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| Chapter Eleven — “The Higher Self”
jake writes:
Just as in dreams there sometimes could be. Kewe was last in England six years ago. Then his father calls. He said he thinks Kewe should come home. His mother is no longer the same. He will notice changes. That was two years ago. Every three months since, he has taken leave from work, flown to London, rented a car, and driven the hundred miles from the airport to the village where his parents live. On his first visit, Kewe most of the time was at the gym or the coffee shop, or the pub. The time he spent with his parents would be when the three of them had a meal in a restaurant, or when the family visited. Since the second visit, his father, wise to Kewe’s routine, has been asking every morning where they will be going together the rest of the day. They travel throughout the English countryside on their expeditions. They visit relatives, country homes, parks and castles. His mother can walk a few steps but, for any distance, she needs a wheelchair. She doesn’t like the wheelchair. She hates inclines, going down a slope or being pushed up the slightest gradient, squealing when the pusher is going too fast. What surprises Kewe as he travels are the many towns that have closed their streets to traffic. The old streets are too narrow for the cars, and the glut of traffic has forced large areas to be walkways only. Kewe’s amazed that shopping can be so peaceful. It’s like being in a park. Outside the town centers it’s very different. Here, the roads are busier than they’ve ever been, there’s a constant bombardment of noise. The countryside Kewe notes has its fields increasingly being paved over. Bypass highways divert traffic away from villages, making them livable, but the highways eat up the land. Air traffic seems to increase every time he visits. It doesn’t matter in which country he travels, noise is getting worse. The ‘for the people’ governments resist any plea to abate the excess. We’re like crazed creatures doing a turn, he thinks. As a species we’re still acting deranged more often than we’re acting sane. Kewe, when a teenager, used to bicycle by tenant cottages owned by farmers. Now people who drive fifty miles to a city to work have snapped up most of the cottages. Backed-up oil consuming cars jam intersections of these small country lanes. Kewe likes the convenience of the car, but he’d settle for an electric. Today, he picked up his sister to visit with their parents. Driving back, looking across the fields at the blanket of yellow—the new crop of rape is in bloom—he’s telling how he’ll stop one day, sit and maybe paint. “Special week at the monastery this week,” Kewe says, flinging his arm over his sibling’s shoulder. “The Pope is beatifying one of the monks, an African priest. The abbey is having a big celebration.” “The Pope is here at the monastery?” His sister stares at him in total surprise. “I had no idea.” Kewe laughs. “No, he’s not here. The Pope is in Africa. The monastery is celebrating because the priest spent the last years of his life at the monastery, as a monk. You might check the paper sometime.” ”Really,” his sister replies, poking Kewe in the ribs. “Don’t do that,” Kewe says, retrieving his arm quickly. “Is the monk becoming a saint?” his sister asks, smiling. “Do you believe saints perform miracles? We need some miracles. I suppose you’ll be going to the monastery again today. Mom tells me you go most days when you’re not out with them.” “I plan on it,” Kewe says. “Soon as I manage to get rid of you.” His sister pokes him again. “Hey, I’m driving.” Kewe pushes her hand away. “No, the monk is not a saint, not yet. A fresh miracle accorded by him has to take place.” When his sister gets out the car, Kewe waves, says he’ll see her later. The entire family have an outing planned for the evening. A restaurant has opened in one of the village pubs and they are going. These nights that they spend together seem ever more precious. To get to the monastery, Kewe takes the old roads into the hills. He loves the drive, the rolling hills, the woodlands, the fields, the greenery. This is the land he remembers of his childhood. Memories make him think of his