Paradox

Part of this potential of dreams is an experience of going beyond opposites, of resolving paradoxes, of moving beyond the limitations of the rational mind and emotional responses.

Going beyond paradox. In this altered state of consciousness something is experienced where all the opposites of life are resolved, where everything is true and untrue at the same time. It is what Buddhists call the Void, in which there is no form, no ego, no certainty, no past, no future, no beginning to move from and no goal to reach. Although it can be a disturbing experience when first met, it has the possibility of bringing enormous liberation. This is because our ego and our usual values are usually embedded in concepts that can only ever be either this or that; only ever be partially true; only ever be a fragment of reality. One might for instance develop ones identity out of being male or female, out of being honest or a villain. The Void strips all this away. Nothing one can think, nothing one can aim at as a standard, is anything more than an insignificant molecule of information in the vast ocean of energy and consciousness. It doesn’t matter whether we think about the sun or a mote of dust, a thought is never ever more than a definition from a particular viewpoint of something that is multidimensional and beyond any final definition. See paradise 

Example: the women of the tribe are dancing in front of me. They are bare breasted and their dance is about being female. My sense is that they are calling my masculine energy, raising or rousing it in preparation for something like an initiation I am about to pass through. I am the elder and they are readying me for a further initiation. What they are doing is traditional, and it is to set the scene for what I am to face or confront.

Now the preparations have ended and I am to go off alone up the mountains to meet whatever waits for me there. Now it feels as if something is flowing into my body. I am now experiencing a state or condition that has been very marked or strong in my life lately. My breathing became very slow, it seems even at times as if it has stopped, and everything becomes very still. It feels like being dead. My body becomes so still it disappears and all that is left is awareness submerged in enormous emptiness or space. There is a paradox in this experience because it feels as if I, my sense of self, has melted away, and yet there is still a very definite experience of existing. I suppose what has stopped is what I have called movement. The movement of thinking, of feeling, of longing or hoping for things.

There is this huge reality confronting us all the time. We call this reality death. And often that has an awful face for us. But I am feeling it as joy, a most wonderful joy. It is here in the darkness I am experiencing – that joy. The waves of this gentle joy flow through me. It is like floating in a subtle ocean and my consciousness, my being, is gently lifted and moved by the waves of this quiet joy.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I ever experienced a paradox fully – knowing both sides without conflict?

Do I ever ascend above the world of thought and words into the amazing space beyond?

What did I meet in the dream?

See What is the experience of enlightenment like? – A Look at Enlightenment – Enlightenment Being or Becoming?