"All including the world seen by you and yourself, the seer of the world, is one only."
- ch.1, verse 1, All is One, the booklet recommended by Sri Ramana Maharshi
Many mystic traditions describe this state of Oneness as the true or ground state of all being. While I'd experienced various interesting states of the mind, the experience of Oneness was foreign to me. I could of course intellectualize and rationalize it, but that is hardly a substitute for the real thing.
So, one spectacular summer's morning in the Pacific Northwest, Eduardo and I hiked up to a nice secluded clearing in the forest and settled down for the day. About an hour in, I felt it - subtle at first, then a big, big shift. For the next 4-5 hours, I was like Alice in Wonderland, having fallen down a rabbit hole to a place where time and space as I knew it seemingly ceased to exist.
I was plunged deep into a subjective experience that I can now barely recall and describe. Physically, my body had turned mostly to jelly; I would lay spread-eagled face upwards on the forest floor, in the shape of Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, or mustering all my will-power, roll around into a foetal shape, and then plant my face into the ground below me.
I have the barest hint of recollection of reliving hundreds or even thousands of lives all at the same time. I recall a little more clearly reliving every moment of this life all at once. My self as I knew it had dissolved into near nothingness and in its place there was this vast expanse of consciousness - and in this field of being, I became everyone I'd known in my life, and they became me. Especially with my family, it was impossible to tell where I ended and they began, or to even think of these personalities as distinct.
"All that you consider as I, you, he, she and it, is one only."
- ch.1, verse 2, All is One
All separation gone, I felt my true nature as Joy: I repeatedly exploded in gales of ecstatic laughter, before lapsing back into trance where all possibilities - past, present and future - floated like a matrix in consciousness, and any path was seemingly there for the taking (more on this later).
Many mystic traditions describe this state of Oneness as the true or ground state of all being. While I'd experienced various interesting states of the mind, the experience of Oneness was foreign to me. I could of course intellectualize and rationalize it, but that is hardly a substitute for the real thing.
That then was the situation prior my session in the forests of Washington State with my shaman friend, Eduardo. The shaman helps one shift into an altered state of consciousness through techniques that include rhythmic breathing, drumming and music, whereupon one can viscerally experience mystic truths and insights.
So, one spectacular summer's morning in the Pacific Northwest, Eduardo and I hiked up to a nice secluded clearing in the forest and settled down for the day. About an hour in, I felt it - subtle at first, then a big, big shift. For the next 4-5 hours, I was like Alice in Wonderland, having fallen down a rabbit hole to a place where time and space as I knew it seemingly ceased to exist.
I was plunged deep into a subjective experience that I can now barely recall and describe. Physically, my body had turned mostly to jelly; I would lay spread-eagled face upwards on the forest floor, in the shape of Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, or mustering all my will-power, roll around into a foetal shape, and then plant my face into the ground below me.
I have the barest hint of recollection of reliving hundreds or even thousands of lives all at the same time. I recall a little more clearly reliving every moment of this life all at once. My self as I knew it had dissolved into near nothingness and in its place there was this vast expanse of consciousness - and in this field of being, I became everyone I'd known in my life, and they became me. Especially with my family, it was impossible to tell where I ended and they began, or to even think of these personalities as distinct.
"All that you consider as I, you, he, she and it, is one only."
- ch.1, verse 2, All is One
All separation gone, I felt my true nature as Joy: I repeatedly exploded in gales of ecstatic laughter, before lapsing back into trance where all possibilities - past, present and future - floated like a matrix in consciousness, and any path was seemingly there for the taking (more on this later).
During the trance, there were extended periods where I was "lost", with interludes where some lucidity and ability to reflect would return. Upon one such return to the present, I awoke to hear Eduardo singing "Suddhosi bhuddhosi", the lullaby of Jnana or self-knowledge that Queen Madalasa sang soothe to her infant son Vikrant as narrated in the ancient Indian religious text, the Markandeya Purana. As the words rolled off his lips first in Sanskrit and then in English, I wept uncontrollably like a child, wracked by emotions that I cannot quite describe:
You are forever pure, you are forever true
And the dream of this world can never touch you
So give up your attachment & give up your confusion
And fly to that space that’s beyond all illusion
A question that came to mind was how to think of the various unpleasant and unlikable people I'd encountered in life with this expanded notion of Self without boundaries. The answer came unbidden "Expand! Expand to include all, pleasant and unpleasant, in the experience of Self." Even in the trance state, this psychic expansion and embrace of negatives required enormous effort on my part. I could discern that this was my homework to take away from the day.
"He who sees "I am separate," "you are separate," "he is separate" and so on, acts one way to himself and another way to others. He cannot help doing so. The thought "I am separate, others are separate" is the seed from which grows the tree of differing actions in relation to different persons..."
- ch.1, verse 6, All is One
As late afternoon arrived, I emerged from trance to the peace and quiet of the forest. Eduardo packed up his musical instruments and we walked back to our car in silence to head back home.
That night, as I sat at home reflecting on the day's events, a book in my collection caught my eye "The Book of Ho'oponopono: The Hawaiian Practice of Forgiveness and Healing". It's message of healing negative relationships by "dissolving the negative patterns in one's field" had never made sense to me, until now. I could now see that all experiences exist in the unitary field of Consciousness. I was now open to the possibility that by becoming aware of and accepting even negative experiences from this perspective, a different path might open up moving forward.
"There is nothing but yourself. All good will be yours. Yea, you become the good itself. All that others gain from you will be good only."
- ch.1, verse 10, All is One
Can one eliminate all negative experiences from one's life by "dissolving negative patterns"? Is the work to unconditionally accept all negative experiences as part of the Self? As I write this post from the limited perspective of my everyday self, either alternative seems daunting, if not outright impossible. But that day in the forest, the possibility was dangled tantalizingly in front of me.
"Who is God? He is grace. What is Grace? Awareness without the fragmentary ego....In fact, there are no states besides this. They appear in the state of ignorance. For him who knows, there is one state only. You are that."
- ch.2, verse 10, All is One
"He who sees "I am separate," "you are separate," "he is separate" and so on, acts one way to himself and another way to others. He cannot help doing so. The thought "I am separate, others are separate" is the seed from which grows the tree of differing actions in relation to different persons..."
- ch.1, verse 6, All is One
As late afternoon arrived, I emerged from trance to the peace and quiet of the forest. Eduardo packed up his musical instruments and we walked back to our car in silence to head back home.
That night, as I sat at home reflecting on the day's events, a book in my collection caught my eye "The Book of Ho'oponopono: The Hawaiian Practice of Forgiveness and Healing". It's message of healing negative relationships by "dissolving the negative patterns in one's field" had never made sense to me, until now. I could now see that all experiences exist in the unitary field of Consciousness. I was now open to the possibility that by becoming aware of and accepting even negative experiences from this perspective, a different path might open up moving forward.
"There is nothing but yourself. All good will be yours. Yea, you become the good itself. All that others gain from you will be good only."
- ch.1, verse 10, All is One
Can one eliminate all negative experiences from one's life by "dissolving negative patterns"? Is the work to unconditionally accept all negative experiences as part of the Self? As I write this post from the limited perspective of my everyday self, either alternative seems daunting, if not outright impossible. But that day in the forest, the possibility was dangled tantalizingly in front of me.
"Who is God? He is grace. What is Grace? Awareness without the fragmentary ego....In fact, there are no states besides this. They appear in the state of ignorance. For him who knows, there is one state only. You are that."
- ch.2, verse 10, All is One
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