Lori Ann Lothian – I’ve been hiding something from my readers. A dirty little enlightenment secret.
It’s the kind of cover-up that happens when you think you might be crazy to voice something that no one else in the non-duality, awakening to Self/No Self crowd talks about.
You think: Maybe I’m an anomaly? Or you wonder: Did I get caught up in one of those sidetracks the Sages of Old warn about, that admonition to “not get seduced by the siddhis.”
In case your Sanskrit is rusty, we turn to Wikipedia for this handy definition: “Spiritual, paranormal, supernatural, or otherwise magical powers, abilities, and attainments that are the products of spiritual advancement through sadhana (spiritual practices), such as meditation and yoga.”
To be clear, I’ve always had the gift of foresight. It started when I was a teenager as nocturnal dreams that later came to pass as real life events. By my early thirties, I took a break from journalism and crafted a nine year career as a highly accurate, sought-after professional clairvoyant. So my caveat is this—the non-ordinary is not unusual for me.
What is unusual these days is the magnitude and range of what I can only call rampant magic. Sometimes, I feel like I’ve stepped into a sci-fantasy novel where there are new paranormal rules of engagement and I seem to be cast in the role of a dazed and somewhat suspicious wizard. And oddly, it’s not just me…..those around are reporting a dramatic uptick in synchronicity, high strangeness and non-ordinary perception.
Add to that, I’ve intersected (by a precognitive dream nonetheless) a spiritual teacher named Igor Kufayev who is becoming known for his multi-day immersions where he routinely zaps students with shaktipat. You can’t get anymore “the force be with you” than having a divine energy flow from one being to another in service of accelerating awakening to true nature. Zowie!
This surge of the magical in my life, and the lives of those close to me, is not without meaning and nor is it something to be hidden or avoided. My heart tells me that this acceleration in non-ordinary perception and ability is what happens when consciousness resides in the non-local realm–awakening tends to do that to you. It blasts through the contracted localized version of self (call it Ego or the “I”) and expands consciousness to awareness of what quantum physicist Amit Goswami calls the Quantum Self.
That’s the real magician—non-local consciousness IS the proverbial fairy godmother.
And more and more people are discovering that awakening is not just about the end of suffering and abiding in a kind of static peace and equanimity. It’s also about the exciting stirrings of the reality-bending capacities of human potential. Jesus did not walk on water, heal the sick, raise the dead, and multiply loaves and fish as a circus stunts–he was pointing at what happens when the Quantum Self is realized. (You might check out my Bending the Reality Spoon article from 2012, touching on the miracles thing).
I’m going to exploring this “magic” theme in greater depth over the next few blog posts, but for now I will sign off with this stunning excerpt from Boy’s Life, an award-winning novel by Robert McCammon. When I first read it, I felt my heart flutter with recognition of something deeply true and hauntingly accurate.
“You know, I do believe in magic. I was born and raised in a magic time, in a magic town, among magicians. Oh, most everybody else didn’t realize we lived in that web of magic, connected by silver filaments of chance and circumstance. But I knew it all along.
When I was twelve years old, the world was my magic lantern, and by its green spirit glow I saw the past, the present and into the future. You probably did too; you just don’t recall it. See, this is my opinion: we all start out knowing magic. We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls.
We get it churched out, spanked out, washed out, and combed out. We get put on the straight and narrow and told to be responsible. Told to act our age. Told to grow up, for God’s sake. And you know why we were told that? Because the people doing the telling were afraid of our wildness and youth, and because the magic we knew made them ashamed and sad of what they’d allowed to wither in themselves.”
….The truth of life is that every year we get farther away from the essence that is born within us. We get shouldered with burdens, some of them good, some of them not so good. Things happen to us. Loved ones die. People get in wrecks and get crippled. People lose their way, for one reason or another. It’s not hard to do, in this world of crazy mazes. Life itself does its best to take that memory of magic away from us. You don’t know it’s happening until one day you feel you’ve lost something but you’re not sure what it is. It’s like smiling at a pretty girl and she calls you “sir.” It just happens.
These memories of who I was and where I lived are important to me. They make up a large part of who I’m going to be when my journey winds down. I need the memory of magic if I am ever going to conjure magic again. I need to know and remember, and I want to tell you.”
In the spirit of remembering the magic we are, Awareness is Here.
SF Source The Awakened Dreamer May 2015