The Perennial Truth: Awakening of the Soul

Author’s Note

Religious books typically consist of three levels of content: the physical level, which is an autobiography (history) of events as they occurred; the intellectual level, which covers the knowledge of the doctrine; and the emotional level, which translates this knowledge into meaning for the reader. To create context, the knowledge is often woven into examples familiar to the reader, like the parables Jesus once shared with the masses. But today we are no longer satisfied with parables. We want the knowledge firsthand so that we can develop our own understanding.

When I began my spiritual journey, I was submerged in the river of life, unable to make sense of its ever-changing currents. I needed something from beyond this perceived reality, a branch of wisdom I could grab hold of, to drag my perception above its surface and see existence for what it truly is.

The Perennial Truth is such a branch. An unchanging truth that will allow you to grasp who you are, and what life is so that you can rise above its vacillating forces, beyond the wheels of time. I cannot show you the truth of the present moment, for it is transient, but I can reveal the truth that doesn’t change, The Perennial Truth. By applying its higher context to your life experience, you can develop an understanding of the truth of the moment for yourself.

I recommend you keep its bounty within, reflect on its wisdom, and consider its meaning in your life. It works best if left to settle gently into the fertile ground of your unconscious from where it will sprout, flower, and bear fruit in personal understanding.

The book has been structured in accordance with the three levels described above. Part 1 contains my personal experiences and how I came to uncover this system of knowledge. Part 2 contains The Perennial Truth, the ancient system of knowledge that describes the working of creation and our existence within it. Part 3 contains techniques that can be applied in daily life to gain perennial experience and pursue the awakening of your soul.

For the Young at Heart

There once was a little fish called Jimmy who went in search of the ocean. His mother called him Jimmy because he was always jimmying his way into other people’s business with his long snout.

Jimmy swam for days, asking others for directions as he went. But no one seemed to know exactly where the ocean was. Some thought it was to be found in the darkest depths, where many were too afraid to go. Others pointed him to the tropics, where the colorful fish lived among bright corals. And then there was the octopus, who pointed him in several different directions at once.

But no matter where he went, Jimmy remained unconvinced. He knew that he would know it if he saw it. And that feeling simply hadn’t arisen. After weeks of searching, despair started creeping up on him like a shark from the darkness.

Then, quite by luck, he happened upon an ancient sea turtle paddling along graciously. If anyone knows, surely it would be this old one, he thought hopefully.

Can you tell me where the ocean is? Jimmy gasped.

Why young man, the old turtle said, It’s all around you.

Then why can’t I see it? Jimmy glanced this way and that.

Because it is too close for you to see.

So, what do I have to do to see it? Jimmy demanded.

Persistent little one, aren’t you. Let me think...

Jimmy waited impatiently, wagging his tail fin to fend against the current.

Yes, I think I have it, the old one said. Swim straight up as fast as you can go. Don’t stop for anything. Can you do that?

I think so, Jimmy said, shaking with excitement. He finally had direction.

Don’t stop, don’t slow down! the turtle said firmly.

Don’t slow. Don’t stop, Jimmy echoed. Thank you, Mr. Turtle.

With a vigorous swoosh of his delicate fins, he took off, swimming straight up as fast as he could. He had to dodge a large school of mackerel and escape a fierce-looking barracuda, but he was determined. Faster and faster he went. Don’t slow. Don’t stop, he affirmed over and over.

The higher he swam, the lighter it became. He headed toward the light. And just when he was completely exhausted, about to give up, he burst through the surface and flew into the air. Time seemed to stop as he hung suspended above the water.

Wow! he exclaimed. He could see it! A vast ocean that stretched as far as the eye could see. His heart burst with joy. He had been living in it all along. The ocean was his home. In the distance, seagulls circled the sky. As he tumbled back toward the ocean, he was overwhelmed by the sight of the whitest clouds floating overhead. The sight infused him with a new lease on life and a new purpose: helping others see what’s beyond the light.

