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Martin Lass: S.O.L.A.R.®
Beyond Materiality. Beyond Spirituality.
Toward the Complete Human Being…
What is Enlightenment and How Can I Get It?
Part 1 of 2
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by Martin Lass |
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Introduction Vagaries
The word “enlightenment” is used a lot these days, as though we all know and understand what it actually means. (We are talking about the spiritual usage, as opposed to the scientific usage as in “the Age of Enlightenment”.) And many of us aspire to its promise, in whatever way we each interpret this promise. The word is used as a carrot to draw those of us wishing for a more spiritual life into various pursuits and practices and into various organizations and systems that promise either enlightenment or, in the least, a path to enlightenment.
Before we go any further, though, let’s consider what we actually mean by the word. I suspect most people would agree that enlightenment is about consciousness—in particular, higher consciousness than we currently experience in our daily lives. But when it comes to defining “higher consciousness,” there is a parting of the ways.
Some people define higher consciousness as the triumph of peace and harmony over war and conflict. Others see it as being about detaching or focusing away from the material world and our material lives in favor of the spiritual world and our spiritual lives. Others see higher consciousness as being about the end of poverty, divisiveness, selfishness, and inequality in the world. Others define it as entering the fifth dimension, beyond the limitations of this four-dimensional world. And still others will insist that higher consciousness only comes after this physical life, in whatever “heaven” we might believe in. And so on…
Without understanding the physics, metaphysics, psychology, and physiology of these things, it is impossible to say what higher consciousness and enlightenment actually are, much less know how to “get there.” So, let’s begin to explore these areas in this month’s column.
Enlightenment Through the Ages
Throughout history, enlightenment has been called many things and has been portrayed in many ways. It has been called Nirvana, Samadhi, satori, jnana, awakening, self-realization, Presence (this is the S.O.L.A.R.® term), oneness with God/Spirit/Brahman/the Absolute/Love/Etc, Buddha Nature, Moksha, Mukti, the Kingdom of God, and more. Of course, depending on the system/tradition talking about it, the details and methods of “getting there” can vary greatly.
Healing and Evolution of Consciousness
If enlightenment is about gaining higher consciousness than our present consciousness, then we could say that enlightenment is either the path to, or the end result of the evolution of consciousness. The idea of enlightenment presupposes that we do not see the whole world as it is, do not see ourselves as we are, and are, in some sense, asleep to a greater reality that enlightenment promises. Given this, it could be said that, in our ordinary, daily lives, we live in a limited, partial, blinkered, half-aware, wounded state of consciousness. By this definition, enlightenment must then also be about healing—not just healing in the medical and physical sense, but Healing in its broadest terms, with a capital “H.”
Presence
The S.O.L.A.R.® term for enlightenment is Presence. A complete column about Presence can be found in the Meta Arts archives. However, to recap, Presence is about waking up, beyond our normal waking consciousness. It is about awakening to a larger reality, beyond our conditioning, beyond the consensus reality. It is about snapping out of our half-dead “normal” state of consciousness and becoming witness to a larger and living awareness of our lives.
Presence is awareness—not just awareness in the ordinary sense of the word, but the awareness of ourselves in the midst of the tangible-intangible world. It is a moment of acknowledgment that says, “Here I am, in this place, in this time,” and the sense of awe, wonder, and miraculousness that accompanies this. It is synchronicity times infinity.
Presence is attention simultaneously directed inwardly and outwardly, like a line with opposing arrowheads. It is the simultaneous acknowledgment of the Seer, the Seeing, and the Seen and the experience of their essential Oneness. It is what G. I. Gurdjieff called “self-remembering.” It is pure Being, even in the midst of Doing. It is the Zen moment, beyond the apparent paradoxes of the koan. It is the “second attention” talked about by Yaqui Indian “sorcerer,” Don Juan Matus (Carlos Castaneda’s teacher), where the “assemblage point” of our normal waking consciousness is shifted outside the consensus reality. It is a “place” beyond the “detachment” offered by Buddhism. It is Christ consciousness. It is Eastern “enlightenment.” It is the Islamic/Sufi hal of hals or nearness to God. It is the awakening to the essential Oneness of the Hindu atman and brahman. It is the living breath of Spirit.
Presence is both the recognition of our sacred Journey/Quest (for higher consciousness and a return to Spirit) and the result of the Journey. Both the Journey and the result co-exist eternally in a Divine paradox.
Presence is all these things and more. Ultimately, though, it cannot be defined or put into words. We can approach it with words, ideas, metaphors, analogies, exercises, devotions, study, inner striving, and so forth, but beyond its threshold, all bets are off, all words become meaningless, and all representations are reduced, effectively, to mere black-and-white, two-dimensional, stick-figure drawings.
