Some Pointers About Lucid Dreaming

[This Blog started as an editorial re-write of a previous blog on Lucid Dreaming, but so much changed along the way, that it is really its own piece.  I did a reading of this Blog on YouTube, if you’re interested] 

When you have a Lucid Dream, it feels as though the Dream is as Real as anything you would be doing in “Real” Life, and often times even more vivid and intense.  The colors are somehow deeper and brighter than in Real Life.  Yes, the experiential intensity of a Lucid Dream is often nice for its own sake.  It’s like getting high, right?  But, as we can ask about most Spiritual Things, are Lucid Dreams actually good for anything?  Well, consider that when we are in a Lucid Dream, we are being presented with access to a very deep level in our own Psychology.  So, perhaps the best use for Lucid Dreams is in deliberately making all the best possible Psychological Choices.  In Lucid Dreams we are probably directly structuring what will be our “Subconscious” Impulses for Waking Life.        

When I look over my early personal history of Lucid Dreams what occurs to me is that at the moment of Lucidity, I would make the choice to step out of the ‘plot line’ of the ordinary dreams I had been engaged in, with their cast of ordinary dream characters, to go to some better and more Spiritual Dreams with a more inspiring set of Dream Characters.  At first it was hardly a deliberate conscious decision.  In the beginning, when I noticed Lucidity, I would remember I could Dream Fly (which is very fun) and I would fly away.  Back in these early days, I had not known that Flying always takes you upwards Spiritually.  

Now, if you also Dream Fly for the sheer pleasure of Dream Flying, well, you may find that the energy eventually gives out and you can no longer sustain altitude or a very great forward speed (though you can try ‘supercharging’ your Energy Level by taking short rapid but moderately deep breaths.  You will see it working in that the Visual Intensity and Brightness of the Dream will increase, and, if you are flying, you will be better able to sustain altitude and speed.  The problem with this rapid breathing though, is that, well, if you are interacting with Dream Characters in the Spiritual Realms, well, you don’t want to appear perpetually out of breath, do you?).   But, yes, in these early dreams, because of a perceptible depletion of energy, I would lose altitude and be forced to make a landing.  But then I would find myself in some brighter more Spiritual Realm and the ensuing dream would be obviously more spiritual than the typical dim lower intensity Ordinary Dreams that I had left behind (indeed, you should pay attention to the Brightness Color Scale of your dreams.  A Dream does not have to be Lucid in order to be important, as long as it is Bright with Intense Colors.  Basically speaking, Essentially Spirituality IS Light).  Anyway, as I gained more experience with Lucid Dreaming, I would use Dream Levitation for leaving the Realm of Ordinary Dreaming, and then rise up to whatever peak altitude I could attain and then prepare for a landing, always with the expectancy that I would drop into some kind of a Spiritual Dream.

Now, I suspect the mechanism that provides these Spiritual Dreams works something like this:  that the Higher Dream Mind is very busy just in the labors of ‘Screenwriting, Producing and Directing’ even the nightly Ordinary Dreams, but efforts are also put into the creation of these Important Higher-Level Spiritual Dreams.  Once a ‘Spiritual Dream’ has been thoroughly produced, it is set aside or ‘Saved”, but will be ‘triggered’ if the Dreamer should become Lucid and be able to ‘step up’ to the Higher Light Intensity Level compatible with the ‘saved dream’.  Oh, one needs to think of the complexity involved in creating even an ordinary dream, where the Dream Production has to be able to account for all of the Dreamer’s possible Choices.  Now, if one if very predictable than the Higher Dream Mind’s job is an easy one.  But if one is growing and developing Spiritually then the Higher Dream Mind can only guess what directional decisions the Dreamer will make in a Dream.  I’ve had dreams where the Dream Characters became along the way no longer responsive – it seemed they didn’t know their ‘lines’, and it was like I was talking to ‘props’.  Going over the dream in my mind, I could fairly well guess where I had confounded the expectations of the Higher Dream Mind and ‘zigged’ when I should have ‘zagged’.  But I wouldn’t worry about such Dreams where you seem to have left the Prepared Dream behind.  I would suppose that your Higher Dream Mind will see it as His or Her own problem, in the sense that a perfectly Produced Dream should match up with the Dreamer and not the other way around.  So, one can suppose that with Dreaming, both the Dreamer and the Higher Dream Mind are both learning as the process goes along.       

Okay, these are my views of Lucid Dreaming.  Now, I am aware that people who have learned about Lucid Dreaming from the various New Age Authorities will believe I am not hitting on the most important points at all.   These people will probably suppose that the Most Important Thing about Lucid Dreaming is that they can CONTROL THEIR DREAMS.   Yes, I believe that it is intrinsically important to be able to control one’s own choices in these Dreams, but the ideological belief in the New Age Movement is that one can Control Everything – that one can effectively summon built-to-order dreams at a moment’s notice.  The context of what I heard regarding most of this is that these are usually Sex Dreams.  Oooo Yuk!  One only need imagine what this does to one’s Subconscious Impulses.  The Sexual Impulse is already distracting enough, right? And then by diverting one’s Higher Intensity Dreams to these Purely Animal Impulses, well, how is this not making one into a Pervert by Deliberate Design.  Now, of course, I am no Saint, but I can honestly say that I can interact with people, who present very well physically, with Sex being the last thing on my mind (though I have come to realize that ‘flirting’ is a great way of advancing one’s self socially, but I confine myself to distant, indirect, and  ‘harmless’ Old Man flirting).

