TOWARD A DIFFERENT ORDER OF REALITY

 

I don’t agree that the body needs to die. I am convinced that we can

achieve physical immortality. We believe in death and that’s why the

body dies.

The body does not die because you believe in death. The body exists,

or seems to, because you believe in death. Body and death are part of

the same illusion, created by the egoic mode of consciousness, which

has no awareness of the Source of life and sees itself as separate and

constantly under threat. So it creates the illusion that you are a body,

a dense, physical vehicle that is constantly under threat.

To perceive yourself as a vulnerable body that was born and a little

later dies — that’s the illusion. Body and death: one illusion. You

cannot have one without the other. You want to keep one side of the

illusion and get rid of the other, but that is impossible. Either you

keep all of it or you relinquish all of it.

However, you cannot escape from the body, nor do you have to. The

body is an incredible misperception of your true nature. But your true

nature is concealed somewhere within that illusion, not outside it, so

the body is still the only point of access to it.

If you saw an angel but mistook it for a stone statue, all you would

have to do is adjust your vision and look more closely at the “stone

statue,” not start looking somewhere else. You would then find that

there never was a stone statue.

If belief in death creates the body, why does an animal have a body?

An animal doesn’t have an ego, and it doesn’t believe in death. . . .

But it still dies, or seems to.

Remember that your perception of the world is a reflection of your

state of consciousness. You are not separate from it, and there is no

objective world out there. Every moment, your consciousness creates

the world that you inhabit. One of the greatest insights that has come

out of modern physics is that of the unity between the observer and

the observed: the person conducting the experiment — the observing

consciousness — cannot be separated from the observed phenomena,

and a different way of looking causes the observed phenomena to

behave differently. If you believe, on a deep level, in separation and

the struggle for survival, then you see that belief reflected all around

you and your perceptions are governed by fear. You inhabit a world of

death and of bodies fighting, killing, and devouring each other.

Nothing is what it seems to be. The world that you create and see

through the egoic mind may seem a very imperfect place, even a vale

of tears. But whatever you perceive is only a kind of symbol, like an

image in a dream. It is how your consciousness interprets and

interacts with the molecular energy dance of the universe. This

energy is the raw material of so-called physical reality. You see it in

terms of bodies and birth and death, or as a struggle for survival. An

infinite number of completely different interpretations, completely

different worlds, is possible and, in fact, exists — all depending on the

perceiving consciousness. Every being is a focal point of

consciousness, and every such focal point creates its own world,

although all those worlds are interconnected. There is a human world,

an ant world, a dolphin world, and so on. There are countless beings

whose consciousness frequency is so different from yours that you are

probably unaware of their existence, as they are of yours. Highly

conscious beings who are aware of their connectedness with the

Source and with each other would inhabit a world that to you would

appear as a heavenly realm — and yet all worlds are ultimately one.

Our collective human world is largely created through the level of

consciousness we call mind. Even within the collective human world

there are vast differences, many different “sub-worlds,” depending on

the perceivers or creators of their respective worlds. Since all worlds

are interconnected, when collective human consciousness becomes

transformed, nature and the animal kingdom will reflect that

transformation. Hence the statement in the Bible that in the coming

age “The lion shall lie down with the lamb.” This points to the

possibility of a completely different order of reality.

The world as it appears to us now is, as I said, largely a reflection of

the egoic mind. Fear being an unavoidable consequence of egoic

delusion, it is a world dominated by fear. Just as the images in a

dream are symbols of inner states and feelings, so our collective

reality is largely a symbolic expression of fear and of the heavy layers

of negativity that have accumulated in the collective human psyche.

We are not separate from our world, so when the majority of humans

become free of egoic delusion, this inner change will affect all of

creation. You will literally inhabit a new world. It is a shift in planetary

consciousness. The strange Buddhist saying that every tree and every

blade of grass will eventually become enlightened points to the same

truth. According to St. Paul, the whole of creation is waiting for

humans to become enlightened. That is how I interpret his saying that

“The created universe is waiting with eager expectation for God’s sons

to be revealed.” St. Paul goes on to say that all of creation will

become redeemed through this: “Up to the present. . .the whole

created universe in all its parts groans as if in the pangs of childbirth.”

What is being born is a new consciousness and, as its inevitable

reflection, a new world. This is also foretold in the New Testament

Book of Revelation: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for

the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.”

