January 30, 2024: A Black Bodhisattva
“A Black Bodhisattva”
I’ve had a few journeys in January but haven’t written them down in here because mostly they’ve been about sitting in Presence, both in the physical world and other realms, sometimes accompanied by others like me.
Today, I found myself in a dark cave. Being in blackness is a hallmark of my journeys lately. I’ve realized that I can see in the blackness even though, well, everything is black. I never realized that it’s possible to discriminate between different ‘shades’ of black. This doesn’t mean the ‘shades’ are different colors or lighter or darker; they’re all black. So, there is no difference. And yet there is. This seems weird and contradictory but it feels important. More than important, it feels necessary.
Humanity has created a vast, dark basement of suffering and conflict and negative karma filled with all manner of tortured beings. Being able to see in the darkness is required. Even more important is the ability to stay in touch with the true nature of the Absolute while in this basement. Without that, nothing can change. By embodying the Absolute, catalysis is possible. This is the reason I keep getting the message, “You don’t need to do anything. All you need to do is be here. Just be here and be yourself. That is enough.”
There was a furry, black beast in the cave. It was warm and cozy. This beast looked sort of like a dragon with a long, sinuous body, but he was warm and cuddly and mammalian, too. He was a predator with long, sharp teeth and glowing yellow eyes but I sensed he was a friend. I only wanted to stay cuddled within the comfortable coils of his body. But the cave had an opening and I could perceive ghostly white light emanating from outside.
After a while, I climbed out of the cave and discovered a ghostly forest of skeletal trees. There was a ‘river of souls’ flashing past me. Their ‘bodies’ were ashen, ethereal, anonymous. I cried when I saw them because they were so lost. It felt like they had lost everything but the traces of their wispy souls.
When I started crying, they became aware of me and surrounded me, huddling close in the effort to warm themselves against my ‘body’. My body was deep black, pure black, radiant black, and they turned inky black as soon as they touched me. Soon they resembled black butterflies, deep and radiant black just like my body in this realm.
The butterflies began to spiral upward into the night sky. I was drawn up with them toward a black ‘moon’ - well, more like a black hole. The black butterflies circled up and up in a spiral, eventually drawing themselves and me into the luminous blackness.
Inside the blackness of this dark moon, I felt a reunion, a meeting, a dissolving and melting into the Source. The mysterious blackness that is before, during and after everything. The Mystery that may never be known because it erases everything, leaving only nothing. And everything. It is the heart of the cosmos, the heart of creation, the heart of Being. It is home.
Emerging from the blackness, we found ourselves in a snowy forest. This place was the Crossroads, a place I’ve become very familiar with. Waiting for us at the snowy crossroads was a white Siberian tiger. She was immense and powerful and beautiful. This was the Woman in White.
The black butterflies had transformed into a more or less human shape. They were still diffuse and smoky but less so than before. They coalesced around the tiger and then departed. I bowed to them in farewell. No words were exchanged.
I thought this was all but I realized I was being observed by another, very powerful being. She was like blood and fire and rubies. Even though she was powerful and I sensed an equal possibility for creation and destruction about her, I knew she was benevolent. And also very wise.
“I feel like I’m not supposed to look upon you,” I said to her.
She laughed. “You are wise. But, no, we are the same. I came to see you. It seems only polite to allow you to see me as well.”
She communicated many things to me, transmitting a teaching about karma and undying commitment to Truth. “We are the same because we serve the same mission, revering the Truth above everything else.” She went on to praise me for my journeys in these other realms. “You did not seek us out and did not ask to come here. Yet you came when you were invited and asked nothing in return. You’ve never asked for anything here; you have only given. That is beyond rare but it is also your nature. Our nature. The nature of everything. You come here because you know your nature and you give because you love your nature, knowing it as the nature of all.”
“You have a special affinity for the Black,” she continued. “Just as I have an affinity for the Red and she (I knew she meant the Woman in White) has an affinity for the White. At least right now. At this time in your journey. It may be so forever or it may change. You have become a Black Bodhisattva.”
I didn’t grovel before her as I might have done a few months ago but I did point out that my human life is a bit of a mess and I doubted that anyone who knows me would consider me to be bodhisattva material.
She smiled. “I don’t need to tell you that life in the physical world is difficult and full of suffering. You do the best you can, that’s all anyone can ask. What is important is that you use your time there to learn, to grow and to mature. And you are doing that. Otherwise, there is no way you would have been invited here.” She continued, “You will go back to the physical world many, many times. It is the work of the bodhisattva. I know you have an ambivalent relationship with being embodied but I also know that your relationship with it is evolving. True, you find people irritating and annoying but you also love them. In fact, the degree of your annoyance is directly proportional to your love for them. You would do anything for them. That is the hallmark of a true bodhisattva.”
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