Walking Between Worlds

The path of the mystic has drawn me deep into the inner worlds. Returning to our fragile Earth and my own vulnerable self, I become a place where the worlds come together. In this meeting something comes alive; an unnamable, unknowable Essence takes on form, receives a heartbeat and a breath. And we can participate in this mystery, our individual consciousness be awake to divine beauty and wonder, witness Its oneness.  

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WALKING BETWEEN WORLDS

 
As the days pass and the seasons change, I find myself drawn to tell more of my own story, the threads that destiny has woven for me, and what it means for me to live this story. We all live stories, the stories of our parents and families, the stories we pass onto our children, the stories of our race and countries, our communities, the places we live, the land we walk, the trees and skyline we see. Sometimes our stories change as we move, from cities to villages, or from farms to towns. I grew up in London, walked its city streets in my teenage years, and later moved to a small town on the California coast—a different story that seeped into my body and my breath. Here there is a story of hills turning green to golden, fog in Summer and Winter storms, of egrets brilliant white in the wetlands, and sometimes stories of fires, of the forests burning, air thick with smoke.

Most live the story of their ego, experienced through the senses and the mind. A story of desires, successes and failures, as well as the complex web of human relationships. The soul’s story is different, has different colors, is more meaningful and richer in texture. It tells another story, bonded both to the land and the heart, and is often a journey of self-discovery, as one is drawn deeper within oneself.

And then there are other stories that take us on their journey from beyond distant horizons. These are the stories I have been drawn to live, of visions of other worlds, unseen but potent beyond my imagination. Stories of light and darkness, of what is sacred and what is forgotten. These stories haunt me, often because they are mostly unsaid, or do not belong to the more recognized landscape of our lives. They do not fit into familiar patterns, but speak of a vaster landscape, of wisdom we have lost or a future we dare not see.

And because we live in a time when so much is forgotten, like wildflower meadows destroyed—where even our dreams are losing their vibrancy, their numinosity, and no longer call us to the land where the horses sing, where the grandfathers speak to us—maybe it is helpful to tell of this realm of the soul as it has spoken to me, to leave a trace of this landscape of deep belonging. And as I have been destined to travel the path of the mystic, one who is drawn deep into the inner worlds and the mysteries of the heart, I would like to begin with a vision that came calling over a decade ago:

Last night I saw the whole of creation like a seed, like a small round object. Everything—all the oceans and stars, all the trees and people and promises and dreams—was contained in this small round object. Everything that existed was there. In many ways my vision echoed the experience of Julian of Norwich, the fourteenth-century anchorite:

“In this vision he showed me a little thing, the size of a hazelnut, and it was round as a ball. I looked at it with the eye of my understanding and thought ‘What may this be?’ And it was generally answered thus: ‘It is all that is made.’ I marveled how it might last, for it seemed it might suddenly have sunk into nothing because of its littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: ‘It lasts and ever shall, because God loves it.’” 

But in my own experience I was then shown that around this small object was a vast ocean of nonexistence, a primal emptiness that was far beyond the world of what is created. This emptiness I have known for most of my life through meditation and inner experience. It is the nothingness before and after creation, empty of form and yet more full than creation. It is the deep bliss of our own nonexistence and a reality beyond the constriction of form. And the small round object that was creation swam in this vastness like a small planet in empty space. 

And then I was shown further, that around this vast ocean of dark emptiness was another, vaster dimension of light. And I knew that this was the consciousness of God, the consciousness that is present within everything and yet far beyond everything. In my experience I called this the “Eye of God,” because it could see and know everything that existed and did not exist. And I knew that although I was shown this ocean of light as surrounding the emptiness—like one circle around another—it was not separate, but permeated everything. Just as the emptiness is like the space between the atoms of creation, so this light, this knowing, this single vast consciousness encompasses and pervades all. And for a time I was this light, and saw how it sparkled in every cell of creation, full of laughter and joy and knowing. I saw how it told the stories of the Divine in our ordinary human experience, at the same time that it was without limit.

And then this whole experience has been burned into my own small consciousness: the smallest orb of all creation, the vast dark ocean of nonexistence, and then this circle of light stretching far beyond what I could see. Everything seemed to rest in this light, in this great consciousness. 

This light includes everything. Yet I also know, from my own meditations and inner experience, of the Essence that underlies even this light, the substance that forms the bedrock of all that is and is not. Called the Absolute, or the Real, its nature is unknowable and yet it is the primal Source. It is all that truly exists, or does not exist—everything else, even the light of God, derives from It. For the Sufis the color of this Truth is emerald green, though it can also be experienced as black, the color of complete renunciation or mystical poverty. In the Absolute Itself there is no color, no reflection, no light. It is complete in Itself. 