Let’s now take a look at the cosmic framework in which enlightenment—Presence—exists so we can then understand what might be required to “get there.”
The Breaths of Creation and Evolution
The Cosmic Hologram
There is a beautiful image in Hindu lore that describes the cosmic hologram and its eternal cycling. That image is of the swan, Hamsa, which is one of the principle symbols of Paramatman or the Supreme Self. Hamsa periodically sets off from its nest/home, out into the world, only to return home at regular intervals. This outward and inward movement is the movement of the breaths of Creation (out-breath, into the world, Spirit into Matter/manifestation) and Evolution (in-breath, Matter returning home to Spirit).
The name of the swan is also a mantra, repeated with in- and out-breaths: ham-sa, ham-sa, ham-sa, which, when repeated, becomes sa-ham, sa-ham, sa-ham, meaning “He I am,” i.e. atman (individual spirit) and brahman (universal spirit) are one.
So, effectively, everything is breath, in an endless cycle. Moreover, everything is cycles of breath within cycles of breath within cycles of breath—holograms within holograms within holograms—from the microcosm to the macrocosm. This is the meaning of the Hermetic aphorism, “As it is above, so it is below, and as it below, so it is above.”
This universal Truth has been encapsulated in what has sometimes been called the Law of the One and the Many or the cosmogonic cycle.
The One and Many
The Law of the One and the Many effectively says that all things begin in Oneness, “descend” into Manyness (fragmentation, differentiation, separation, woundedness) and then “ascend” back into Oneness. The fragments or particles of Manyness are each a hologram or mirror of the One, although each fragment is initially unaware of this until it “returns” to the One.
Each of us is just such a fragment—a hologram mirror of the One, but for the most part unaware of this. The ascending journey—the Healing journey, the wholing journey, the journey of enlightenment—is about awakening to our essential Oneness with everything.
We might think that once a cycle is complete, we would be completely healed, wholed, and enlightened, and that would be the end of it. However, the Oneness we return to on any given hologram/cycle is only relative Oneness when compared to the greater Oneness of the next higher hologram/cycle in which the first cycle is embedded. And this higher Oneness is relative to the next higher Oneness. And so on, all the way to the Absolute Oneness, which is infinity, so we never completely “get there.”
Embedded Holograms
To give an idea of what we mean by embedded holograms/cycles, let’s take our own case. A human life is an average 72 years in incarnation and 72 years out of incarnation, making a complete 144-year cycle (on average). We descend/incarnate from greater unity of consciousness (One), but relatively unawakened to certain things. During life (Many), we strive unconsciously and consciously for greater consciousness, healing, wholing, and enlightenment. When we pass from this incarnation, we return to greater unity of consciousness, but a little more awakened to this essential unity.
But we are not yet finished with this particular hologram/cycle. So, we continue to incarnate repeatedly until we have awakened to everything we can awaken to in this hologram/cycle of planetary life. At this point, we can then move on to the next higher hologram/cycle, which is that of the Sun (stellar life).
The hologram of our incarnations (with our personas and their issues and wounds) is embedded in a complete life cycle (incarnation) of the Sun and its planets.
The hologram of the Sun’s incarnations (with the planets as its major personas) is embedded in a complete life cycle (incarnation) of the Galaxy and its stars.
The hologram of the Galaxy’s incarnations (with the stars as it major personas) is embedded in a complete life cycle (incarnation) of the super-Galaxy and its galaxies.
The hologram of the super-Galaxy’s incarnations (with the galaxies as it major personas) is embedded in a complete life cycle (incarnation) of the super-super-Galaxy and its super-galaxies.
And so on, all the way to the Absolute.
On the microcosm side, each of our personas is a hologram/cycle of the totality of ourselves, but each persona is less conscious than the whole.
The hologram of molecule and atom incarnations (with ions and fermions as their major personas) is embedded in a complete life cycle (incarnation) of a persona within us.
There are, of course, many other examples besides these.
Duality
When the One becomes the Many, on any hologram/cycle level, this involves the “splitting” of One into Two or, as Eastern traditions have called it, into Duality. What does this mean?
If we look around us, we will see that everything in existence has an opposite. In fact, a thing is defined by its opposite. Black and white, light and dark, yes and no, up and down, right and left, empty and full, right and wrong, good and bad, pain and pleasure, and so forth.
Science tells us that there are no monopoles in Nature. Every stick has two ends. Every electrical and magnetic field has two ends or poles, which really says it all, because Light (meaning all electromagnetic energy in the universe, whether in the form of energy or mass) is both magnetic and electrical fields, and everything in the universe is Light (according to science and Einstein’s famous equation e=mc2). We’ll talk more about Light in a moment…
Given the above, we live in an apparently dualistic world—a world made up of innumerable opposites.
