After a wake back to bed, I entered a willfully induced lucid dream (WILD) from the hypnagogic state. During the in between state, while I was seeing geometric forms behind my eyelids, I recalled that this was a good time to focus on a desire for a WILD. A week before I had a clear / lucid light experience, so I wanted to see if I could repeat that again. I placed the intention to enter the clear light or as I think of it, "I want to be near Brahman."
Suddenly a dream formed around me and I was in a big luxurious home where the living room was open to an outside terrace overlooking the most stunning nature scene I've ever seen. It was almost like a garden of Eden type of view.
Out of thin air, a man with blue-purple skin materialized. He had a well-kept beard and was wearing a 3-piece black suit with a white shirt and a black bowtie. He seemed to have a high level of consciousness and intelligence, but he seemed to be a sort of butler with a down to earth humble attitude.
He greeted me in a very friendly way like he knew me, and while he seemed vaguely familiar, I couldn't put my finger on who he was. Having said that, I felt safe in his company. He invited me to sit down and asked me straight out from the get-go, "Why do you want to be near Brahman?"
He put me straight on the spot! My lucidity got deeper as he asked me that question. I felt I was under some sort of evaluation. I immediately knew the best thing I could do here was to be honest.
I told him that initially I was not seeking Brahman, enlightenment or anything like that. I was just trying to liberate myself from inner suffering, fears, and traumas. However, having had a few direct experiences with the deeper awareness, I completely fell in love with it! I understand what it means to dwell in the bliss of being (known in Vedic terms as SatChitAnanda). After those experiences I became like a smitten homesick lover that wants to constantly return to its beloved. This was an unexpected turn of events for me.
The term bhakta means someone who approaches the divine through bhakti (love and devotion). It is similar to the Sufi lover or friend of the divine.
He continued, “It doesn't mean you cannot benefit from work on the other centers, but the path to Brahman for you is through the heart. The other types by the way could also benefit from doing heart. If you want to dwell in Brahman (the non-dual reality) you have to have a particular focus. Do not just seek union with it, or with the clear light, or emptiness, that will not help you. You must seek union with the heart of God."
I instantly recalled another dream where the awareness behind the dream gave me this very same advice, “Seek union with the heart of God.”
He then walked to the kitchen bar behind us and asked me "What would you like me to serve you? A drink perhaps?" I thought that was a good idea. He said, "I can make over 1,200,000 different types of drinks (it was an outrageous number like that). If it exists in the universe I can make it. What would you like to have?” and he smiled.
I asked him to recommend something. He quickly whipped up a drink in a fancy glass and said, "Here you go I made you a Divine Margarita." He then held what looked like a small perfume tester bottle and sprayed something in the air above the drink.
I asked him what was it he sprayed to which he replied, "This was a hint of forgiveness".
I tasted the drink and it was a little bitter at first. As I kept drinking throughout the dream the drink got sweeter and sweeter.
I asked him who did he think I needed to forgive and his answer took me completely by surprise!
"You need to forgive Brahman!"
I was not sure what he was talking about?! I did not think I blamed the awareness for anything.
He said, "You made a request earlier that you want to get closer with Brahman. If everything and everyone is awareness then every type of suffering you ever experienced was orchestrated and executed by no one other than Brahman!"
At this point it was like someone hit me with a sledgehammer as I was recognizing the truth of what he was trying to say.
He continued, "This is an important step on the path. The universe only brings you challenges to grow but a part of the subconscious is aware that the universe is the antagonist. It harbors resentment towards it.
It is not sufficient to forgive those that have wronged you in the waking world but also the underlying invisible hand that moves them.
Essentially all that you are doing is forgiving yourself for you are Brahman too. This is the most important type of forgiveness. Forgive yourself for not recognizing this truth in the past. Now that you have already experienced the truth that all is One, it is time to forgive the One!
Without this final step, it is like holding onto rocks that weigh you down and do not enable you to completely fly into the heart of God and remain there. You will only reach there to be pulled back and return to your 'normal' state. Finish your drink it will help."
As I took the last gulp of the drink it tasted as sweet as honey. A loving warm fuzzy energy enveloped me and everything turned to bright white light and I woke up. I felt like I came out of a very deep restful sleep. I was in a light trance and had a deep knowing that I am living in a benign universe where everything, including suffering and destruction, had a significant divine purpose.
From her on, I cannot really blame anyone for anything negative that has happened to me or will happen to me in the future. When I looked onto my Facebook later that day I discovered that it was a Krishna celebration. Krishna is a deity for bhaktas or devotees. And that day was a good day to approach him to strengthen your inner resolve of devotion and love to the larger awareness. Krishna is usually depicted as having blue-purple skin....I wonder if that is who I met in my dream!?
A few days later as I was reflecting on this dream, I realized that the divine butler was right, I had a beef with the awareness, even beyond the personal.
Based on recent world events, a big explosion happened in Beirut, Lebanon (where I come from) that claimed countless lives, had thousands of people injured, and for a 15 mile radius of the blast, homes, businesses, shops, hospitals and cars were destroyed. It was a disaster of epic proportions. This was considered the third largest explosion after Hiroshima.
The people of Lebanon were already living through a deep economic depression for years. There were demonstrations happening against government corruption for months prior to Covid 19. When the pandemic and lockdown hit it sent people spiraling down even further. To top this off when the Lebanese people thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse, now comes the explosion catastrophe to wreck their lives even further. And it wasn’t easy to see how family and friends that are living there were affected.
After this dream I realized the injustice and outrage that everyone felt, myself included, was actually directed towards Brahman. For if we are all awareness, like the butler said, then all these things are orchestrated, directed and executed by Brahman. I know that the ultimate reality does not care about my forgiveness, but if I am to get closer to it, I have to look from another perspective that sheds any resentment towards it. This is why forgiveness in the dream made sense.
I know a lot of people globally are equally outraged beyond just what happened to them personally. There is an outcry at the geopolitical and war situations around the world. There is outrage against the injustice over environmental abuse, the enslavement and mistreatment of animals whether for food, for their skin/fur, or for cosmetic and medical testing. And the list goes on . . .
It seems important to look deeper at whom are we actually angry? The people responsible is one level of it in the waking world, but the Universe, God, Brahman, Awareness etc… is the underlying hand that is allowing all of this to happen.
From my viewpoint, it is the wounded child in us that blames “God” for not doing anything for the darkness of the world and the suffering that we face. Through my recent experiences I’ve become more aware how everything is just consciousness and that no one’s true essence is really lost not even in death. The shift of perspective to look at things from a non-dual lens would result in dropping a lot of the blame and questions about “why is there injustice in the world.”
In the past when I experienced oneness states I never felt the need to ask that question. The answer was obvious. I accepted that suffering was an integral part of life. I am, however, not permanently living in a oneness trance. Therefore, working through this seems important. This brings to mind the first of Buddha’s four noble truths: “Dukka (suffering) is an innate characteristic of existence in Samsara.”
It seems that in order to cross the gap into the non-dual we need to evolve the inner wounded child to become the divine child. Only the divine child can see into the non-dual realm. For this, the dream world has directed me towards forgiveness of self, others, and the larger reality as a key step in the process.
This article was released in issue from
December 2020
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