LSD AND THE MIND OF THE UNIVERSE: DIAMONDS FROM HEAVEN
Synthesized from author Christopher Bache
Context:
“Stan Grof describes the platforms of spiritual experience as the psychic, subtle and causal levels of consciousness. Ken Wilbur used these terms along with non-duality to identify what he believed were the four stages of psycho-spiritual experience development, the evolutionary stepping stones culminating in non-dual spiritual realization. At the psychic level of transpersonal experience, consciousness expands beyond physical reality into non physical or spiritual reality, still constrained by conditioning that carries over from our space-time experience. At the subtle level of consciousness, the conditioning of physical reality is more deeply eclipsed and we begin to open to the deeper architecture of life. Here we begin to be drawn into the larger realities and more fundamental structures that our individual lives are part of. Here we may experience the collective consciousness of our species and other species or even the archetypal forces that create space-time and all it contains. At this level, the personal soul of our present life may open to the larger Soul of our reincarnating self. One is still experiencing a world divided into parts, but the parts are larger and more basic than at the psychic level. At the causal level of consciousness, the world of separate parts begins to yield to an experience of the Universe moving as a single entity. Here is an experience of Oneness, transparency and all encompassing wholeness. There is no reference point outside this Oneness from which to get a perspective on it, as it is the whole of existence. ‘Everything breathes together, as Sri Aurobindo described it. In this vision of things the Universe will reveal itself in its unity and totality as a manifestation of a single Being, Nature as its power of manifestation, evolution as its process of gradual self revelation in matter.’ The second feature of causal reality that stands out is the experience of Light becoming more refined. This is the domain of Diamond Luminosity.
The purpose of spiritual awakening appears to be not escaping from physical existence, as early religions proposed, but awakening ever more completely inside physical existence and participating in its continuing self-emergence through our awakening. We are no longer running to explore a universe “out there” but rather are “calling down heaven” pulling higher states of awareness into our physical being, alchemically mixing heaven and earth in the vessel of our human body. When nirvana (enlightenment) and samsara (cyclic existence) are truly one, when full transparency lives in the sea of perpetual change, then heaven is realized on Earth and there is no felt need to go elsewhere. We are self-generating fields of energy in a living Universe. We generate energy by making choices, and the Universe simply responds to this energy. The choices we make at a level called “the Ring of Destiny” become ones earthly destiny.. not a fixed destiny with a predetermined outcome but a destiny of structured possibilities, wherein we are choosing a life script, a set of circumstances and conditions that are defined but open ended.”
The Tour of the Universe:
No tour of the Universe would be complete without describing the ground from which it all arises..the Primal Void. I found myself in a domain that was entirely devoid of content. I was self-aware, but at the same time my awareness seemed to be infinite. Bliss caught me and held me transfixed for a long time, though the category of “time” had ceased to exist. This was what the Hindus called Sacciddananda: Infinite Being-Infinite Consciousness-Infinite Bliss, Sat-Chit-Ananda.. the Fertile Void, Mother of All Things, the Buddha Womb. I was being shown that matter and time are not ultimately real, that they emerge from and are at every moment sustained by something that is more real, something completely without form. I felt this silence and stillness as the only reality.”
“I was brought to an encounter with a unified field underlying all physical existence, an enormous field of blindingly bright, incredibly powerful energy. All that existed were but varied aspects of this comprehensive existence. This changed into an experience of the energy becoming a massive tree of radiant energy suspended in space. Seeming larger than the largest galaxy, it consisted entirely of light. I experienced myself as a leaf on this tree.
All of the individual qualities that were distinguishing characteristics seemed minor, almost arbitrary variations of this fundamental energy. Different lives around the globe were simply different experiences the tree was having. I became the tree. I was experiencing how consciousness manifests itself in separate forms while remaining unified. At one point on the tour of the Universe, I was taken through a complex labyrinth of churning forces until I emerged above the turbulence into a wonderfully spacious and calm experiential field. I was told that this was due to the fact that we had come through the emotions of human experience. I was then lifted into higher and larger experiential energy fields. In one particularly peaceful, spacious dimension, I was overcome by an overwhelming sense of homecoming. I asked what had happened for me to forget this field. The answer was ‘ We never intended so many to get caught in time.’