He shared his wisdom with any fish that would listen, but they didn’t believe him. Especially the bottom feeders, who were too scared to venture beyond the depths they knew.

Do what I did, he would say. Swim straight up as fast as you can. Don’t slow, don’t stop, and you will see for yourself. But they were always too busy with this and with that to take a moment and go up and experience the sky.

Nowadays he hangs out with whales and dolphins a lot. His family can’t believe how much he has changed.

This book captures my journey and what I perceived when I broke through the surface of life. I hope it will inspire you to do the same. You can call me Jimmy.

Dedication

To Patrick Guile and all other seekers of the truth.

May this book find you whenever and wherever you are.

Teachers are often the best seekers.

CONTENTS

Author’s Note

For the Young at Heart

Dedication

1 Introduction

PART 1: MY SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE

2 Mortality

3 The Three Beings

4 Gurdjieff, the Remarkable Man

5 School of Practical Philosophy

6 The Kriyaban

7 The Holy Man

8 Baptism

9 Meeting with an Astrologer

10 The Himalayan Master

11 The Rebel

12 The Guru of Joy

13 Becoming an Art of Living Teacher

14 Destiny

15 Conversations With My Soul

PART2: THE PERENNIAL TRUTH

16 Introduction to The Perennial Truth

17 The Seven Realms of Existence

18 The Trinity and Polarity

19 The Three levels of Being

20 The Cosmic Entity

21 The Wheels of Time

22 The Archetypes

23 Collective Realms and Worlds

24 Tantric Relations and the Exchange of Energy

25 Consciousness

26 Self-Awakening

27 Self-Realization

28 Journey of the Soul

29 Karma, Sanskara, and Vasana

30 Gods and the Forces of Creation

31 Doership and the Present Moment

32 The Four Signs of Enlightenment

PART3: THE GREAT WORK

33 Introduction to the Great Work

34 Self-observation

35 Breaking the Seals

36 The Maha Khala

37 The Value of Mantra

38 Ignorance and Intelligence

39 Being in the Present Moment

40 Maintaining Good Health

41 Being Versus Having

42 Overcoming the Ultimate Addiction

43 Spiritual Parenting

44 Householders, Monks, and Nuns

45 The Ultimate Surrender

46 Role of the Teacher

47 Book of Life

1 Introduction

"Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death." (Thomas 1.)

This book presents the findings of my search for the highest truth of existence. A quest that led me far and wide—from the southern tip of Africa on to Europe, North America, and the desolate outskirts of India, where sages live in caves to this very day.

My journey began as result of a deeply disturbing experience, one that challenged my understanding of reality and cracked the fortress walls of my belief. Belief, I discovered, was another’s truth, holding me suspended in a state of mental limbo that would be overcome only by the enigmatic promptings of my soul. Its whispers steered me to uncover a hidden primordial knowledge that precedes all known religions, partially embedded in their theologies, doctrines, dogmas, and forms of worship.

The twelve main religions in the world today (Baha’i, Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Shinto, Sikhism, Taoism, and Zoroastrianism) profess to offer the infallible truth of God, life, and the hereafter. Seemingly unique in their interpretation, each possesses but part of a far more comprehensive system of knowledge that transcends the changing nature of cosmic seasons and its teachings.

To grasp The Perennial Truth (TPT) requires terms that do not exist in English vocabulary, expressions that attempt to convey the essence of the various realms of existence as well as the individual spiritual experience. To write this book, I had to learn these ancient terms so I could correlate them to my own understanding and translate them into English phrases.

***

Before my journey began, I could never have dreamed that our sun orbits a higher star called Paramesthi. Its duration is called a Great Year Cycle that lasts 25,800 Earth years. While our sun emits solar energy, Paramesthi emits mental (prana) energy—a subtle life force that our minds can directly absorb. Prana fuels our mental activity and its presence has a significant impact on our cognitive awareness and mental capacity.

