Living  in  a  Cosmic  Mandala

Alan Hammond   August 9, 2009

The word mandala is from Sanskrit and means circles with centers. This motif is used in the art of various religions, primarily perhaps Buddhism and Hinduism. Often, circles are drawn with elaborate designs made within them, usually to depict the Cosmos. These works of art are produced in paint, perhaps mosaic, and sometimes in colored sand. After the mandalas are made in colored sand, they are destroyed. This in itself symbolizes the impermanent nature of the cosmic scheme of things. I thought we might look at some of the principles involved in the mandala and bring those principles more vividly to our consciousness and to our living experience.

The mandala is a design that appears throughout the macro and the micro aspects of the Cosmos. We see the pattern in atoms, solar systems, and in galaxies. We can bear in mind that, although we may immediately think of the physical Cosmos, it is in fact a multidimensional entity. Consider for a moment that each living physical form and person radiates energy, so each form extends an influence into the Whole. Every form and person is therefore at the center of a radiant mandala, and each center is a focus of cosmic Being—“I Am.” It is astounding that this vast, cosmic, intricacy of design is intended to interact harmoniously in this living, ever-changing organism, and rep- resents countless relationships interacting constantly in the Whole.

Some years ago we devised a seminar process designed to actively engage with these cosmic principles and to let them become more vivid in our awareness and in our living. In this seminar experience, the thirty-five or so participants would sit in a large circle, and then were invited, as the Spirit moved, to individually stand up and move in the circle. Now remember, each person is a center of unique radiation. Someone would start the process and, after they had been in the circle for a moment or two, someone, moved by the current of the Spirit, would feel related and would stand and join them in the circle, seeking to find the right distance from this other person. Then others would join, and their task was to find their appropriate position and relationship to the others already moving in the circle. I trust you can imagine this experience. It is fairly easy to relate to one other person in a circle, but as more bodies are added it becomes more complex to sense exactly where one should be in relationship to them all. There was, of course, no coercion involved. Everyone had to let others behave and express their sense of relatedness, and then move relative to them.

We recognize that proximity to different sources of radiation affects our experience. On the macro scale, proximity and movement of other planets affect us. Here immediately on Earth, the presence of other forms affects us. It could be the ocean, a mountain or a forest. Of course the proximity of other people affects us. I am sure we have noticed that if there is a group of people, the arrival of one other person changes the experience of the whole. This may be, and usually is, an unconscious process for all concerned; nevertheless, the total constellation of vibration changes when the other person appears.

Going back to the people in the circle, I remember on one occasion a lady came close to me in this process; she apparently felt she should be about a yard away. I didn’t feel too comfortable with that. I thought it was a bit close and blocking other lines of energy that I felt were appropriate. So I took a step back. She took a step forward! We did this a couple of times and I thought, well, this is getting nowhere! But then, in the current of the Spirit I realized I could modify the situation if, instead of facing her, I turned obliquely away from her. Apparently she felt all right at that distance, and I felt relieved.

So there are ways, you see, of deflecting radiation, with which we are not comfortable. You might say that I changed my physical attitude to her. As we shall see later, it is also possible to change our mental and emotional attitude to people, forms and situations that we deem to be too close, and perhaps uncomfortable.

Our whole experience of life, and therefore of relationship with everything and everybody, is really this process of feeling right with the distance, the intensity of the current felt, and the actual interaction with the forms and people in our worlds. Without having the time to examine this too thoroughly now, we can appreciate that the optimum distance between all the objects and people in our world would be optimum for our experience of creativity. So we are considering the art and science of Being, and of creative relationship in Being.

We cannot always choose the forms or the people that appear around us in our world. We must remember, after all, that the Cosmos does not exist simply for our comfort. There is work and creative challenge present with us. Sometimes, perhaps we criticize others in our mandala-world because they irk us. But maybe the problem is our inability to adjust accurately and finely to their proximity. The finer our spiritual substance, the finer will be our ability to adjust to all the relationships in our world, and therefore bring greater harmony into that mandala.

Another person’s physical proximity is not necessarily the criteria for their vibrational, or spiritual, proximity to us. We can be at quite a physical distance from other people, and yet know within ourselves a vibrational and spiritual closeness, and therefore experience an ongoing creative relationship. What I’m going to say next may sound a little esoteric. But there are human beings in the Design who we never see at all, and yet we are connected to them through fine vibrational substance. This can facilitate a creative relationship.

