Answers to Some of Life's Mysteries - Part 1

Introduction

Some years back I was blessed to expereince enlightenment! Afterwards I set up a twitter account and took questions from random readers. The following is a recollection of my experiences and answers to many questions that I was asked. Feel free to reach out for any clarification. Also, please enjoy my original images. Thank you!

I was born in Ohio, in 1971, to a loving hippie couple of varying ethnic backgrounds. My father is African-American with one quarter of Cherokee blood and my mother's grandparents emigrated from Slovenia.

As a young child I was very interested in mathematics, my father being a math teacher was a definite encouragement. I can remember coming home from kindergarten and first grade and bothering him until he would give me problems to solve. My favorite problems were the ones where a few numbers of a sequence were given and the object was to figure out what the next number was. In first grade I was doing addition and subtraction of fractions. I tested out of math all the way up until honors geometry in high-school.

We moved around many times while I was growing up. The most interesting place would have to be Vermont. We lived in the middle of 50 acres of land with a quarter mile driveway, amidst the forest. My father, with the help of my mother, two high school students, and my 8 year old self, built a pyramid attached to a geodesic dome. The dome was a reconstruction of a home that we had lived in before, the panels had been put away in storage. The pyramid was constructed to match the angles and direction of one of the great pyramids, Cheops, in Egypt. My parents believed that pyramids could amplify spiritual energy and had used smaller pyramids for meditation in the past. The pyramid that we lived in at that time was three stories tall, the top floor being a conservative sized meditation chamber. We lived there for approximately two years. I'm not sure exactly how the experience affected who I am today, but I feel it was relevant.

There are a few other rather random factors preceding my experience that I think are worth mentioning regarding my up bringing and past. One thing is that I was brought up as vegetarian, I've never intentionally ate meat. My parents became vegetarians before I was born, in the late 1960's. They were also very interested in astrology, palmistry and tarot cards, my father being adept at all three and my mother the latter. They brought me up to be open minded to spiritual practices, never really influencing me to believe even as they do, but by encouraging me to seek my own answers. I experimented with various psychedelic drugs in high-school including marijuana, mushrooms, and LSD. The experience taught me how much our reality is based on our perception and it also taught me some of the potential of the human mind. I always instinctually believed that we only use a small part of the power our minds’ posses and that the only thing holding us back from things like levitation was our lack of faith.

Two experiences in my high school years stand out, further solidifying my belief in mental power. The first one is that one day I was walking home from school with a small group of friends. We were walking though a grassy field that was bordered by an apartment complex which was raised a little over 5 feet from the level of the field. I can remember it being the height of my shoulders and I'm 6 feet, 3 inches tall. I instantaneously had a feeling that I could jump this height, and without doubting or contemplating it, I jumped to the top of it, from a walking pace! The friends that I was with were as completely astounded as I was. The second thing that I experienced was under the influence of LSD. I was talking with a friend of mine and two girls that we didn't know, outside of my apartment. I was eighteen years old at this time and living with a roommate. Anyway, for a good seven minutes of conversation I knew word for word what each person was going to say before they said it. Actually, because of my mind state, I wasn't sure if I was somehow influencing them to say what they were saying or if I was just picking up their words telepathically.

I began practicing Yoga, meditation, and doing 'good deeds' like giving up my seat on the subway, opening the door for others, helping the elderly cross the street, etc. My bedroom in the apartment, that I shared with my girlfriend at the time, was wall papered in notes from the research that I was doing. This consisted of equations, notes about vibrations, mandalas, I-Ching trigrams, the Torah's Tree of Life, chakra illustrations, binary number charts, metaphysical symbols and more. I was practicing Yoga everyday to the extent that I would ignore the strange looks from passengers, and practiced breathing exercises on the subway ride to work.

Now I will go through the questions that I received. Each question is answered in a more or less self contained fashion so certain ideas are repeated. I have done my best to sort the questions in a logic manner. The first ones are questions that pertain most directly to me and my personal experiences. The next group is about my opinion on a few general topics. After that the questions are more personal to the questioner, but I believe that they are universal challenges that are easy to relate to. The last few kind of described where I’m at now and where I plan to go. This is my attempt to share my blessings with others. These are my answers and how I feel now, my feelings may change in the future. I hope that what I say doesn’t come across as being pretentious or all knowing. I believe that every human is of equal value and their opinions are of equal value. These just happen to be mine.

What experience led you to believe that you have so many answers?

At the age of twenty-two I experienced what mystics would call Nirvana. This is what happened on that life altering day (I should mention that I was not on any kind of drug):

I was having a huge fight with my girlfriend at that time. The fight was about her frustration with me only working part-time at a bookstore and spending all of my free time locked into the pursuit of answering personal spiritual questions. She wanted me to contribute more financially and began to insult me and my ideals. She said anything and everything possible to hurt me and pretty much shattered my idealistic concept of love. The things she said hurt me so bad at the moment I didn't want to be alive, and wanted to renounce the reality of my life. With my entire essence I pushed away from the situation, I threw away all of the clinging to my ego in an attempt to escape.