But don’t confuse cause and effect. Your primary task is not to seek

salvation through creating a better world, but to awaken out of

identification with form. You are then no longer bound to this world,

this level of reality. You can feel your roots in the Unmanifested and

so are free of attachment to the manifested world. You can still enjoy

the passing pleasures of this world, but there is no fear of loss

anymore, so you don’t need to cling to them. Although you can enjoy

sensory pleasures, the craving for sensory experience is gone, as is

the constant search for fulfillment through psychological gratification,

through feeding the ego. You are in touch with something infinitely

greater than any pleasure, greater than any manifested thing.

In a way, you then don’t need the world anymore. You don’t even

need it to be different from the way it is.

It is only at this point that you begin to make a real contribution

toward bringing about a better world, toward creating a different

order of reality. It is only at this point that you are able to feel true

compassion and to help others at the level of cause. Only those who

have transcended the world can bring about a better world.

You may remember that we talked about the dual nature of true

compassion, which is awareness of a common bond of shared

mortality and immortality. At this deep level, compassion becomes

healing in the widest sense. In that state, your healing influence is

primarily based not on doing but on being. Everybody you come in

contact with will be touched by your presence and affected by the

peace that you emanate, whether they are conscious of it or not.

When you are fully present and people around you manifest

unconscious behavior, you won’t feel the need to react to it, so you

don’t give it any reality. Your peace is so vast and deep that anything

that is not peace disappears into it as if it had never existed. This

breaks the karmic cycle of action and reaction. Animals, trees, flowers

will feel your peace and respond to it. You teach through being,

through demonstrating the peace of God. You become the “light of

the world,” an emanation of pure consciousness, and so you eliminate

suffering on the level of cause. You eliminate unconsciousness from

the world.

This doesn’t mean that you may not also teach through doing — for

example, by pointing out how to disidentify from the mind, recognize

unconscious patterns within oneself, and so on. But who you are is

always a more vital teaching and a more powerful transformer of the

world than what you say, and more essential even than what you do.

Furthermore, to recognize the primacy of Being, and thus work on the

level of cause, does not exclude the possibility that your compassion

may simultaneously manifest on the level of doing and of effect by

alleviating suffering whenever you come across it. When a hungry

person asks you for bread and you have some, you will give it. But as

you give the bread, even though your interaction may only be very

brief, what really matters is this moment of shared Being, of which

the bread is only a symbol. A deep healing takes place within it. In

that moment, there is no giver, no receiver.

But there shouldn’t be any hunger and starvation in the first place.

How can we create a better world without tackling evils such as

hunger and violence first?

All evils are the effect of unconsciousness. You can alleviate the

effects of unconsciousness, but you cannot eliminate them unless you

eliminate their cause. True change happens within, not without.

If you feel called upon to alleviate suffering in the world, that is a very

noble thing to do, but remember not to focus exclusively on the outer;

otherwise, you will encounter frustration and despair. Without a

profound change in human consciousness, the world’s suffering is a

bottomless pit. So don’t let your compassion become one-sided.

Empathy with someone else’s pain or lack and a desire to help need

to be balanced with a deeper realization of the eternal nature of all

life and the ultimate illusion of all pain. Then let your peace flow into

whatever you do and you will be working on the levels of effect and

cause simultaneously.

This also applies if you are supporting a movement designed to stop

deeply unconscious humans from destroying themselves, each other,

and the planet, or from continuing to inflict dreadful suffering on other

sentient beings. Remember: Just as you cannot fight the darkness, so

you cannot fight unconsciousness. If you try to do so, the polar

opposites will become strengthened and more deeply entrenched. You

will become identified with one of the polarities, you will create an

“enemy,” and so be drawn into unconsciousness yourself. Raise

awareness by disseminating information, or at the most, practice

passive resistance. But make sure that you carry no resistance within,

no hatred, no negativity. “Love your enemies,” said Jesus, which, of

course, means “have no enemies.”

Once you get involved in working on the level of effect, it is all too

easy to lose yourself in it. Stay alert and very, very present. The

causal level needs to remain your primary focus, the teaching of

enlightenment your main purpose, and peace your most precious gift

to the world.

CHAPTER TEN

 

THE MEANING OF

SURRENDER