Revelations, inspiration, visions, intuitions, transforming or mystical experiences, insights and whatever else is there to be experienced don’t not come from ‘god’ or ‘the divine’, or ‘the above’ but from within. The are not magical, nor are they send from the benevolent universe or something fanciful as that, because they don’t originate from ‘outside’.
When the mind becomes silent and stress is released, the tyranny of pragmatism and benefits and worries have subsided, as well as the other attention hijacking and addictive focus on the daily affairs and concerns, things from within, the ‘subconscious’, the deeper layers of our being can arise. These can be issues or questions these deeper aspects have been working on for quite some time. Something can well up to the level of the conscious mind, which is but a small part of our being, the part we usually associate ourselves with. It could be something the conscious mind has thought about before, or something that was active on a more emotional level, some friction that played a part in our lives, or the processing of different but linked associations or profound questions. And suddenly a revelation occurs. And because we’re conditioned to believe, and to think in terms of ‘god’, ‘guidance’, and ‘the above’ or ‘divine’ we tend to think it comes from somewhere else, while in truth it originated from our own layered being, albeit a deeper, subconscious layer. Just because of our upbringing and the way these things are commonly talked about we project these purely human abilities and possibilities outward and upward, without realizing the truth of it.
‘But it felt divine’, we might say. Well, how something feels is not exactly proof or an argument. Many creative and sensitive people have these kinds of experiences on a regular basis, without this believe, and without this tendency to project it outward. Also, a child may feel things very deeply as well, although they don’t exist or are in fact totally different from what the child believes.
In the beginning of my spiritual journey, I thought and felt quite the same way – though remaining inquisitive and critical. And after some time, I understood I just needed to be in a certain way, to invite insights, spiritual experiences or inspiration. I also came to understand how creativity works – through creatinhg music and writing lyrics and texts (an books). I discovered how the mind in its totality keeps working on a ‘problem’, question, conundrum, or project, even without you actively thinking about it. Things ripened in the meantime, while doing something else entirely or not doing anything at all. After working on something I learned to sense when it was time to give it a rest, leave it be for a while, and after some time it would become clear what to do next, or an insight would come, a useful association, a fresh idea. Once one has learned how this works, it works every time. That’s why I would only have to go into my little demo studio, turn some synthesizers on, or pick up my guitar, and an idea wouldcome up. Or open my laptop and start to write.
That’s why I always found a way in (or out) of an issue I was struggling with, a topic I was thinking about, a thought pattern or emotional friction that I was observing. That’s why in satsang I don’t need to prepare anything, ‘cos I know how to be. And as soon as someone says something or poses a question ‘it turns on’ and the responses come: immediately, spontaneously, effortless and without any need to drag a illusionary ‘upperworld’ or ‘divine realm’ or strange entity into it.
It’s human. It’s possible, like being musical.
Most commonly these kinds of insights occur in people after a period of stress or psychological struggle or cognitive dissonance, or when they are in some form of crises. In the moment when ‘the current’ changes (spiking up or dropping down) the ‘revelation’ will occur. (This is well documented in the literature on stress theory by the way). And such an insight or epiphany might feel very special or ‘magical’ – especially when we basically don’t know how this works, or we don’t know what we’re doing (when we are unexperienced ‘sailors’, let’s say). And then the temptation to call it ‘divine’ or think that ‘god’ was talking to us is strong. Or we simply default back into such lingo, because it’s the only thing we’ve heard, adding another layer of ‘specialness’ including all kinds of warm and fuzzy feelings to it (‘cos, lots of people really love this kind of talk), because we believe we’re saying something really deep, profound and wise.
We’ll do this especially when it is the only way known to us to talk about these kinds of phenomenon. And this not only inaccurate, it also kind of reduces you to be the receiver of a special prize in a heavenly lottery, instead of getting the chance to learn how you yourself as a human being operate and what possibilities are available. Because it was you! It came from within you!
You are and can be much more and way deeper than imagined, that’s all. You just never learned how this (or you) works. So, to you it feels like stumbling into something, or being guided from above, or blessed and so forth. But you only talk that way, and only see it that way, out of general and widespread ignorance origination from religious and spiritual dualistic concepts and conditioning. It’s all layman’s talk to me, which might sound profound and wise to the average guy or girl but not at all to me.
These spiritual-religious explanations come across like the kind of talk that someone utters who has been led to believe that a synthesizer is a magical instrument guided by a residing spirit one will have to please and pray to and fear – and only then, after some elaborate rituals and incense burning by candlelight, it will produce the required sounds. Me, on the other hand am quite familiar with sound design, and how a synth operates, therefore I can create almost any sound or pad or effect within a limited time, because I know how it works pretty well. It has, obviously nothing to do with a celestial overlord.