This elliptical orbit of our solar system subjects us to mental seasons, just as we are subject to annual solar seasons. Mental Dark Ages occur when our solar system is furthest from this prana-sun and the available prana on our planet at its lowest. We are currently exiting such a Dark Age, known as the Age of Pisces. During the height of the previous Golden Ages (14,000 BC), and more specifically, the Age of Virgo, human beings could communicate telepathically by projecting moving images directly into the minds of others. But this ability was lost near the end of the Descending Silver Ages (4500 BC) during the Age of Gemini. The biblical story of the Tower of Babel and the confusion of tongues described in Genesis marks the time in history when we lost this telepathic ability. At first, we resorted to drawn pictures and hieroglyphics to replace it. Later, objects were given names, and spoken language was developed. Written language came only much later. Needless to say, language is a far less effective method of communication and, due to the possibility of mistaken subjective interpretation, limits our ability to accurately convey experiences and thoughts.

Examining religions’ relevance to humanity from the context of a mental cosmic cycle reveals that religious doctrines relate to specific cosmic seasons, each with a particular level of prana and a corresponding degree of mental awakening. What is true for the Age of the Warrior (Aries), who seeks an eye for an eye, is not so for the Age of the Martyr (Pisces), who turns the other cheek. According to this measure, many of our current religions are at the end of their designated cosmic season, clinging to relevance in mutated form, to the detriment of the very people they once intended to serve.

Figure 1 depicts a Great Year and its seasons.

I have little doubt that Abraham and Moses understood something of this Great Year Cycle and their own age, the Age of Aries, the Ram, as can be deduced from the many similes and parables involving sheep and shepherds in the Old Testament. Abel is described as a keeper of sheep. Jacob, Moses, and David were shepherds. In Psalm 23, the Lord is a shepherd. Moses ordained that the yearly calendar commence with Nisan, the month of the Ram, at the beginning of spring.

The Age of Aries, also known as the Age of the Warrior, is when the fearless shepherd wards off the beasts and leads his flock to safety, as enacted by Moses when he liberated the Jews from Egyptian slavery. It is an age of retribution, rooted in confrontation of a physical nature. Unfortunately, a lot of what was known to our spiritual forefathers four millennia ago has since been lost.

When the Age of Aries ended two thousand years ago, during the Common Era, the Jews were once again awaiting a messiah, one who they hoped would overthrow the rulership of Rome this time as Moses had done with the Egyptians. But when he came, they did not recognize him, for he came not as a warrior but as a martyr, a fisher of men who would sacrifice himself for the salvation of others. He was the messiah of the dawning Age of Pisces, the Age of the Martyr, an age when trust outweighed the need to confront. The Jews were awaiting a warrior, but a martyr achieved so much more than a warrior ever could, capturing the hearts of their oppressors and turning them all into Jews, albeit it under the banner of Christianity, the largest religion in the world today.

I think it fair to say that Jesus was the most prominent martyr of the Piscean age, irrespective of continent, including Gautama Buddha who almost starved himself to death for the greater cause of spiritual awakening. Walking by the sea of Galilee, Jesus approached two brothers, Simon and Andrew, and said, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. James and John were next to follow. All fishermen. The secret ancient Christian symbol, the ichthys, was named for the Greek word ikhthýs (fish). When Christ communicated with the Jews, he still used a language they could understand and hence the continued references to sheep and shepherds in the gospel of the New Testament. But the theme of Pisces (Latin plural for fish) and the element of water come through strongly in the depicted historical scenes.

Many fanatical supporters, wishing to follow in their master’s footsteps, were martyred during the century that followed Crucifixion. I doubt they understood martyrdom’s deeper meaning, namely the surrender of the ego to the soul rather than the body to the grave.