I became aware of a Council of Elders. In order to interface with them one had to learn how to stabilize ones attention in order to keep experience coherent with respect to levels of reality. You have to work to reach this level of awareness and then you have to work to sustain the concentration necessary to receive the knowledge that is available there. They were chanting mantra to gather power. If I could remain centered and empty while the Council unleashed ‘information’ it either sent me into cognitive ecstasy or it shattered me. If I was centered when the knowing hit me, it cascaded through me as an ecstatic orgy of insight. But if I did not control my thoughts and was not centered when it hit me, it completely shattered me, driving me beyond my capacity to maintain cognitive coherence.
I was then carried into the unified field underlying physical existence, completely dissolving all boundaries. As I moved deeper into it, all borders fell away, all appearances of division were ultimately illusory. No boundaries between incarnation, between human beings, between species, even between matter and Spirit. The world of individual existence revealed itself to be an exquisitely diversified manifestation of a single entity. I came to discover that I was not exploring a universe “out there” but a universe that “I” in some essential way already was. I was exploring the Universe as a dimension of my own existence, remembering aspects of my being that I had lost contact with.”
Archetypal Reality:
“I experienced archetypal reality to be a bridge between the physical universe and the Source of Existence. Being prior to space-time in the Great Chain of Being it is the seed reality of space-time. When I entered archetypal reality, my identity as a human being began to fall away. I found that we have a sense more basic that our individual sense of being human. It felt to be here i had to cease to exist not only as a specific person but as a human being per se. This required a deeper surrender than ego-death. This higher platform was a stable state of consciousness beyond the human species-mind. This level of reality is much more energetically powerful than space-time, operating at a higher ‘voltage’. The energy here formed rivers of liquid fire.. white hot lava flowing, exploding sun flares. I had to be able to to sustain these high levels of energy for many hours to remain here. What I experienced here was vast living dynamic forces embodying higher orders of intentionality and power, operating on a different order of time. These archetypal forces are the timeless Universals that gives the world its structure, the master blueprints of creation. Though the majesty and scale of the intelligence of these archetypal forces, human experience is informed. They were so far beyond humanity that even in my expanded state I could not grasp the full scope of their being. Huge. Ancient. Creating through humanity. I saw deeply into the fact that events in space-time echoed the intention of the Forces of Beings of this dimension. It was they who were living and working through the collective patterns of history. I saw patterns of change rippling through the body of humanity as archetypal forces pushed up through the experience of the species as a whole. I experienced our individual minds as nodes in the network of the species-mind, each of us fractally mirroring selective themes of this larger consciousness. I saw that healing the distortions that exist inside our individual minds has a ripple effect that contributes to the healing of the collective species consciousness as a whole. I experienced subtle level reality as being more real than space-time reality. The most distinctive feature of this realm was Clarity, infinitely spacious, saturated with intelligence. Clear beyond imagination.”
Why Incarnate?
“Matter is simply the canvas that mind paints upon. We move into space-time to experiment with our creative abilities. Life is about learning how to control the powers of creativity that are our innate nature. We are learning how to be gods, learning how to create. The goal seemed to be about becoming a fully conscious creative being. At this point of awareness I experienced a brilliant diamond like light breaking forth from my chest. Diamond Consciousness, sparkling luminosity, extremely concentrated Light like a laser but at the same time completely transparent. It was perfectly focused power. I suddenly knew that all my incarnations served the cultivation of this Diamond Energy. From this state of consciousness, all instruction is through initiation, learning by becoming!