Anyway, I can readily suppose that I can so easily keep my mind off Sex, because I have made it a practice to NOT jump on people in my dreams.  One should make it a Rule in one’s Dreams to always Act Like one’s  Best Possible Persona.   Besides, practically speaking, my experience with Sex Dreams, from when I was a young man, was that Sex Dreams only wake one up, and with Lucid Dreams, the worst thing that can happen is to Wake Up.  I’ve always found that a Continuing Lucid Dream is better than Sex.  After all, who can’t have sex anytime one likes.  It’s not like our hands are tied behind our backs, is it?

But, let’s get back to this idea of Total Control.  Well, frankly, its impossible and I don’t believe anybody who claims it.  This idea of Total Control comes from New Age People who read New Age Books written by New Age Liars and then they parrot the lies back to advance their own New Age Credentials – “See, I can pretend to do what all the other New Age Kids are pretending to do, so give me money too”.  Anyway, you just need to think about Total Dream Control and what it would imply:    Dream Content in a Lucid Dream comes across so sharp and well defined, and there must be thousands or even millions of details in each dream scene, so how could the Dreamer even begin to CREATE all of that in the spur of the moment.  Stephen Laberge, a big name in Lucid Dreaming, once wrote that he pressed for Dream Control as the Dream scene before him seemed to hesitate, and his Lucid Dream turned into a two dimensional cartoon drawn in broad strokes.  That is, detail broke down.   His Higher Dream Mind was effectively telling him to go screw himself.   So, yes, you can demand to go so far ‘off script’ that your Higher Dream Mind has nothing set aside to give you.

Well, look at the time.  I better cut this thing short.  If I forgot anything important, well, let me know in your comments.  Thank you everybody. 

The White Light Paramahamsa Swan Dream

[This is an Editorial Re-write of a Blog I had written years ago. Its not so much that I am better writer now, but a better editor… and still its not perfect.  Oh, today I also post a reading of this Blog on YouTube]

This very important of Lucid Dream occurred, surprisingly, while I had been dreaming about being some kind of an Insurgent who had hijacked a bus.  You see, there had just been some kind of a Raid and my part was to lay down covering fire to give the main party time for their extraction.  I only needed to hold the enemy pursuit off for 5 minutes and then I would be free to ‘melt away’ and make it to my own extraction point.  So, I had taken up a position to shield my comrades escape route.   I was armed with what seemed like a vintage long combat rifle, probably an M1 Garand,  and got off only one shot, at 3 soldiers running from cover to cover across my field of fire about 250 meters in front of me, and while no one staggered or fell, well, it must have been a very near miss, and the thing about near misses is that one can HEAR the near miss bullet whiz by, and because these bullets go faster than the speed of sound, you would hear the whistle snap as they pass just before you would hear the shot that fired it.  It’s a very disconcerting experience and they must have all realized how close they came to being killed or gravely wounded.   Well, it wasn’t 5 minutes yet, but I thought to myself that these soldiers would be spending the next 7 minutes praying for their mortal souls.  And then, supposing that I was some kind of fanatic and that I would hold my position and fight to the death, well, they would then take even more time trying to devise a plan for how they could neutralize me without taking on any personal risk to themselves.  Since that would take so long, there would be nothing for me to have to wait around for, so I assumed “Mission Complete” and ‘melted away’.

I made it to a road just as a bus was picking up passengers and came aboard.  I couldn’t conceal that huge long rifle.   I can’t imagine why I had not just discarded the thing, except maybe for the fact that it may have been more valuable to the Cause than myself and that my orders may have been “come back with the Long Rifle or don’t come back at all”.  So once on the bus it was necessary to declare myself a ‘hijacker’ because, as glib as I can be in my dreams, I could think of no other excuse for carrying around a combat rifle that was still smoking from having been fired.  I tried to act very tough and look as though I were now completely in charge, but there was a young woman who began to talk back – “What?  You can’t shoot anybody!  You’re supposed to be fighting for the People and We ARE the People, so who do you think you’re fooling anyway?”.  I thought to myself “Damn! She’s making this difficult”.  My Survival Response should have been to exercise brutal authority towards that Young Woman and that would have kept everybody else in shock and at a safe distance.  But, well, “damn!” she was right about my ‘moral imperative’ and she had said it out loud, and soon it would sink in to everybody on the bus that she WAS RIGHT and that I wouldn’t shoot anybody, and then I’d be at their mercy. But that would take a while.  People were still fear struck and it would take time to think their way out of it.  But I couldn’t have the Girl speed up the process with her correct moral insights and courageous leadership.   So I had to come to terms with her. But its not like we could have a private confab.   So I just looked at her and our eyes locked (apparently she had something to “say” to me too) and without uttering a word  I THOUGHT “What were you thinking? Why did you have to say that?  Couldn’t you just go along with my bluff?  Are you trying to get me or yourself killed?  Now, just behave yourself.  You Win!  I’m outta here, but give me five minutes or five miles! Okay?”   Well, it might be hard to believe, but her Eyes replied “Okay. Deal”.  A few minutes went by and I saw that we were passing an old abandoned railway freight yard and remembered that the tracks would lead towards my own extraction point, and so I went forward, and like an ordinary passenger asked the driver to “please” pull over and let me out.  As I got off the bus I looked back and told the people “Sorry for the inconvenience.  Oh, by the way, it’d be best if you all pretended this never happened because the Authorities will think that at least some of you were complicit and you will ALL be held 72 hours without a phone call for interrogation.  And if they don’t believe you, well, you’ve all heard about water-boarding, right?”.   I looked at the young woman, and, yes, I was sure she suspected I was lying to everybody but I was sure she’d just let it go.  A deal’s a deal, and I would have the time I needed to get away.  Then I looked down and noticed I was not wearing shoes.

