Subtle Energy

2024, December, Issue 127

Waves, making no claim

whatsoever,

Cannot be separate

from that Great Ocean,

Cannot be something else,

except as our own delusion

defines things

in our mind;

When we call it a wave,

when we say that it is

something else,

something special,

something other than that

Great Ocean,

we ignore that,

we ignore every single atom,

all the transitory particulates,

all that, these elements,

these fluid molecules,

appearing in this quantum mix,

are merely flowing,

merely flowing through

that subtle energy,

that energy that rises, reverberates and falls;

This wave, that wave, all waves,

they are all inseparable from that Great Ocean,

they are all something

that appears to mind;

They are all the same,

Just one, not other,

Not not other

Than this Great Ocean,

As it is.

A poem by Robert Aho © 2024

You may have heard me mention something extraordinary about my recent heart procedure; or, perhaps, you heard me say something and didn’t hear what I said, dismissing it as quickly as you may have heard it. I didn’t have a Near Death Experience with this heart procedure. I have nothing to report in that regard.

Something, perhaps, quite a bit more profound happened. Rainbows, dancing prisms with bright rays of light streaming through, along with floating spheres of light appeared. This actually remained for quite some time after my surgery, impairing my eyesight completely.

Even though medical staff was in the room asking me questions, I did nothing with this vision, just allowed it to remain. I knew at once that it would disappear if I did anything, if I applied effort to what I was experiencing. I was coming out of surgery and anesthesia in a field of energy that I recognized. It’s very subtle. We don’t normally pay attention to such an obvious ground where we truly exist as nothing other than flowing energy.

As the questions and conversation persisted, I was able to examine this subtle energy within a not-so-subtle field of vast intense energy. With each question, with each of my answers, the material world began to appear once more. I watched this very closely. I investigated how appearances were annihilated by concept, as well as the effort we apply when experiencing this world. I was not in any hurry, I was allowing it to subside of its own accord, observing how grasping at what we think is real destroys what is assumed to be some sort of hallucination or simply a dream.

At some point, I mentioned to my cardiologist and my nurse that I was seeing rainbows. They did a quick evaluation to see if I was having a stroke. I wasn’t. Then they offered up several other possible explanations. I thanked them and laughed. I knew that what I was experiencing was this vast energetic field that I’ve described on numerous occasions. I also felt quite fortunate in that I could see how this illusory world comes into focus. It was a very valuable time for me, and it made me laugh.

As you progress on your Spiritual Path, please take the time to investigate all appearances, whether through your senses or your mind. When you imagine something, what is that? When you think that something is real, can you actually locate any evidence of this?

We are here, thinking that all of this is real, simply because of a very subtle relationship that we are having with our energetic dimension. Just as a wave can never really be located, self can never be located. Nothing about us is permanent. We’re like a flash of light in the sky.

If we are able to see ourselves as energy, we quickly realize that this solid thing we thought was going to live forever in some permanent way has never really been here at all. We’re actually gone before we arrive, traversing this great illusion called time, coming and going from all universes, in this infinite array of possibilities. Nothing about us can actually be called real; and, therefore, by this logic, nothing we encounter anywhere, whether in this world, whether in our imagination, or constructed by belief, can ever be considered to be real in the least.

We’re moving at the speed of light, thinking that light is something other than us. We’re inventing an illusion that we call the material world. We’re deluding ourselves, preventing any sort of realistic evaluation of all appearances.

Gee, shucks, by golly, we assume that we know what is real, even though we apply great effort to avoid realizing what is real. Through our own Spiritual Practice, not allowing our assumptions about reality to take precedence, we just might become intuitive enough to encounter what has been very subtle, requiring no effort to see. For all eternity, we’ve been applying effort in order to fabricate an illusion that has never served us well.

I think it’s time to go beyond such nonsense. It’s time that we all aspire to awaken, casting aside what has constrained us. Life is not what it seems, and neither is death. Our existence is beyond belief, beyond impulsive assumptions. Why not get to know who we all really are? We’re not separate, and we’re not something that we can conceptualize.

It’s time to awaken.

Blessings in Light,

Robert Aho