Читать книгу Angels, Fairies, Demons, and the Elementals - John Van Auken - Страница 12

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1) (Here “heavens” is the Hewbrew word shamayim, which has a dual meaning comparable in English to “the lofts” or “lofty places,” likely referring to the dual realms of the visible sky and then the ether of celestial regions beyond the sky. Most every translation of this Bible verse uses the plural “heavens” except for the King James.) In all translations of the Bible, this opening line clearly indicates that there are heavens, not simply a heaven. We acknowledge this in our language; for example, when a person says, “I was in seventh heaven,” he means that he was the happiest he could be, because the seventh heaven is the highest heaven in lore and legend. The mystical Jewish texts that make up the Kabbalah detail these seven heavens and give insight into how one may traverse them while incarnate in this world. In other words, one does not have to die to experience the heavens. The disciple Paul revealed this when he wrote, “I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago . . . was caught up even to the third heaven.” (II Corinthians, 12:2) Paul was speaking of himself about an experience he had while incarnate.

In Kabbalah’s Merkabah mysticism—based on the visions of Ezekiel, Isaiah, and Daniel and found in Hekhalot writings—these teachings instruct how one may ascend to and through the heavens by meditative practices, passing from one level of heaven to another, finally entering through the “seven palaces” in the “seventh heaven” to the very “throne of God.”

Curiously, Cayce’s metaphysical discourses agree with the teachings of Merkabah. This name means “chariots” and is a metaphor for heavenly “vehicles” that enable us to make passage through the heavens. The ancient Egyptians had the same concept but used boats to traverse the heavens. In the following Cayce discourse, the three-dimensional imagery of chariots shifts to fourth-dimensional states of consciousness. An angelic being is speaking through Cayce’s trance-state body. Notice how the angelic being uses a three-dimensional object, “the Throne,” but then gives the fourth-dimensional description: “threshold of Universal Consciousness.” Here’s the Cayce discourse:

. . . no one approaches the Throne—or the threshold of universal consciousness—without that purpose of either lifting self to that consciousness or bringing us [heavenly angels] down to their own ideal . . . Then why, even I [a heavenly angel], should I make thee falter, or why should one seek less than the Gods of Glory?

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There are two comments in this reading that need elaboration: 1) From the perspective of the angel speaking through or being channeled by Cayce, we are to lift ourselves up through the heavens to the “Throne” of God or Universal Consciousness, for the other way—bringing heaven down to us—does not help awaken us to grow toward our destiny with our infinite Creator. 2) This guidance from the angel also touches on the often-ignored teaching that we are gods—sons and daughters of the Most High—as written in Psalm 82:6 (KJV): “I have said, Ye are gods, all of you are children of the most High.” And even Jesus referred us to this passage by an answer he gave to the Pharisees in the gospel of John 10:33-34 (KJV): “’For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.’” “Jesus answered them, ‘Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?’” Jesus is referring to the line in Psalm 82.

Given our present condition and circumstances, I realize how difficult it is for us to think we could possibly be gods. It may help us if we use the ancient Egyptian term: godlings. We are godlings of the great God; the one supreme God conceived us in His/Her image as recorded in chapter one of Genesis: “And God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness . . .’ And so God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” (Genesis 1:26-27, KJV) Of course this was not the physical creation of our bodily existence that came later in chapter 2: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” (Genesis 2:7, KJV)

Cayce addresses the challenges we face in making passage from this world or level of consciousness to the higher dimensions of awareness, the heavenly realms:

Passing from the material consciousness to a spiritual or cosmic . . . oft does an entity or being not become conscious of that about it; much in the same manner as an entity born into the material plane only becomes conscious gradually of that designated as time and space for the material or third dimensional plane. In the passage the entity becomes conscious . . . of being in a fourth or higher dimensional plane takes place, much in the same way as the consciousness is gained in the material. For, as we have given, that we see manifested in the material plane is but a shadow of that in the spiritual plane.

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It was teachings like this one from Edgar Cayce that encouraged me to budget time in my incarnate life to practice and experience the higher dimensions, and from my early twenties I have used Cayce, ancient Eastern, and Kabbalistic methods and concepts to become conscious of making passage through the heavens without losing touch with my life and relationships in this world. And just as Cayce said, we awaken to the higher, heavenly dimensions in the same way that we awaken to a more expanded consciousness of this world. As to the nature of perception in the higher dimensions, Cayce explains that this plane of existence is like a “shadow” of the invisible realms: “There is no difference in the unseen world to that that is visible, save in the unseen so much greater expanse or space may be covered!” (5754-3) My experiences with the higher dimensions is just as Cayce indicated; they feel more expansive than the physical world, more open, and my spirit/mind seems to move through them easily and quickly. Many others have had the same experiences with the nonphysical dimensions. It’s a shift in consciousness, in perception, from finite to infinite, from an individual to a universal. This is one reason why so many meditators describe feeling a profound oneness with all life when in deep meditation. Aloneness or individualness dissolves into collectiveness and universalness.