Well, in Dreams, when one finds oneself not wearing shoes, it is a sign that one is on Sacred Ground.  This somehow made me realize that I was Dreaming, which turned the Dream into a Lucid Dream, and so the intensity of the dream ramped up significantly and that empty Railway Freight Yard became an exquisite place of beauty.  The dust, dirt and puddles sparkled like diamonds, rubies and pearls.   

Well, it was not my first Lucid Dream, and so I knew to set aside the plot of the Ordinary Dream and do what I had planned to do for my ‘next’ Lucid Dream (so, yes, never go to bed without a Lucid Dream Plan).  Hoovering up in levitation, I raised my legs off the ground and folded them up into a lotus position, and then intoned a few Aums and began to meditate on my Kundalini (a Dream Guru had once told me that even a few minutes of Dream Kundalini Meditation is worth thousands of hours of Waking Meditation).  Well, not even a few seconds transpired before the air, or perhaps the ‘space’ itself, began shimmering in waves and ripples and turned a wonderful shade of violet (indicating an upper shift in Frequency for the entire Dream Scene).  I was in a state of curious expectancy about it all when the space just some 10 meters in front of me simply rent open, as though a hole had been ripped into our Material Dimension.  The Opening formed a perfect circle, and out poured the Pure White Light.  It appeared like magnesium burning in front of a chromium mirror.  It all looked very real.  I had had Lucid Dreams before but nothing ever or since as visually intense as this.

The substance of the White Light quickly took up a form – a Paramahamsa Swan… not a living bird but a very ornate statuesque representation of one (like a large Coin).  It was about a meter in diameter.  And it was amazingly beautiful – despite the intensity of the White Light I could still discern the textures of the shapes and the details.  But there was little time for amazement before the Swan shot across the distance and penetrated into my forehead (yes, inexplicably going from being very large to very small).  And then a new Swan formed up out of the light to replace it, and it likewise shot over into my forehead… and again and again and again, each time more quickly, but each time the ornate and elaborate Paramahamsa Swan became simpler, more streamlined and plainer and plainer.  Finally they were coming at a rate of 8 or 10 per second, and the birds were mere ‘Vees’, like as in the way young children draw birds flying in the sky, as two curved lines, joined in the middle and the tips tapering to points at the ends.   And they were all flying into my forehead, creating a pleasant throbbing.  Oh, and they were not coming at me in a straight line from the Light Portal, but in a revolving spiral. It was really Cool!

When I awoke, my Agna Chakra was still pulsating with the feeling of this Spiritual Energy.  It was no longer perceptible as Light but tangible as a pressure sensation.  The sensation had also spread to my Crown Chakra as well as to my throat and heart chakras.

Well, in the Vedantic Tradition the Paramahamsa (Transcendental Swan) is a symbol of Enlightenment.  But I can’t say that I became Enlightened.  But I do KNOW now that there is really such a thing as the White Light and it is not just a lot of New Age BS.  And, yes, I had heard mention of the Paramahamsa Swan before, but I had assigned no particular importance to it.  I had heard the word Paramahamsa in relationship to two people. The first, “Paramahamsa” Ramakrishna (1836 to 1886) whom I always held in high regards, and the second was Yogananda who I suspect bought his Title with the proceeds from that number one best selling book he wrote about other people who actually were saints, “Autobiography of a Yogi”.  He used the book to promote his economic venture “Kriya Yoga”, but only spoke cryptically of it and for any substantial details about it one would have to pay extra.  He became the model for the quintessential New Age Predator. Wow! What a Success Story!  Such an inspiration.  He probably had 3 homes, a yacht and a private jet!  

But, yes, I am still a bit puzzled about why the Symbol of the Paramahamsa was so prominently displayed for me in such direct connection to the White Light.    

The Faculty of True Discernment

[This is an editorial re-write of a Blog entry from about 10 years ago. I'm not really a better writer now, but I'm certainly a better editor.  I also did a YouTube video of reading this Blog entry]

When I first started with Kundalini Yoga, decades ago, my old Guru had told us that the Kundalini, particular at the Ajna Chakra, would make us ‘smarter’.  I often wondered at that promise, since so many of the Initiates that had been with the Swami for years didn’t seem so extremely bright.  I figured at the time that it must all be somehow relative, and that before they started with Kundalini Yoga that they must have been REALLY stupid.  

Well, one would ask whether I eventually became any “smarter”?  Hmmmm.  Well, you know,  I suppose we must wonder what my old Guru could have meant by choosing the word “smart”.   I had always been able to get A’s in school but was never at the very top of my classes, and that never changed.   But what did happen in my case was that I found I could recognize the Truth and have a sense of certainty about It whenever I would hear It or see It.  Maybe I was incrementally better at ‘thinking up’ the truth of things, but being an original or a particularly inspired thinker was only a small part of it.   It was not so much a case of thinking fast or of thinking new but of thinking ‘sure’, of being certain of the Truth of things.

I was lucky to be able to identify a certain point in time , a moment when the transition came about, when that brand of ‘smartness’ kicked in.  This moment had been punctuated by a Dream, the Dream of True Discernment.     

 The Dream Scene was a well sun lit grassy field with large rocks and fallen trees that offered a natural gathering place for hikers and nature lovers to sit down, rest and take in the ambient beauty. Well, in this particular Dream Scene, there was this woman who was playing a guitar and one would have to describe her as being ugly.  But her guitar playing was the most beautiful I had ever heard. Then came along these men, who might have been nice enough taken singly, but together they dropped on the Evolutionary Scale to being Primitive, that is, they acted like a pack of jerks.  As they approached they started in with ridiculing her for her looks… yes, they were speaking among themselves, but they knew she could hear them.  I was concerned that this would annoy her enough so that she would stop playing, and besides, it was difficult to hear her through all their noise, and so I yelled out to them, "Hey, guys! Everything else aside, can't you hear that playing. We are in the presence of some real talent here, right?  So why don’t we all just shut up and listen?" Then the lady, who had seemed oblivious to all of us up to that point, suddenly looked up, and looking me square in the eye said, "The faculty most worthy of cultivation is the faculty of True Discernment".

