The Sixth step

THE POND

I walk to the edge of a still pond. When I see my reflection, many memories fill my mind. Some of these memories are good and some of them make me feel uncomfortable. But, all of them are mine, my universe that I carry inside my consciousness. I am the ruler of this inner universe, as well as its most humble servant.

This inner reality affects my outer world in every way. It is a mirror, an echo, a cause, and a new beginning. If I can remain clear and calm, I am able to hear a voice speaking to me from deep within this inner realm. But, too often, my outer world pulls me away from my calm, my mirror and my new beginning.

If I could observe myself as clearly as looking into this still pond, I could remain objective and not be buffeted about by the storms of my outer life. Then, I could remain clear and unbiased, so that my reactions to my outer world are based on my truth and not on my illusions, or the illusions of others.

However, the winds of turmoil of my outer life make small ripples on the image of my self that distort my perceptions and make my reactions to life erratic and unreliable. It is obvious when the external winds are blowing. Unfortunately, there are also the internal winds which are much more illusive. When the inner winds blow, what appears to be a true impression can actually be a distortion.

I have to have an inner reference point, an icon of purity, which is above all danger of disruption. Then, when I become distracted or confused, this reference can remind me of the truth, the truth of my SELF. As I hold this thought, the Sun rises above the trees and shines directly onto the water, obscuring my reflection on the surface of the pond. I turn to look into the rising Sun and the world around me blurs, as well.

I close my eyes, but still the spectacle of light holds true inside me. It remains constant and bright. Even as the afterimage fades, the memory of the golden ball of light is as clear as the direct sight of it. That which I know outside of me, is inside as well. I am so sure that I can trust this golden light that I fall into it in complete surrender. In response, it falls into me, surrenders to me.

The Sun’s golden glow is warm upon my face and calm within my mind. The light encompasses me and makes me feel love, Unconditional Love. I allow the light to absorb me, and, gradually, a semblance of eyes appears. I stare into them, and they envelope me. The eyes sooth my fears and ease my mind. They radiate pure love. And, they are familiar. Yes, they are my eyes, my truth, my Soul!

Nothing, inner or outer, could disturb the purity of this vision, for it is the vision of my true SELF—the ONE who I AM!

Imagination ~ The Joining of Worlds

Imagination is that portion of us that is childlike. It isn’t real. Or is it? Could it be that our imagination is a powerful tool that we can use to mold our dreams for the future into the NOW? If we can take the risk and enter the unknown, we may find that we are so important that our imagination is the thread that ties us to our Soul/SELF and hence, to all of life. Through our imagination, we can create a portal between our outer world and the rich inner worlds of Soul where everything is possible—if only we can imagine.

TAKING THE SIXTH STEP

We see the sixth stair before us on a stairway that disappears into the clouds. We know this stairway well for it lives in our imagination and leads to our inner universe on the “other side.” We have kept this passageway a secret so that the pain and fear of our outer life could not invade our inner sanctuary. Now, the clouds are thinning and a light shines down the stairway beckoning us to join these worlds. Can we allow our inner SELF to shine upon mundane life, just as the light shines through the clouds?

We will have to climb the stairs to find the answer.

Personal History, Sixth Step
Sixth Chakra
TIME FRAME 1992-1994

My SELF rested in my fifth chakra for a long time when the whisper of “Time for a change,” became a shout. “Get ready for a bumpy ride,” the inner voice said. The next two years would be filled with change.

SPIRITUAL LIFE

All of my life I had a very vivid imagination of past lives, which I now perceive as parallel realities. When my awakening process first began, past lives came to me in rushes. I had dreams and when I awoke an inner voice would say, “This is a dream of another life.” But nothing was as extreme an experience of my other lives than when my SELF entered my sixth chakra.

I often use the term “other lives,” avoiding the term past lives, because all lives are actually simultaneous and happening in different space/time quadrants. With my sixth chakra clearing and opening, I was able to psychically travel into the fourth dimension. From the fourth dimension, I was out of space/time as it is known on the third dimension and could easily view any other third dimensional life that I desired.

