Searching for Tensegrity

Tuesday night enlightenment

One evening, at the end of an unremarkable day earlier this year, I had what they call a 'peak experience'. In a moment, amidst fearful thoughts and anxiety, my thoughts fell away and there was peace. I say peace, but it doesn't really have a name as such. And yet, it was so real and so simple, but it has made me realize that language has thousands of words to describe things elaborately, but we have few words for simplicity.

I might not be able to find words to describe it, but I can say what I felt in those few seconds. For a start, the illusion of there ever being more than one of us disappeared. There was just one mind and it was a quiet, peaceful, intelligent mind. There were no thoughts going on, just knowing. I know this sounds like riddles, but the nature of this kind of experience lies in the realms of being rather than that of thoughts and logic, and finding the right language to describe it is perhaps almost impossible. That doesn't stop me from wanting to share it, because I never thought that sort of experience would ever happen to me; I'd only ever read about it.

The most remarkable aspect of what happened in that brief moment was glimpsing the awareness that there is just one of us really. Again, this sounds a bit mad -- how can there be just one of us when there are so many people everywhere? Indeed, how... I've no idea to be honest. All I know that there was just one intelligence, and it wasn't my own intelligence -- it was all of us collectively but as one.

It made me think of the hundreds of people before me who have tried to describe this type of experience, and while I applaud all their efforts, their flowery words and lofty descriptions often distance us from a simple truth and reality: we are all part of this one intelligence which occupies every space at every given moment.

This notion cannot be worked out intellectually and has to be experienced. Some manage to glimpse it through various forms of meditation and yoga, but I can tell you it happened to me at 11.25 pm on a Tuesday night (I remember the time on the VCR, as I do everything else about that moment very clearly) and I was trying to mentally work out various problems in my life -- hardly the conditions you'd imagine to be conducive for a peak experience.

Those few seconds had profound effects on my life. The biggest and clearest revelation was that everything just is. And that really means everything going on in the universe right now. That perspective on reality was so vast that questions such as 'how about the famine and wars and killing' don't really hold the same relevance as they do in our daily lives.

That of course doesn't mean that these conflicts are not important because of course they are. It's just that if we are going to look at life in those terms, then everything is equally important, and there is a harmony, the rules of which dictate that everything has an equal place in this world. It's the 'oppositeness' of everything which makes things work.

When the experience was over, I had an overwhelming desire to tell the whole world about it, to shout it out from the rooftops, litterally (I did refrain though, and quite glad I did !!). It was clear to me that this amazing truth is part of everyone's reality, but because it's always there, we stop noticing it, a bit like getting used to the hum of the fridge in the kitchen: you know that's what it is but you don't really think about it. (The fridge however doesn't hold as many revelations, unless it's double chocolate cake).

People use enlightenment so liberally these days. I can tell you that there is no such thing. We are already 'enlightened'. That one intelligence is already part of everything there ever was and ever will be. The term enlightenment is often used to refer to the state in which you realize that, but it now carries almost ridiculous meanings with it.

I think this truth comes to us all sooner or later and is not dependent on any belief. Just an open mind will do.

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The Mountain of Night and Day

I meditated to the point of near-sleep but remained fully alert. Suddenly, I was in a lucid dream. I was climbing a steep hill at the foot of a mountain in a landscape I didn't recognize. The climb was arduous and I was getting tired early on.

I stopped to catch my breath and to look around. The landscape was lush, with trees spreading to the horizon. The air was still and felt fresh, though not cold. It soon became clear that I wasn’t alone.

Two people were standing not far behind me. Nothing amazing about that, except that they were neither male nor female! Although they wore little clothing which revealed a distinct lack of breasts, it was still clear they weren’t male. This conclusion had more to do with how I felt around them and less with their appearance.

They smiled at my surprise (I'm pretty sure I looked puzzled beyond belief). I wanted to say something but I was completely absorbed by them. I looked at their faces and although they looked like any of us at first glance, it became clear that they were distinct in many ways.

The feature that stood out immediately was their brow-ridge, which was pronounced, almost like the ones of early humans, though not as primitive. Their eyebrows were thick and straight, beneath which were shiny deep-set eyes. Their hair was thick and curly, but short. Their skin was hairless and dark, emphasizing their tall, sinewy bodies. They were human in many respects, yet so different.

'Come' they said, 'we've got something to show you'. I was too baffled to ask any questions, so I just went along.

I felt energized by this episode and excited about what lay ahead. I felt no fear. All that emanated from these two was peace.

We pressed on. We only climbed for what seemed like a short while, to where we could see the mountain and its peak really clearly. Once we stopped, I was dumbstruck by the sight of the sky. To the left was a night sky full of stars, yet with a half moon in full glow. To the right, it was sunny, as though it was early afternoon.

Even though these two skyscapes were opposites, they were not divorced from each other, but merged seamlessly. It was an amazing and mystifying sight, and I was filled with complete awe and wonder. It was like uncovering a mystery only to find another behind it. At once, I understood the meaning of it, yet it eluded me completely. And strangely, the greater part of me didn't want to figure anything out.