The relationships of atoms, molecules, forms, solar systems, galaxies, are constantly changing—and so are our personal relationships with everything and everybody. The experience on this planet depends on the relationships of many heavenly bodies. This includes not just the physical relationships, but there are also other dimensions, of which the human consciousness is now unaware. These larger patterns of relationship are, in principle, the same as we know in human relationships. The Earth can only have its right relationships in the Cosmos, and therefore the right experience, if its radiation is on Tone. And we well know that its radiation is not now on Tone, primarily due to the state of human beings.

We as individuals can only know right relationships in our lives, in our mandala, with anyone, with anything, if the radiation coming from us is of Love, Truth, Life—the Tone. Our central relationship (speaking now of the outer consciousness) is with our true spiritual Identity. Once this true Identity is established, all other relationships emerge from this. In this unified Identity, we can accurately sense what fits with Self. We sense what fits in quality, in proximity, and in role. The Cosmos and all therein are composed of these constantly changing relationships. And underlying every single relationship is Love. This is worth remembering. In our every relationship we have opportunity to discover the experience of a unique nuance of Love.

We do not impose on others or their space. I suppose the exception to this statement would be with children, or with severely distorted people who need drastic guidance. But we are not particularly speaking of those sorts of relationships now. Of course, we know that Angels, the true Identity of all human beings, can be trusted to behave as they should in the shifting Design. We also know that in the world the way it is now, discernment is needed, and some caution, because human beings often use freedom for license. We are not foolish in our initial patterns of relationship.

Let’s consider for a moment some of the forms in our worlds (which are, remember, forms of radiation) that don’t seem creative to our experience. We can’t eliminate them all. Some we may move further away from, but others, because of the complexity of the Design, are close to us. So let us consider utilizing them creatively. We’ve previously mentioned people who criticize us. Most people don’t like being criticized, but we take a different attitude. We may not like criticism either, but we listen and see if there is any justification for their observation. If there is, then we are delighted and remedy our behavior or change whatever is needed. Many difficult situations, if dealt with in a creative spirit, can make our expression clearer, more refined, stronger. We can, by our attitude to any form or situation, turn these things into positive creativity. We can incline our attitudes at every level away from the negative and hostile elements in our mandala, and let our creative Spirit, radiation, modify everything in our worlds.

Each of us is at the center of our personal world, circle, and we may experience an exciting, personal, living mandala. A large part of our mandalas are not created solely by our own radiation; there is the radiation from everybody else too. But we should consider the quality of our radiation, because we know that this invisible power attracts and repels objects and people in our world. We can, by our radiation, modify the effect of absolutely everything in our world.

Now obviously not all of our radiation is conscious, but we can intensify our creative intent. Our own distortions often cause us to mistranslate the radiation coming from others and from circumstances in our worlds, and this just adds to the world chaos. But if we persist with the intent of on-Tone expression, then patterns begin to emerge in our lives that have cosmic Identity, and science behind them. Actually, of course, everybody’s mandala and everybody’s world has appeared and will appear on the basis of Divine science. However, we are concerned with changing the quality of our radiation back into the pure Tone of Being. The Tone then places us where we should be and allows us to be aligned with the larger Archangelic action. At the core of such a vast process are the intelligence, the power and the purposes of the Cosmos.

Human beings use physical objects as symbols that can be used in various ways to bring invisible, vibrational factors to consciousness. There are many religious symbols utilized in this way. For example, the Christian religion evokes such factors with a cross; Buddhism with statues of the Buddha. And there are a myriad other such symbols. Symbols are used by human governments—flags, for example, may represent a nation. Symbols can be used to bring vibrational factors to consciousness and focus to be worked with, as is done at weddings. In the Western world, the exchange of rings is symbolic of the exchange of eternal love. Thus, in many ways, symbols bring qualities of radiation to focus in our worlds.

This, however, may be seen as a somewhat elementary view of symbolism. The truth is that every physical object is a symbol of spiritual and vibrational factors, present to be portals for radiation and work. When we express our energy, our Spirit, toward any object, we are releasing our radiation into the Cosmos, into the Whole. It is worth remembering that we cannot skip over those people and things that are closest to us in our worlds, in our mandalas—imagining we are going to offer something magnificent to the world at large, to God and the Cosmos—yet neglect the quality of our interchange with what is immediately present with us in the Design of Being. We simply cannot skip over it. Radiation moves from us into the Cosmos through those people and objects closest to us. Also, the radiation from the Cosmos comes to us through these same portals. Each person and form in our immediate world is our connection into the larger Whole. What a marvelous arrangement this is! It makes something so vast very manageable to us in our creative work.