mother. Every time he returns she looks frailer. He’s asked the guides, the angels if he should stay. They tell him it is the time to be with her. The seasons change so quickly. It was the autumn leaves when he first returned after his long hiatus, and then the winter darkness. Now the fields are full once again of fresh new grass. He doesn’t know what to do. Hills peak and all around are lava outcroppings—volcanic rock spewed from some ancient time. Kewe can feel the past as it circles, the old ghost energies that are often seen. Entering the monastery gateway, he drives along the private road; in front of him are the stone farm buildings, to the side of them the quarters where the monks live. An abbey had been in this area before 1536, but with the dissolution of all English monasteries, and the seceding of Henry from the Vatican church, Catholic orders were vacated. Eventually the priests came out of their hideaways. The Catholic Emancipation of 1829 reestablished legitimacy and the Roman monastic orders assembled once again in earnest. A nobleman who converted to Roman Catholicism donated land for the present monastery. Work quickly began on the tract of more than two hundred acres. Unforeseen was the blight of the potato and the subsequent famine. In the 1840’s, shortly after the monks built the first buildings, families began to descend on the monastery. The lack of food in Ireland was forcing a mass migration and many of the families were fleeing to England. The Catholics came looking for lodging and food, and for a time the monks were farming for thousands. This relief continued until people settled, until an increasing industrialization that demanded coal gave men employment in the local pits. Kewe parks the car. The abbey is quiet as he walks by the rose beds, from the farm grounds towards the church. The stone used in the buildings is the old lava rock that lies beneath, and it is this stone, usually a somber, achromatic gray, that Kewe notices today. The rock wall gleams brightly in the sunlight, and a thousand tiny speckles glisten. Ruby-red and white light refraction inside the stone is creating an aura around the building, as if the church might be in another world. Next to the church atop a hillock a cross has been erected. Kewe peering up at the cross and the three statues has no doubt the monks built the Calgary image to remind pilgrims of the ordeal of Jesus, but to him in the peace and serenity it will make a good walk. Basked in late afternoon sun he climbs the sixty odd steps, alongside the rose bushes and the holly trees and rhododendrons that grow into the jagged rock. Christ, Mary and John wait at the top. The figures, still, impassive, gaze together over the hills. From a high surrounding rim at the top of the church, carved heads stare at him. Four of the heads represent angels. Eight depict deceased monks. Not all of the twelve heads face towards the Calgary some gaze searchingly, protectively downwards. In their scanning they seem to be warning any visitor-soul who might be passing, that the abbey is their world. That this world brooks no distraction. That this is a sanctuary of time and life, a place for worship, a space set apart. Kewe treads carefully down the steps that lead away from the Calgary hill. Not a soul seems to be around. At the entrance to the church he opens the thickset, heavy door, which clanks behind. He slips through the small stone anterior room, into the silence where stand tall stark pillars. The arched, high walls, the creamy white stone greets Kewe in its cool, imperturbable, quiet solemnity. Where he stands is the nave for visiting guests. Only dimly through the space of the chancel can he see the second nave. In the distance—bathed in dusky light—a deep corridor recedes. Along the darkened aisle, flanked by benches, covered by flickering shadows, he searches to see if any of the monks might be sitting, might be praying. He cannot tell. The aisle recedes until it is only darkness. Kewe slips into a wooden seat. Turning for a moment, he looks towards the bowed side windows, windows with simple decoration in their moldings. The early monks wishing no embellishment built an unadorned church, only a thin seam of color at