In an instant I was transported into a second dream in a moon-lit arbor. It was a young growth forest with as many bushes on the forest floor as the trees around them,   The air was cool, and this felt like a nice place to be.  In this dream I was a disembodied presence floating up above the scene by about a dozen feet, simply watching.  What I witnessed down below was a beautiful Greek Goddess… I would guess, Diana, Goddess of the Hunt.  She was clad in a pearl-white translucent toga, made of not much more than a few yards of material, and belted at the waist.  She was barefoot and she also had a bow in her hand and a quiver of arrows slung over her shoulder.  It was breathtaking, and I knew this must have been some kind of special vision.  But the tranquility of it all was shattered when along came this strong virile heroic looking man – too old to be called young, but not old enough to be supposed very wise. He was delighted to happen upon such a pretty young woman and of course wanted to make her acquaintance. He said in a boastful tone which may have had a degree or two of double entendre, "I am on the hunt tonight and I feel sorry for the poor creatures that will happen my way, because I am such a good shot that they won’t stand a CHANCE".

Diana remained silent and seemed in no hurry to reply, but rather pulled a strangely unique arrow from her quiver. She held it out a moment so that the hunter, and maybe even myself, could see that it was probably the most crocked arrow that could still be straight enough to be shot from a bow. She loaded it onto the string and pulled back in preparation of shooting... then turned her head off to the side so it could be seen that she obviously had no intention of aiming, and she released the shot.   SHHHWOOOOPP!  The arrow whistled off and lodged inside a bush   She walked over and took hold of the arrow’s shaft and withdrew it from the shrub, and, amazingly, there impaled on the arrow’s tip was a limp dead game bird. Then she spoke, not to the Hunter, but directly to me, "Chance? Nothing happens by Chance".'  Then I awoke.

Anyway, what do those two juxtaposed dreams mean?  Well, not many dreams come with captions, but these dreams did, and I just had to remember the quotes. But these dreams were arranged in sequence, and so we can infer that the messages are inter-related.   So apparently in order to understand that ‘nothing happens by chance’ one has to have some skills in regards to ‘true discernment’.  And, likewise, in order to attain that mindset where one is ever ready to Discern Truth in what most people would consider random day to day nonsense, well, one would need to understand that Everything must have Meaning.  Our assumption going in must be that if we don’t see Meaning, then we aren’t paying sufficient attention.    Also, the idea of ‘cultivation’ is important.  Even with the Kundalini, apparently there has to be some intent and practice in order to ramp up one’s abilities in regards to True Discernment.  You know, I have found that the best practice is to just talk to people, and not just talk to friends but to everybody: store clerks, cashiers, people in elevators, pedestrians on the street where you’re waiting for the same crossing light.  Just talk and often they will say something that will just LIGHT UP as TRUE.  But you have to listen.  Most people who are ‘in conversations’ are using up their brain power in thinking of what to say next.  Well, don’t think about what to say.  You’ll surely think of something.  Also, if you are fully engaged in listening, then what you will probably think to say when it comes your turn to speak will be related to what the other person was just speaking about, that is, you will be appropriately responsive.  People like that. And so they keep talking, and eventually you get the Truth out of them.  And when you hear it, and Know it, well, it is like finding a Treasure.  “Wow” will become one of your favorite words.      

Oh, I should mention that another dream came along which would affect my view of the World and helped me in my Pathway towards True Discernment.  In this Dream I was walking across a deep chasm on a board that had been laid between the two sides, and suddenly the board was pulled away and I found myself falling, but I only experienced it as a sense of floating weightlessness.  As they say, it’s not the falling that hurts… it’s the hitting the ground that’s the problem”.   Well, before I even came close to hitting the Ground a Dream Guru appeared, pulling me out of the Dream to tell me “Perfection consists in Randominity, so Be Not One Thing, and Be Not the Other”.  So, yeah, apparently one has to be able to see Patterns in the Complexity but at the same time refrain from over-generalizing about them.  Think about it like when you take a Rorschach Test, that you need to just see smears of ink that look like “smears of ink”. Seeing stuff that really isn’t there is sort of the opposite of True Discernment, don’t you think?   So you shouldn’t be predisposed to any particular belief system, which would induce a kind of a Tunnel Vision.  There is the Truth and then there is the Party Line. Now, yes, I have often been a Joiner and have been a part of many groups many times in my Life, but I have been lucky that rarely has any Organization ‘vetted’ me for ‘True Believer’ Status (even Most Cults are laid back and never ask for an explicit pledge but assume that one is an Ass Kisser just like everyone else).  Now, of course, you may ask why I would join anything that I do not 100% believe in.  Well, in Nature, Absolutes do not exist, and you’ll never find 100% of anything.  So, where Clubs, Political Organizations, and even Religions are concerned, how can one ever expect a perfect fit?  So one joins because a Club is More Good than it is Bad.  And then, yes, One should see some Good in Everything, but, then again, if you find nothing to complain about, well, you’re not paying attention, are you?  The Truth is always good to know, but its not always good news.

Kundalini and the Collective Consciousness, Again

[From a YouTube video : Hi,  I’m Leo Volont.  Here today I will be reading a editorial rewrite of a Blog I wrote a bit more than a year ago: Kundalini and the Collective Consciousness    Here, let me begin ]

In the spiritual community we often hear the cliché about a general Kundalini Awakening being the Next Great Evolutionary Leap for Humanity.  But the details are vague regarding ‘how so?’  after decades of thinking about it, I have an idea about just what it might consist of.  Perhaps the Kundalini can be used to Link into the Collective Consciousness.   Well, how did I arrive at that hunch, or perhaps the more appropriate question for now would be why would I want to think so?