The two strangers left me to my experience for a while before they both reached out for me to hold their hands as we went along further up the mountain.

My mind was clear, and even though I didn't really understand what was going on, I stopped trying to and just allowed myself to go with the experience. We held hands like children and carried on walking. There was a quality of completeness about them which I was sharing with them.

After walking for a while, we stopped. I wanted to go on, to experience more, but they gazed gently at me and smiled. 'You must fill the moon when you can' they said before waving to me, again like children, and went off, back down the mountain and into the distance.

I continued to stand there for a while, basking in the experience, and wanting to go after them with my questions, but they disappeared into the forest below. However, I also knew they’d said all they had to say.

Every time I think of that experience, I draw a different meaning from it, and the essence of it, the mystery, the awe, is as real as anything.

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Looking for Mr. Lost-Soul

'Can you see him at the mouth of the cave?' White Bull said to me as I floated in the darkness. It took a while to focus, but when I did, I could see the silhouette of a man lingering outside the cave. He seemed lost.

'You must do it now or else it might take a long time before the opportunity arises again' he continued. He hadn't given me clear instructions on how to proceed. He'd said that my own instinct would take over at the right moment. I wasn't sure.

Since I'd started this healing journey, I got filled with doubt every time I had to complete another task. This excercise was the first of many to retrieve different parts of my soul which supposedly became detached as a result of various traumatic events. These soul shadows were far in the depths of different levels of existence, on inner planes as real as the here and now. I had to reunite with them if I was to move on in my life. It all sounded really easy. It wasn't.

For years I had tried to change my life, to move on from destructive behaviours and negative relationships, but so often I had failed, so I came to White Bull for help. As a Native American shaman, he knew all about these things. He couldn't fix anything for me, but he could take me through various healing processes which would help me feel more together, litterally.

'You must go now!' White Bull's voice became more assertive and I knew how important this was. I could feel it. As I floated in the cool darkness of the cave, I felt a certain affinity with the silhouette that lingered there outside the entrance. I couldn't make out his features, but his posture, and particularly the way he was holding his head in his hands reminded me of myself. I had no doubt we were connected.

My mind kept wandering. I was getting wrapped up in the various stories that make up my life, and getting lost in them. It was hard to focus.

At one point my thoughts were on my childhood; wonderful, peaceful, up there in Voinjama where I was born...the trees, the gigantic trees with a million leaves that never moved when it was morning....the mornings which always had mist...so much mist, I used to wake up early and go outside to run through the muddy earth so I could be in that mist... Then I would just stand there, less than five years old, looking up at the sky which was almost white as the sun hadn't broken through yet. I could hear rice birds calling and I imagined I could understand what they were saying. I was pretty sure they were talking to me...

Back in the cave, I closed my eyes and tried to let go of specific expectations about what should or would happen next. As I did so, I felt a flood of emotions and memories, of times when I'd gotten really out of it with my friends at countless parties. This part of me seemed to have gone away just about when I started all that.

I felt remorse, though I knew guilt was irrelevant. I was there to repair the damage. I took a few deep breaths and relaxed as best I could. Suddenly, I felt a pull from the silhouette. I started to move through the darkness towards the dimly lit cave entrance, straight towards him.

I was scared beyond words. Feelings of dread and high anxiety filled my entire being, but it was too late to stop. Not because of some sense of duty, but because I couldn't! I tried with all my might to stop, to move, to go back to where I was but it just wasn't happening. I just kept drifting slowly towards the figure at the mouth of the cave.

Soon, the pace quickened and I was now flying towards my target. All this time I still didn't know what was going to happen, when or where or indeed if I was going to be able to stop. I took another really deep breath and just let go of all attempts to control the situation. As I did that, I collided with the figure.

Then I went 'through' him somehow, and there was what seemed like a shift in my sight and everything just went blank. With that, all the fear was gone in the same instant. I felt a rush of emotions; I wanted to cry and laugh all at once. It was a strange but somehow relieving sensation.

Even at the moment of impact, I couldn't make out any of his features, except that I was sure he was male. He felt real, with flesh and bones, and breathing rather quickly as though he was scared too.

When I came to, I was babbling. Some of my words alluded to 'everything is working' or something along those lines. I took that to mean that I had achieved my goal. What a relief!

In the moments that followed, I felt peaceful and relaxed. Many thoughts rushed through my mind. I suddenly found myself thinking of people and places I hadn't forgotten about, but rather hadn't though of in so many years.

I remembered going to the top of that steep hill in Mamba Point near home every day after school just to watch the sunset. I remembered feeling like something of an oddity for doing that because my school mates were playing sports and I was watching the sunset. It didn't matter though. Football was never going fill me with inspiration. Watching the sun dissappear into the sea was.

I didn't know why I was thinking about this at the time, but now I do. I was getting back in touch with the part of me that was awed by the simple yet really wondrous things in life. I had forgotten what it was like to feel so deeply inspired.

'Well done' White Bull said. 'We'll do the next retrieval when you are ready'.

'Will it be similar?'

'In some respects, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it'.

We would indeed.

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