the glass edge, a brief touch to modify the milky opal radiance that flows so strongly through the translucent pane. As he shifts back towards the sanctuary, he sees the table, bare. Extending from high inside the apse, hangs the cross. Kewe, staring up, is reminded how many times this figurehead of peace has been misread and misused, how it’s shape, a safeguard, and a confusion, has affected his world, and that of so many others. Inside a glass beaker, hanging from a chain, the light of liquid oil radiates. The light carries a signal the Blessed Holy Body, the Eucharist Son, is present here. Next to the light is the Pyx, with the wafer inside. As Kewe stares, the lone wick flickers. Encircled by stillness—he sits, he waits. Soon the high ringing comes. Then coruscating shimmers. In his mind Kewe draws on those first flashes that sparkle, on the strengthening sound brought into his ears, and through the white, and the light, and the ringing, he begins to soar. A sonorous melody is taking hold, angelic voices that sing around the fringes of his consciousness. Held by awe he tries to keep the spreading wave of sound, tries to move inside its mystery. Then, taken by streaks and shards, taken by gleaming, shimmering particles, call it telescoping, call it echoing, call it the song of angels, Kewe is bathed in the ethereal, other-world majesty, until it lightens into insubstantiality, until still and free, all becomes quiet. In the hushed repose he hears a new tone, a tone like that of a clear, high-pitched, single flute. The flute with a strong, unwavering clarity, draws an inner him, draws who he’s becoming to its center. Swirling light dances with Kewe now. Like sea-foam the brightness whisks around him, takes him, plays with him. As the frisky light recedes, a flood of current sweeps across. A wave of fire swarms and touches, and as it surges, seems to purge and strip whatever remains of the outer being away. A new state of energy emerges. A body of essence that we, for the sake of a word, must like to an orb. Threaded shafts of light, strings of shapes, diamonds, cubes, squares hold in the orb’s vision. Then as the shapes loose form, land can be seen in the distance. Creamy stone begins to rise around, walls etched with carvings, with motifs, with decorated crests. Inside passageways become new walls, and as the walls just as quickly cease, a white city takes shape. Narrow, cobbled pathways that might be found in any area of the Mediterranean lands are here; only there are no cars, no antennas high on the roofs, no sign of any rain or dust. A brilliant luminescence emits from the buildings, a strange light that radiates an inescapable sense of the end of life, but also a feeling of preparation. As the orb wanders, huge structures loom out, steeples and towers, Byzantine arches, Moresque-like structures that glisten in the light. Rising into view are pyramid shapes and beehive towers and the path no longer a cobbled street has become a wide, open boulevard. A tall archway at the end has an entranceway.... It is a shock for the orb to see it, the quadrangle with a fountain. Full of power, an enormous column of water gushes up from the center of the square; the single jet shooting so high into the open sky that where the extremity of the jet would be, the impact of the spray is creating a frothy, aqueous upheaval, a mist that rolls and billows, that becomes the sky itself. As the watery beads fall back through the mist onto the milk-ivory base-stone, such uproar they bring. The sound reverberates across the quadrangle, echoes into the surrounding walls, and as if from the echo, the orb transfixed sees a monolith take shape. Behind the fountain the stone rises, with writing it does not recognize until in its mind the meaning settles. In its awe, the orb faces the words: | ||||||
| “This is the hall of the dead. This is the illumined city.” | ||||||
An immense temple appears now behind the monolith. Dwarfing
everything, the towering, palatial basilica seems to be acting not as one
building but as a multiplication of spaces, a proliferation of spreading
entranceways inviting the orb to enter. It is into one of these spaces,
through magnificent portal doors that the orb swivels.