Back decades ago I had a few personal experiences which go a long way in explaining why I would want to think there is an actual existential Collective Consciousness that we could tap into, particularly two very Big Dreams I had.   In the first dream, back when I was still a young man and not very philosophically sophisticated, I came upon the grave of one of Europe’s Greatest Thinkers and it had been defaced with graffiti saying that “______ would not live beyond the grave”, but instantly I had muttered that “everybody lives beyond the grave”.   But whatever Higher Wisdom that had been directing that Dream was not to allow me to get away with such an unfounded assertion without some kind of a challenge and so suddenly a large oak tree on the crest of a nearby knoll erupted in flames of multicolored lights, and out of it billowed a Voice that said “Not all men will live beyond the grave… but ______ will”.   Oh, I need to mention some details that indicate just how significant that Fiery Tree and Voice must have been in the context of this Dream.  The instant the Tree ‘Lit Up’ my legs gave way out from beneath me and I came crashing down on my knee caps, on what seemed like hard granite, but I felt no pain.   Also, tears sprayed from my eyes, but I felt no emotion, which puzzled me even at the time.   Now, one would suppose that I would have been speechless in awe, but, since I felt no overwhelming emotions, I was intellectually quite curious about the Mortality Issue that the ‘Tree’ had brought forward and so without any hesitation I asked “Well, then, what about me?  Will I live beyond the grave?”   Well, the Tree did not immediately give me an answer, seemingly wishing that I should have a little time to contemplate just how possibly disturbing certain answers to that question might be for me, and the Tree’s apparent point was not lost upon me, and I got really nervous really fast.     But finally the Tree spoke and said “Yes, you too will live beyond the grave, but remember one thing: Birth is but an Illusion and Christ is the Life in All Things”.  Now even at the time I did not see the allusion to ‘Christ’ as being in reference to any historical individual, but rather to some kind of All-embracing Spiritual Status – some disembodied Cosmic Christ.   And of course the notion of “Life in All Things” speaks of a Collective Consciousness with no need for further elaboration.

Then there was the second Big Dream not many years after the first.  I appeared to be in a sparse landscape, that seemed as dry as some areas in North Africa, the Near East or the American Southwest, but still there were some clumps of grass, some bushes and a tree here and there.  I seemed to have just arrived on the Dream Scene when suddenly this young man appeared just in front of me, so close within my personal space that it made me feel a bit uncomfortable.  But what instantly caught my attention was the young man’s boundless smile – it quite radiated what seemed a fathomless joy.   The Young Man, as a person though, was not very impressive.  He was thin to the point of emaciation, dark but one would say more ‘brown’ than ‘black’, with a narrow face and a thin nose, and for a beard he had just a slight tuft of curly hairs.  But I could not help but be moved by his perfect joyfulness.  In this Dream I seemed to have been rendered ‘speechless’.   Well, since I had nothing to say, the young man turned and began walking off, but before he was 20 meters away, the same voice as in the other dream spoke up and said from out of the blue, “He went out into the wilderness and became One”.   With that the Young Man developed a silver blue aura.  Then, what was more remarkable was that the nearby grasses and bushes began picking up that same silver blue aura, and then I noticed that even the trees out in the distance began to shine silver blue.  It became clear that everything that was alive had the same aura and that it was connected and centered on him.  I had a hunch at the time that he was experiencing all of that as part of himself – that he felt the Oneness.   Maybe that is what made him so happy, or was it being so happy that made him One with everything? 

Also, I might add that that dream is suggestive of what we hear about some traditions of Shamanism whereby it is reported that some Shamans can transform into crows or cats or coyotes or whatever, but what I suspect is probably really happening is only that a Shaman can opportunistically reach his or her consciousness out and partake of the perceptions of crows, cats or coyotes or whatever else is already out there and part of the landscape which the Shaman is concerned with knowing about. 

Now, I mention these Dreams and these assertions from the Shamanistic Traditions to point out that Spirituality may have an External and Objective application.  But most of the Spirituality we hear about today is directed inward towards subjective Mystical Experiences.  Now, of course, Mystical Experiences are interesting in that people who have had Mystical Experiences claim that in their moment of excitement that they Knew Everything and that All Truth had been Revealed.  However, the problem arises that they can provide few details after the fact.  The literature of Mysticism gives this problem a name – Ineffability.  William James, a Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, in his classic “Varieties of Religious Experience”, circa 1905, talks a great deal about Ineffability.  The consequence of Ineffability is that it turns the Mystical Experience essentially into a purely aesthetic, even sensual experience – a Super High Buzz, but which in practical terms is good for nothing, or even damaging, in the sense that Mystics may become addicted to the purely Sensual Experience while ignoring their Social Duties and Obligations, like students getting high instead of doing their homework.

