The Infinite Heart
A Journey Into the Teachings of 150 Great
Mystics, Masters, Poets and Saints
WEEK ONE: Thursday
Today I want us to talk about the journey of souls into structural reality, the world of form. Let me start by saying that there’s no need to accept this as a literally accurate account of what took place. You could see it more as an interpretation or an allegory, meant to give you a better sense of how we came to be in our current predicament.
You mean it’s kind of like a story or a myth?
Right. Anytime we gain any knowing of deeper levels of reality, it is always filtered through our own limited mind before we can conceptually understand it. And then when we try to convert that understanding into something that can be communicated, it brings it further into the limitations of ideas we can relate to in this world. So, as I go into this, rather than struggling with the accuracy of each detail, you can take in the overall sense of it, and just see how it feels.
Lay it on me.
So, the most subtle layer of structural reality is what we might conceptualize as a community of souls. In this level, structure only exists in a very simple and basic way, primarily as the structural boundary around souls. Beings of Light in this level are free to enter and leave the Light as they wish, meaning they can experience themselves as their true and infinite Essence, and they can also experience existence within the perspective of their individual structural boundaries. While it may sound paradoxical, they can experience both aspects of their existence simultaneously. They can experience themselves as Pure Infinite Being, while also experiencing themselves as a specific and unique manifestation of it. They are not only overflowing with radiant potential, they also have the individuality to express it in unique ways. And there are endless worlds before them. This community of Light beings is at the threshold of structural reality. It’s at the gateway of the vast world of structural manifestations, of which our universe is but a small part.
So if I’m following you, it’s like there are all these cosmic fire flies buzzing around, itching to do something with all of their potential. And right in front of them there’s one hell of a playground.
Yes. The stage is set. Or, we might say, endless stages are set. These Light beings have only to put on their heavy structural costumes and enter.
Reminds me of that old movie, “Cocoon”. It was on the other night. It was about these alien life forms that were some kind of energy beings. They could float and fly and manipulate energy. But they covered themselves with fake skin and clothes in order to fit into normal human life.
My friend, you just described yourself perfectly! Every one of us is an energy being, a being of Light. We have just temporarily covered ourselves with the skin of structure in order to experience these levels of reality. The difference is, the beings in the movie knew their skin was fake. But there are a great many Light beings among us who are beginning to remember what they really are.
Now, the Light beings at the gateway into structural reality are each overflowing with energy, with light, with love, with creative potential. They can experience fully merging with Essence, and they can commune with other souls and experience Essence as it manifests through others. To experience this level is inexpressibly exquisite. There is a harmonious, luminous, joyful, loving, vibrant interplay of unity, community, and individuality. It is Perfect Love. Perfect Peace.
Wouldn’t perfect peace get a little boring?
Like an eternal orgasm.
Question withdrawn.
Or like the intimate, tender, open, love filled moments after, when you fully and completely rest in the arms of your beloved, all tension, all effort, all defenses, all agendas melted away. Humans sometimes experience a blissful flow of energy. The soul is a blissful flow of energy. Now, each being of Light has a great deal of freedom to explore and experience existence. However, and this is central, the further one enters into structural reality, the more difficult it is to maintain contact with and awareness of Essence.
But why would a being of Light give up its connection with Essence for structural reality?
These beings share with Essence the quality of overflowing with radiant possibility. They have within them the powerful impulse to actualize potential. To explore, to become, to create. The level of the community of souls, as blissful and wondrous as it is, has only minimal structure. So the creative and experiential possibilities are limited. A conscious ball of energy cannot hold a new born child. It cannot taste the sweet softness of a juicy pear. It cannot walk through forests or smell the rain or sit by a fire.
Or eat pizza. Or play guitar. Or go to the ocean. Or watch hummingbirds. Or see the sunset. My God! No pizza!
Nor can it experience what it is like to be a hummingbird. Or a cheetah. Or a dolphin. Or a tree. Or a planet.
Woah! Un momento, por favor! What the hell are you talking about?
You know, when we hear something that goes against our beliefs, we are usually so quick to put up walls. Don’t let the elusiveness of belief structures fool you. They can be as rigid as bones. This rigidity forms the foundation, the scaffolding, around which we build our lives. So it’s natural that we would want to protect our beliefs. How can we follow our important daily schedules during an existential earthquake? But the way we often go about protecting our beliefs is not so natural.