Behind these doors, domes, great cupolas extend as far as the eye can see. In some constant state of motion the orb moves forward, past great altars that arch above it, past altars where bulky candles burn, past stained windows of angels, of archangels, and frescoes depicting a sea of holy beings; the tall paintings fresh and vibrant on the still moist plaster. In this never ending dreamlike sense, motivated by some fanciful, extravagant plan or desire—for each represents ideas it once had, each has emotions, images of former wild fancies—here the orb meanders. There is a stature of Apollo with his horse. There is a panther. There is an eagle sliding across a monstrous snake. Walls covered with strange hieroglyphic meanings begin to appear with shapes and intricate murals it cannot identify. On these huge shrines of stone and glass, in these pictorial ornamentations are narrations. It is here that the orb discerns in its intellect a vast telling, a myriad of worlds, a cosmic breeding of creation that wanders far beyond what it does know. A temple becomes a huge crystal night. An infinity of stars and galaxies extend into beings, forms, images that shift in silence, and there are non-humanlike presences that the orb would like to see, that it would see but cannot see; images it knows are here, yet in the knowing, in the recognition, understands—that these are unconscious and subconscious figures, that these are part of who it is, but only part, and not, not yet. As these alien, puzzling images dart around, at one moment on the floor a bronze serpent encased in a base of rock rises. Like a staff, rigid, eyes fierce, alive, the mind of the serpent begins to penetrate. An inner voice startles it then. “Your doorway lies ahead.” Slivers of light draw it forward. Through the portal-tunnel opening shimmering golden shards take shape. In the distant golden light, a seeming high altar, a single, enormous slab of green jade appears at its center. So vast, so high is this green tabernacle, and from it a brightness, a light that mixes into the space, that becomes it. The shining (such that the orb cannot discern where the resplendence begins or ends) seems in that moment to have energy and power like a thousand suns. As faintly, as slowly as the orb moves closer (for in truth it has lost all boldness) it begins to see above the altar an overarching canopy. It is to the canopy, the richness of the cloth, the silvery-golden, shining brocade, that the orb is forced to fix its attention; for thrown from the core, is intensity such that only the canopy far above stands as a hold to the glowing light, and the canopy protects above and around, but not where the orb stands. Dazzling, silver-gold rays shoot outwards, and as the orb consumes the light, the energy of the absorption increasingly grows. Knocked backwards by the power, by the feelings, by the state of unimaginable beingness that is contained within this presence, the orb in its avoidance cries out, “Why! Why am I experiencing this? Why am I brought here?” The inner voice deep inside the orb shakes it as it speaks. “Because for this you have been seeking. This is your reason.” Transfixed to a face, a glowing, vivid olive brilliance that has become a face, here there is exquisite light. And here now the light is eyes. Not able to bear the seeing, not able to contain the presence, the orb reaches for some other space. Its center retreats. Its center can no longer stay. But as the orb retreats, it hears the voice again. “Stay with the light. Seek the face. Seek the eyes.” To return is no choice, and so overwhelming has become the urge to flee, that all of its world starts to fade. “Keep focused,” the inner voice wakes it from its devolving dream of death. “See this if you see any vision.” Then the orb, coming forth from its abstraction, turns again towards the presence. Terrifying energy spreads outwards from the Being. Such sublimity is evoked, such reverence. Yet, from the golden hues that shimmer out of this wondrous center there is a recognition. The orb knows, that in its craving, in its striving, it has been brought to this presence to experience this desire. And there is desire, or is it non-desire it sees. Thoughts of God still flow through its beingness. Thoughts of a wonderment of the reaching of the center. Even in the half-recognition, there is much doubt. It could be meeting Life itself. It could be experiencing immortal perfect energy. “You need to know,” the inner thoughts quietly say. From inside the golden core the Being seems to shift slightly. Then from the eyes, through the star-shining light that emanates, is the admittance. It terrifies. The knowledge is benumbing. Not accepting—for there is no peace in this knowledge—the orb retreats again. It creates, in its unwillingness to accept such truth, an outer circle. It turns, begins to flow into the circle, and through the circle, into a state, the security from whence it came. “You must return,” the inner voice brakes through its exhaustion, and in the shock, in its bewilderment, the orb hears again. “You must be sure.” “But....” The orb tries not to become lost. It tries to wander through this sheerness of clarity, to bear that which it has seen? “Accept your world,” the voice inside the orb is saying, “...know, this is your universe. Hold it close, for here is your creation.” The flash, the glint—the brightest of lonely eyes.... The Being stares at the orb: Here is the beholding it has been avoiding. In the detached eyes, eyes that are completely removed, eyes that reach out from this center, there is enduring, endlessness, eternal waiting. In the eyes that reach out from this center, here is recognition of long-forgotten, long-fulfilled desires that have only led to emptiness. And it is, the orb sees, in this most powerful terrifying energy, the orb that has become consummate. In this greatness, this perfection, this completeness, it is the orb that has become perfectly isolated, perfectly alone. To this frozen moment, a great wind begins to sweep across. A roaring that moves everything from the orb’s sight. Kewe hears his own words, hears them as if he’s in a vacuum now. “No,” he shouts. “No! This is not me.” . . .