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"Our  Revels  Now  Are  Ended"

Alan Hammond   August 3, 2014

 

In its present condition the human consciousness has lost all true perspective on virtually everything. It can be very useful for us to begin to let some of our perspective on Being change.

I’m going to quote from William Shakespeare’s The Tempest. These words were spoken by Prospero, who was an ancient seer in the play.

       Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
       As I foretold you, were all spirits and
       Are melted into air, into thin air:
       And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
       The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
       The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
       Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
       And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
       Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
       As dreams are made on, and our little life
       Is rounded with a sleep.

There are some useful observations we may glean from this quotation. The words might well describe the human consciousness today as it gradually awakens to the future of the human world—namely, dust.

In the play, this speech marks a pivotal point where the characters turn away from the artificial illusory state in which they have been living, and return to their true characters to play their roles in reality. The speech sums up the experience in all fields of human endeavor—be they religion, science, sociology, economics, art, or any others. Shakespeare’s words are brilliant in describing the human state. What is lacking, are those who can describe something of the true state.

One aspect of the current problem is that human beings think their achievement in all fields is just great—whereas the truth of the matter is, they are abominably terrible. For us, when our revels end, we may begin to experience something new in consciousness, something that accurately reveals our true Identity and Character. The expression of that creates the experience of heaven on Earth.

We no longer speculate, as most people do, about some lateral, distant future. Such speculation is all fantasy—rather, we find fulfillment in our spiritual expression in the vertical moment. That little phrase in the speech—our little life is rounded with a sleep—that’s true, isn’t it? We can’t remember what went before this little life and we can’t imagine what comes after it. To be able to do so would be a distraction from what we should be involved with here and now. Also, as Shakespeare says, our lives are such stuff as dreams are made on. This experience on Earth is a dream, and we shall reawaken in the real world and state.

Everything in the temporal world does turn to dust, whereas the spiritual level of Being is ongoing, eternal. We can gradually awaken to this level by giving expression to the Spirit of that level, and we can, if we will, gradually loosen our grip on current human theories and paradigms. As we know, this isn’t easy to do because the mass consciousness and therefore virtually everyone around us has their consciousness embedded in this almost transfixed state. Nevertheless, this is the direction of our movement in the Current of Life.

In any case, remember that all things turn to dust—even the wonderful things—only in that case, they dissolve in order to make way for the beautiful, new forms emerging out of heaven.

To imagine that the human mind could even begin to comprehend all of Being or truly understand what even a small part plays in the Whole is actually ludicrous. It’s not even logical to imagine that it’s possible. Why is this? Well, merely consider the fact that already there is the suspicion that over ninety percent of the matter and energy operating in the Cosmos is beyond human perception.

We might be reminded of the Hindu parable here, where a number of men were in the dark and told to touch an elephant and describe what the elephant looked like. So one man grasped a leg and said, “The elephant is like a pillar.” Another grasped the tail and said, “The elephant is like a rope.” Another felt the trunk and said, “The elephant is like a tree.” Another caught hold of a tusk and said, “No, it’s like a pipe.” Another caught hold of an ear and said, “Well, no, it’s like a great fan.” Another pushed on the stomach and said, “It’s obviously like a wall.” Just so is the perception of Being way beyond the human mind’s capacity to comprehend!

I was recently in a high building at about the fifteenth floor, looked out of the window onto the street below, and there I saw these little dots scurrying around. Just fifteen stories up, human beings look like little dots. The human form and its consciousness are both very tiny, and the proportion of a human physical form to the size of our planet is a good analogy for the human consciousness relative to the consciousness of the planet. Similarly, man’s emotional and spiritual-expression capacities are also very tiny compared with the emotional and spiritual capacities of just this small planet.

The purely intellectual, self-centered approach utilized by the human mind is not the way to understand how to function in this vast Whole. For one thing, the intellect is only a small part of mind, of consciousness. Emotion is a realm of perception and expression of vibrational currents. In our present state, we are emotionally infantile and tend to mistranslate so many of our feelings. Therefore our consciousness is not receiving accurate information from that level.