There is also the issue regarding the various, different and often contradictory reports given by those exceptional few who purport to bring back some form of “eternal wisdom” from their mystical experiences.  Such wide variance would incline us to believe such ‘Truths’ to be subjective rather than objective, and if these Enlightened Truths are only subjective, well, that only means that it was ‘true’ in the sense that an individual really had the experience, and didn’t just make up a story (which I fear happens more times than not within the New Age Community).  But the broader definition of Truth is that a thing is plainly known to exist or its existence can be objectively confirmed only by means of a group consensus.  Subjectivity, frankly, can be delusional, even if it does provide the individual with important personal insights.   But not all Subjectivity should be thrown out as objectively dubious, because in some cases even Subjectivity can have a Consensus, when such subjective impressions are very widely shared (or what we would call “archetypical”).  For instance, the commonly occurring Dream Motifs (snake dreams, horse dreams, being naked in public dreams), these motifs are common across cultures, can be considered Archetypical and their Meaning in a way Psychologically ‘Objective’.  But in regards to many Religious and Mystical Experiences, we do not yet have this broad confirmation.  Again I refer to James’ “Varieties of Religious Experience” where you can see just how bazaar and off the beaten path some ‘enlightened’ realizations can be.  If they were only weird, that would not be the problem.  The problem is lack of Objective Consensus.  My point here is that we cannot claim to have a Collective Consciousness until we can demonstrate an Objective Shared Consensus.

But we may be able to address this problem of Shared Objective Reality within our mystical experiences by determining whether we use our Kundalini to look Inwards, into ourselves, or Outwards, into the World and Society.   Looking Inwards has been the typical direction.  Most popular thinking these days seems fully on board with the notion that all wisdom comes from within, no matter how foolishly we see people actually behaving who act solely according to their own guidance.   We need to ask ourselves what we can learn from ourselves that we do not already know?  We get nothing new by watching old reruns over and over again.  Self-Inquiry is a labyrinth that can only circle the same old ground over and over again.  If we want to put the Kundalini to any positive use, we must point it Outwards and Experience where we have never Experienced before.    

True Civilization could become an achievable possibility if Humanity could be unified by a tangible shared Collective Consciousness.  Looking Outwards to Others beyond ourselves will take us in that direction.  Looking inwards is like looking backwards.  We can’t take that next great evolutionary step forwards by always backtracking over our failures and shortfalls.   The Ancient Wisdoms, quite frankly, got us into the mess where we are today.  With this surge in Kundalini Awakenings, we need to configure a new path forwards.  Looking Outwards is the way to go.  Looking inwards will only show us who the Devils in the Way.

Universal Free Income and Fighting Climate Change

[Excluding the mistakes I made in reading my monitor, this is the text of the Video I recorded on December 19th, 2018]  

Sometimes, without having to be very bright, one simply thinks of a logical connection out there that one hasn’t already read about some place or heard about on YouTube.   What am I talking about?  Well, you see, I had been thinking a lot lately about the necessity for a program that would give everybody Universal Free Income, because it is inevitable that most working and salaried people will lose their jobs and careers to Robotics and other Artificial Intelligence Information and Analyses Technologies.  

So, there I was scratching my head over it and along the way up popped a picture in my mind’s eye of a World full of people sitting at home waiting for their Free Money Check to arrive in the mail (well, yes, it would be electronic transfer, but my imagination is still largely populated with imagery from the 20^th Century… if not before, … you know,  I still use metaphors that refer to ‘horses’… remember horses, anyone? Beautiful animals, and their poop doesn’t stink… more than you can say for people, right?).

 Well, back to substance -- there I was, seeing all of these people sitting at home when it occurred to me, that this would be the end of Morning and Evening Rush Hours.  Then I realized that people would no longer need cars explicitly to get to Work.   You know, anybody who has ever held a job KNOWS that being chronically late is perhaps the number one reason why people are sacked (or if the bosses hate you and need an excuse, then popping in late one day would be all the documentation they need to get HR to issue you a Card Board Box, a Pink Slip, two paychecks and a Road Map).

  So, anyway, effectively the working public was forced by a kind of institutional duress into shelling out money for cars… new and reliable cars.

 But given a Universal Free Income, nobody would have to report to Work, and without that ‘gun’ of duress being held up to our heads, well, we could all get around with less reliable public transportation for whatever screwing around we still wanted to do (not that it is necessary that public transportation be unreliable, but that is what working people fear… nobody wants to get fired for the bus driver screwing up and being late.  They want to get fired for their own screwing up and being late).   But, yes, when it comes to just getting about town for ordinary appointments and shopping, then certainly the requirement to be so precisely on time will no longer carry the same pitch of anxiety as it does now under this present Regime of Capitalist Tyranny.  So,  Public Transportation scheduling could afford to be a bit blurry without it being the worst problem Humanity will face in battling for the Survival of the Planet and for the Establishment of a the first True Civilization in Human History.   Also, one of the greatest lessons learned in the 20^th Century is that Nations can pay far too high a price to “have the trains run on time” (you know, the stated justification for the inception of European Fascism prior to The Great War Part Two. )

 Well, let me sum all of this up:  what this all comes down to is that IF we are all replaced by Robots, and IF we are all put out to pasture with Universal Free Income, THEN two of the largest causes for Carbon Emissions will be squashed – all that Commuter Driving, and then all that Manufacturing Process that goes into making commuter cars.

 Oh, and certainly City Planners will no longer have to agonize over expanding highways and parking lots.  Without so many cars and so much driving, it would be significantly easier for the World to Go Green, don’t you think?   Also, now that I think about it (and this was not on the Video I released), demographic population concentrations have been following Job Opportunities, and miserably overcrowded Urban Areas, with Jobs, are experiencing even more growth, making conditions worse, while Areas that have experienced business closures, while being otherwise idyllic, are being abandoned, with the last remaining economic activity involving the Opioid Epidemic.  

Comment To Vanessa Ooms' "What is Vibration and Frequency"

[Dec 18 2018  Comment to Vanessa Ooms’ YouTube video  “What is Vibration and Frequency”]

Hi Vanessa,

Oh, before I get started on the Spiritual Stuff, I’d like to refer to your Chart and make some Real World observations.  You know how between 50 Hz and 75 Hz is Apathy approaching Grief.  Well, for some reason the line power in our homes, which set the ‘flicker rate’ of our lighting and the noise hum from our appliances, well that is right in the middle at 60 Hz (if you can find an oscilloscope, just dig the probe into your finger a little bit and you will see that your Electric Field is running at Line Frequency, that is, its picking up the Room Hum).  In Europe the line power is set right at Apathy (50hz).  BUT the military in its aircraft, tanks and other weapons systems jack up the line frequency to 400 – Reason.  Interesting, huh?  

