reality – Western Tantra

Time

Professor Andrei Pimenov and associates at the Institute of Solid State Physics at the Vienna University of Technology recently discovered a way to directly measure the fine structure constant that relates to the strength of electromagnetic fields. Their method involved interacting a polarized laser light with a thin film. They determined that the thin film rotated the polarization of the laser light in quantized angles exactly equal to the fine structure constant.

This research shows that this rotation in the physical world is not smooth and continuous but rather happens in a series of tiny angles, the way a movie is not continuous movement but rather a sequence of still images. But what transmits the quality of rotation from one angle to the next? In a movie, there is a mechanism that turns off the image, selects the next image, and paints the next image on the screen. Taking a conceptual quantum leap, this suggests that in our world, everything at the quantum level is like this, a series of static moments of reality connected in some way from the past moment to the present, then to the next moment in a series of tiny quantum leaps.

If so, what transmits the information defining the present moment to the next moment of time? Something fluid and invisible happens between each moment and the next and seems to be related to consciousness. Intuition suggests that if we could insert ourselves into that fluid interval between one moment and the next, we could alter reality more profoundly than if we just watch life passively like the audience for a movie. Our physical bodies and senses always lag behind reality by the few tenths of a second it takes our sensors and nerves to transmit to the brain and process the information. We are always reacting to the past. Our deeper consciousness that we call the Soul does not seem to have this limitation.

In meditation, we are told we can access this dynamic fluid moment between each quantum of static reality. In Buddhism, we call this “catching up to the present moment” or “going with the flow.” It takes mental stillness or “no thought” to be in this mental state. It’s what we call wow or aha moments that are difficult to achieve and even harder to maintain for any length of time. When we can do this, magic happens. When I try to conceptualize this process, my brain gets boggled and shuts down. But intuition let me write a poem about this:

When we live within our heart,

We dwell within the cracks of time,

Between the tick and the tock,

Where anything is possible.

This idea of fluid moments connecting quantum leaps is a bit rough and speculative, but aligns with what advanced meditators say to be true. It feels like here may be a key to understanding reality, if only I had the intelligence to put the pieces of the puzzle together. What do you think? Can you clarify, expand, or refute this?

Meditation–Deep Dive

The following Deep Dive Meditation is designed to provide an understanding of the three levels of reality and how it feels to work in each realm. Repeat as needed until you understand the difference between the Material, Spiritual, and Divine realms and the power of the creative wish. Either record the meditation so you can do it with eyes closed, or imagine that your eyes are closed as you read the meditation. Here is the meditation:

Imagine yourself in the Material world as you are, sitting comfortably in your own dwelling or a quiet place you have selected. Start with your eyes open, then close them and visualize what you just saw, yourself sitting where you are.

Visualize yourself getting up and walking around this location where you are, as you sit with your eyes closed. Pick up some things in your imagination, and feel how firm and real they feel. Think, “These things are physical and real.” Wonder at how they came to exist. Visualize returning to where you are sitting.

You wish to know how physical things came to be, and feel a slight jerk. The place where you are sitting begins to move down like an elevator to another level under the physical world. Here with your mind’s eye you see crafts people designing and building all the things in the room where you were sitting. Architects drew the plans for the room. Carpenters constructed the walls, floors, and ceilings. Artists planned the floor coverings, and weavers wove them on looms. Designers sent plans to shops to build the furnishings. Painters and photographers created the room decorations. Movers on elevators took all these things from below and installed them in the room above where you were meditating. See all this in your mind’s eye.

You decide to explore this Spirit realm of mental forms where ideas are turned into real things. Here you see many beautiful works of art, functional objects, and amazing tools and machines, all with people creating them. You wonder where they get the ideas for these amazing things. You notice each of the makers has a well next to them. They often lower a bucket into their well and bring it up brimming with bright ideas, which they apply to what they are creating.

You pick one of the work stations and ask the worker if she will lower you down her well to see what is there. She agrees. You sit with your feet in her bucket and grip its rope tightly as she lowers you down her well. It is dark in the tunnel of the well, but there is bright light at the bottom which grows brighter as you are lowered. You emerge into formless light and are surrounded by it, immersing you in indescribable joy.

The light is too bright for your eyes, so you keep them closed and feel ideas bumping against you. You reach into the light with one hand. Ideas are elusive and hard to grasp. You find you must concentrate. Still your mind and focus without thought on your outstretched hand. Pause and focus for a while on your hand. Stay focused until your attention rests gently on your hand.