Diamond Luminosity:
As one moves into deeper levels of transpersonal experience, one encounters fields nested within fields of light. Each step beyond matter, beyond the collective mind field, and beyond archetypal reality takes us deeper into a living ecology of Light. Eventually, one discovers that the entire universe floats in an Ocean of Radiance. As one moves deeper in the Universe, the quality of light changes. It becomes clearer, more intense, and more luminous. After going through yet one more intense cycle of death and rebirth, I was taken into a brilliantly clear, supremely luminous radiance. Buddhists call this radiance the Clear Light of Absolute Reality. I call it Diamond Luminosity. In earlier sessions of the Cosmic Tour my experience had been one of expanding outward as I explored cosmological landscapes. Now in this session the flow of experience was reversing itself. I experienced myself being at the center of an enormous field of energy and light that I had gained access to, but now this field was being drawn back into me. The energy would become extremely concentrated and explode me into even brighter levels of Light, finally stabilizing it within the center that “I” represent. This concentrated light is taking me through a metamorphosis that is carrying me into an entirely new level of reality in my body. I became completely dissolved into the Light and the Light was inside me. There were almost no distinctions between “me” and the Light. Transparent clarity, exquisite joy, diamond luminosity. Suddenly everything pivoted 90 degrees, and a huge gap opened to reveal entire worlds beyond the world I was in. Shining through them was the most sublime, exquisite LIGHT that was as far beyond the Diamond Light as the Diamond Light is beyond space-time. This Absolute Light hit me like a bolt of lightening. There was an exponential increase in clarity. This last experience lasted only seconds, but it completely changed my understanding of existence. Now I understood that no matter how deeply I entered the Divine Cosmos there would always be deeper dimensions still. I finally understood that there is no end to this journey!”
Collective Awakening:
“There is now a new awareness in human consciousness. Its birth in us is no less difficult than the birth of a new continent. It drives upward from the floor of our being, requiring a transposition of everything that has gone before to make room for its new organizational patterns. This process intends to awaken and move the entire human family into a unified field of awareness.
The mechanisms that lie behind the transition of awakening that we are engaged with are 1) super-conductivity and nonlinear systems. (The hyper-connectivity of the species field and the unprecedented speed with which changes can take place in this field under non-linear conditions.) When fields are put under extreme pressure, small changes can produce disproportionately large effects and shifts. Systems that were previously isolated can suddenly begin interacting with each other, activating latent connectivity in the field. The global crisis will be the catalyst that will push the world into a non-linear system. The species mind then moves into a highly energized state that begins to function differently. The speed with which new formations were emerging in the collective mind reflected the superconductivity of nonlinear systems. These new forms are not just temporary fluctuations, but become permanent psychological structures marking the next stage in humanities long journey of self-activated awareness. The entire process seemed to be driven by strange attractors that were rapidly drawing the system into new patterns of self configuration and organization. In this process, feedback loops are accelerating. Time is becoming concentrated. The ecological crisis will precipitate a death-rebirth confrontation that will shatter our isolation, and bring forward an awakening of common ground in which to create new forms.
The Mechanisms of the Nonlinear Dynamics of Awakening:
1) That the species mind is a unified morphic field.
2) That this field will be driven into a nonlinear or “far-from-equilibrium” state by the extreme circumstances generated by the global ecological crisis.
3) That in this hyper-aroused state, the species-mind will exhibit some of the same nonlinear capacities that scientists have observed in physical systems when they are driven into the nonlinear state; namely, the capacity for rapidly accelerated change, heightened creativity and higher self-organization.
“The Great Awakening that is coming is a shift in the form of our species, in our underlying architecture. It is the fact that we carry our psychological past in our present form that will allow us to transcend this past quickly if our attention is deeply aroused.
In vision I saw humanity dissolving into what looked like a tangled swamp representing the constant digesting and redigesting of human experience that is the topsoil of the reincarnation process. I then saw brilliant sparks of Diamond Light shooting from the planet into deep space. I was witnessing the birth of a brilliant individuality from the swamp. Not an egoic individuality but something larger and brighter. Life was growing an exquisite Soul-Individuality that continues on beyond any frame of reference, capable of integrating larger and larger fields of cosmic experience. We will awaken and when we do we will see the Universe for what it truly is. She is the Body of God, the Great Mother, the Diamond Maker. With this awareness everything begins anew.”
