The truth is like rain water pouring over jagged rocks embedded within the mountain of human ignorance through many generations, or iterations of individual self. Eventually, it wears down the rough edges, and creates gentler pathways for future rains to travel back to its source. The impatient traveler thrusts his life, and his body upon the jagged edges, and causes greatest harm, even death, before truth’s essence can heal and transform him. The humbled wanderer, however, bears witness to its ever evolving process of revelation, letting the water gently erode his own rough edges, letting it return to its source within his own being,—–Elisha Scott
There is no greater source for traumatic wounding of our soul than to be forced into a mistaken understanding of our Self, without its Love and Truth. We are conditioned right out of our spiritual integrity, and tragically, many never find the willingness to begin the search for our real lost essence and spiritual Presence.
As I moved forward spiritually in that great summer of 1987, I was still quite new to the path of healing and transformation. I had left my old life behind, and I was open to the experience of spiritual connection, and, potentially, mastery. I had developed quite a meditation practice, eschewing committed relationships with others in order to develop a deeper spiritual reality..
I remained excited about the possibilities for my life, as I had finally made conscious contact with the God of my understanding. I had recently experienced a dramatic, miraculous, healing of my body and my mind, and a new energy permeated my being. I felt like I was finally swimming in a vast new sea of discovery and the unknown, though I still had not connected the dots, or started consciously rebuilding my new self.
I could have never anticipated the experience I was about to have, on this particular day, July 21, 1987.
The Master Teacher
“Master Teacher of the Light, Master Teacher of the Light”
I repeated within myself several times during an evening meditation, which is a mantra that I had developed to aid my focus for my meditation practice. I was meditating several hours a day, and though my life was bearing fruit from previous connections with the Spirit, I remained driven to find deeper and deeper layers of meaning, and experience of my true nature and being.
This meditation was to become Truth’s bell ringer for me.
Without warning, I was lifted from my body awareness, and I then had a sense that I now had a decision to make. It was like I was driving an automobile, and I realized that I could continue steering, and heading in my usual direction for life, or I could let go of the controls and experience something totally different and unique.
Somehow, through a mechanism still a mystery to me, I was released from the steering wheel of my mind, and my conditioning. There was an exhilarating inner rush whereby I was totally released from myself and what was left of my old psychological set, and my burdens, and my body! My essence traveled into a great unknown, which was neither light or dark, and it was like I passed through an apparently infinite matrix or structure. I had entered into a dimension of experience where interconnected structures of alive and intelligent energy were manifest. At that time, I did not recognize what I was witnessing, nor did I have the words to adequately represent this web.
Later, I was to learn that this matrix was the very collective consciousness of mankind, with all of its intelligence, and its stupidity. I quickly flashed by what was, at this point in my life, that mysterious and unnameable energy, and began almost a half spiral downward, where I came to a place of complete darkness, or, more accurately, emptiness. I felt totally at home here. I felt as if I was in the womb of some great loving presence. There was nothing at all to witness here, at least initially..
Almost immediately, a laughing, happy voice seemed to be speaking to me, or, more precisely, through me.
Messages floated through, like
- “No teacher shall effect your salvation, you must work it out for your self”, and,
- “think no thoughts”, with
- “Follow new paths of consciousness”,
And then, a mathematical formula for re-entry back into the great unknown was given to me. Because of my mathematical background, It was a differential equation that I could understand, and which stated (in layman’s terms) that with the total elimination of the movement of time based thought, the direct perception of reality was possible.
The limit, as delta T goes to zero (T is thought as a function of time), divided by delta t (t is time itself), delta is the “change in”, or as LIM dT/dt, as dt approaches zero, with T=f(t).
The solution of this equation is the great unknown, INFINITY, or that which I sought.
The difference between spiritual being and human becoming took on mathematical and spiritual significance for me on the deepest level.
The final messages, however, were two of the most difficult to reconcile within my life, and the ones which remained troubling for me throughout the subsequent years. Finding the answers to the troubling questions created from this experience was to guide me, almost all of the way up to the present moment.
First, there is this component:
- “YOU CAN’T BE REAL”.
When it was stated, it was stated through me, with a joyful, laughing voice, yet when I re-entered my normal way of being, it became a challenging, if not threatening statement.
To see again, as God, or Truth, sees, I must be mastered by this truth.
This statement is so important, I am compelled to supply a brief explanation. The ego is the sum total of all of my judgments, the sum total of my human experience, my acculturation, my conditioning, my separation from God, Love, my fellow-man, and Truth. The ego looks out from itself, and sees everything, and everyone, as if they are separate from its self, while totally failing to see that all that it ever sees, unto eternity, is itself..