You mean with guns?
I suppose that would be an extreme example. When we eat, not everything we take in is useful to us. Much of it would be harmful if we tried to integrate it into our bodies. So, our digestive system sifts through all of the foreign material we have ingested and allows us to keep and use what is useful and to dispose of what is not. First we ingest, then we digest, then we integrate and discard.
This process occurs in our psyches as well. But we often presume that if we ingest a belief, if we take it in, consider it, play around with it for a time, then it will automatically and unavoidably become a part of us. We dismiss or distrust our inherent ability to digest. And so, we tend to put a great deal of effort into keeping foreign beliefs completely out of our system. We become like a clench-jawed child, refusing an untasted medicine. But when we are so closed, nothing is ingested. There is nothing new coming into the system. Nothing bad. And nothing good. This is stagnation. This is deadness.
This is ninety-eight percent of the population.
We are so much more than our beliefs! When we are really aware of this, and allow ourselves to sense towards our inherent spaciousness, then we have plenty of room to keep our beliefs safe while we ingest contradictory ones and see how they resonate. And yes, sometimes we will end up shifting our belief structures to accommodate newly integrated ones.
So, I don’t want you to assume something is fact just because I say it. The Buddha said “Hold to the truth within yourself, as to the only truth.” Trust the resonance of your own inner tuning fork. But I do expect you to let yourself take in and consider these ideas, whether they fit in with your belief structures or not. Otherwise, there’s no point in me saying anything that you disagree with. So I invite you to be aware of your discomfort when I say something that goes against your belief structures. And when you feel your defenses rise up, there is no value in trying to push them away, but you can allow yourself to just relax a little bit. To breathe more deeply. To rest just a little more in that soft, open and tender space that’s always waiting for us just beneath the surface. And you can trust in your ability to digest. Trust your tuning fork. Really allow yourself to take in new ideas and feel them out.
Can I ask a question? Does a little of your expandedness or your energy or whatever kind of spill over to me once in a while? Just a little of it? I mean, just a second ago, when you were talking about being more relaxed and open, I could kind of feel it a little bit. I still can. I feel more centered and more here and more peaceful. Uncluttered. It feels good. I’ve felt like this a lot in the last few days. It’s kind of like how I feel sometimes when I play guitar, but stronger. Like my mind’s relaxing in a hot tub or getting a massage or something, if that makes any sense. It just feels like sometimes when I’m with you I’m in a deeper place than usual. Are you doing this?
The expandedness you feel is your own.
But somehow you’re making it easier for me to feel it, right?
Because surrendered expandedness is our natural state of being, when we are around others who are in a more surrendered and expanded space, we tend to open more ourselves, in resonance and remembrance. Or we contract with discomfort and fear.
What do you mean?
As we identify more with Structurelessness, the parts of ourselves that still identify with structure begin to fear annihilation. This fear and contraction makes our attachment to structure more apparent. It lets us see where we’re still holding on. So being around a more surrendered, open, tender, expanded energy can be helpful whether your reaction is expansion or contraction.
Well then, thanks for the lift. When I put up my walls a minute ago, I guess I was assuming that souls only become human. Anthropomorphism again, right? I mean, why would a being of Light, straight out of the Essence, be limited to the human experience of structural reality? Still, I can feel that my beliefs don’t take kindly to the idea of a tree or a planet having a soul. It’s a nice idea. I mean, I’d like to believe Mother Earth is conscious. Except these days she’d probably be in a lot of pain. Anyway, I’ll try to hang out with it all for a while and just see how it feels.
Good. Let me say a bit more about this. A being of Light can experience existence within any structure it wishes. We can as well, but again, we are so identified with our human body and mind that most of us limit our experiences to them. But many have had direct experiences in which they were identified with non-human structures, from animals to trees to clouds to the entire physical universe and beyond. This is difficult to imagine from our usual ways of perceiving and understanding. But remember that Essence is infinite and fundamental, and that all of manifest reality is within it. A Light being is Essence as it manifests within a permeable structural boundary that allows for individual experience. Beings of Light are supra-ordinate to structure. They are above it and beyond it and therefore not bound by it. When one is beyond structure, one can experience existence as any structure, as specific as an electron and as vast as all of manifest reality. It’s all superficial compared with Essence.
