Are you asleep or are you awake? I was preparing to do a meditation using my phone app. I had turned off all notices so phone calls would go straight to voicemail. Breathing in and out. Watching the breath. Being present. Watching my thoughts but not engaging with them.
The meditation leader then asked the question. Are you asleep or are you awake. I gradually, slowly left the dogma of my life long religion. Signposts along the way were books, history and my constant prayers to be open to the truth. Finally it was like ripping off a bandaid. It hurt.
Prayerful meditation and honest self reflection got me through. Or I should say is getting me through. I tried to pretend nothing had changed But it had. Them I tried or at least casually explored Buddhism. But for me the faith of my youth stripped of the silly dogma and lived humbly while treating people the way I wanted to be treated still worked for me.
So one day as I'm practising a Zen Buddhism group meditation at the local UU Church I came to the conclusion that was similar to FR Thomas Merton who while practicing Buddhist meditation realized his own Christian mystical tradition worked for him. My thought was a little less uplifting. I thought "Hey. I ain't trading one religious box just to crawl into another one."
Death must be good, otherwise God would not have obtained that it happen for everyone. Why live in fear of it? Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda.
Autobiography of a Yogi was a game changer for me. I read through it both by listening on Audible and reading it on my Kindle. But, honestly it was at times uplifting and at other times a slog. But. I think I got the gist of it. Chapter 43 titled "The Resurrection of Sri Yuketeswar" is one of my favorite passages in any book I've ever read.
Not because I converted to Hinduism. I didn't. But it just seemed to strike a chord with me. The body that was buried was the dream body in this dream world. The body Yokananda reported seeing his guru manifest was the actual vessel his spirit used. And it was itself not the final manifestation. Anyway I found it to resonate with some of my own journey. Was it literally true? I feel that when it comes to spiritual experiences truth can be spoken, modeled in nature and dreams and visions.
Imaginal is how I think of it these days. Jeffery Mislove made the distinction on his podcast. Imagination is fine but we are mainly just doing wild conjecture. The Imaginal realm however isn't imagination or even myth. It's the actual possibility of consciousness. So chapter 43 May or may not be true in a by the book here and now sense. But, away from the dense filter of this dream world there might well be a world where the old body drops and our thoughts create a greater deeper reality.
I looked back and knew my sleeping body was back there. My companion was wise beyond all earthly measure. We walked under a red sky and the landscape was rocky. I asked him "what is the dream?" But as happens in dreams what I was really asking was who is God? What is life? What is death?
He said "You ask too much." to which I felt myself start to cry. I woke up with a tear running down my cheek.
Years later I think I understand. It wasn't that I wasn't allowed to know. It was the question wasn't the right question. You can't put reality in a box. You can't house God in a religion and death isn't something strange or final. It's part of the continuing journey. This is the dream. This world of limits and hard surfaces and sharp edges.
I don't rush towards death and I'm not trying to hurry it. But, I am looking forward to waking up from the limits of this dream.
Peace!
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