Realms of Mind

2025, April, Issue 143

Within this energetic field,

dynamic storms beyond,

manifesting mere appearances,

simply dreams within dreams within

dreams, turbulent, blissful,

pain unending,

all possibilities, all beings,

realms of beings unimagined,

unimagined by mere human minds,

all the pleasure and pride,

anger and hate, jealousy and war

of not knowing, not knowing,

discordant erupting cacophony,

greed and fear, along with desire;

Beings manifest in any way possible,

both seen and unseen,

form and formless, and ways unknown

with most beyond, beyond

our feeble imagination;

Where is this thing we call mind?

Where is this notion of consciousness?

Where do we go when we die, suddenly

finding ourselves plunging

through turbulent manifestations,

at the mercy of great storms,

without any sort of physical body,

without frame of reference,

not knowing what to do

in this energetic dynamic

reality we face, in this,

in this what do we do

in this, this terrible

field of mind in motion?

A poem by Robert Aho © 2025

With my death experience, I explained a little bit about my return through the energetic dimension. Some things about that dimension were more violent than anything we could possibly imagine or witness here on Earth. Now, it was not my intention to frighten anyone. My intention was to give you some idea about what you need to think about as you prepare for death. In order to remain at ease within the energetic dimension, or what we call the Sambhogakaya, you will need to start investigating mind. This is very important.

When we die, it’s much more typical for us to find ourselves flailing about uncontrollably in this incredibly turbulent dimension where all things are possible. We might see a light at the end of a tunnel; however, this vibrating explosive condition presents itself with much more immediacy. If we have not sufficiently prepared, we may not know what to do. We may likely imagine the worst. Karma will propel us into whatever Realm of Mind we create with our habitual emotions and accumulated tendencies. It’s not a punishment, it is a result of our own actions, of our own condition of mind.

People ask me about heaven and hell, often looking for me to reassure them by validating their beliefs. My answer is usually something like, “There are more heavens than we can imagine” or something similar to that. In reality, all possibilities exist at once, and we are not limited to anything that we can ever believe.

Many of the people whom I’ve encountered in Buddhism have a history with Christianity. Usually, these individuals have had very bad experiences, and they simply wanted nothing to do with that ever again. I understand that completely. The tendency is to throw out the baby with the bathwater when such things happen, when we’ve been traumatized by people who should have known better. Buddhism provides an environment that is really more like what Christianity should have been, something where we are encouraged to ask questions and think for ourselves, as well as something that holds love and compassion as the central teaching, rather than judgement, fear and blind faith.

So, when I mention something like the Realms of Mind and the Six Classes of Beings, please don’t think that I’m talking about something you should just accept. Really question what I am saying, really investigate your mind. This will give you some idea about what we must face, which is really something that we face every day.

When we investigate mind, you might start to understand how we really create everything. Something makes us angry, and we create a hell for ourselves in that way. We find pleasure in something, maybe falling in love with someone, and we suddenly see the world in a way that everything gives us pleasure and delight. We might become miserly, and then suddenly feel that whatever we have is never enough.

These are Realms of Mind. Anger is the Hell Realm. This incredible pleasure is the God Realm. When we are greedy, that is the Hungry Ghost Realm. As humans we can identify with these in our lives, as we are given a taste due to our unique condition as humans. We can also identify with the ignorance of animals and the wrathful jealousy of asuras. These are all aspects of mind.

We can say that we will be reborn in a certain realm, even though we can’t physically visit such places. Such realms are not accessible through anything other than mind. Even being a human is not possible, unless we access that through mind. Please understand that our own investigation into mind is what gives us the ability to navigate through the energetic dimension.

We may think that everything is real, all the things perceived by our very limited senses, all the things we think are material in our own turbulent lives; however, pay attention to how the world relatively changes as our moods change. If we begin by thinking that everything is real, then we begin with a misstep, a very unfortunate misunderstanding of all phenomena. When we investigate mind, we see that we live in an amazing turbulent mess of thoughts and emotions. See if you can discover something that exists outside of mind. It is not possible.

Blessings in Light,

Robert Aho