You know, it’s different to just be hanging with both things, my skepticism, and the possibility that what you’re saying is true. And what’s also floating around is that you don’t care if I believe it. I think it’s a new idea to me that you can tell someone the way you see things and really not need them to agree. I get really invested in my beliefs. They’re always right. I mean, at any given moment, I’m damn sure my beliefs are the way things are, or I wouldn’t bother to believe them. And each time I change a belief, then I was wrong before, but now, now my beliefs are right. You know, we humans are pretty funny creatures. The Light beings must be standing in line to give it a whirl.
Yes, they are. But by that point they are usually deeply embedded within structural reality, no longer aware of their true Essence. Which brings us back to our discussion of their journey into structure.
Smooth segue.
I try.
* * * * * *
So, we can imagine the scene: A great gathering of Light beings at a beautiful, sparkling rainbow gateway. Behind them, and within them, Oneness, Wholeness, Endless Peace, Endless Resting, Endless Grace, Endless Love. Before them is adventure. Before them is the unknown. Before them are infinite ways to manifest their inherent creative abundance. And before them is heaviness. Before them is pain. Before them is fear. Before them is the experience of separation. Before them is the forgetting of their True Nature.
And we can imagine them feeling both the desire to remain a spark within the One Light, content and peaceful, and the pull to let the superabundant creative energy of Essence be fully expressed through creating, exploring, experiencing and interacting in the endless forms of created reality. We can imagine they felt excitement and uncertainty, curiosity and caution, the pull to pass through the gateway and the pull to stay in the secure bliss of Pure Essence.
And then a question arose within each of their hearts, from the center of their being: Who will go? Who will go experience these worlds? Who will leave this blissful community of souls? Who will risk losing their constant awareness of Home? Who will serve the ever expanding creative impulse of the One by imbuing structure with Pure Awareness? Who will go explore? Who will go express? Who will go forget? Who will go?
Hell, I think I’d just settle for a boring life of eternal bliss. Why mess with a good thing? Let some other chumps go check out the new world.
That’s what many Light beings decided. To remain in the security and love and bliss of this community of souls. And who could blame them? But for others, the pull to serve the Creative Pulse was too much to ignore. Remember that the uncontainable creative potential of the Source was far too great to be contained within Essence as Essence.
If all of the sun’s rays stayed in the sun, life could not exist on Earth. And yet, the sun couldn’t possibly hold in all of its tremendous energy. It is far too much to be contained. It must burst forth, spread outward, and infuse the darkness with its rays. Likewise, as individual rays of the One Sun, it was inevitable that some would leave the safe warmth of Home and go outward to create and explore and experience and spread the Light. They felt more curiosity or courage or excitement, or they resonated more with the call to serve the creative pulse of Essence. They were more willing to risk, to endure hardships, and to explore the unknown. They were the first explorers. They said “We will go. Send us.”
And one of those who chose to stay said “But you don’t know what will happen to you in the heavy worlds! You don’t know if you will remember the truth of what you are. You don’t know what you will do, how you will feel, what you will experience, or even how you will return.”
And one of the explorers responded “It is true we don’t know what will happen. But we do know what we are, what we always have been and always will be. That can never be taken from us, no matter how deeply we journey, no matter how much we forget, no matter how confused or lost we become. And since all that is created is temporary, our return to that which is permanent is assured. These worlds we will explore and create from– they arise and dissolve out of our own True Nature. Out of our own Pure Center. Out of our Self. How could we ever truly be anywhere but Home?” And then they stood at the precipice of the Rainbow Gateway, took in one last deep breathe of the Pure and Perfect Nectar of Formless Being, and then, one or two at a time, they crossed over, breathing outward into the vast worlds of form.
I can picture the big moment. They’re looking at the gateway, then at each other, then back at the gateway, like, who’s going to go first?
A few brave souls have the courage or the curiosity or the trust or the playfulness to slowly float past the gateway expectantly. This first layer of structural reality is not so different. The clear light turns to a translucent gold. It is heavier. Thicker. There is more thought, more emotion, more curiosity. But they are still in touch with their Essence. They have not forgotten. And we can imagine them looking back, encouraging the others.
Come on in, the water’s fine.
