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SURPRISED BY THE HIGHER SELF

   Once, during my regular meditations, I often experienced visions of a golden crown, a golden equal-armed cross, a golden cup and plate on a brilliant white tablecloth, and a brilliant sun. I finally realized that together they represent the magnificence, harmony, and abundance of the human spirit and the cosmos. I was not aware then of any spiritual tradition that features these spiritual symbols. One day I was searching for a grave at the San Joaquin Valley National Cemetery and found a similar group of symbols on a headstone. Most of the other headstones exhibit the Christian crucifix, but one headstone displays a cup, a plate, an equal-armed cross and a sun. I stepped back in amazement when I encountered it. "Someone else has seen them!" I exclaimed. "Someone else has had the same visions." The only symbol missing on the headstone is the crown. 

   Soon, in February, the hillsides at Big Creek will blaze again with poppies. When I am at Big Creek during the beginning of spring, many of my paths over the years, though often rocky or difficult to see, link together in my mind. I understand why I have explored those paths and feel blessed because opening my heart and mind to nature and the arts and the Mysteries, despite all the times that I’ve felt lost, have ultimately led me to understand the energies of healing and harmonizing love and sacrifice. Despite many hardships, seeking inspiration on this path eventually enabled me to know the subtle archetypal forces of nature and the power of the Sun. At Big Creek one day, with the hillsides on fire, I could see my spiritual path clearly from its beginnings, winding through the spheres of the Moon and Mercury and Venus and ultimately to the sphere of the Sun, where I feel the influx of the forces of Mars and Jupiter, which is why I have repeatedly envisioned the golden crown. Others might have considered me a malcontent because I have repudiated a capitalistic society that ignores and dismisses and even sometimes demonizes these forces, but I can say now that I finally managed to experience a part of myself that for forty years I never even knew existed, which has led me to know the triumph of the spirit.

   I have suffered from a chronic disease my entire life. For fifty-five years, the vast majority of people, including doctors, never thought that I was “really” ill, just depressed or psychosomatic. Only in the last few years—after I started experiencing atrial fibrillation whenever I ate gluten and after my stomach stopped digesting food efficiently—a few people have started to believe me: It’s hard to deny that a person has a physical problem when his heart goes haywire after he eats certain foods and he can’t digest fiber and meat properly. But celiac disease and food allergies also affect emotional and mental states. A constant diet of foods that are toxic to the body eventually leads to brain fog, severe depression, even psychosis. And, unfortunately, instead of receiving support during my worst health crises, people have tended to blame me for being weak. 

   I remember how one day at Big Creek, after I had eliminated everything harmful from my diet, I knew that the veils had fallen: even though based on my experience I have little reason to feel optimistic about humanity, I could feel the magnificence, harmony and abundance of the human spirit, and I was sure that with a strong spiritual will and the powers of harmony we can heal ourselves and each other and our society to end even the most terrible crises.
   I have never been a religious person. Over the years, however, I have evolved spiritually without ever even attempting to be spiritual—mainly because of a strong compulsion to experience  the inspirations provided by nature and the arts. Each inspiration has resulted in an expansion of consciousness that has never quite retracted, and with each moment of inspiration has come greater illumination, which has created the capacity within me for understanding spiritual principle. In the physical and emotional and mental and spiritual realms, we only see what the light illuminates. At one point, for instance, after I cleansed my aura through mental purification, I began having the above-mentioned visions of spiritual symbols from the higher astral plane, and due to the cumulative experiences of illumination and the expansion of consciousness from numerous moments of inspiration, I could understand the abstract spiritual principles represented by the symbols.
   I do not regret now that instead of striving for status or power or money, I have explored nature and the arts. As far as I was concerned, the spiritual inebriation caused by inspiration often made socially valued pursuits such as landing a great job and making piles of money seem like huge wastes of time and energy. Eventually, after I found the Qabalah due to spiritual visions and synchronicities, I discovered that these inspirations often occur in the sphere of the Goddess Venus, who rules Netzach (Victory), the seventh Emanation on the Tree of Life. In my twenties, after I graduated from college and wandered away from the sphere of the intellect, I entered the forest and returned to the arts to experience moments of inspiration again, and I have since concluded that the Emanation of Victory, the realm of Venus, remains forever dangerous to the status quo: The inspirations of Venus open us up to the great subtle cosmic forces that inspire us and burn away false and limiting beliefs.
   In the realm of Mercury, known as Hod (Splendor), the eighth Emanation on the Tree of Life, I can know those forces intellectually, but in Victory, I feel them with my heart, and the resulting exultations, which I seldom experience in the daily grind of this capitalistic society, have often led me to question human institutions that have blinded us to the liberating cosmic forces that make the soul flower. To Christians this might be especially significant: The exultations of Venus can swing the soul across a gulf into the Emanation of The Sun, the sphere of harmonizing love and spiritual inebriation, the Christ Center. 

