From Night On: Pathways

Chapters 23-24

Chapter 23:

Connections

(Hessa)

We began with breathing exercises to clear the mind, muscle relaxations to numb the mind's attachment to the body, and a guided meditation to help the soul step from the shell. Rather than following what I thought was the right way to obtain this, I left my ego in my back pocket for the time and let Thupten Jinpa instruct me step by step. "Let your muscles relax," he said and I lied back on the earth. "Feel them become numb, but do not fight it. If you feel the need to move, imagine the limb moving, but do not use the muscle. Breathe deeply." The experience was more jarring than my normal method of astral projecting. The emphasis on my body going numb, self inducing paralysis, caused anxiety and the desire to shake my limbs crept down my spine like an electrical charge, but I listened to Thupten Jinpa. I imagined lifting my arm, but that didn't help. Finally, in a burst of frustration, like finally being able to scratch your nose, I imagined my body flailing about and found myself bursting up into a sitting position on the ground.

At first, I thought I had failed his direction, but, as I shifted to lie back down, I found that my spirit had separated and that I was sitting atop my body as it lied motionless on the loose gravel amongst the sparse grass. Before, whenever I had astral projected, it was more like a dream where I floated from scene to scene with only slight sensations of the experience aside from sight and sound. In this exercise, all of my senses were present and sharpened. I looked to Thupten Jinpa who was still sitting cross-legged, a slight smile on his face as he continued his breathing. I looked at my hands, my spirit hands, and they were there. I was still, in recognizable form, me, and I could still feel the world around me. I reached down to touch my own physical cheek and I felt the sensation both simultaneously on my hand and on my cheek. "When you have grown accustomed to this experience," Thupten Jinpa said, "let me know and we will continue."

I nodded and saw him nod in return with his eyes still closed. I walked around for a moment, marveling at the sensations this experience offered. I thought my senses were heightened when I was in my fox form, but this experience made that seem juvenile and trivial. I could feel the life around me. The energy of everything hummed at various frequencies and that which lived had a particular chi that was distinct to each individual. From Thupten Jinpa and myself to the plants, insects, and all the way down to the tardigrades. Billions of tardigrades all around me and I could feel each and every one of them.

"It can be a little overwhelming," Thupten Jinpa said, catching my attention. "This is magnificent, yes, but it is illusory."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"You're feeling the individual strings of each bit of life around you," he answered. "This is illusory and you will understand this as you think about how you can feel them. The illusion is that they are separate. It is illusory to think that any of this is separated." He lifted a rock and held it in his palm for me to see. "You can feel this, too, right?"

"Yes," I answered, "I can feel the resonance and its frequency."

He dropped it to the ground and I felt the impact through my feet. "Think about this and you will find your way."

The concept of oneness was nothing new to me and the experience was only serving to enhance that recognition to a realization, so I had to ask, "Find my way?"

"Your way to your true self," he answered. "It will help to follow the connections to your other selves."

"But that's not the only way, isn't it?" I asked.