VISIONARY TEACHINGS by Gill Schwartz

THE DIVINE IMPULSE

I'm on retreat. A long weekend getaway in the midst of a tormentingly chaotic and purposeless time in my life. In desperation, I finally answered the long-ignored inner beckoning. I canceled appointments, postponed obligations, and left my work. I came up to the wooded mountains, as usual on these getaways, where friends keep a few simple cabins for just such needs.
The first day I indulge in ruminating on all the details as to why my life isn't working and fantasizing on what I should be doing instead. I pamper myself with chocolate and other petty gratifications and gripe to my friends with self indulgence. Mostly, I ramble the winding wooded trails hoping to get lost, though I know the place too well for that.

Midway through the second day, I start to settle down and open to my inner practices. I move the cabin's one chair out onto the screen enclosed porch to leave room inside to lay out my prayer rug and meditation pillow next to the narrow cot. I light the votive candles in their blue glass holders, say a simple, heartfelt prayer and give myself over to the sweet inner enticement and guidance.

I'm led through practices evolved from decades of doing yoga and energy medicine. My breath-body eases open as movement and chant flow through me. My day-to-day mind quietens, easing the self-nagging and niggling. A deeper self-resonance arises that lovingly gentles me right down into my core, awakens me to the liquid flow of my aliveness.

Shantu Ya (Crazy Owl), my celestial Medicine Teacher, appears. "All right so you think you've lost direction. It's not the end of the world. You just need a little visioning to set you straight. Sometimes I wish you could remember a bit better from one time to the next. How much light do you need?" he asks me with joking impatience.

I open myself to his bidding with deeply welcomed relief and sense his working within me, loosening habitual restraints to allow my consciousness to expand, to gather all the parts of my mind and heart, known and hidden.
My awareness is fully drawn away from the outer world and poured into the subtle channels of life-force coursing throughout my being. The spirals of Chakra-light flood and come into awing alignment, disclosing the many levels of my being that connect me with each and every realm that is, Earthly to the Divine. I exalt in the rapturous fullness of my being.

"Now you are your Cosmic Self again," Shantu Ya gently affirms. "Now you may offer it all to Highest Consciousness and Love."
In a breathless rush of devotion, I gather all this that I am
and am part of, all together, as if I hold it in the hollow of my cupped hands. I lovingly offer it on the Altar that appears before me, with profound reverence, and leave it there with complete trust.

I am instantly drawn to merge with the All, boundless, pure Being. My chattering mind is struck dumb. The me-sayer is gone. The hurts and dreams and disappointments that so occupied me vanish, along with the 'me' that held them so real. Ancient, unfathomable, needs and longings are quenched, sated to their roots. The wailing hungry demon in my shadow-self is at peace, at last.

Suspended in the Source of all, every aspect of me, every atom of my being becomes a vessel for the Infinite. Now the vessels themselves dissolve into that Infinite Ocean. My dreary, limiting disguise of self is shed.
Absorbed in this holy, musical silence, there is the heartfelt Knowing that engulfs everything. At one with the ALL, there is nothing but the golden, pulsating Light of pure Being. I am bathed in and filled with ecstatic illumination. I know only the sacred rapture of total belonging, of pure Unity. This is the Truth that I've always longed for. This where I belong. I am whole. And I am Home.

All that remains of my psyche is a devout and clear witness. The only "me" is a tiny point of light within the ten thousand suns that fill my consciousness. The only doing that's right, or possible, is effortless surrender. Dissolved in this Ocean of Source, my spirit is enfolded in its Beloved.

Eternities flow past. They come and go with each slow breath. Gradually, as if born out of overfullness, in the midst of Source, a swelling takes place, a bubbling forth of new possibility from this Ocean of Fulfillment. A gathering vortex of potential, a great, mounting Wave, an avalanche of radiant latency arises on the still Ocean of Infinity.

"Good," Shantu Ya says, "Now we can begin our journey," with pleased anticipation in his voice. "Now, my questing disciple, you will see what should heal your limited views about those longings and unfulfilled needs that worry you so."

Within this swirl of movement in boundless Source, in wonderment, I realize that I am witnessing God taking form within God: Creator God emerging from the Source Godhead. Its movement, Its force and Its impending purpose flow out from Source's Heart. My heart grasps that this is why we can touch it all through the Heart.

