Imaginal Journeys in the Underworld

  A brief encounter that didn’t seem to have to do with the soul of a dead person but I suppose it may have been a person. I can’t be sure. I’ve seen creatures like this one before and have written about them here. They appear as black wolf-like creatures but their bodies are skeletal so they are like the skeleton of an anthropomorphic wolf covered in black fur. I felt empathy for this creature as I regarded him. I could tell he was suffering. He told me (without words) that he was tired of being a creature of fear and darkness and wanted only to give up, to die, to surrender. I cradled him in my arms and he hugged me tightly, crying. (I was crying, too.) Contact with me brought the annihilation of the Absolute but also release and rebirth. When we emerged from the blackness of the Absolute, I realized I was wearing a woman’s body and I was holding an infant in my arms. We were in a milky white pool of water. The Woman in White appeared and started laughing as soon as she saw me. “...

  I’ve had a few other experiences lately but haven’t recorded them. They have followed a familiar trajectory, though. I’ve realized that, while I have by no means worked through all of my personal baggage, I’ve worked through the basic ego issues and now barriers are relatively few and far between. Because of this, I’m aware that most of the time when I feel a tension or numbness or pinching or pain somewhere in my chest area, it’s not my stuff that I need to look into; rather, it’s another soul’s conflict trying to get my attention. This feels like the definition of empathy if you consider the empathy is the attunement to the state of another. You don’t need to be physically in the presence of another; you just need to be open and available. Today, there was numbness around the top of my chest. I sat with it and found myself in a beautiful but eerie underground chamber that may also have been under the sea. It was black but there were pale beams of light here and there illuminati...

  This morning I let myself be open to the Imaginal for the first time in a long time. I don’t think this will be a habit because I feel like the thing I need most is to simply hang out in a space of non-doing. A lot happened! First, I became aware of a green and yellow place. It was sort of like a verdant, sundrenched forest. The green was the green of the Green Lataifa; i.e., compassion. And the yellow was the yellow of the Yellow Lataifa; i.e., joy. It’s beautiful that a realm can embody these expressions of Essence. I brought the Black Lataifa with me because it’s the aspect of Essence that I tend to embody for reasons I don’t entirely understand. The Black seems to open doorways, maybe because it dissolves everything. Nothing can stand up to the Black. That sounds harsh but it’s actually an expression of the deep love of the Absolute. By ‘destroying’ boundaries, it brings everything together and makes transformation possible. It is so deeply mysterious. Without it, nothing wou...

  I’ve been basically avoiding calls into the in-between realms lately. They still happen but I’ve only responded rarely. I’m in this place of being tired of teaching. I feel full of information and what I really need is to be empty. Meditation provides this emptiness. Maybe this urge is brought on by the busy world in which I live. I’m bombarded with information all the time and a lot of emotions as well from others. Americans–and probably everyone on the Earth right now–are noisy and chaotic. They spew all sorts of stuff all of the time without even realizing it. It’s exhausting. There isn’t any way to tune it out without tuning out the important stuff and I feel like I’m getting better at maintaining my equanimity, largely due to quiet meditations full of nothing. When I am called into the in-between realms, no surprise, the theme is death. Today was no exception. I found myself in a dark and gloomy wood of tall, straight trees. The feeling of despair was heavy here. Before me w...

  I don’t know why but this seems to be the week of teachers appearing during my meditations. Today, I was sitting and, as always, not seeking an experience. I became aware of a black flame arising from a fractured rock. It was not a pretty place, a burned-out and hellish landscape. A figure coalesced from the smoke, rising above me. Even though it looked evil, I didn’t feel any reaction to it and didn’t feel threatened. As you know, nothing is quite as it seems in the Imaginal and yet everything is knowable. Maybe not completely knowable but knowable to the extent of our capacity at the time. This figure had burning yellow-gold eyes. I was drawn to the light in them and soon found myself transported into a golden realm. I was at the bottom of a long, golden staircase with bodhisattavas sitting across from each other on each step. A golden figure stood before me, inviting me to ascend the stairway. I climbed and climbed, seeing a seated figure on a lotus throne (or at least what I ...

  “The Visit from an Old Teacher” I didn’t want to go anywhere this morning when I was meditating but got called somewhere nonetheless. This turned out to be a connection to my lifetime before I was the one I call Lucas. In that lifetime, my parents died when I was a young child and my brother joined the army, sending me into the care of a monastery. It was rather bitter lifetime and I don’t have many happy memories from it. In the end, I’m pretty sure I died of some sort of disease, probably when I was in my early forties. My dead body was cut into pieces and fed to vultures. A sky burial. This last bit is important for today’s experience. I ‘awoke’ in a dead place, kind of like a Chinese Buddhist temple or an Asian Buddhist temple at least. Nothing fancy. I was sitting in a long, covered walkway. The courtyard was open and the outside was suffused with bluish light. This color I have come to associate with the souls of the dead. The temple radiated a sickly green light. I looked ...

  I’ve been sensing into the Pearl Body, the form the soul takes as it individuates. It is like a physical body in some ways. For instance, your physical body simply is without you having to do anything about it. The Pearl Body is the same; i.e., it has its own ontological existence and doesn’t require any effort on your part to create or maintain. This is in contrast to the ego which requires a constant input of energy and needs to cathect to the physical body in order to substantiate its existence.  The Pearl Body, like the physical body, has senses that correlate to the physical senses. It is an expression/development of the soul so it is an organ of experience…just like the physical body. It has a definite form, even if that form doesn’t arise in physicality. It grows and develops like the physical body. In other ways, the Pearl Body is quite different from a physical body. For instance, it is both a portal and a sort of container at the same time. It doesn’t age per se, a...