When one is only ankle-deep in water, the undertow has little effect.
So as they keep going, they get pulled deeper into structure. And some of them end up getting in way over their heads.
Hence the bottom dwellers.
And what causes the undertow? What is it about structure that makes a soul forget its Essence?
What is it about a good movie that makes you temporarily forget about your life?
Well, it’s interesting. Entertaining. Captivating.
Captivating is an apt word here. When our attention is held captive by something, our awareness becomes limited to that particular experience for a time. Structure is as compelling as it is complex. There is so much diversity. So much stimulation. So much to experience. We have all experienced being so involved in something that we forget everything else and lose track of the time. As beings of Light become more involved with structure, they begin to lose track of the Timeless. Density demands our attention. And Essence patiently waits, deep within, for our inevitable remembering.
We’re talking about souls being pulled into structure. But a minute ago, it sounded like they chose to enter on their own.
Yes. The two are not contradictory. You choose to see a captivating movie knowing it will pull you in. You know ahead of time you will likely feel suspense, urgency, and fear. Sometimes you immediately immerse yourself into the story. Sometimes you are distant at first, and then gradually find yourself getting pulled deeper and deeper into it. But it is always you who chooses to enter the theater. And why would you allow yourself to enter deeply into an experience that will likely lead to feelings of fear, pain, sorrow, and longing? Because before you enter the theater you know that whatever you feel or experience, you will always be completely and absolutely safe. And so with us. Hafiz tells us “All your pain, worry, and sorrow will someday apologize and confess they were a great lie.”
Energetic structures will dissipate and dissolve. Physical structures will be damaged and destroyed. Living structures will be injured and killed. Planets and suns, they rise and fall. This vast universe is only a brief spark, emerging from an Eternal Fire. It is a shooting star, wished upon by angels. All structure is temporary. All structure will be de-structured. But Essence, Essence is Pure Structurelessness.
We were aware that we would experience pain and fear once we were immersed in structure. But we also knew that our essence is the Essence. We knew that who we truly are, our Pure Self, our True Nature, always has been, and always will be, absolutely, completely, and unequivocally safe.
So, we can picture the crowd of Light beings, each one deciding whether or not to take the plunge. To step into structural reality was to enter the unknown. None of them was sure what would be experienced, what might happen to them. They knew without a doubt that what they truly were couldn’t be hurt, couldn’t even be touched. And yet, many of them felt a sense of anticipation and even apprehension as they considered the prospect of leaving the joy and security of the Cosmic Womb. They sensed the power, the draw, the seductiveness of the world of form.
In the eye of the hurricane, nothing is required. Or created. You can use that one in your talks too. Or how about this one: “The sun always shines on the hurricane’s eye.” Now that’s catchy. Billboard material. I don’t know what the hell it means, but why get bogged down in details? The key is– and marketing research supports this– you gotta keep it short, sharp and simple. Like Tattoo’s tuxedo in that old show ”Fantasy Island”. You gotta remember that half of your potential market is out there right now, surfing for Cliff Notes to ”Readers Digest”. They want sound bites, not substance. In today’s cyber-culture, if you can’t get them to click on a one line web ad, you’re not going to make it. You’ll just be standing around, one of the little people, watching everyone else get all the action. Which oddly enough brings us back to Tattoo. Not to be confused with Toto, from “The Wizard of Oz”. Or with the little people of Oz that took him in as one of their own. Took Toto, not Tattoo. Whether or not Toto had a tattoo, I have no idea. Toto could have had two tattoos. Of a tutu. Tattoo could have had two tutu tattoos too. But I digress. What were we talking about? Oh yeah, light beings taking the plunge.
* * * * * *
Yes. There was no fall. It was a jump. The Light beings cautiously tested the waters, and slowly entered deeper and deeper into structure. Now as they did, they discovered that each level of reality was heavier and more dense than the last. And with each level they entered, they found themselves coated with an additional structural membrane that was of the same density as that level, which allowed them to exist within it and experience it.
Could you break that down a little? Maybe one letter at a time.
We’ve talked about the movie, “Cocoon”, and how each of us is a being of Light wearing a costume that lets us experience existence on this level of reality. Every level of reality has its own frequency, its own density, its own range or spectrum of solidity. A Light being can’t just walk around in our level of reality in their natural state. They would have to put on a skin, in a sense, that matches this level, made of materials from this level. So with each level these beings of light entered, they found themselves wrapped in a membrane or overcoat or shell of the same frequency as that level. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to directly experience or exist within that level.