   A society that is both Christian and capitalistic, however, is in conflict. Capitalism despoils nature and treats everything within it as a commodity and leaves us all to fend for ourselves. We often cut funding for the arts in our schools and communities, thereby closing the door on inspirations that can awaken the higher self. We cannot know the Son without numerous experiences of inspiration and illumination—and the Son shows us the Father.
   “As above, so below” is a maxim within esoteric traditions. In other words, the energies within the macrocosm (the cosmos) correspond to the energies within the microcosm (the individual). Another way of looking at it: There is no part of you and me that is not part of the Gods. “Know ye not that ye are gods?” asked one of the most revered spiritual leaders of the past two thousand years. Imagine what sea change would occur if this society actually understood and internalized the meaning of these words, especially in troubled times.
   Without knowing it at first, through each inspiration I was slowly building an inner temple. Repeated experiences of inspiration helped me to contact the subtle forces of the cosmos and the corresponding energies within myself. Victory, the Emanation of Goddess Venus, is the realm of the “Elohim” (Gods). In other words, within the realm of Venus the soul awakens to the subtle forces in the cosmos and in ourselves that throughout history the human mind has personified as Gods and Goddesses. Once we begin to awaken these subtle forces, we eventually open the psyche to the Emanation of the Sun, the sphere of harmonizing love and spiritual inebriation associated with the Christ, a force that each human being can manifest.
   Before my unexpected awakening, I never would have believed that a higher self exists. Part of me always wanted to believe what I had been taught over the years—that external validation and ego satisfaction from worldly success would result in some form of happiness. After my awakening, however, I realized that the higher self has nothing to do with ego satisfaction. Instead, awakening the higher self is caused by the exultation of spirit: A person who clears a path to the higher self through mental purification and inflames the soul through inspiration eventually awakens spiritual awareness. Only after my higher self awakened did I feel the triumph of spirit that is the birthright of each person, a birthright that has been stolen from the vast majority of us in this capitalistic society through obsession for profit, momentary gratification through consumerism, and ego satisfaction.

   When I meditate or perform rituals, I have often felt an invisible energy penetrating my forehead and gently touching my face. Recently, I have regularly experienced this energy during my rituals, usually immediately after I ask God to send down an angel to keep me focused. (My mind tends to wander occasionally.) One day I suddenly envisioned the Archangel Raphael behind the angel who keeps me focused, which is what I call him now (I say "him" and "he" even though I'm pretty sure angels don't have a gender); the angel was revealing that he is from the angelic order of the Melachim, which is ruled by the Archangel Raphael. As some of you who have read this blog might recall, I have experienced profound, life-changing moments with the Archangel Raphael. The Archangel has supported me through some extremely difficult times.

   The great Archangel Raphael, "Healer of God,"  is associated with the Emanation of Beauty on the Tree of Life, the Emanation of the Sun and the energies of harmonizing love and sacrifice. 

   Since gold is incorruptible, it is also associated with the Emanation of the Sun. The symbols that I often envisioned in meditation, the crown, the balanced cross, the cup and plate, are golden; the sun and the tablecloth are both brilliant white and suggest the unity and brilliance of the spirit. During my rituals, I feel more and more connected with the angel from the order of the Melachim and Archangel Raphael and the great powers of harmony within the Emanation of Beauty. These awesome powers have healed me, neutralized evil, and helped me to reestablish balance in my life on many occasions. They have supported me through decades of illness and hard times--even when I was an atheist.

   I know this now because the higher self creates a bridge to the awesome cosmic powers of harmony as well as to the divine core of the self. We can access these powers of harmony to heal ourselves and others and the world around us even as the corporate elite continue to pillage our society and desecrate the natural world and lead us all to the brink of disaster. Each act of healing ripples through the collective consciousness and slowly makes humanity whole again. Each act of harmonizing love and sacrifice raises the collective frequency of humanity.

   Not that long ago, people used to believe that the earth was the center of the universe, perhaps to reassure themselves that God considers humanity and the planet significant and cares about us. Even though in the cosmic scheme of things we actually live on what amounts to a tiny speck of dust, God and the Archangels and the angels do care about us and support us even if we are unaware of their existence. It's a miracle.