Toward a Deeper Meditation. John Van Auken

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СКАЧАТЬ and to which Jesus is attuned. Here is that statement (8:43): “Why do you not understand my word [lalian]? It is because you cannot hear my word [logon, a form of logos].” It is clear that Jesus is drawing a distinction between words that are in speech and the source of all expression, truth, and understanding, the Logos. Also, in the original Greek text, there is no masculine pronoun in the initial sentences of the passage; therefore the text actually reads:

      “In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God. This One was in the beginning with God. All things were made through this One. Without this One was not anything made that has been made. In this One was life; and the life was the light of humanity. And the light shines in the darkness; and the darkness does not apprehend it. There came a man, sent from God, whose name was John [the Baptist]. The same came as a witness, that he might bear witness to the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came that he might bear witness to the light. This was the true light, even the light that lights every person coming into the world. This One was in the world, and the world was made through this One, and the world knew him not. This One came to his own, and they that were his own did not receive him. But as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name: who were not born of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Logos became flesh, and dwelt among us; and we beheld its glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

      This is such an inspired opening to the most mystical of the four gospels. But another gem behind this new understanding of “the Word” is in chapter 8:31. Here Jesus informs us that we can abide in the Logos, and thereby receive the truth directly and be made free: “If you abide in my Logos, then you are truly disciples of mine; and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

      According to many religions, especially ancient Hinduism, the Maker put a little of Him/Herself in each us during the initial creation. This means that at a deep level, we are gods within God, little “I ams” within the great I AM. In this way, Jesus, at a deeper level, was also the “Son of God” and we are sons and daughters of God. As Jesus stated by quoting Psalm 62, “You are gods.” Like Jesus, we are both sons and daughters of “man” while, at the same time, sons and daughters of God. The human and the divine abide together in us. The great challenge is to integrate these two in the proper order. At present, most of us are humans who love spirituality. The goal is to become Spirits, Godly Spirits, who are temporarily manifesting in human form and consciousness. After the resurrection, Jesus withdrew into oneness with the Maker, but he said that we are channels of the Maker’s light and love into this world until he returns to lead a Golden Age.

      As Cayce has said in several readings, the flow of life and wisdom begins in the Spirit, flows into the mental, and then makes its presence visible in the physical—not the other way around, as we too often believe. Let’s first get in touch with the Spirit, through the Mind, and then our physical lives will change for the better and we’ll be able to do more good than if we did so on our own without the Spirit.

      Cayce makes this clear statement: “The Spirit is the true life.” (262-29)

      When we look around, we see multiplicity, diversity, and separateness. You are there. I am here. Your thoughts are yours; mine are mine. Oneness is not evident. Yet, from Edgar Cayce’s trance-like connection to the Universal Consciousness, he saw and taught oneness: “The first lesson … should be One—One—One—One; Oneness of God, oneness of man’s relations, oneness of force, oneness of time, oneness of purpose, Oneness in every effort—Oneness—Oneness!” (900-429) For Cayce, our thoughts are not just ours! In fact, he could tell exactly what others had been thinking, because thoughts leave an impression upon the Universal Consciousness. Cayce could “read” these impressions. Thoughts, for him, were “deeds.” When giving a reading for an individual, Cayce had difficulty determining if he or she had actually manifested a particular behavior or just thought about it, because thoughts make as strong an impression on the Collective Consciousness as actions! That’s a scary thought—oops, I just made another impression on the Collective Consciousness! Cayce was concerned that we all grasp the implications of this unavoidable oneness.

      Is it possible that everyone and everything is a part of some unseen Collective, some indivisible Whole, within which all multiplicity exists, and each affects the composition of this Collective? Cayce says yes: “Not only God is God, but self is a part of that oneness.” (900-181) In several readings, Cayce pressed us to simply believe this and live as if it were true! In this way we would come to know that it is indeed true. “Let this, my children, be the lesson for you: The intent in relating to each and every individual should be to bring forth that best element in each, in Oneness of purpose, in oneness of spirit, in oneness of mind, towards each and every one that you contact—for the individuals, in the final analysis, are one.” (288-19) In some manner that we don’t readily perceive, you and I—and all the individuals we meet and interact with each day—are one.

      These are hard teachings to understand and harder to live by. We’ve all heard the admonition think before you speak, but this level of oneness would suggest that we should think before we think. Does thinking negative thoughts about another person actually affect that person at some unseen level? Do these negative thoughts make a recording upon a Collective Consciousness, a recording that someone like Cayce can read? Ancient Hinduism included the concept of an Akasha, an etheric film that records all thoughts, all words, and all actions from the first Om of creation until the last Om of silence. Nothing is lost. Nothing is forgotten. Nothing is unknowable. Watching Cayce give readings on the activities of celestial godlings who lived before the Earth even existed certainly suggests that nothing is forgotten or lost or unknowable. While his body was on the couch and his conscious mind was for all intents and purposes asleep, his deeper mind could tell us about a long-forgotten event in one’s early childhood that still had its effect on the present, or an ancient past life that influenced the outer self’s feelings in the present life. In some readings for individuals, he would mention the house they lived in and what they were doing as the reading was about to begin, such as: “Yes, we have the red mail box. We are entering the house. She is in the bedroom praying.”

      In the 1960s and ‘70s, when meditation was taking hold in this country, meditators began to speak of experiencing a sense of oneness with all of life when they reached deeper levels in their meditation. When questioned about this, all they could say was that, at some moment in their meditation, all life seemed connected. But the gap between this inner meditative feeling and our outer-sensory perception is a chasm. There is simply no outer-sensory corroboration for such a position. Oneness is an inner perception that defies outer evidence. Apparently, oneness has to be experienced firsthand in order to overcome all the outer contradictions to its existence. And short of rare miraculous epiphanies, meditation appears to be the best way to perceive the unseen oneness. Even Jesus had trouble making the oneness argument with his disciple Philip at the Last Supper, finally conceding that if he could not believe Jesus’ oneness with the Father and that Philip had therefore known the Father by knowing Jesus, then let the outer miracles act as evidence of this oneness with God.

      But let’s press this oneness idea a little further. How can selfish or evil people still be in oneness with the Collective? And if they are, simply because there is no way to be outside of the Whole, then why are they allowed to do so much harm to others in the Collective? In a very complex discussion between one of the greatest questioners of Edgar Cayce, Morton Blumenthal, #900, and the “sleeping” Edgar Cayce, attuned to the Collective, we can find some insights into these hard questions. Since the discussion is so complex, I’ll paraphrase here:

      Morton: On Oct. 15, Thursday, at home I had this dream: It seemed my mother and I were in a hotel where many people were passing by. Then there was a typewriter with a sheet of blank paper in it, waiting to be used by one of the many applicants for the position of stenographer. СКАЧАТЬ