We only see what we have created. I only see I, and I is the creation of being conscious. Through this ancient and venerated process I also have created the concept of “you”, as both experiences arise simultaneously.
There really does not exist the “you” that I have formed, my perception of “you” is an incomplete mental creation that only exists in my mind, and which may or may not be shared by others, and most certainly is NOT shared by you.
The human race tends to confuse the verbal description (or mental image) of the person with the actual experience of the person, who, regardless of appearances, is infinitely more complex, and worthy of love and acceptance, than the human mind can readily accept. My ego is the sum total of all of my time based thoughts about time based behaviors of myself, and others. If I want to see clearly, I must accept that my main mode of viewing the world was through the ego’s eyes of time-based judgements and the unreality that this creates. To die to this mode of living is to truly be reborn of the spirit.
To “follow new paths of consciousness”, while knowing that “you can’t be real” sets up quite a transformational dynamic within consciousness. If “you” can’t be real, then everything that I associate with “I” is preeminent. Every time I identify with a person, a process, or a place, I have created either a “new path of consciousness”, or I have reaffirmed some older, more familiar, potentially worn out path that I have already been traveling upon. “I am an electrician”, or “I am an alcoholic”, or “I am a son of Beryl and Corinne Paullin”, or “I am full of shit”, or “I am a lonely, isolated person”, or “I am angry with X,Y, Z”, or WHATEVER I associate my self, my “I am” with, either continues my path in old directions, or creates the imperative to create new words, thoughts, and experiences around a new direction. I could just as easily say “I am no longer traveling old paths of consciousness”, and then STOP thinking time-based thoughts, and rehashing and rehearsing old memories, to create a new life experience for myself. I would then have to trust in a “Higher Power”, “the Unknown”, and the “Mystery” to create my new “timeless self” in each unique moment.
Lastly, a most confusing revelation came, as well. I could see the field of energy that constituted my body/mind awareness. I saw embedded within it two almost complete thought forms, or identity forms, which I recognized as two distinct entities. Yes, I had two ‘extras’ attached to my field. I could see, in that insightful moment, that they were not there for my greater good, for sure. In that moment of recognition I regarded these two unwelcome components to my life force as tricksters, though I noted that their presence seemed to allay the feelings of loneliness of my ego, perhaps only because they seemed vaguely familiar to me. They appeared to be caricatures of two unique people.
I sensed that I was supposed to let go of these illusions of self, but I did not know what to do. I was to learn later, much later, after my father’s death, that these two tricksters were creations that I had made in my youth in response to the names “mom” and “dad”, my associations with them of my trauma, suffering, and abandonment as a baby, and of their intentions for me, including my unhealthy attachments and historical reactions to their points of view.
The two extra identity vortices in the ‘human energy field matrix’ that constituted my conscious sense of self did not really ever disappear, they just became unconscious again, for me. I later was to associate them with two trauma inspired black holes in consciousness which my lack of self worth and the fear of death swirled around .. Little did I know that they were to become the most critical components to understand in my desire to form a better ongoing human/spiritual experience.
I now understood the basis for the potential for the development of multiple personalities disorder. I saw how the whole human race suffered from this disorder, to varying degrees. Schizophrenia, oppression of others, repression of self and feelings, passive/aggressive behavior, people pleasing, prejudice, racism, misogyny and the like all shared a common foundation.
All of these teachings were too much to digest in that moment, in that year of 1987, and for many years to follow. But, this is a true path of humility, to finally see in its totality the shortcomings of the human mind, and to become willing to go beyond it.
It was all so fresh and new to me and I was not the best communicator around the experience. I had no one to discuss this earth shattering spiritual event with.. I knew that everybody else would think that I had gone insane again, so I kept this inner teaching a secret to everybody else for many years to follow.
Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.
– Howard Thurman
I have always known that there is something fundamentally wrong with the way that we, as humans, live our lives while attempting to communicate with each other. I have not always known what the source of my own disease was, however. My disease of misunderstanding drove me to the brink of death, into insanity, drug addiction, despair, loneliness, and suicidal ideation. My life could only be characterized, by the time I had turned thirty years old in 1985, as a committed search for the grave.
In 1987, I experienced a series of real spiritual transformational events, resulting in the miraculous healing of my body and mind. There was such a huge disconnect between the consciousness of the old ways, the diseased, the dying aspects of myself, and a new order of being that was trying to discard the old me. My old misunderstanding of life, and of myself, was to be replaced by another version of my infinite potentiality. It was a remarkable time, and people who knew me then could feel the energy that was bubbling up within me. I had found a newborn enthusiasm for life, living, and a healthy re-integration back into the flow of humanity, Humanity, alas, did not collectively share in my inner experience, nor could it.