Kewe swears that’s the way he makes contact, when he first decides to acknowledge the voice is really in his head. Back in his apartment in Seattle, the breezy, offhand voice has been talking to him for days. Thinking at first it is an echo of his thoughts, he ignores it. They’re repeats of my own mind he says to himself. I’m repeating the words somehow in my head. The trouble is the echo begins to make suggestions. “Yes I know,” Kewe acknowledges, forgetting he’s responding to the voice. “Yes, I’ll remember to do that.” The voice that sounds like him seems to have no concerns about reminding him he has to do this or that. It interferes with his other thoughts whenever he needs to remember to do so and so. “I’m hearing a voice that sounds exactly like me,” Kewe mumbles to himself. “I’ve finally gone batty?” He wouldn’t mind only the voice he’s hearing sounds exactly like he sounds on his answering machine—slightly higher pitched. “Eh, thank you for calling. I cannot get to the phone right now. Please leave a message.” The voice talking to him in his head sounds exactly like that. “You cannot be me.” He goes to the answering machine, listens, resets the outgoing message —as if that would help. Why is he surprised? This, whoever it is, is talking in his thoughts the same way as any of the other beings do when they communicate. He thinks the voice might perhaps be a sort of future him. The responding in a weird, joking style, that is to hold his attention he decides. If it is a future him, he has to learn to deal with the strangeness. Could it really be a future him? A sledgehammer hits the moment he connects a series of dots. The answer in his head is so astonishing. He isn’t talking to a future him. He is in contact.... Maybe...! Is he talking to his soul? “Are you my Higher Self?” No more mind-Ego acting as God. No more jade thrones with golden canopies. Kewe in earlier days had expected God should be the one to answer the questions. He’d ask, God would answer, that was normal. No one expects their own Soul to begin reminding them to pick up the laundry. There’s a wealth of different feelings with this. The idea of privacy dies. Okay, God was always there and you were never private from Him, She, or It. You never had total privacy but you didn’t think about that. Now he can be on the throne pondering some question, and the thoughts are answering. Even on the throne. It was a shock to the system. Could he have some privacy, he asks? You are the crab, it tells him. You walk sideways. Everything you do is by walking sideways. What kind of an answer it that? He’s now having to say “Good morning” to it when he wakes up.
It’s completely implausible that this is happening. It’s a joke really. Here’s this other him talking to him—this soul. Isn’t he, Kewe the soul? People have so many interpretations of soul. Soul, it’s who we are now, and a continuation of ourselves after we depart this first stage. It’s a life that folds into ever-new life. It’s the version of us that’s becoming an acceptable member of an ever-expanding cosmic order. Soul an inner essence always there, yet another essence learning, growing. Listening to this voice talking, Kewe can understand why large tombs have been filled with the finer points of the reality we call soul. Those who write of soul talking back to you, he’s now discovered even that’s true.