For a long time now, we have been suggesting the importance of spiritual expression as a foundation for conscious understanding. Can the validity of this suggestion be intellectually proven? No. But I would suggest that everyone try it and observe the results in their own personal life! Then there’s no need to believe anything. We know the truth of this from experience. Also, we may observe the power and effect of spiritual expression in all the fields of human endeavor—be it religion, philosophy, psychology, healing, economics, ecology, and all relationships. And, if we took time to examine the matter, we would see the power and influence of spiritual expression in the field of science—creative science.

Bearing in mind the tininess of the human consciousness, we can see that the so-called towers (as Shakespeare called them)—the towers of human achievement, are not as lofty as humans think they are. People think they observe much and that they have much knowledge but, in fact, they are seeing very little of the actual processes operating. Human knowledge has affected virtually no creative change in the essential human state or life experience. Human beings are still ignorant of their Identity, of their context and role in the Design of Life. They are still as self-centered and self-serving as they can possibly be. Their towers of achievement, being separate from the organic nature of the Whole and the Design are, in fact, ultimately destructive—in transportation, the means of generating power, weaponry, medicine, and indeed all others. Now, of course many people would disagree and wish to debate such points, but there’s no need to argue. Vibrationally, we say, “Carry on, then.” It seems human beings wish to learn the hard way.

What is animating all this dust? Obviously, it is something that is more tangible, with a far greater IQ and consciousness than the dusty forms themselves. This “Something” is animating human forms, and it is the clear expression of this “Something” that is the true art and science that we can discern behind all the manifest forms of dust.

As previously mentioned, the Tone would be the basis of all true fields of human endeavor, because the Tone has within it all the essences of these creative fields. The Tone is actually at the very core of all human activities, but they have become distorted.

For example, in the arts, the current of Life, the Tone, would move through people’s pure emotions to produce power and beauty. That would contrast with what we have today, where art is permeated with destructive emotions that only intensify the unhappy human experience.

In all other fields too, the true Tone would guide consciousness in spiritual matters—in philosophy, psychology, ecology, and in our relationships with everyone and everything else.

Scientific considerations would still relate to how things work—that’s what science considers. Such inquiry would be motivated by a deep love of the Whole, and a deep desire to enhance, not only the human experience, but the experience of the Whole. For example, there is a vast field of natural science related to the use of the natural Current of Life. Much so-called “energy work” is now virtually an unconscious process. True science, in part, would be concerned with this organic energy and the effect of the qualities of its radiation into the organic Design. There would gradually become an awareness of the nuances inherent in the Current—the nuances inherent in the current of Spiritual expression, also describable as Love. These studies would apply to every field of human activity.

In the field of human health, what little dis-ease there would be (the natural state would be ease), could and would be alleviated with a slight realignment with the natural design. And also, in true medical science there would be a far greater awareness of the value of all the vegetation on Earth. Virtually nothing is known now about its properties, and all the minerals therein.

Also, the effects of subtle changes in consciousness that can have dramatic effect in both the individual’s life and in the greater scene of which he/she is a part would be understood. In such levels and qualities of function, human beings would be integrated with the organic, Archangelic Planetary Consciousness, and out of that would also emerge skills and function now unimaginable.
 

Here’s another piece of poetic prose that may help to gradually change our perspective:

The Eternal Presence

This planet’s life I am,

Speaking through this little form into the realm of humankind.

Ho, little people who read these words,

Know ye not the One with whom ye speak?

I am He larger than any man,

Larger than all parts and capacities of everything upon this world,

For I am the One whose body this earth is,

This planet’s life I am.

Before man was, I am.

In every moment, everyplace,

Through the days and settlements of man,

I was.

Present was I in human form,

Witness of every event, both so-called mighty

And those completely unrecorded, unremembered, now unknown.

No human thought, or feeling, aspiration, sorrow,

No plan or action, whether large or small, was made outside My presence,

For I experienced all.

Before man was, I am.

When man is gone, I am.

This word, now uttered through this form,

Will pass anon.

Posterity does not need immortal words

Fori shall speak what's necessary then.

But in this present moment of My experience

I utter words of love and life and joy.

This is a wondrous time, a wondrous place;

But on time move, all outer clothing changes —And I shall be present loving, living, thrilling

Then, as now.

If any read these words I spake,

Remember you wrote them then

As now you read!

For we are one, eternally.

This planet's life, I am.

Here we are now in this moment of eternity. We are modeling everything in dust. Let us consciously fashion every moment as Divinely and as artistically as we may.

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