However, I did not desire to visit them. They came to me so strongly that I HAD to write them down. These other expressions of my SELF were calling me to hear their stories. While I wrote each life, I lived it simultaneously with my present life. I was experiencing my first multi-dimensional awareness. There had always been other lives on the edges of my consciousness, but now they came in full force. Unfortunately, all of them were sad with unhappy deaths filled with pain and disillusionment.

Many years earlier I had received an inner message that said, “Once you have healed enough of your pain in this life, your other lives will rush forward for the same healing.” Well they were rushing forward all right. Many times, I found it quite difficult to live two lives at once. The good part was, as I wrote these lives, I found resolution for the conflicts, comfort for the pain and love for the fear. These lives were put together in books one, Visions from Venus and two, Reconstructing Reality.

One of my most powerful and disturbing experiences was when I re-experienced my first life in a third dimensional body at the fall of Atlantis. I felt, in every fiber of my being, the ripping apart of my essence as only my female polarity was able to enter my third dimensional, physical body. I lived again the deep sorrow and abandonment when my other half, my Divine Complement, left me. When I wrote through the feelings of that life, I released a deep pain in my heart that had haunted me my entire life. A few days after completing the writing of my life during the total destruction of Atlantis, a strong earthquake hit Los Angeles, where I live.

When I first wrote Visions from Venus, it was from the perspective of the fourth dimension. Later, when my SELF integrated into my crown chakra and my third eye had opened, I rewrote the book from the perspective of the fifth dimension. The entire process covered many years. I found that as I healed each “past life”, that a part of my present life was healed as well. Eventually, I was able to access lives in which had reunited with my Divine Complement and moved as a unified being into the fifth dimension upon my death.

Perhaps, it was to reliving of my own ascension lives that caused me to, again, become disillusioned with a spiritual teacher. But also, and most important, my inner guidance told me that my writing and meditating had brought me to the threshold of the Soul Plane—the fifth dimension. Once there, I would no longer have physical teachers. My instruction would come from higher dimensional Beings and from my inner, Multidimensional SELF.

CAREER LIFE AND PERSONAL LIFE

My career life and personal life are presented together here because my body (personal life) demanded changes in my career, and I had to listen.

When my son went off to college, I found I had a lot more energy to put into my career. After battling the empty nest syndrome of, “My babies are gone!” to “I am free!,” I settled into making more mental space for more psychotherapy clients. It worked, and soon I had more clients then ever. However, simultaneously, I still had my audiology career. I was working too much, again! Meanwhile, I was living two lives at one time and going through menopause.

This time I had to let my body take charge of my career rather than the other way around. Ladies, if anyone tells you menopause is a breeze that person is a man! I had PMS ALL the time, ten hot flashes an hour (highlighted by red face, perspiration, and a new kind of body odor) and woke up five times a night. That is, if I could sleep at all.

Well, I was a good new age, ex-hippie. I was going to take the natural route. I scheduled massages once a week, I got a personal trainer, I went to a homeopathic doctor, an oriental medicine doctor and a chiropractor. NOTHING WORKED. The pituitary gland in my sixth chakra was activated and my biochemistry was OFF. It was the 50-60 hour weeks and the no sleep that finally did me in. I surrendered to western medicine and started taking the hormones. However, I was still tired all the time.

Finally, I sprained my right ankle and put my back out. Was the load too heavy for me to step forward? I had to take the leap. I couldn’t carry two careers (while I was also living at least two lives at a time) any longer. One of my careers had to go. There was no question which career I would choose to keep: the counseling. But was it really giving me enough money by itself? I did have a lot of debts. My body said, “Jump. You have been sitting on the fence too long. You are using me up.”

FINAL INITIATION OF THE SIXTH STEP

The act of having enough confidence in myself, my inner guidance, and in my own vision of my destiny was my initiation. My Multidimensional Soul/SELF was awakening in my sixth chakra showing me the big picture. I had to believe in it. I had to trust that I would love my work and be able to survive financially. That meant that I had to believe that I deserved to make money at something that I found creative and interesting.

When I quit the audiology career, I had lots of time. For quite a few years I had had more money than time, so I went to a lot of places in my outer world. Now there was no extra money to spend for travel, but the journey inside was free. Inside I went. My meditations had taken me through the fourth dimension and I was knocking on the door of the fifth dimension. When I first arrived, I met the “Greeter” who worked with me. He was a guardian of the Threshold whose service was to assist newcomers.