How could having a soul be so complicated? Theologians have written that soul is outside of time. That with soul we have already become what we started out to be. Rick has suggested it is consciousness: forward, behind, always there, everything accomplished. But the state, the being of who we are, remains the riddle—in other words, the way we as soul choose to grant ourselves now—why? Kewe has always thought there is only ‘soul.’ It’s him inside. Of course if you have Jake popping up—a new identity to surprise the hell out of you—then there’s no choice but to rethink that point. Now the problem is with individuation. Not with knowing that we do exist, that we are, but with knowing how many, how much more there is, hidden behind the veil. Kewe having Jake as another he, is allowing him to grasp a wider idea of more. So, soul throws out a time-line. It creates time. It creates a localized position, an emergent moment, a time and place that happens. Within this emergent moment is Kewe, is Jake. It makes the head spin. I am an actor (as Shakespeare wrote) on the stage of life. Stop blaming God folks, for all the bad stuff that comes into your day. When in life there’s no fairness, don’t blame God. It’s soul’s decision. In that, it’s your own act. It’s kind of like saying. Well, we live in a democracy and we’re able to change our lives, but we allow all these other people to have untold riches, some billions upon billions of money currency, which gives them control of corporations, which gives them unprecedented power, while we work fifteen jobs a day to have a home and bring up kids. And we vote for the most stupid people bought by all this currency, and all this stuff happens which is going to affect us and our children, but it’s okay because we are the ones experiencing these emergent moments. Yes, it’s my very own decision. Good reasoning Kewe. Is that what you are saying Kewe? You saying soul would be a subject only for philosophers, if we weren’t living the life. Many ancient people have adopted the notion of Soul as being, at some level, the same as God. The Calusa people included three souls as part of their knowledge. They believed each person had a soul inside, a soul who walked as a shadow by their side, a soul who would appear when they stared into water, as a face reflected in that water. It’s easy to scoff at soul as a reflection, or soul as a shadow. The Calusa interpreted from the phenomena that often came to them. Our science, even in exact cause and effect, does the same. The Calusa if they did have contact with their triple spirit, with their soul, likely had soul talking to them from the water, and from their shadow. But were they all listening, or were only a few? In the Calusa world, just as in ours, an order of living became established. One wonders at what point did the order break down. Where was the imbalance of their society, their culture—a situation that became so impossible to maintain that the civilization ceased? This paradox of becoming who we already are, but aren’t there yet, it does complicate our reality. If we make changes, not allowing the future to happen the way it seems to be going, does that mean changes that are in the cards, learning events we would experience, don’t occur? Spirit always seems to meet us, at least in Kewe’s experience. Wherever he is, whatever knowledge he has, it always seems that Spirit is there. That wherever he is, is in Spirit’s frame of reference. Hawaiian people have their own soul-logic. Not especially those who sunbathe on Waikiki beach, but those who throughout known history have included soul in the ‘oo hah’ neh,’ the body. Soul is the ‘Kino Kupanaha’ —the aliveness that exists within the ordinary, physical body. Kino Kupanaha jumps from a rocky precipice at the human body’s death. To transfer to the ancestral homeland, it makes the leap from physical reality to the inner—a journey of wonder. Once established in the heavenly place of ‘Po,’ Kino Kupanaha replaces its form, becomes an ‘Aumakua’ and assumes its role as ancestral spirit. Aumakua gives ‘mah’nah,’ power, and it will, either temporarily or permanently, take up residence when needed, inside one or various members of the Earth-living family. Soul, Spirit, has a process by which it engages us. Its acts might vary. In its nuances it has to be recognized. But call it what we will—reaching for our true self, drawing from our inner being—whatever, whoever we think we are, soul is the animating and vital principle of ourselves as life. Soul is our life. Kewe when out of the body has regressed to before he was born. In this state he has viewed the home in which he would live, the people who came and spent time in the house. He has watched his mother in the day-to-day life, pregnant with him, and he loved the woman he was watching. She laughed. There was warmth in her presence. By viewing his mother, he thinks he was choosing, giving an agreement