Ye Gods

"I have said, Ye are gods." Psalm 82:6

The deepest Vision Quest is not to go alone into the wilderness, but to gaze into the eyes of another human being.

We are not particles but waves of one another. In the fabric of consciousness, our essences intertwine.

One aspect of awareness is Shiva, the separate solitary Witness. Our spiritual literature emphasizes this aspect because almost all of it, Eastern and Western, was written by monks. In the new age, the complimentary aspect is equally vital, if not more so. She is called Shakti, or the Holy Spirit. She is too wild for wilderness, too frisky for solitude.

Shakti is the luminous ambrosial Spirit-dew who weaves the tissue of our inter-connectedness. Fibers of Shakti thread through our hearts, knitting them like droplets on Indra's web. This web is the virtual Sangha of pre-existent and eternal human community. That is why in the New Testament, the Spirit is described  as a "Cloud of Witnesses": a collective rather than an individual.

Through contemporary physics, we know that the void is really not empty. The vacuum is an ocean of virtual relationships, sub-nuclear "strings" of inter-dimensional connectivity. These vibrating threads of emptiness reach the surface of creation as "particles" of "matter." What a magical illusion! The Spirit is like this. The deeper we sink into its silence, the more we mingle with the souls of other sentient beings. Solitude is an illusion too.

You are not a separate "I," but a heart-string of communion. You are never alone. You are, each moment, the other end of a thread that vibrates from someone's heart. It makes no difference whether they are physically present or not. When you resonate with me, the whole universe trembles.

This is the secret of the Biblical name for God, Elohim. Scripture does not use the singular Hebrew word, El, but the plural, Elohim, meaning "Gods." There is not one God, but one field of conscious communion teeming with the divine We.

What then  is the role of meditation?

Meditation roots and replenishes Shakti in Shiva. He is the stillness in her vibration, the ocean in her wave. A few minutes of silence reinvigorates the dance. Morning and evening meditation in Shiva's silence recharges the inner light of relationship. We meditate for the Other as well as the Self.

Namasteh.