And a human being, who is so small, so insignificant, here for just a fleeting moment, can experience this multidimensional reality, this vast panorama of the Divine. The eye of the heart can see, can contain, this totality. This is one of the greatest gifts we have been given, as expressed in the hadith, “Heaven and earth cannot contain Me, but the heart of My devoted servant can.”

Love’s story and life’s story have taken me to this place, to this awareness. This momentary timeless experience. But it also draws me deep within, to memories upon memories, to a sense that long ago, lifetimes upon lifetimes, something was very clear and simple. Long before all the dramas, the difficulties, human and divine were together in a way that we seem to have lost. 

More and more I am drawn back to this ancient, ancient memory, like a distant heartbeat. There is a sense that then the “friends of God” were friends with God, in this time before the Fall. There was a companionship with an Other who is not other, this friendship with the Divine and all of creation, as a simple song for which I now need the words. And there is a tenderness in this remembrance, which also feels like a reunion, a touching. 

I often wonder at the meaning of the fact that when I first awoke in this life—that Summer when I was sixteen, and a Zen koan about wild geese opened a door I never knew existed—I found myself back in the garden, a garden beside the river where I used to sit in those afternoons when school was over, with the light sparkling on the waters of the river and flowers alive in colors I had not known existed. Was this first experience both a foretaste and a memory, a door opening into another world that had always been present, even if long forgotten?

Yes, there were other experiences at this time, as I first began going deep into meditation, into a silence that took me far beyond the world of forms into the emptiness that was to become so familiar, also a friend. But the beauty of the garden beside the river remains the strongest imprint, even now, more than half a century later, even though the path has given me so many other experiences. Is this how it always was, when the light was alive in everything created? I have never so directly experienced it since, even though I have felt a trembling beauty in many early-morning walks, the sun breaking through the fog.

And so now, after an inner journey that has taken me far beyond this outer world, into the formless and beyond, experiencing the substance that underlies everything that is and is not, what we may call Reality though it has no name—after knowing this Reality that is imprinted in every cell and every starfish, I return to this simple garden with something like the longing for a first love I never fully knew. Here is where it all began, in this life and I also sense many, many lifetimes ago. This is the “in the beginning” of the story, when the Divine did not have to be looked for, when there was a friendship that embraced everything. Then all was known in its true sense, and every blade of grass, every person, and every dream knew where it belonged. And here, in this world, where human and divine could meet and speak of the wonder of what is, spirit and matter did not know any division.

Like a tree going back to its roots, I have tried to trace these elements within my life as in the vision of the layers of existence—creation, the emptiness, and the light of divine consciousness. At the same time ancient memories draw me back to a primal bond with both the Creator and the creation. And who is this person who holds these threads together, who feels this presence within his heartbeat? Who lives the light of the soul and also the elements of the Earth, a place where love is experienced, where sorrow is felt. 

Some lines from Rumi have echoed within me for over fifty years since I first read them in my late teens:

I am the pangs of the jealous, I am the pain of the sick.
I am both cloud and rain: I have rained on the meadows.
Never did the dust of mortality settle on my skirt, O dervish!
…
I am not Shams-i Tabriz, I am the pure Light.
If thou seest me, beware! Tell not anyone what thou hast seen![1]

 Here Rumi is describing himself as the Perfect Man who is the Universal Spirit. He has embraced what is most human, and yet has also passed beyond even the radiance of his sun, Shams. He has become the light that is the divine Essence.[2]

This light that is the essence of our essence is what calls to us within the heart, “the love within your love.” I have experienced a touch of this light in the depths of my own meditation, even journeyed into a world made only of light. Certainly I have longed to return to the sun of suns, be lost in it. And yet always I have been drawn back, called by a human story, as if the elements of this world needed to tell me their secret. The spiritual path made me a piece of dust at the feet of my teacher, and I am still that dust.  

I know that in essence all of our stories are the one story of the Divine—there is nothing other than that single Being. And at the same time, we are each given a unique experience of the One—we each have our own story. Sometimes through the soul’s story we can glimpse the story of the Divine, this beautiful, magnificent, tender loving story. And yet it is also our own heart that is touched, that feels this love—the Beloved’s story becomes our most intimate experience. This is the incarnation of love, when, in the Christian story, Christ comes alive within our heart. It is Christ’s story and yet uniquely our own. This is what we have to offer to love and to the Beloved: the possibility of a unique, fragile human story—a place where divine love can be born again and again. Maybe it is our very vulnerability that enables this story of love to be told.