When Cayce talked about soul travel—not bodily travel—he described the three-dimensional objects—planets, stars, and the like—as “shadows” of their higher-dimensional condition. In Cayce’s trance-state perception, our solar system is a physical expression of mental and spiritual realities. Here’s an example:

As an entity passes on . . . from this present [time] or this solar system, this sun, these forces, it passes through the various spheres—leading first into that central force . . . known as Arcturus [this star is Cayce’s “star gate” in and out of our solar system]—nearer the Pleiades—on and on—through the eons of time, as called—or space . . . [Eventually, an entity passes] into the inner forces, inner sense, then may they again—after a period of nearly ten thousand years . . . enter into the earth to make manifest those forces gained in its passage. In entering, [the entity] takes on those forms that may be known in the dimensions of that plane which it occupies, there being not only three dimensions—as of the Earth—but there may be seven, in Mercury—or four, in Venus—or five, as in Jupiter. There may be only one as in Mars. There may be many more as in those of Neptune, or they may become even as nil—until purified in Saturn’s fires.

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Keep in mind that he is not talking about landing on the physical surface of these planets but rather entering their higher dimensional realms of consciousness, vibration, and non-physical existence. Think of our world and our condition here as H₂O in solid form or ice, and then the next highest realms or heavens are like H₂O in a more fluid, liquid form, and the even higher realms are as H₂O in vaporous or cloud-like forms. This may help us get some sense of how a being can exist in different conditions—solid, liquid, and vapor—and yet retain its fundamental essence, H₂O in this example. These conditions of H₂O are comparable to physical, mental, and spiritual conditions: solid, liquid, and vapor.

Let’s continue. Cayce identifies our soul’s motivation as follows:

“As [the entity] moves from sphere to sphere, [it] seeks its way to the home, to the face of the Creator, the Father, the first cause.” (136-83) Cayce identifies the first cause as: “. . . that the created would be the companion for the Creator.” This is the reason we were created, and as a result, the created (our soul) is given opportunities to “show itself to be not only worthy of, but companionable to, the Creator.” (5753-1) Now we should realize that we are talking about being companionable to the Creator of the entire universe, so we do not want to be boring companions! For this reason, our souls are well motivated to explore, learn, and grow!

As I mentioned earlier and wrote about in my book Edgar Cayce and the Kabbalah, there are Kabbalah texts teaching one how to ascend through the “heavenly palaces” (Hekhalot means “palaces of heaven”) and what the experience will be in these various non-physical palaces or realms of the seven heavens. There are also Kabbalah texts teaching how one may draw down angelic spirits to interact with us. Cayce’s readings are not against this, but they encourage us to let God send the guides and angels, for God knows best, and we have a tendency to attract the wrong energies, or at least the lesser ones. Cayce’s instruction would be to ask God to send angelic help rather than attempt to evoke such with our own will and desire. And whenever possible, Cayce encourages us to lift our minds and hearts up into the heavens rather than draw entities down from heaven—just as the channeled angel instructed earlier.

There are several larger documents of the Hekhalot texts, such as Hekhalot Rabbati (in which six of the seven palaces of God are described), Hekhalot Zutarti, Shiur Komah, and 3 Khanokh (which is also known as 3 Enoch, and contains “The Book of the Palaces,” “The Book of Rabbi Ishmael the High Priest,” and “The Revelation of Metatron”). There are also hundreds of small documents, many little more than fragments, which address the concept of heavenly realms (palaces, firmaments, and planes) and describe methods for traversing them (though this is very dangerous and requires much practice and skill—as well as a pure heart and a focused and shielded mind). I’ll describe these in a moment.

The meditative journey through the seven heavens was also known and practiced among various Gnostic groups and some early Christians—often in secret. As I wrote earlier and bears repeating, it would appear that the disciple Paul had made this passage: “I know a man in Christ, fourteen years ago (whether in the body, I don’t know, or whether out of the body, I don’t know; God knows), such a one caught up into the third heaven.” (II Corinthians, 12:2) Paul appears to have used a method in which the Spirit draws us up into a level of Its presence. In this case, Paul was “caught up” to the third heaven. Notice also that Paul could not determine if he was in his body or out of it. Out-of-body experiences are so much a part of our modern culture that we now have an acronym for them: OBE. But this is not just a modern phenomenon, it was known back in Paul’s time as well, coming from the Greek term for “self watcher,” meaning viewing the surrounding environment from a position outside of one’s body. The English word for the original Greek word is “autoscopy.” Also associated with OBE are astral projection (meaning the separation of the astral body from its connection to the physical body), soul travel, and spirit walking, even the most modern of experiences—“near-death experiences” (NDEs)—are among out-of-body experiences—they are a result of modern medicine’s abilities to revive a dead body under certain circumstances, and the revived person then describing how they saw their dead body and what the doctors and nurses did to revive it. Paul experienced one of these transcending events, and it allowed him to visit, or at least perceive, the third level of the heavens.