I was initially blind and deaf on the fifth dimension. My perceptions were not yet calibrated to that vibration. I had trained my inner perceptions to perceive the fourth dimension, but I had not yet adapted to the higher frequencies of the fifth dimension. Also, the sensations of the fourth dimension are very bright and loud and sometimes feel almost physical. However, the sensations of the fifth dimension are subtle and illusive.

Besides the Greeter, the only thing I could perceive for a while (a while really has no meaning because there is no time in the fifth dimension) was the green grass. Eventually, I could see a swirling vortex of yellow and red, only with a different tint to the colors. The Greeter said that that was the actual fifth dimension. However, it took me a long “third-dimensional time” to get there.

In due course, the Greeter told me that I was ready to go to a fifth dimensional “town” that was located on the threshold area. This experience was almost too much for me. For one thing, once in the town, I had an experience of unity and complete equality beyond anything I had ever felt. While traveling in the fifth dimensional wave of consciousness, I felt complete, unconditional acceptance and unconditional love. The feeling was so blissful that it almost hurt.

Also, there was no hierarchy system. There was no one who was better or worse. I remember feeling something dislodge in my mind when I realized that, after this experience, I would not have another physical, spiritual teacher. Now I would have to seek my answers inside my SELF.

When I was in the “town”, I had some problems. In the fifth dimension, every thought and emotion is instantly expressed. All of these new sensations were a bit frightening to me, and I created a big monster with my fear. My fear created something that made me even more fearful. (By the way, the monster looked just like the monster I used to see in my nightmares as a child.) However, the other people in the “town” understood that I was a newcomer, and, just as they unconditionally accepted me, they unconditionally accepted my “monster.”

The re-creation of my childhood monster told me that I needed more instruction. I told the Greeter that I would like to study with a woman since, back on earth, I was a woman, and I wanted to experience fifth dimensional, female power. He obligingly took me to my new inner teacher. This woman was the leader of a small group of newcomers like myself. I was to learn a powerful lesson in this group.

The leader was teaching us that the fifth dimension was beyond time and space. The group was in a circle and we were instructed to merge with the person next to us. For a “moment” a man and I were in exactly the same time and space, yet we completely maintained our individuality.

I returned from my meditation and realized I was late for a third dimensional appointment. I rushed out the door and down the stairs to my garage. I drove out slowly as I always do, thank heavens, but a bicyclist on the sidewalk hit my car with his bike and rolled over the hood of my car. I was horrified. How could I have such a spiritual experience and then kill someone?

I rushed to the man, who wasn’t dead, and took him into my house to give him a little first aid. At that moment, our eyes met and I realized that it was him—the man in my meditation. We had been in the same place at the same time in the third dimension just as we had been in the fifth dimension. I didn’t tell the man of my experience because it seemed too weird, and I was afraid of judgment.

I saw the man just one more time. He came back and seemed to be waiting by my garage. He was fine, but it had cost him $1,000 at the chiropractor. It had cost me exactly $1,000 to fix my car.

My initiation/lesson was to release all judgment of who is, and who is not, “spiritual.” This man did not appear to be at all enlightened. His bicycle was old, and he looked poor and displaced. However, he was at exactly the same place spiritually that I was. Just as we can’t judge a book by its cover, we can’t judge a multidimensional person by his or her third dimensional life. I had learned another lesson in humility.

THE SIXTH PILLAR OF LIGHT

We wait what appears to be a very long “time” before we even attempt to climb the stair to the sixth pillar. Something about it is foreboding. Probably, it is the Power. The Power of this pillar is so intense that it frighten us. Fortunately, we know that we cannot resist it any longer. It is time NOW to make that single step that we so deeply believe will change our life forever. We have felt the change coming for quite some time. Something inside is going away to be replaced by something else that has not yet been born. This transition frightens us and halts our forward motion.

As we raise our foot to take this simple step, which will complicate every area of our life, we reflect on all that has happened so far. Like the moment before death, our entire life flashes before us. There is, of course, too much to consciously register, but there is a general theme that seems to be replaying in drama after drama.