The same goes for our energy system, I know how it works quite well, and how to entice this system to be creative, and what it needs to do that, and when and how and why it will create certain states of consciousness, experiences, solutions, insights and changes. I learned all this when I was trained as a spiritual therapist and teacher, through self-inquiry, studying, observing, thinking and reading. But it always struck me as nonsensical to drag in something divine, or some divine, unprovable, riff-raff theory. All kinds of rituals, meditations and other techniques are ‘simply’ ways to induce altered states of consciousness but have nothing to do with ‘the divine’ – and (so) they don’t prove the existence of this upperworld either. It’s how humans used to think a thousand years ago. It might be ancient, but that doesn’t mean anything on it’s own. We also used to deeply believe a person was possessed by an evil spirit while in fact infected by a parasite, or impaired because of neurological damage after a blow to the head. We used to believe the plague was punishment by god, it wasn’t. It was a epidemic caused by bad hygiene, to many people on top of each other and it was spread by flees – we didn’t have the right knowledge nor medicine, but praying obviously didn’t do sh**. It had nothing to do with a imagined heavenly tyrant.
Differently put: the nervous system and our modular brain can be influenced or stimulated to produce all kinds of ways of perception, along with their corresponding emotional effects, and other changes on the level of experiencing.
No need for a god there either. And mind you, this does not make it less special or interesting at all! To me it’s part of the art of living, and it has nothing to do with these very old-fashioned rambling and very sentimental theories and inherited uncritical belief systems and romanticism or religious powerplay. It only feels divine to you because you’ve been raised to believe in that sort of stuff, that’s all. People only talk about it this way because that’s the only language they got and because lots of ‘spiritual’ people will love it when you talk that way – that’s a nice bonus, that generates extra ‘positive’ feelings.
Well, I don’t like that kind of talk at all. It is cutting us and our abilities or potential short plus it is untrue, outlived and completely unnecessary and beside the point. It’s clouding people. Instead of clearing them up its fogging their minds.
Same thing goes for creating something, or inspiration. It might not feel as if you made it. And that’s only right in the sense that it was not just this conscious part of you. It is in fact a collaboration of the aforementioned deeper layers of your being plus the conscious mind (to which you say ‘me’). That’s ‘all’. Just recognize how wonderful and deeply creative we can be! And how we diminish ourselves and others by clinging to these mediaeval or prehistoric notions, and repeating them over and over again? Ignorance vailed as wisdom and spread like something ‘deep’. It is quite terrible, now I come to think of it!
The same goes for the annoyingly silly way of looking at things when people exclaim that ‘the universe was trying to tell me something’. NO! It was your own intuition, a message from within, from a deeper layer within you, that had been working on something of importance and came up with a solution, a pointer, a piece of advice, a clarifying image. Just like with the creative process. That’s ‘all’. It’s wonderful, useful, and we’d better learn to listen and access this to free ourselves from the always fretting and plotting anxious ego and become wiser. But the universe is not an entity or agent or sentient being, it is not divine or benevolent or whatever and it certainly is not saying or willing or wanting or meaning or planning anything. Wake up please. Stop talking and thinking like a smart and sensitive four-year-old. For it all sounds and looks just like the child truly believing Santa Claus is real, it’s little heart racing and full of expectancy and other deeply felt feelings, awaiting his arrival… it’s so profoundly and genuinely convinced, and talks all the Santa lingo, and loves to hear it…
and it is utterly mistaken and unaware. That maybe is fine for a four-year-old, but you aren’t four or five, right?
So, it would be great and liberating if we could get rid of, and grow out of, all this divinity-universe talk that explains nothing, keeps us from recognizing our true potential, keeps us kind of childlike and over romantic and using all kinds of fuzzy ‘theories’ which explain little or nothing and complicate a lot and limit our minds. These old and silly notions are unnecessary, you’ll lose nothing by shedding them, and gain a lot, clarity for instance, a chance to upgrade, to become what you are. We’d better learn how it works and how to access and invite and follow the workings of these deeper layers (or subconscious layers) of the interesting beings that we are. Learn to fully be, and interact with our entire system.
Of course, people love to believe, like they love to believe in some divine plan, that things have to have a ‘deeper meaning’, or that there is some kind of karmic reckoning, or that everything happens for a reason – albeit mysterious, and all that. To me, and from a truly awakened perspective it’s all mumbo-jumbo that explains nothing and keeps us small, infantile and unclear.
On top of all the beforementioned, all this spiri-stuff also means that the bad stuff and the confusion and errors are all (on) us, and the beautiful, inspirational, insightful and elevation stuff comes from god or the divine. That’s a terrible and unfair way of seeing things, or better a terrible way of not seeing and thinking at all.
No folks, it’s all ‘just’ us: the good, the bad, and the ugly as well as the beautiful, the creative and the transformative. You only think and talk in these spiri-terms because you don’t know how it works and because you’re conditioned and biased to look at it that way, by priests and spiritual people and new age books as well – and because you never really looked into it. And no one said otherwise. Well, I do. It’s my gift to you, let’s say.
Thanks for your open, super interested and unbiased attention…
I did my best to be as clear as possible although English is not my first language.