I have written before about getting to that place on the spiritual journey where there’s no movement, seemingly in any direction. Finances are stuck, the service life is stuck, business is stuck, physical body is sending signals. Messages from guides and angels are often skewed or garbled, or silent altogether. Conflicts arise from out of nowhere. It’s tempting to become frustrated or depressed, to throw our hands up and say,
“The hell with this, nothing is working. It’s all nonsense.”
And go backward on the path. Heaven hears what we say. Fortunately, the lessons of my dear teacher, Master Zhi Gang Sha, have sunk into my mind and heart, and I have been honored to receive tools and blessings to assist me in times like this. A long time before I met Master Sha I studied another great metaphysical master, Dr. Ernest Holmes. He offered many memorable teachings, but one in particular has stayed with me,
“To remain in the continuous realization of the living Presence of God is to have the power to accomplish anything.”
That is an immense statement. Try it.
For one solid minute, be still and realize that there’s a powerful, living, Divine presence that we can call into our being, that is the actual truth of our highest selves, and feel it in your body. It’s delicious, immediate, vibrating with energy and light. Now watch your mind have a conniption fit. To do a thing continuously takes enormous discipline, including this thing, but it’s something to aspire to. It may take hundreds, thousands of individual efforts, but we must pull our awareness away from the egoic mind, and bring it to this presence, if we are to fulfill Dr. Holmes’s statement.
In addition to the above mentioned challenges, I have been experiencing a bout of insomnia. I have never in my life had much trouble sleeping, but in the last couple of weeks I have been waking up at 1 or 2 in the morning, and staying awake. I appreciate the time in a way, it’s always a deeply quiet time of day, and a fertile time to do spiritual practice. In the past if I were to wake, I’d do some form of chanting, or offer blessing to someone, or have a convo with my immortal soul, and then go back to sleep. Not now. I don’t know if it’s where I am on my journey, or the body changing as it marches toward whatever awaits, but by 3 or 4 in the morning, it’s tempting to feel a little desperate or annoyed. Then… Presence.
This morning I had employed every practice that seemed pertinent, and still wide awake. I have heard of monks and saints who would chant all night long and never sleep. I’m not there yet, at least voluntarily. I know I should probably get up and do some kind of physical practice, like writing Calligraphy or doing foundation practice, but it’s the dog’s fault that I don’t. If I get up, she stomps all over the bed and the husband, then everyone is awake. Sounds good, anyway. The other dog has a chronic coughing and choking condition that sometimes comes in the night, that doesn’t help with the staying asleep thing either, but we make choices, and I like sleeping with good dogs.
Anyway! I had been doing some work with feeling the presence of some special Buddhas around and within me. It’s OK if they come in, I trust the Buddhas. They have such high frequency and light that the body buzzes and tingles, and I can feel the companionship of these holy ones with me. Why do we forget these things? That there are Divine beings, ascended ones, angels, saints, Buddhas, Bodhisattvas that are entirely available to us, that want to be with us and help us? Karma of course, and the forgetful state of the incarnated experience. My spiritual father teaches,
“What you chant is what you become.”
The Buddha said something similar. What a thrilling notion, if we can remember to do it! There’s that discipline thing again, we can train ourselves to chant continuously, to keep at it until it’s such an ingrained habit that it feels weird to not be doing it. It also keeps the mind on an upward trajectory, instead of veering off into worry, anger, fear and other destructive paths.
So, I devised a chanting practice where I would say in my mind,
“The presence of the Buddhas fills me.”
Then I would hold my mind in stillness as long as I could, feeling the life of the Buddhas in my body, head to toe, skin to bone. The tendency is to do a practice for a while with the intention of going back to sleep, and when that doesn’t work, to go to the next possibility. This felt so wonderful and powerful though, that I stuck with it and went naturally off to sleep in about 20 minutes.
I had the most beautiful dream! I dreamed that my teacher and I were together, and he gave me a long blessing with his hand on my head. A precious experience, and vivid. When I opened my eyes in the dream I could see the energy of healing coming out of my fingers, and then a ball of energy in my hands that was filled with geometric forms and calligraphies. He appeared to have an injury on his arm, and he asked if I would offer him a blessing. I knew even in the dream that he was entirely capable of healing it himself, but he offered it to me as a way to utilize this energy, and gain virtue. My dreams about Master Sha are always so real and compelling that I have no doubt that they are based in reality, I am there will him. What an incredible gift. Thank you Buddhas.
We must use what we have, and remember to use these treasures. I believe there is nothing that cannot be brought to wholeness by spiritual practice, keeping in mind that testing and karma are always going to be our companions.
Realizing Divine Presence is an effective and powerful practice! It doesn’t have to be Buddhas, it could be Jesus, or Krishna or Archangel Michael, or simply…God. Give it a try.