I traveled all around the City of Portland, much like I did when I sank into its underworld, on my original search for truth. I no longer visited the drug dealers, manufacturers, itinerant thieves, motorcycle gang hit men, or any of the other characters that helped to enlighten me while I traveled the road of darkness. I now met with, literally, thousands of people who were new to me, in a multitude of different group experiences, to engage with and get to know “my people”. When I literally, and spiritually, came off of the mountaintop on June 22, 1987, an intention planted into my heart was to locate MY PEOPLE. My life had changed, and so did the nature of the people that I was to become interested in , and who became attracted to me, as well. The first of my journeys into my new world was to the nearly week long INTA convention, though I made many other forays into the unknown.
On one of my journeys, I visited a crystal store, which was a new-age rock shop on Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway. The owner of the store stocked books which promoted some of the speculative spirituality of that time. Every day, many people congregated at that store. They appeared to be part of a well-meaning group of spiritual aspirants, yet I could not quite grasp the ideas that “spiritual masters”, or even ultra-evolved aliens, were communicating to the human race through these crystals, many of which were originally located in Brazil. Books had been written about them (such as the Starseed Trilogy), and there was a popular, though misguided, attraction to the possibility that these crystals had special powers. Even some of these supposedly evolved people had evaded the truth that their enlightened minds were the source or cause of special powers, and not any objects in the world of effect.
I had several conversations with Jack, the owner of the shop, as I visited the shop at least three times to look at books, and be conversant with this “new-age” community of people. I challenged him about selling some of these crystals to naive purchasers for several thousand dollars each. Jack, quite the economic and spiritual realist, claimed that he was only meeting a need, and not promoting an idea or agenda. After all, he is a capitalist now, and he needed to pay his bills.
One of our conversations had to do with what our responsibility as evolving, healing beings is to the rest of humanity, which continued to struggle with its own broken truth, as it had since time immemorial. Jack listened with great interest in what I had to say, as he always did. Jack had the capacity to listen to what was being said, acknowledge the person where they were, and point to a direction where they might want to look. In some sense of the word, Jack was a GURU. I was not attracted to GURU’s, however, as my nature tended to rebel against so-called authority figures.
My own “Master Teacher”, which revealed itself within me on July 21, 1987, in a most spectacular fashion, rejects the notion that any teacher can deliver to another their salvation. The inner message, received as if delivered by thunder in the silence of my being, was that “no teacher can bring salvation to others, it must be worked out within the self”. There were a few other messages delivered, as well as a few visions, but I did not have the context at the time to fully interpret and understand the totality of its life-changing, life-affirming message.
That is where personal experience must rise up and become incorporated within a new narrative, a narrative informed by the new energy, an energy that is more inclusive, and universal in its application. Without our personal story becoming married, as it were, to the new truth, life changing wisdom could not become part of our nature, nor could we become verbal around a new world order that was trying to reveal itself to all receptive beings.
I pondered with Jack the possibility of bringing healing to others, as I felt so blessed by my own healing, and I felt that I had something unique and precious to share with the world. Jack listened intently, as he always did, thought for a moment, then with a BIG SMILE stated simply:
“FUCK THE WORLD!”
I was confused, and asked for clarification.
“Bruce, the world could care less about your healing, and what new truth or messages that you might be able to bring to assist others in their journey. The world, as it now exists, exists for a reason. The whole fundamental consciousness has been established to make the common man feel OK about being less than who they are, in truth, and to limit and control those who might develop the insight to rebel against the established disorder. The whole of religion, and philosophy, was designed to help keep people in their darkness, while telling them that they are on the path to their own salvation through the belief in powers greater than themselves. It has always been about disempowering, and controlling, the population. Could you imagine how the powers of the age would respond if everybody sought for, and found, the Truth?, There would be chaos, and the world would collapse into a form of Armageddon. The world of religion, and this bastardized Christianity that Americans practice, is the ultimate form of oppression. And the oppressed BELIEVE that they are the chosen ones, while they subject themselves to the fantasies and hypnotism of their faiths”.
One of his final statements set me back in my chair, and I almost fainted.
“The “world” has created its own dysfunction, and revels in swimming in its own cesspool of misunderstanding, and there is NOTHING a sane man can do about it, other than just laugh at it.”
I felt a part of myself feel rejected by his statement. One of my childhood fantasies and misunderstandings of myself was that nobody would/could love me unless I saved them from death, or came to their rescue, so Jack poured some ice water over those smoldering ashes from the isolating fires of the poor self esteem from my past. But, I now felt a resonance with his statement of truth.. I had lived a life of little or no value up to my transformation, and I felt that I finally had something to contribute to the world, yet here was a prominent figure lecturing me to turn my back on the world, and to just go out and enjoy my life, and LAUGH AT THE WORLD.