The next thing I knew I existed in two places simultaneously, and had a dual awareness, feeling as though “I” had lost it’s meaning. One consciousness was on the bed and governing my physical body, the other was solitary in a peaceful emptiness. Before my mind could define the lack of light as darkness and attach the instinctual fear associated with a void of physical sensation, an outline of a door appeared in golden light, turning the emptiness black in contrast. Even at twenty-two I sometimes felt afraid in the dark, but I was consciously aware of a deep encompassing love, justifying my trust and openness. There was no fear. I reached out for the door and as my arm extended for contact, its molecules began to vibrate, creating a gradient, from physicality (my momentary definition of self) to energy, and my fingertips merged with the light emitting from the portal. The difference between my fingers and arm, and the light extending from the door, had completely disappeared! The door opened at my beckoning desire to penetrate it and now an immense burst of light upon the door's opening reached out for me. I became the light, focused in a beam, traveling to its source beyond the door's boundaries.

The entrance revealed a vast city of gold so reflective that it seemed barely more solid than energy. I immediately knew that the city was the kingdom of Universe, and that its appearance was symbolic to communicate its definition to me at that moment. I felt that it could have been green or black, a hut or a planet, or whatever. It took the form needed to communicate personally to me what it was, intimate to the voyeur. I also knew that anything that I “saw” would follow those same laws, its details only limited to the symbolic vocabulary of the perceiver. I, the beam, zoomed through a clear central road, which perfectly divided the shimmering city. As I passed by the first building, my mind was splashed with information so fractured that it was almost trivial. Again my instincts kicked in and I knew not to focus on any of the information that was flooding my mind. I took a meditative mental demeanor, allowing the details to pass though without contemplation, an uninterrupted flow. In, and, then out. Besides, there was so much information flowing into my mind that at any instance of containment or reflection, my mind would have been filled to capacity or blown! I did feel an instant of fear when I realized this and the seriousness of my current situation. I knew that my sanity was on the line, but still I remained open and curious.

Even traveling at the speed of light, I was able to see the “end” (the city stopped abruptly with nothing visible beyond it, like an island surrounded by nothingness) of the city approach, at the same time the information was steadily simplifying. It was like absorbing a tree, twigs first, to branches, leading to one trunk, where all of the branches originated and became one. The information that was passing through my mind was now strictly mathematical, again transitioning from complex equations beyond my comprehension and finally converging with the simplicity of 1+1. The end of the city was the seed of the “tree”. Every thought, feeling, truth, energy, reality, etc., unraveled from the one, and became the all. Before I could take a break from the bombardment of realizations and reflect, I began to travel backward through time. Starting at the moment prior to this experience, I was aware of existing on the bed twice, then of the catalyst of my experience.

Time continued to reverse, and I relived my entire life, moment by moment, every experience, spiraling backward. I heard my mothers heart beat while I was in her womb, the absolute peace prior to the crying of my first solitary breath of air. One last retreat and I was at the moment before this incarnation, one with all, yet myself. There was a unifying consciousness here, the Universe. the Universe communicated this to me, "Now do you see? Do you see how perfect everything is?" I was then presented with a clear view of reality. In a flash I understood the answers to my questions, I understood the accuracy of karma, I understood the amazing love that exists ‘in-between’ our incarnations (and present during life but generally shielded by the illusion of our separateness). That place where all of our loved ones always exist. I understood that that ‘point’ in time was also me looking forward into my future. It was as if before I began this life I was also shown the perfectness of all things, and before this life I was aware of what this life would entail. In fact, as we all do, I chose this life to become who I needed to be!

I saw an overview of the planet Earth and understood its past and it’s future. There were lines of connection all over it. I was able to understand and witness the laws of karma. Everything truly happened and would happen for the right reason. Both this, and the understanding of the karma in my own personal life allowed me to realize how important forgiveness is. In an instant I forgave everyone for anything they had done to me and also forgave myself for things that I had done. This new found forgiveness was the key to unlocking true love for myself and ultimately love for others.

The moment that followed, my consciousness was once again back within my physical body. The tears that had begun my journey where replaced by hysterical laughter and joy! I'm not sure how much actual time transpired during my experience but my girlfriend was of course in awe at the complete turnaround of the emotions that I was expressing. I looked at her and I looked around the living room of our apartment with an understanding of things on a whole different level. I looked at some paintings that were on the wall, and I understood the intention of every stroke. Both what the artist wished to express consciously and what they expressed subconsciously. I gazed at our table and all of it's details where also revealed to me. The various architects that designed the shape, the metal joints and even the screws. I understood the tables construction and it's destruction, down to its' future decomposition back into dust. All the while I was still laughing hysterically. I looked again at my girlfriend, her face was now twisted in fear, and I realized that if I didn't stop laughing I was going to wind up institutionalized. How on earth would I be able to go to work or socialize with people in such a mental state? I just couldn't stop laughing though! I got up, went into the bathroom and turned on the cold water. I splashed my face with it over and over again. Then I began to slap my face as well until after about ten to fifteen minutes, the laughter shrank to a smile. Eventually, I was at least outwardly normal and inwardly comfortable. Luckily, I retained the answers that I was looking for initially and more.

My answers are not static however, and are limited to my perception at any given point, which may change. Therefore, I also encourage the questioning of my ‘answers’.

..to be continued!