The theme is personal inadequacy. With that realization, we stop, foot raised in midair. Are we inadequate? Have we been avoiding this step knowing that, if we take it, we will realize that for our entire life we have secretly felt inadequate?

If that is so, once this step is taken, we will have to drop that modus operandi forever. We will have to accept that we ARE adequate. We will have to accept and love our self exactly as we are in every moment, through every emotion and with every thought. No wonder we have avoided this pillar so long.

We have wondered why we have clung so ardently to a negative self-image. What could be the possible profit? Of course, with the question come the answer. Fear of judgment! We lied to our self that if we know first that we were inadequate, then maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much when THEY told us so! Of course, THEY were seldom rude enough to come right out with it. THEY were nicer than that. THEY told us with a look, with a pat, or with their eyes.

If only we hadn’t been so sensitive. If only we had been able to believe their hollow words of praise. However, the praises were short and very far apart, whereas the criticisms were constant and covered every area of our life. Worst of all, the ones who criticized us the most were often the very ones who professed to love us. And now, unfortunately, much of the criticism comes from us.

Can we take this step? Are we “adequate” to the task? A battle begins to wage deep within us. Who is right, the outsiders who now secretly live in our head, or the small voice inside who whispers, “You can do it.”

We can do it, we will do it—we DO it! We take the step quickly, as if we are jumping into a cold pond. We simply choose to lower that raised foot, not on the step that we are on, but instead on the next step, the step just above us.

Quickly, we shift our weight to the foot on the higher step, as we know that if we hesitate, we may stop our forward motion. With a leap of faith—faith in our SELF—we plant our other foot firmly on the sixth step, just feet away from the pillar.

Now we will have to look inside the pillar’s crystal to see what is there. We inch forward and have to stretch our body to our tallest SELF, as this pillar is much taller than the others. Quickly, before we lose our nerve, we look into the crystal. Initially, we see only swirling Golden Light that is more beautiful than anything we could ever imagine. The Golden Light moves in clockwise circles as though it follows a plan. Yes, something is taking shape. Something is being created within the Golden Light.

It is a face. No, wait. It is OUR face. But, the face is perfect. Not perfect in its shape, age, expression, or any other gauge of perfection that has been offered in the past. The face is perfect because it is the Face of our SELF, our Multidimensional Soul/SELF. It is perfect because it is the archetype of everyone and everything we have ever attempted to be in all of our lives. It is perfect because it is of the ONE! And, being of the ONE, it is above judgments or polarities. It is not good, bad, beautiful, or ugly. IT SIMPLY IS. Therefore, it is PERFECT!

The face doesn’t have to be changed, improved, or altered. It only asks that we accept and cherish it. It is beyond time and space. Therefore, it has no age or definite form. It exists because it is Truth. And, we can see it because we have been brave enough to look. We have been brave enough to face our belief in our personal inadequacy and have chosen to NOT allow it to hold us back any longer. We have chosen to move on to the next step knowing that our life will be inalterably changed.

We don’t know how life will be now, although, we are certain that it will be different. We have looked into the face of true SELF, and in doing so, we have changed our self-image for all of eternity.

We no longer need to judge ourself. Therefore, we no longer need to fear judgment from others. Others may choose to accept us, or not. We are free of their opinion, for we now KNOW our SELF, and others no longer have the power to disrupt that knowing.

Of course, there is always habit. Habit can make us forget who we are. Habit can resurrect old behaviors that are now dead. Therefore, we will have to look into the Face of our Multidimensional Soul/SELF every day and in every way. We will have to find our Face in the crystal, then in the mirror, and in the faces of others. Then, we will find the Face of Soul in trees, rocks, birds, insects, fish, and in all of the creatures of Gaia. The Face of Soul is everywhere and in everything.

Can we remember to see it? Can we remember to be who we are NOW and not who we used to be? Yes! We WILL” remember to remember!” If we forget, we will look into the Face of our SELF who will NOT judge us for forgetting. Instead, we will be encouraged to remember to remember.

All we have to do is to take that one step and look into our own Face of Soul. Then everywhere, in everyone and in everything, will see their Face of Soul. This Face shines complete acceptance and therefore, complete love.

For love without acceptance, is like a face without a Soul.

And, that acceptance must begin with our self!

Continue to: The Seventh Step