Now, about Frequency and Spirituality.  Vanessa, in addition to Frequency, there is also the idea of Resonance, that is Natural Frequency of a Thing.  Think of a Tuning Fork.  When you strike it, it will ring at its Resonant Frequency and no other.  Then there is Power. When we are involving Things of variable mass where the mechanism of Resonance is not so deterministic, then the Frequency that has the Most Power will tend to set the Dominant Frequency, which will impose a dynamic resonance into the Things in the effected vicinity.  Also, there is the Idea of Harmonics, and that is simple Multiplication.  In Music we call them octaves.  Now, what High Frequencies can do is set up Harmonic Sympathetic Vibrations in those ‘Things’ that are Octaves below.  For instance, a Frequency of 100 can set up 5 harmonic spaces along a Thing that resonates at 20.  I looked again at your Chart and didn’t see much that would indicate a Harmonic Relationship between the Categories.

Okay, so what does all that mean?  First, if we are spiritually substantial, then we will have a Resonant Frequency which can’t be easily pulled either up or down.  For instance, some people do not get upset or flustered during political discussions.  One reads that people like Napoleon Bonaparte and Horatio Nelson wouldn’t even fluster with shot and shell raining about them.  Then there is Power.  If you have a lot of Power, then your Vibe will tend to set the Tone for the general ambiance.   This is why people with what they call Gravitas are great at defusing tense situations and quieting arguments.  It’s their Power that sets the general Vibe Rate.  Vanessa, you’re sensitive.  You know it as soon as a person with Gravitas walks into a room, don’t you.  Oh, Head Bouncers at Big Clubs usually have Gravitas (they get there by their Work History or the Managers just FEEL that these guys can quiet down trouble just be being there).   And then there is the Ascendency of High Freq over Low Freq.  Hi Freqs can set up sympathetic harmonic responses in Low Things, but it doesn’t work the other way around. Hi can reach down but Lo can’t reach up.  In History we have the example of how the Better Civilizations exert more attraction than the Lesser Civilizations.  In situations where High Civilization were overwhelmed at their frontiers and conquered by Barbarians, well, the general pattern would be that the Barbarians, within a few generations, would be ‘subverted’ towards the Civilization they thought they had defeated (though the phenomenon is not absolute.  One of the problems of European History, with all of its invasions, was that there was always some lag in the assimilation of its Barbarians, and so Europe really never did become wholly Civilized).

So, yes, Vanessa, I really do believe you are over doing it with  counseling social and political cowardice (that’s 100 on your chart).  Now, yes, if one is rocked and overwhelmed by the ambient Vibrations in one’s life, then I guess that retreat and isolation is in order.  However, any Spiritually established person with any degree of Power should have the Gravitas to be able to maintain his or her own Resonant Frequency, whatever the situation.

Then there is also the issue of whether we are to be Individuals (Bodies sheltering Egos) or Part of the Greater Life.  If we are part of the Greater Life, then we should be Integral to Society.  To become Active Socially and Politically may appear to be emotionally disturbing, and our thoughts might be constant when contemplating certain issues or when involved in certain encounters (the Mind not Resting until it has evaluated every conceivable possibility and gotten a Plan A, B and C for Everything).  That may seem uncomfortable at times, BUT, isn’t that Life?  Yes, there are spiritual traditions, too many of them I believe, that advise retreat and isolation, and the contemplation of one’s navel. That means that  Spiritualists largely leave it to the Lesser Beings to Run the World and decide the Path of Civilization (but how can Civilization be entrusted to those who aren’t Spiritual?)   Vanessa, we need to remember about the Ascendency of the High over the Low.  The Lotus grows in Swamp Water, but its Beauty is pristine.  The Low can’t touch us.  

Youtuber

Hi Leo, Is all of this talk about Frequencies and Vibrations real, or just a spiritual metaphor?

Leo Volont

Hi Scott, Well, there was one time that I had a dream -- a Lucid Dream -- in which I had an encounter with the White Light, and it was immediately proceeded by the entire dream taking on a violet colored hue, which indicated that the fabric of the dream was undergoing an upward frequency shift. What happened in the dream was that when I became Lucid, I tucked up into what passes as a lotus position among Westerners and began intoning an AUM. that is when I noticed everything turning violet (reminiscent of psychedelic trips I had read about) and then in front of me the air, or perhaps I should say the 'space' in front of me began to ripple in waves and then a circle opened up about 15 or 20 feet in front of me, like the space itself opened up, providing a passage to another dimension, and it was full of a very intense shimmering White Light. I remembered that in chemistry class years before we had burned magnesium, which burns at a pure whiteness. Well, that White Light in that Circle Opening looked to me like Magnesium being burnt in front of a mirror (its what I thought at the time... "Jeepers, that looks like magnesium being burnt in front of a mirror"). Then the White Light formed up into a Paramahansa Swan ( the Paramahansa Swan was a symbol Yogananda used, but Ramakrishna (1836-1886) used it before him, and the main thing Yogananda is famous for is his economic success, but Ramakrishna for his moral and spiritual influence. Oh, and the Swan did not pretend to be a real living Swan. It was obviously a very ornate representation of a Swan, but stiff and two dimensional like a swan stamped on a coin), and after it lingered at the threshold of the Circle for a moment to two, it shot forward and pierced into my Agna Chakra (yes, the sizes don't seem to fit -- it was Big when it was out there 20 feet away, but then small enough to fit into my forehead... go wonder), and then another Swan formed up and shot into my head, and then another, BUT, because the repetitions were speeding up, the Swan became simpler at every reformation, until the 'Swan' was simply a kind of a "V" bird that children draw, accept that it was formed of that magnesium white light. But towards the end the line of White Light V Swans did seem to have the character of aliveness.