Here is the eerie part:
In the spiritual experience of July 21, 1987, when I first reached the “Master Teacher” within my own being, I had traveled, without my body (of thought, past consciousness, etc.) to a place of silence so deep and powerful, and which was subsequently perceived to be the very “womb of creation” of consciousness itself. It was there that I heard my own Master’s voice.
“You can’t be real”
was the message, laughingly expressed through the deepest silence, peace, and love that I had ever experienced. For a moment, I was allowed to “look through the eyes of God” and see that the entirety of the matrix of consciousness of the human experience was unreality itself. All that the “Truth” can do, is to laugh at it, and dismiss it.
And now Jack, two weeks later, was parroting the very idea that my “God” had revealed to me.
All that I knew was that I was a “guided missile” of the truth, and I was to have many more remarkable connections with evolving people over the next several years. These connections helped me to “flesh out” what had been revealed within myself by my own “Master Teacher”, or source of wisdom common to all of mankind when it chooses to access it.
I chose to be silent about my experience, for many years to follow. I carried a grin on my face that the despair of the world could not erase for several of the following years. I stopped “laughing at the world” when my responsibilities to my life increased.dramatically in the mid 1990’s, while, concurrently, my new, more spiritually inspired, persona developed. I was not to live the life of an acetic monk, or live the artificial, though idyllic, life of a member of an ashram. Traveling through the diseased world of form, with one’s need for eating and gainful employment, while witnessing the world’s corruption, its sin, suffering, and dying, tends to distract one from the truth that “all that is human, is illusion”. Having watched for four years the drama that unfolded from within the White House from the Anti-Christ himself was quite disturbing, and shows how twisted human consciousness may become. I am still attempting to relearn how to “laugh at the world”, though my “God consciousness” appears to have dramatically ebbed, at least for now, and all that I can do, many times, is to be anxious, and cry.
We are all containers for Infinite Spirit, albeit broken ones, and that can be more than enough to bring a blessing to self, and to others.
All that I can now say is this:
Welcome to the ILLUSION.
Please, enjoy yourself while you are here.
Discard all of our knowns and conclusions into the universal dumpster, and live from the state of “unknowing”, where insight and new knowledge may be spawned. There is only one Mind, and it can only be experienced in the “unknown”. Intelligence and its active agent, curiosity, only thrive when one is not permanently committed to a point of view.
Changing our consciousness is a natural and normal experience, when we are not suffering under the infinite weight of the oppressive nature of collective consciousness. Drinking alcohol, using drugs, spinning madly on a merry-go-round, jumping out of airplanes, or even traveling to outer space is the expression of our natural need for change. The key is not to become addicted to the avenues chosen for release, for then they become new forms of oppression for our hearts. Permanent release, liberation, or enlightenment, occurs, when one loses attachment to the world of form and effect, its accumulated verbal constructs, and all forms of release, with its accompanying pleasure and pain.
If you are not enjoying the show, remember, you are the co-creator of it. Try changing the channel, and see what happens.
There must be the DEEPEST of desires to find the truth, and the DEEPEST of intentions to not neglect it in the face of attacks from others.
The human “Conspiracy Of Silence” points to the FACT that mankind covers itself with illusory verbal constructs, worships the illusion as if it is fact, and will defend to the death, if necessary, its creations. The Truth remains forever buried, thus, the foundation for the “conspiracy” is created, and maintained, throughout eternity.
The truth that I live is the only truth that I can give.
I have saved the world from myself, and there really is nothing more for me to do, save witness the suffering of others, and point my finger to a potential new direction for those who choose to awaken.
Those that do not choose to awaken, will remain stick figures in other people’s dream of world domination.
Hildegard of Bingen, the great German mystic and writer from the 12th century, became ill whenever she did not write. The same experience has become the truth for myself, and, potentially, may be the truth for all of mankind.
Collectively, we are terminally ill.
Please, save yourself.
And write a great story, or book!
Oh seeker of truth, on God’s High Mount you would climb,
Though you stumble through the valley’s shifting sands of time.
Stop confusing your mind with worn out rhyme and reason,
For they are eternally charged by this moment of truth with treason.
Oh mental marathoner, on life’s treadmill you just stand,
Second hand words and thoughts keeps you life’s also-ran.
Forever chasing in vain love’s all-knowing voice.
So be still, for with your run’s end, is true cause to rejoice!
Oh shadow boxer of evil will you ever tire?
It is champion of a dream world to which you only aspire.
Stop resuscitating those dead illusions with mental pugilist blows,
And reveal a peaceful mind reserved only for the One who now knows.
Please wake up to love’s voice, sweet somnambulator,
And realize the truth, that I within any image of you is greater,
Than any image you may ever form or learn.
Your world will then reflect back to you the One for which you now yearn.