolff’s Realization, he was reading Shankara’s explanation of The System of the Vedanta, so I purchased the version translated by Charles Johnston and written by Dr. Paul Deussen. In the introduction John Lilly writes that Merrell-Wolff’s books Pathways through to Space and Philosophy of Consciousness without an Object alter his “state of consciousness into highly regarded and delightful regions”. He continues and adds that Olaf Stapledon’s book The Starmaker has the same power over him. So I purchased it and the kindle version of Stapledon’s other book Last and First Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future.

I could attempt to paraphrase Merrell-Wolff’s explanation of his Recognition, but it’s better to read it directly:

Some thoughts about the personal mind or ego: Michael Singer, Krishnamurti, The Wheel of Life and Ken Wilber

Thanks to Jenny, I listened to and watched Michael Singer’s presentation titled Stepping Back from the Personal Mind. https://youtu.be/G69MajgBm0E?si=X13EtIQsv605kB9i.

The personal mind, Singer said, is essentially the cause of all the problems in the world because it’s preoccupied with “I, Me and Mine”. And with eight billion people in the world, most thinking only about themselves, it leads to a lot of conflict and greed.

The personal mind is what defines us because it is formed entirely by the experiences that have happened in our lives. Once programmed, the personal mind is always searching for what we like and avoiding what we don’t like. But, Singer adds, before any experience that has or will happen to us, we are who we really are—the mind behind the personal mind.

I AM–The Sound of Consciousness

Yesterday I had an interesting experience during my Jewel Tree Meditation. In the section “the spirit of enlightenment with wisdom, love and compassion” I came to the third level of wisdom which is meditation. There, using the technique called the Diamond Drill, I pursued the question “Who am I?” Normally I defer to Eckhart Tolle’s answer which is “I am the space or the field in which form appears” but sometimes I answer with Thou Art That or the ground of being or the All That Is.

But yesterday my answer was “I am”. Of course this made me think of the Biblical “I am that I am.” As sometimes happens in my meditation, I then stopped my process and simply listened to what seemed to be a “teaching” from elsewhere.

What I think I heard was this: Everything in the world is expressing “I am”—from the peepers to the small waves on the lake, from the trees to the crows cawing in the morning, from the bees boring holes in the deck to the heron standing in the lake. All consciousness is “I am” expressing and experiencing its own uniqueness.

We humans express “I am” by way of involution and evolution through our chakra system. The life force or spirit enters the seventh chakra and travels down to the first charka where we begin the process of returning to the seventh. In the first chakra we become human beings living on earth. This is our grounding. In the second chakra we become aware of our sense mechanisms and the data received to which we react with feelings. Finally in the third chakra we get a sense of ourselves as this earthly being with a body, thoughts, feelings and emotions. This becomes our ego or personality. Probably as a society this is the average stage of our evolution.

Coming soon is a shift in consciousness which will propel us into our fourth or heart chakra. This is where I believe I was during the meditation when I heard all consciousness voice its unique expression of “I am”. This is where we relate to all the other forms on earth. It’s here in this chakra that love and compassion emerge. This is where we “know” that we are all one.

When the energy moves into the fifth or throat chakra we begin our unique expression. Just as the peepers in the spring call out “I am” to find their mates, we humans use our voice. This is the chakra of imagination and visioning. Here I envision myself healthy and happy. I am now ready to inhabit my body and express my I amness. I believe the meaning and purpose of life is to find this unique expression, that which makes us joyful to be alive, and then to use it to assist all others in expressing theirs.

As I sat in meditation I had the sense that in the sixth chakra we often get lost. We have a choice to take the fork which leads to thought or the one to intuition. Happiness, as we all know, is not predicated on exterior events. When I’m lost in thought I think I can only be happy and healthy when I’m living in St John on a sailboat as I sip mango juice. This is my attempt to control the universe, to put all my ducks in a preconceived row. Instead, the intuitive path reminds me that I choose happiness and that whatever event comes into view is the perfect one. I can be just as happy mowing grass as I can lounging on a boat in Cruz Bay. As both Krishnamurti and Tolle remind us, thought is a tool we use when dealing with life situations. Life, however, is Now. This moment, this Now, I choose to be happy and the universe provides opportunities.

And finally we arrive back at the seventh chakra, our spiritual connection. No matter whether our consciousness is in our head or our toe we are always connected. Here on earth we have the opportunity to experience consciousness, ourselves, in a bodily form with senses. We came here to enjoy the experience.

After the meditation I listened throughout the day. As I heard the birds I imagined them singing “I am”. When the storm rolled in across the lake I imagined the waves slapping the shore with “I am”. In an abstract way I know we are all one, but after the meditation I had a greater sense of the many forms of the life force of which I am one, unique but connected.

The future is only a thought in the mind.

July 4, 2010 Sunday 9:14 am

Yesterday I finished reading Eckhart Tolle’s “A New Earth” and continued reading Krishnamurti and Bohm’s “The Ending of Time.”

This morning during my meditation I reflected on Tolle’s comments that the future exists only as a thought in your mind and the past exists only as a story that you continue telling yourself. And today they resonated deeply.

I was sitting in the bedroom on my cushion and heard the refrigerator start running again for the millionth time. For the entire month of my lake stay the refrigerator has been running constantly at 32 degrees and freezing water and lettuce regardless of the setting. I have contacted the rental agency twice and finally they made an appointment for an appliance repair person to come. So, sitting on my cushion I thought, “Well, on Wednesday the refrigerator will be repaired.” And then I realized that was only a thought in my head. I thought again, “I might be dead by Wednesday.” Both are thoughts in my head…that’s all.

Then I thought about the past: it’s all memories and probably reconstructed memories at that. What difference does the past really make? So what if so and so was unkind or did this or that? What does that really have to do with this moment?

Here I am sitting on my cushion and this moment is perfect. As Tolle says, there are no problems in this moment. There might be a challenge but if you are awake and aware you will respond with intelligent action not conditioned reactions. Then I thought of Krishnamurti who said that a problem only exists if you want to resolve it. A river is only a “problem” if you need to cross it or a mountain is only a “problem” if you need to get to the other side.

And then I reflected again: the future is only a thought in the mind and the past is only a story I tell myself over and over again. So I took a deep breath and connected to the present.