But in other instances, I've noticed Silver Blue to have been the aura of a character who in a dream represented a Being who had become "one with all things". Then in other dreams it seems that the importance of the dream, or its level of spiritual importance seemed to have been indicated simply by the Brightest of Color, and not necessarily the spectral position or 'name' of the particular color.

So, yes, I believe that the idea of Frequency and Vibration isn't purely metaphorical here. But, that Chart that Vanessa trotted out. Well, anything that precisely delineated should come with some kind of footnote regarding the source study from which it was derived. But I don't believe there was a study. How could they buzz Research Subjects with a precise vibration and then so precisely discern their exact emotional reaction. and if 700 and above is Enlightenment, then I would suppose there would be a huge market for an Enlightenment Machine, that could simply give that same 700 Hz buzz as was delivered during the experiment to clients or purchasers of the "Enlightenment Box". No more having to meditate on top of a Himalayan Mountain for 40 years... just shove one probe up one's butt and paste an electrode pad on the top of one's head, or whatever, and get Zapped into Enlightened Cosmic Consciousness Oneness, and be able to tell everybody that for that moment you 'Knew All things', but a shame you have such a poor memory in regards to the details. But, Wow! Who wouldn't give a week's wages for an experience like that? Heck, the patent on that Thing would be more valuable then the Copyright on those "Course of Miracles" books, or even the whole Carlos Castaneda series. The entire New Age Community would poop themselves with envy. So, no, I'm surprised that Vanessa passes that kind of stuff along. If it were true, it would have resulted in more than a rainbow colored diagram, wouldn't it?

A Word on the Advisability of Relationships

[ There is a young woman on YouTube who had a Kundalini Awakening a few years back, Soulful Toz, and I’ve been following her story.  Today she published a video “How to Communicate During an Argument” and it wasn’t about how to quarrel with one’s Uber Driver or the Pizza Delivery Guy, but about fighting with one’s Relationship ‘Partner’.  Well, yes, it should be obvious that one should not be in relationships with people that one has to argue with, but, since apparently this is NOT obvious, I felt I should explain it to her -- LV].     

Hi Soulful.  Do you ever wonder that Relationships are soul killing?  Look at it this way, that we start with two Perfect Souls, each with their own special Purpose in Life and direction to their own Ultimate Goal.  Now you put them together, and certainly their directions and spiritual velocities can’t possibly be the same, and that yoked together they will come to some combined Vector Sum that will be heading off to either Here nor There.  Nobody will be happy.  Both will be mislead and effectively aimless in their lives.    

Of course it has always been this way and people realized the problem and they did implement what they felt were solutions to the difficulties.   In most cases they set up either paternalist institutions or maternalistic ones.   We are more familiar with the Paternalistic Solution to the question, and that is where the young maiden leaves her own family’s home and joins up with that of her chosen husband, and while he gets to keep 100% on his Life Trajectory, it is she who has to do all of the adapting and changing (but if she was raised to it, then being a good dutiful daughter in one family will be very much like being a good dutiful daughter in another family).   Oh, remember that the Nuclear Family is only a very recent thing, unless it was the result of poverty.  You see, up until a while ago, any established Family with any land to call their own, lived in an Extended Family Model, that is, several generations living together.   A situation of just a man and a woman with their offspring being isolated off by themselves, well, that would be only in regards to displaced poverty stricken people.    Isn’t it ironic that the Prevalent Social Unit today is one that up until a while ago was predicated on poverty and displacement?  Go Capitalism! 

Of course, there are Islands in the Pacific where it is the males who are the ones to go to the Woman’s home and take on the role of being the subservient one, though, it is obviously different in the sense that while Women are inherently nurturing and useful, men are inherently selfish and lazy.   If you want somebody who can drinks, smoke cigarettes, and toss dice, then a Man will be your go to guy every time.  But, yes, with their propensity towards aggression, men can make excellent ‘guard dogs’ if they are trained well, and that is typically the most that is ever expected of them, and the rest is tolerated.

Okay, that was how they used to deal with Relationships.  Well, certainly you don’t want THAT, do you?  For one person to just give up their Life Direction for the other, that should be unheard of (but who honestly wouldn’t want their own devoted slave?).    But now the Preferred Model for Relationships is Mutual Accommodation and the couple ‘working’ to make their Relationship ‘work’.   You know, all that ‘work’ can’t be much fun.   Also, really, the Combined Vector of the Two, really doesn’t lead to either one of their Ultimate Goals of Life, and two lives, not just one, are wasted without achieving the Purpose their Soul was brought into Existence for.

Now, maybe in a few years, when Super Computing Networked Auto Learning Artificial Intelligence Systems take over almost everything, then we could have situations where the System could pair up Perfect Matches (if each person grows up with a System Companion (like a little machine pet Dog or Cat to which one confides everything, or it just hears and sees everything one says or does) then the System will really know everything about you… better than you know yourself, in fact), and there could be a near certainty that both People would be going into a similar direction their entire lives.  But that isn’t now, and chances are the people you get into relationships with are darn close to just being random selections.  Really, to get into a Relationship, one simply has to assume that one is very lucky.  But if it is not good advice to tell people to play the lottery, then how can we ever advise anybody to get into a Relationship?