in an unborn way to his birth. There was no analysis, no understanding of where he came from, where he would be. He was, (in the eternal now, is,) just consciousness. Kewe wonders, would that be God who has built the consciousness, who has given him feelings? feelings for this woman, who in her physical body (in those emergent, eternal moments) had been building his? For the pre-born Kewe, if there is rebirth, no acknowledgment is in the unborn state. All his spirit knew (knows) is the moment of viewing, the experience of existing. There is no pre-knowledge, no mind analysis, not even that it, itself exists as a spirit, a small, viewing ball of consciousness. Rebirth, thinking we do return as a new person, explains much. Here we have a cause to avoid acts which we think might bring harm, and to practice that which we believe will be beneficial, for all others and ourselves. That we encounter and recognize past, future lives as ours, is for many undeniable, but their living in their time, and then being us in our time, is a paradox. A reason for not being constantly aware of having a reoccurring life cycle, some say, is that we have not developed the skill, nothing more. If we, as an alternative being, are reborn, Kewe’s fancy is that it has to do with the essence he is calling the Higher Self. He now thinks of the Higher Self as Soul, as Spirit at the top of the mountain—Soul that he can be, that he can become, but might not when the body dies. Kewe does not know whom he will be when the body dies. Will he enter a heaven? Will he become an ‘Aumakua’ spirit? Will who he is in this life blend into this other, greater I? He hopes, and likes to think, that with the knowledge he is acquiring, he will have the choice. If he has the choice, that he will become Jake is much more likely. Jake and he are close. He is already practicing with the knowledge Jake has. For many who have friends and family, there is no wish to grow away. This ‘other them’ is for after, perhaps once these many friends and family have themselves grown. When each has grown, and when each evolves, and when an awareness turns towards this other there. Soul, Kewe is sure, can become anything it wishes. Thoughts of himself as Kewe, thoughts of himself as Jake, are enough for now. If memories of past many beings—those who connect through this other self, those whose thoughts pervade his being—are all him, then as his Higher Self, so be it. There is likely even much more, some more encompassing power to grasp in this wonderment of the cosmic order—a Higher Self created by another Higher, Higher Self, created by a Higher, Higher.... A creator God is in most teachings. Brahman in Sanskrit holds the meaning of all power. Persian, Indic and Chinese scriptures, among many, have wondrous tales of god imagery. A god’s force is restricted only by the limitations it sets, or is set. It has complete override to do as it wishes to human selves, limited only by a more powerful Deity. In India, hundreds of millions of people worship Ganesha, a God-being who has the head of an elephant. At any pooja, or festival, or marriage of the Hindu faith, seldom does a celebration not invoke the God, who rides, when it chooses, on the back of a mouse. Vinayaka is the mouse that Ganesh rides upon. Vinayaka, they say, is the subtlety of life. A story has the Lord of Riches currying favor with Lord Shiva, the destroyer and restorer of worlds. A feast is to be held in Lord Shiva’s honor, but on receipt of the invitation Lord Shiva sends a message saying he himself will not attend. Ganapathi, his son, will visit in his place. Servants string streamers and lanterns. Chefs prepare for the great feast. Ganesha, who is also known as Ganapathi, is a Deity in his own right. He rules heaven, earth, and the underworld, and he’s been busy too, with all that’s going on. He arrives hungry, immediately calling for food to be brought. The waiters bring food and more food and Ganapathi keeps eating. His favorite pastime is eating. The waiters bring all the food they have until there’s no food left. Ganapathi still hungry cries out to the Lord of Riches, “Give me more food or I will have to eat you.” The Lord of Riches runs out of the palace and when he gets to Lord Shiva’s house, he begs for mercy. Ganapathi, the deity with the head of an elephant follows in a carriage behind, laughing at his antics. Symbols far removed from the one’s we adopt make little sense to us. They are interesting, sometimes silly, yet for those tuned, these stories bring moments a person can enter into another place. By believing, we shift to a new consciousness. Belief in a Higher Force can be a catalyst where human intellect allows itself to adjust the boundaries of the mind. If we are looking, if we seek more, then the Higher Self is all of this. But there is more to pray to than the Higher Self. The Virgin Mary, and the saints of the world’s faiths, act as an interceder