In the Koran, dictated to Mohammed by the archangel Gabriel, it is written, “See you not how Allah [literally in Arabic, “the God”] has created the seven heavens one above another, and made the moon a light in their midst and made the sun a lamp?” (Sura 71)

In most teachings of the Kabbalah, the seven heavens are listed from lowest to highest as follows:

1. Veil (Hebrew, Vilon—the curtain, the veil of heaven (Vilon Shemaim); taken from Isaiah 40:22, “It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and earth’s inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain [or veil], and spreads them like a tent to dwell in.”

2. Firmament (Raki’a—the firmament, the canopy, the expanse of heaven, which are the stars, moon, and sun; mentioned in Gen 1:14-18, “‘Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light upon the earth.’ And it was so. And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light upon the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.”

3. Cloud/Sky (Shehakim—the clouds from which the manna from heaven fell to nourish the seekers. Here is where the well of the “water of life” is and the fountain of gardens. These associations are taken from Psalm 78:24-26, “And He commanded the skies above, and opened the doors of heaven; and He caused manna to rain upon them for food,” and the “cloud” in 1 Kings 8:10-13, “And when the priests came out of the holy place, a cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord. Then Solomon said, ‘The Lord has set the sun in the heavens, but has said that he would dwell in thick darkness. I have built thee an exalted house, a place for thee to dwell in forever.’”

4. Mansion (Zebul—the lofty dwelling, “mansion of holiness” (zevul kodshekha) taken from Psalm 93:5, considered the temple-mansion in the Golden City. As found in I Kings 8:13, “I have surely built Thee a house of habitation, a place for Thee to dwell in forever. And whence do we derive that it is called heaven?” and in Isaiah 63:15, “Look down from heaven, and see, even from Thy holy and glorious habitation.” And Jesus refers to mansions in John 14:1-4, “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.” Now Thomas challenges this, telling Jesus that they do not know where he is going or the way. But we do; and we have to go back to an answer Jesus gave Nicodemus to understand how this could be: “No one has ascended into heaven but he/she who descended from heaven, even the Son of man.” (John 3:13) We are the children of God, and as such we originated in the heavens, thus our souls descended from the heavens in order to incarnate in this world, and we’ll ascend back into heavens after our physical body dies. This is how Jesus can say, you know where I’m going and you know the way.

5. Dwelling (Ma’on—the refuge, a place of peace from the struggles. Home of the ministering angels mentioned in Deuteronomy 26:15, “Thy holy habitation.”

6. “City of God” (Makon—the changeless, perfect residence, containing the template or prototype for all life forms. This is the storehouse of good, eternal treasures. The name is taken from Psalm 46:5-6, “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved; God will help her right early.”

7. “Vast Plains of God” (Aravot—the highest heaven, the vast expansive plains of Infinity. This is the Divine Womb from which all life originally came into being and to which it returns, as taken from Psalm 68:4-5, “Lift up a song to him who rides upon the infinite plains; his name is the Lord, exult before him! Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation.”

Notice that the first three heavens are associated with physical life, the second three with mental dimensions of consciousness, and the last with Infinity—a quality that human beings would have difficulty knowing directly because of their finite focus. Yet, through careful passage during deep meditation and transcendent ecstasy, we can rise to levels of consciousness in the Infinite Mind of God.

The most important heaven for us is the lowest one, the Veil or Curtain, because if we can perceive it and develop a conscious awareness of it, then we have made the first big step toward total spiritual awakening. Despite what you may think, we know this veil well and are familiar with the qualities of our mind on both sides of this veil. To use a familiar example, how many times have we had a dream that impressed us (either scared us or inspired us or simply caught our attention), and as we came closer to waking, we noticed that our bladder was full, so we decided to go empty the bladder and then come back to the bed and reflect on the dream? Yet, when we returned to our bed, the dream was completely gone! We had no recollection of it. How is this possible? It is because we just experienced the veil, a most subtle yet opaque veil! When in the dream, we were in our soul mind and were quite comfortable there. We knew it as a part of ourselves. Then, as we engaged our body to walk to the bathroom, we passed through this veil into our outer mind, which is awakened to move the body. However, our outer mind did not have the dream! It has no content of the dream, only a sense that the inner mind has content that is going to be reviewed. But it does not contain that content. Now we see just how subtle and yet opaque this veil is. We do not even notice when we pass through it, and yet, once on the other side, we cannot see back through it.

Fortunately, that’s only partially true, because if we practice becoming more aware of the subtle aspects of our consciousness, we will come to perceive the movement through the veil and know which side of the veil we are on at any given time.

Now that we have some knowledge of the heavens, let’s look into the classical understanding of angels.