Insights are often accompanied by grand visions. Whether in deep meditation, while using psychedelics, or while doing the dishes, the sky can spontaneously break open and pervade personal consciousness with a message from a deeper intelligence. In the moment they are real, vivid, truer than normal waking consciousness. But then, when pulled back into the physical state where space and time create logic in our experience, it’s hard to remember. Let alone experience it.
The ego quickly returns to spin the story that it was about us, often inflating itself to bigger proportions. However, as the personal identification with us as separate humans bound by our bodies wanes, these visions become less and less personal. I perceive them as messages from the divine, the unknown unknowable speaking to & through us in the imaginal language it uses to communicate. Not about me, never about me. They seem to be sneak peeks into the universe’s inner workings, shown through one’s personal consciousness.
To me it is truly remarkable how the content of such visions can be so alive, so truthful, so deeply felt in one’s physical body. In the content often hides a deep lesson. An insight. Could be personal, a way forward, or a teaching on how the universal laws govern our reality.
There are many ways to go about them. They could be simply discarded and labeled untrue, as for example the Zen tradition is inclined to do. But why then, do they have such enormous power in changing our perspective afterwards? I therefore choose the middle way, the way of fully opening myself to a larger intelligence showing me the deeper layers of reality. Without taking them personal in any way.
Now then, let me share a particular personal vision with you. Interpret it as you will, but know that interpretation takes place in the realm of time and space. Which is exactly where these visions try to lead us away from. Still trembling from this particular experience, I quickly wrote it down:
Lying in bed closing my eyes, I am immediately pulled to the realm of the dead. My heart rate rises, my girlfriend asks me to reply but I can't. I am aware but not form. The agony is deep, the dead guard this realm. The dead gatekeeper in LOTR comes to mind: "the way is shut, it is made by those who are dead. And the dead keep it".
There is a battle between dark and light. Darkness pervades my experience, I can't see through it. No hope, only despair. With a sound of the Gong the Ophanim arise, golden angelic wheels, servants of God. The sky breaks open and an army of angels ride against the darkness. I am pulled towards the light. Bright but cloaked angels sing in reverence of the lord: "the lord is holy, holy is the lord". It feels as if my heart cannot contain this force.
The lord speaks to me, I am afraid, it shows me the entirety of the universe, ever expanding, and tells me it is his mind. The universe is his imagination, us created creatures. The darkness makes us forget. It is the annihilator of the imagined, the destroyer of life. It tells me we must ride against the darkness, in love. The darkness has polluted the universal mind long enough, we must be remembered.
The imaginal realm is that which gives life and makes us remember. I am a bridge between worlds, just as my brothers and sisters are. Our mission is clear.
The light expands, becomes thunderous, the energy is uncontainable. An energetic blockage just above my right hip blows open, the pains is excruciating. Energy flows once again. The way is clear.
Take it all with a grain of salt. Just like you should with normal waking consciousness. The movie is so vivid, so alive, feels so real. And yet we all experience the movie so completely different. How can that be?
I don’t know and never will. Unknowing and opening up to endless possibilities is what sets us free.
With Love,
Pim
PS. Two books that talk about and show some of these personally experienced visions:
The famous Red Book by Carl Jung
LSD and the mind of the universe by Cristopher Bache