"The Divine Impulse," Shantu Ya sings out as the Wave flows out beyond the Ocean of Source, as if Its movement creates and overflows an edge, a boundary in the Eternal.

Now there is distinction between God the Purposeful and God the Boundless, the Known and the Unknowable.
And as the Wave of Divine Impulse surges out beyond Its Source, It brings into being realms of the subtlest vibration, giving the nothingness form. My speck of witness-awareness is swept along.

"This is the domain where formless Being transmutes into archetype and image. This is the illuminative realms of higher consciousness, the spiritual seeds of thought-forms," Crazy Owl explains with wonder.
The Wave of shimmering Light plummets downward creating denser and more defined strata. And It fills each realm with beings that reflect and manifest Its Being, fills them with luminous angelics, celestials, spirits, astrals coming into being as It sweeps down through them.

It births yet another boundary, another containment, as It creates and enters this domain of lowest vibration and densest materiality, the matrix of physical manifestation, the substance of the Four-Square Universe of space and one of time.

In wonder, I watch the miracle of what had been merely the inert shell of matter becomes dynamic and animated as it is lifted into being and filled with the swell of the Divine Impulse flowing through it. "Here then, is the truth of what gives the whole realm of substance significance." Crazy Owl instructs me. "Here is the knowing that can free you from your illusionary attachment to all that. Without the Divine Impulse to ennoble it, all that is simply pointless swirlings of dust in eternity. Nothing more."

From the vastness of this Truth, I watch as -- micro to macro-- quarks, atoms, stars, living beings, and galaxies, each individual and unique organism is brought into being and passes away as the Wave fills each one, then empties and passes on. Species, races, universes rise and fall as It courses down the millennia. Each being is a meeting, a merging of the dual natures, form and spirit, substance and the Divine Impulse touching in all things
An energy matrix of interconnecting webs interpenetrate from the subtlest thought-form domains down through to the densest realms of matter. Genetics, karmas, family dreams, soul-pacts and racial destinies spin delicate nets that touch each being's life-field, gather it all together, and interweave it with all others'.

As the Wave's swell brings each individual into being, this intermeshing matrix shapes its possibilities of manifestation, down to the tiniest, most apparently insignificant detail. Thus Spirit and matter continually create the alivenes of the moment to moment Now.

Shantu Ya gestures for me to observe how Its lucent vibration is received by creature kind. For everything but humankind, Its radiance is fully absorbed and transmitted throughout its being --stone, tree, cloud and beast-- welcomed into the warmth and rightness of nature's vibrant spectrum. This touches the Heart of the Impulse. But somehow, in the process with humankind, the radiance of the Divine Impulse is muted, distorted. There is a spectacle in variations as It activates and passes through each person. Most are merely opaque to it, ruled by a mind with no place for the Unseen. For some precious few individuals, the Light is recognized, venerated and gratefully absorbed. In such resonance, these rare beings transmit rich, intriguing variations of the Impulse, each elaborated with their own personal and unique harmonics. From that level of consciousness, I'm watching the Light refracted through one-of-a-kind crystals beings, It's shaft of golden white surrounded and embellished with an infinite variety of unique shapes and colors.

Wondrously, through this thronging multitude and variety, the boundless Impulse does find expression while each individual's spiritual fulfillment is honored and integrated. Through the Knowing eye, I observe that the more fully an individual honors their own soul's calling and nature, the more they are personally fulfilled as they take closer part in the Wave's manifestation.
Shantu Ya confirms, "And so it is with you, my seeker of purpose and wisdom. Now you understand that the whole, fulfilled individual is a glorification of the Divine Impulse. There is the precept for your life."

As I hold that awareness, once again my Knowing is merged with the All. Now with the fullest of views. All that I'd seen of the Divine Impulse's journey -from Its leaving Pre-Eternity down through the eons of time- I now see all at once. Everything glows from within. Everyone and everything, in all of time, radiates with the Divine.

I know that I am only because the Divine Impulse moves and brings me to this awakeness. The closer I align with It, the closer I am to my own essence, to my sense of purpose and calling.

Shantu Ya chants in slow deep tones, clearly with intent to anchor this truth in my mind forever, "Everything that is, matters and is Holy."
Amen

Copyright Nathaniel Schwartz 2003