So it’s kind of like if a diver wanted to walk around on the bottom of the ocean, they would have to use some kind of modified suit that let them weigh more so they could stay down there. I think astronauts might have used something like that on the moon, to keep from floating too far off. “One small step for man, one giant leap for– whooaahhhh!” Anyway, I think I get the idea.
So, some of these explorers stopped at the first few layers while others kept going, down into the depths. At first, the overcoats they took on with each new layer were light, thin and transparent. But as the explorers journeyed deeper, the layers they entered became much more dense, thick, and heavy, and the membranes surrounding them became so as well.
Now I mentioned that these shells were made out of the patterns and forms of the level they were in. In the heavier levels, these shells became more complex, more cumbersome and more fragile. They were temporary. They would wear out or get destroyed and then no longer be able to contain the Light beings that were wearing them, which immediately took the Light beings out of that level and back into a less dense one. Such cumbersome shells required a great deal of attention and energy to keep them functioning well. The Light beings had to be constantly aware of their shells and of anything that might damage them. And as they focused their attention more on the levels they were in and on the heavy shells they wore, the degree to which they were aware of their True Nature began to diminish.
So you’re talking about bodies? About how it’s hard to survive and they had to focus on getting food and protecting themselves and all?
Right. As structure became more and more complex and intelligent with the evolution of life, the potential for a being to consciously re-member its True Nature and expressing it in the world increased. But so did the potential for getting attached to the body, and getting distracted by the world of form.
Over time, as these explorers continued to focus so much of their awareness on their shells, they began to think of these overcoats as a part of who they were. And since these shells were what allowed the Light beings to experience and navigate through a particular level of structural reality, they were soon seen as the most important part. So, instead of perceiving themselves to be a focal point of limitless Essence with an organized structural shell around it, these Light beings gradually began to perceive themselves more and more as the shell, with a center of Essence they could experience to some degree when they directed their attention inward.
I heard somewhere that we think of ourselves as human beings who sometimes have spiritual experiences, but we’re really spiritual beings having human experiences.
Yes, and that truth can be quite difficult to maintain awareness of while on the heavier levels, as these pioneers discovered. Now, they knew intuitively that all structures are temporary. That all structures are sooner or later destructured. And they witnessed the shells of others becoming lifeless. So they began to experience new sensations of pain, fear, sorrow and anger as they anticipated the inevitable moment in which this would happen to their own shells and to each other’s. To lose their shells was to be forced to give up experiencing that particular level of reality, to give up all the things they had become attached to. And it was losing what they now perceived to be the main, most important part of them. So naturally it became a priority to protect their shells from this fate as long as possible. They began to focus more and more of their energy and attention on being aware of possible dangers to their shells, and on developing ways to keep them safe and healthy as long as possible. And as they focused more and more of their energy and attention on this task, they continued to more deeply lose awareness of their Pure Center. Their True Self.
All work and no pray. So they basically fell asleep.
Yes, but when you first fall asleep, it’s easier to awaken from a dream. In spite of their forgetfulness, at first it was easier for them to have moments of awakening. And in these moments of re-membering Essence, their consciousness would rest in the Pure Center within. Their awareness would again dissolve into Pure Awareness. But the longer one sleeps, the more real a dream becomes.
So this world is the dream. And when we’re in it we usually forget the real world.
Rumi said “You may have lived many years in a city. But as soon as you fall asleep, another city rears in your mind… You don’t say, ‘I am a stranger here. This is not my city.’ You think you have always lived there… So are you amazed then that your soul does not remember its ancient home? How could she remember? She is wrapped in the sleep of this world, like a star shrouded by clouds, and she has tramped through so many cities, and the dust that darkens her vision has not yet been swept away.”
So, to sum up, at the very beginning of their journey, these Light beings were resting in a place of wholeness, constantly aware of the safe, blissful Essence of their True Nature. All of their actions came from that place of wholeness. There was nothing to protect, nothing to shield, nothing to fear, nothing to need. But as they went deeper into structure, they lost awareness of that connection. They forgot that their True Nature was always safe, always whole, always one with the One.