Finally, with a quiet mind, you manage to grasp one of the ideas with your free hand. Imagine closing you hand gently on the idea. You shout, “Bring me up!” to the owner of the well and she hauls you up the dark tunnel to the workshop of visualized forms. You both gaze at the bright idea you brought back, and she helps you craft it into a Real thing.

You thank her for your help, and she wishes you well on your return trip. You walk to the elevator that brought you to this level, and sit again in meditation. Now you wish to return to the Real world of Material form, and the elevator lifts you back to the room where you started. You realize you just made a trip from the Material world of everyday physical form down to the Spirit realm of imagination where mental ideas take form and are transformed into Real things. From there, you plumbed the well of the formless Divine realm where ideas are born, and you brought one back with you. Open your eyes and look at what you created from the bright idea you captured. What did you bring back?

Tuning

We all live in different inner worlds. We project this inner world on our outer world, distorting our view of the world around us. In other words, we tune our minds to perceive the world in our own unique way. If you do not like the world you live in, learn to tune your mind to a different reality. As the Buddhist masters say, “If you would change the world, first change your mind.”

We start life with chaotic minds. Everything vibrates. As Spiritual Children (see Glossary of Terms), our attention flits from here to there, from bright, shiny objects to interesting sights and sounds, to pleasures and pains of our bodies. As we mature, we gain some control over our minds and can focus our attention on tasks as long as we are not distracted by outside events or compelling thoughts from our own minds. Some of us take up meditation and encounter a constant stream of distracting thoughts, called the “monkey mind” that tightly grasps a thought and reaches for another before letting go of the first, like a monkey swinging through trees from branch to branch, never still. Always oscillating.

Watch a young child try to tune an old-fashioned radio, the kind with a dial that changes the frequency in order to “tune-in” to various frequencies that have radio stations. You may have to visit an old person or ham radio operator to find one of these radios. When a young child tries to work this kind of radio, they rapidly twist the dial one way and the other and hear nothing. They think nothing is there. Hand the radio to an adult and they turn the dial slowly, and a host of different radio stations are found. Do this with a short-wave radio, and an entire world of communications opens up to us.

We all have such a radio within us that is capable of tuning in to a universe of possibilities in the Spirit world. We also have the five senses of the body, each sense pre-tuned to a specific energy type, frequency, and range of energy: light, heat, touch, smell, and sound. These pre-tuned senses allow us to operate in the world, even with immature monkey minds. Those with Child minds think that if they cannot sense something, it does not exist. But time, space, love, hate, dreams and many other things exist and affect the world, even though they do not register within the pre-set range of our bodily senses. Skeptics notwithstanding, there is a sixth sense capable of tuning in to the Spirit world, and all of us can learn to use it.

Step one is learn to control your mind, teach it to be still. The monkey mind of a Child cannot hold its attention on one object long enough, like trying to tune that radio by spinning the dial. They hear nothing but static. Meditation is the training to quiet the mind, especially shine (shi-ne, pronounced “she-nay”), shamatha, calm abiding, single-pointed meditation, zazen, centering prayer, and similar methods. This takes practice.

Once you can focus your mind reliably on a single object or thought, or no thought at all, the next question is what do you want to see? What world do you want to live in? The Spirit world contains everything that can be imagined, infinite possibilities. Heavens and hells exist there, and everything in between. If you have a mindset that pits you alone against a hostile world or particular groups at war with others, that is the vibrational state your mind is tuned to, and that is where your mind will go to dwell. That is hell.

We put our minds in heavens and hells in this life and the next by the power of our beliefs, by the aspects of reality we tune our minds to. Fortunately, if we have control over our minds, we can retune our Spirit world perception to a different reality. We can leave hell and live in heaven, even in this life.

All established religions have rituals and practices designed to put us in a heavenly state of mind, and have commitments to help keep us there. The Western Tantric method is to visualize yourself as a divine or heroic archetype, and see yourself surrounded by others who are saints, angels, heroes, buddhas, and developing Children with those potentials. Try to help others at all times in any ways possible until you find yourself loving everyone and hating none. This tunes your mind to that vibrational frequency. When you drop the boundary between yourself and others while tuned to a loving totality, your immortal stream of consciousness will be in heaven, even while still in your human body in the world as-it-is, a perfect place to learn to be human.

A word of caution, when you drop the boundary between yourself and the universe, you will have access to the feelings of others, as well as other worlds and states of being. It’s best to have a firm commitment to a religion, philosophy, or personal code of ethics before tuning in to other worlds in the Spirit realm of imagination. Try to find guides in the physical world and the Spirit world who can help you if you find yourself on a meditation “bad trip.” Take baby steps in meditation and tuning your mind, and be careful until you can fly. Let us know what you find.