Is this part of the true nature of our friendship with God? That we are partners in this divine revelation, this love story we call life? It is mysterious, passionate, intoxicating, and in many instances almost unbearably painful. The soul’s story is the most deeply felt, has more joy and more sorrow, than the ego’s story. And it also, strangely, seems more deeply personal, maybe because it is felt more deeply, is less illusory. And paradoxically, the most deeply personal story is our relationship with the Divine—this is what is most human. For the mystic it is, as well as a friendship, a love affair more intimate than can ever belong with a human partner—it touches every fiber of the heart, every cell of the body. It is our own soul that cries out, that is seduced, embraced, consumed by love. The touch of a divine lover is closer, more tender, and more ecstatic than any human touch. Is this our deepest human calling, to be a lover—our life a love story?

Finding these threads within my heart, within my soul—is this what it means to be a human being? A friend, a lover, with the Divine, with the Earth, and a link of love between the two, a place where a love story can be told, a secret be revealed? And is this substance that I feel within me the essence of this story told again and again, lifetime after lifetime—the same story told in a different landscape? As if through life’s constant change something unchanging is revealed, granite uncovered through endless days of sunshine, wind, and rain.[3] Could this be the Absolute, the primal substance of everything, having a human quality? The Essence that is the root of all that exists and does not exist, revealed as our own most human innermost nature? Is every journey a return to this Essence, that has carved, or uncovered, something deeply human within Its substance? 

The eternal Essence is unchanging, “It is as It was.”[4] There is no evolution, because It is complete unto Itself.[5] Yet from this unchangeable Essence pours out a constantly changing world, beautiful in its fragility. This is the “dewdrop world” and our human experience is to be a vulnerable, transient partner of its moment-by-moment revelation.[6] We are both witness and participant. We live its changing seasons, and within its cycles are also the seasons of our soul. As I feel the autumn of my own life, I sense a deep change, as if this unchanging Essence and my own story have become woven together in a new way, even though they were never separate.  

My life has been a love story, even if for the first twenty years its pages were left blank. It has also been a coming together of many worlds, some visible, some more hidden. My dreams have guided me, my visions opened me. And through these worlds coming together something is revealed, a secret of the Beloved disclosed. If we live only on the surface of our lives, blinkered by rational consciousness, this secret remains hidden, this possibility of life unlived, lost. But as the inner and outer come together a mystery is born again and again.

We are each the human face, the human story of the Divine. One of the greatest gifts of the Earth is to enable us to live this story, to have this experience. In some ways this is also our greatest offering to the Earth, our own unique story, the spark within the heart meeting the light within creation. And in this meeting something comes alive; an unnamable, unknowable Essence takes on form, receives a heartbeat and a breath. It is said that when this moment is made conscious a star is born. 

My own story traces back to the very beginning, and also carries a deep sadness that is partly the sadness at what we have done to this Earth, this gift we were given. The magic has withdrawn; the names of creation have been forgotten, the seas and air polluted, the trees cut down, all in the name of progress. Is this where our dreams have taken us? Is this what we have to offer to our Friend, our Beloved, the final page of life’s love affair left blank because of our greed and desecration?

My story cannot help but carry this heartache; my soul carries its imprint. But although it belongs to the whole Earth, my story is also deeply personal. It has become part of my essence. I cannot forget that first moment in the garden, when everything was alive, when magic and light were present. I cannot forget what we have lost, discarded, trampled on. And yet today, when I take my early-morning walk, the orange and yellow California poppies waiting beside the trail, as yet unopened, a falcon resting on a fence post, that moment is still present, though half-hidden in the pre-dawn mist. 

And so, moment by moment, the out-breath following the in-breath, life continues. The wind is bending the trees, the light visible and hidden, the Beloved present and absent. Love and life tell their own story, and with each breath I am a part of it. I may have wandered far into the inner worlds, into other dimensions, but my feet still touch this Earth. As long as I breathe, I will be a part of Her story, Her song, be a place where the worlds come together, where the Beloved’s face can become visible.[7]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] “The Soul of the World,” Rumi Poet and Mystic, trans. R.A. Nicholson, p. 182-3.
[2] As I have mentioned in a previous podcast, this light, known to the Sufis as the Muhammadan Light, or al-Nur al-Muhammadi, is the first expression of the Essence, even as it is also identical to It.
[3] Chuang Tzu, the Taoist philosopher, writes, “Everything arises from what is formless and descends into that which is changeless,” chapter 19 “Grasping the Purpose of Life,” The Book of Chuang Tzu, trans. Martin Palmer, p. 157.
[4] Hadith.
[5] “When He called into being the things that are, He was already endowed with all His attributes, and He is as He was then. In His oneness there is no difference between what is recent and what is original.” Ibn ‘Arabi, Fatuhat al Makkiyyah: The Meccan Revelations.
[6] There is a famous poem by Issa, written on the death of his daughter that expresses both the transience of our world, but also its sorrow:

This dewdrop world—
Is a dewdrop world
And yet, and yet…
 
[7] Qur’an Sura 2: 115 “To God belong the East and the West. Wheresoever you turn, there is the Face of God.”

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