And their prime directive gradually became to protect their shells. To keep them safe and healthy at almost any cost. So instead of starting with a sense of complete safety, wholeness and harmony, and then acting from such a place, they now started with a strong sense of being unsafe, in danger, at risk, and in need, and their actions, their energies, and their attention went more and more towards trying to find a way to feel safer and to get their needs met. In addition, they felt the painful absence of their connection with Essence– Until eventually they reached a level of forgetting in which they couldn’t even remember exactly what was absent. They only knew they were missing something very precious, and the only place they knew to look to fill that void was outside themselves, in the world of form.
Now, this is clearly a dramatic shift in awareness and motivation. They switched from being one with the Infinite Sun to being an endless, blissful ray of that Sun, to eventually shivering on a distant planet, longing for a warmth they were no longer certain ever existed.
But actually, the ray, the planet, the shivering shell, the frightened mind stuck inside it, they’re all still inside the Infinite Sun the whole time, right? They’re surrounded by it. And not even just surrounded by it, they are it.
Exactly.
I mean, they’re never something other than Essence. There is nothing else. They’re never somewhere outside of Essence. There’s nowhere else. Those structures are all just different expressions or different energetic patterns of the One Sun, arising inside the One Sun. And each expression comes and goes, each one is temporary. The shell, the planet, all of it will eventually dissolve away. But the Essence out of which it all arose, the Essence that they always really are, it can never be touched by any of that. Right?
Yes, beautifully said! No matter how finely a glass is shattered, the wine cannot be broken! No matter how deeply the pain is felt, no wound can scar the soul! That which appears must disappear, that which arises must dissolve, that which is created must decay and that which is born must die. All structure will be de-structured. As the twentieth century Sufi, Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, put it, “Allah is the only treasure which cannot be destroyed.”
Pure Structurelessness, Pure Emptiness, Pure, Vibrant, Scintillating, Blissful, Overflowing, Eternal, Infinite Nothingness– What could possibly destroy that? What could impact it? What could contain it? What could rupture it? No thing can touch Nothingness! No structure can touch Structurelessness! Only Essence can feel Essence. Only the Real can experience the Real. Only Allah can know Allah. When you believe you are a shell, shivering on a cold and dark planet, longing for the Sun, you cannot know yourself to be the Inner Ray, always warm, always radiant, always free, always Home.
We so often assume that for something to be invincible it must be solid, heavy and strong, that it must have impenetrable walls of defense. We think of invincibility as having such a strong boundary that no other structure could possibly break through. But always, sooner or later, the strongest wall crumbles. The hardest shell breaks. The coldest ice returns to ocean, the hardest stone melts to flames.
But that which is truly invincible, truly unconquerable, truly indestructible, it has no need for any walls, any hardness, any defenses. It is Pure Armorlessness. Pure, tender, undefended Openness. Since there is nothing that can hurt it, it has no need for any protection, any boundaries, any separation at all. And so it can effortlessly melt into everything, everywhere, completely open, completely exposed, completely safe. And the only thing that can sense it, that can recognize it, that can experience it, that can know it is this unbounded Presence itself. The mind can grasp for it, the heart can yearn for it, but only Essence itself is empty enough to be filled with Essence. In the center of every iceberg rests an unfreezable drop of Pure Ocean. Do not for a moment think it is trapped there. Ocean abandons nothing!
The Bhagavad Gita, a Hindu scripture composed around 2500 years ago, says “I am always with all beings; I abandon no one. And however great your inner darkness, you are never separate from me.” Ahhh, what a mystery! What a glorious, unfathomable, beautiful mystery! All that I am bows down before it! An endless bow, that melts down through layer after layer, until there is no one left to bow! Oh precious Existence! How thankful I am! How endlessly, completely, inexpressibly grateful! All right, my friend. Enough for today.
Yeah, after all that you probably need to go smoke a cigarette or something.
Ahh, but the Flame I crave smokes me! Until nothing remains. That Nothing, it is richer than any thing that has ever existed. The honey bee awakens, looks around, and sees that the whole world is made of Nectar! In that exquisite moment, all work is finished. All need dissolves. There is only uncontainable gratefulness and the spontaneous, effortless movement to help others taste the endless Nectarness of Life! Tomorrow then.