for many, though some believe the Virgin Mary is a Supreme spirit who acts within her own power. The heavens are as varied as the many peoples and beings who reside both upon this planet, and upon the cosmic stream. We can ask for assistance from any who we think might help. In the sense of committing to a belief, to a way of life, then we need to choose more carefully. Life is learning. However, if it be the teachings of Mohammed, or the teachings of Lao-Tzu; if it be the Hindu majestic cosmic order, or the loving spirit who keeps contact with its family, giving guidance in thoughts and visions; if it be the Buddha Shakyamuni, who speaks against the cast, and at the same time teaches of hundreds of thousands of millions of Buddhalands; if it be Moses with the ten commandments, or androgynous Akhenaten, 18th Dynasty Pharaoh of Egypt, who taught the one God, Aten, could be seen and felt; or indeed, if it be the gentle Aramaic speaking preacher, crucified trying to make us understand—it is all help that draws us beyond a boundary we had. One thing we should all remember: ‘IT,’ as Spirit, as the Higher Self, as God, is always there. It is before. It meets. It is never not-facing us! It is the ‘everlasting purpose’ that shall not be denied, as Arnold Bennett states. If Kewe has a message (the only fact of truth he has, everything else being merely opinion) it’s that, because the dichotomy of life here is plenary, there is no priest, no church, no religion, no person or organization on this planet, or on any planet, system, region, inner plane, with the answer. That, which you discover and create for yourself, is the learning. (This previous paragraph is Kewe’s only truth to anyone, no other.) All of India celebrates Ganesha Chaturti, Ganapathi’s birthday. With the singing of songs of praise, the offering of sweets and kumukum, haldi and rice, homage is paid. Respect is given to this great Deity. People pray to Ganeshji, and he brings them energy and power and gifts. Those who feel his presence know his presence. No mistake to them what he can do! A god might have the strength of the elephant, the awesome grandeur of a mountain, or be a son who is sacrificed; it matters not. From the Gods of the many African deities, to the Gods of all our world’s peoples, the symbol to which we connect is our power. Praying to our God-Spirit, we connect. We should not forget, each path, each unfolding proceeded upon, comes through ideas, concepts developed from some contact we have made, from some human, or spirit essence, or verily from the higher self. Hebrew and Aramaic teachings indeed all teachings bringing us to a forgiveness of others, and a love of spirit in each other, are teachings where we have been evolving. These new ideas we dare to encompass hold a movement from the space we are in, to where we are going. We enclose that space inside ourselves, move with it to the always more. Kewe thinks the image of the higher self (taught now with ever greater frequency) allows us to embrace an important new orbit of recognition. In this orbit, our vision and comprehension will continue its growth. As we dance through the eternal now, the boundary of which we are enclosed is amended. Do we discard the clothing of human personality as we enter a new dimension? Is our psyche imprinted with lives, after birth and while we actualize a personality? Do we merge with other us, as we flow through our daily experience? These questions will be for the new theologies. What else is out there waiting? For some, the desire to remain who they are will takes precedence when they leave this world. The friends made, the interactions played, will continue in importance. For many, the Heavens of the Religions will play a role to beloved who seek entrance to their worlds. Guilds, associations, new environments are in place. These, based upon common desire, common interests and pursuits, have unlimited worlds set apart for them. For those who wish to enter through the aperture that draws at times, for those who wish to go inside ‘this within,’ an opportunity exists for them. The journey is never stopped, beyond our dreams it is all there. In the odyssey of life everything is possible, nothing ever non-attainable. Kewe asks where he should include “The WE” with this. He welcomes “The WE,” as his new space. He thinks “The WE” is the Higher Self, and much more. That “The WE” in its collective reciprocalness is also uniqueness and individuality for each, he’s sure is the approaching ‘here.’ He accepts “The WE,” still wondering exactly what that means. Looking at our collective and individual efforts, our labors—our strange, odd ways—it seems to Kewe, that we have come, within the limitations and freedoms of each life setting, far. We are in our learning becoming much. He continues to tune into the voice of the Higher Self.
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| TheWE.name | State of the Planet |