Matter and Anti-matter
The most fundamental duality occurs at the microcosmic level and at the moment of the Creation (of charged mass, which is Matter). When mass/Matter comes into manifestation (One into Many), it “splits” into two fundamental sides: matter and anti-matter.
And here’s the rub: we see the matter side, but we do not generally see the anti-matter side of ourselves, our lives, and the world around us. Knowing that for every particle of matter created, there must be an equal and opposite anti-particle, science is at a loss to explain why the universe appears to be predominately matter.
In short, we see only half the world, half of our lives, and half of ourselves.
Why? S.O.L.A.R.® says it’s all about consciousness. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves here!
The Visible and the Hidden
When the Galaxy was created, half of it became hidden—an anti-Galaxy, so to speak, containing the other half of the greater Truth of its existence.
When the solar system, Sun, and planets were created, half of it all became hidden—an anti-solar system, so to speak, containing the other half of the greater Truth of its existence.
When each of us was born into incarnation, half of us became hidden—an anti-me, so to speak, containing the other half of the greater Truth of our existence.
When each of our personas is born (the birth of a sensation, emotion, or thought), half of each becomes hidden—an anti-persona, so to speak, containing the other half of the greater Truth of each persona pair.
Perception Creates Duality
Each time we experience an “event” or “circumstance,” the act of perception creates a new persona and anti-persona—a “particle” of matter (persona) and a “particle” of anti-matter” (anti-persona). The persona remains visible and is our reaction of sensation, emotion, and/or thought to the event or circumstance.
For example, say we witness a catastrophe—a hurricane, tsunami, act of terrorism, or a war. Our almost instantaneous reaction is horror, sadness, fear, anger, and perhaps many other such extreme emotions. Any kind of positive reaction seems completely absent, because the positives of the event become hidden in the moment of perception, judgment, and reaction. (We’ll talk more about this effect of perception later.) The positive sides of the event are relegated to the anti-matter side of the equation.
Over time and with hindsight, however, the benefits, blessings, lessons, and gifts of the catastrophe gradually become apparent. However, this doesn’t mean the negative aspects somehow disappear. We’re not talking about looking at things through rose-colored glasses or pretending things were not painful or different from what they were. But we are talking about gradually seeing both sides of the event. This is the Healing journey.
So, in general, we express one side of life while repressing the other side. We see one side of life while not seeing the other side. We see only half of the world, our lives, and ourselves.
This process of perception is the Wounding, the Creation, the Fall, the descent in Duality. It’s all about consciousness, because everything is consciousness, as we’ll explore further later.
Therefore, the Healing, Evolution, and the Ascension, are completely about expanding perception to include the lost/hidden/denied/rejected/unloved sides of ourselves, our lives, and the world around us. It is about rejoining our visible Matter (personas) with our invisible anti-Matter (anti-personas).
Put simply, it is about seeing all sides of ourselves, our lives, and the world around us, i.e. the greater Truth of things, beyond apparent dualities/opposites.
This one idea, if understood and experienced completely and by enough people, has the power to change humanity.
Next month, we will continue our exploration of enlightenment with the following topics:
Light and Light
Everything is Light
Light Equals Consciousness
Material Light, Spiritual Light
Wounding
Descending Light
The Fragmentation of Consciousness
The Creation of Time and Space
Natures and Personas
Myths and Religions
Healing
Ascending Light
Bringing the Pieces of Ourselves, Our Lives, and the World Back Together Again
The Quantum Collapse and the S.O.L.A.R.® Fusion Process
Coming into the Now—into Presence
The Mechanics of Enlightenment
Physiological
Energetic
Psychological
Practical Aims and Methods
The Birth and Growth of Your Spiritual Nature
Truth, Light, Love, and Oneness,
Martin Lass
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Martin Lass,
The first S.O.L.A.R.® Emissary, Astrologer, Author
& Musician
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The first S.O.L.A.R.® Emissary is Martin Lass. His background includes over twenty years spent studying in two separate mystery schools, each with a direct lineage extending back into antiquity—one school coming through Egyptian traditions and the other from a hidden Central Asian tradition combined with the Sufi Way.
He is also a professional astrologer, astrological/spiritual counselor, accredited practitioner of various healing modalities, musician, composer, and published author.)
S.O.L.A.R.®
Beyond Materiality. Beyond Spirituality.
Toward the Complete Human Being…
www.solarjourney.org
info@solarjourney.org
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