The Messiah is a Son of God, a soul on a Heavenly mission that transcends the mundane demands of Earthly incarnation. But when this messiah takes human form, He too becomes a son of man and is given an Earthly name by the biological parents of the body. In this manner, Christ, a Son of God, an immortal soul, appeared to the world as Jesus, a son of man of mortal origin, destined to perish as all others do. For all that is born, dies. Only the begotten, without birth, surpass death.

To understand the scriptures, it is crucial that these two sons not be confused. Jesus was a son of man (ego), the son of Mary and Joseph, a carpenter, while Christ is a Son of God, an awakened soul that lives on eternally and visits us in the visage of the different archetypes at the beginning of each new mental season.

It was because of this very confusion that Christ was rejected by his own countrymen (Matthew 13:54):

And when he was come into his own country, he taught them in their synagogue, insomuch that they were astonished, and said, Whence hath this man this wisdom, and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And his brethren, James, and Joseph, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things? And they were offended in him.

No doubt Christ understood the cosmic seasons, and that each has a particular archetype with its own truth. In John 8, when the Jews said to Him: "‘You are not yet fifty years old, and You have seen Abraham?’ ‘Truly, truly, I tell you,’ He declared, ‘before Abraham was born, I am!‘ At this, they picked up stones to throw at Him." The people couldn’t grasp that this was Christ speaking through the man called Jesus, or what He meant.

***

Today, we are in a time of transition once more. While the wisdom of yoga and meditation floods the west, fanatical Jihadi Muslims attempt to carry the martyr theme into the future. But the time of the martyr is at an end, steadily making way for the Age of Aquarius. The Age of Knowledge and its understanding. The Age of the Sage (Teacher).

When the Messiah of the New Age arrives, he again will not be recognized. Certainly not by those who fervently predict the imminent return of Jesus, the Martyr. For this time, the messiah will not come as a Martyr, but as a Sage, a Teacher of Wisdom who speaks the truth directly without the need for parables. A bearer of water (eternal truth), who will free our minds, and allow us to step beyond our conditioning and experience the transcendental truth of our soul for ourselves.

When his disciples questioned Jesus, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? he answered, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of Heaven, but to them it is not given... Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand (Matthew 13:10–11, 13).

During the time of Jesus people were not intellectual. They could trust but not understand. The Perennial Truth would have held very little value for them then. But now, in this new age, we, the masses, are finally ready to experience the unchanging truth for ourselves and develop our own understanding of it. What wasn’t possible then is possible now.

***

Religious content can be grouped into three levels. The basic level describes the physical journey of its protagonists, their autobiography if you like, or history as we find it in abundance in the Bible’s Old Testament. The intermediate level contains the knowledge, the doctrine, the truth Christ shared with his disciples in secret. This is at the level of understanding. And the third level deals with emotion, transforming understanding into meaning for the follower. This includes practices that should be followed to gain personal meaning from the truth.

Rather than teach knowledge, Christ conveyed basic meaning to the masses by using parables. All the follower had to do was trust and follow the prescribed rules. But trust is not as easy today. We are no longer simple farmers or fishermen. We are far more intellectual now, and it is far easier for us just to believe rather than to trust. Belief is at the level of the intellect, not the heart, and does not require much sacrifice. It is cheap, while trust requires real investment—the surrender of the mind to the heart. No questions arise in the mind of those who truly trust. If you are filled with thoughts and judgments, you do not trust. At best, what you have is belief.

The good news is that as we enter the mental Age of Aquarius, our minds are ready for the real truth that will allow us to form understanding and meaning of our own.

The new messiah will provide us with a way to access the unblemished truth of the immortal realm, the Perennial Truth of the kingdom of Heaven, the causal root of what exists all around us, not by proxy but through direct communion with our own soul. In John 14, Christ said, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. The Father represents wisdom. He meant that the truth can only be accessed directly, through your own soul. The transcendental truth that cannot be told has to be experienced directly.

***

From where will this teacher, this Aquarian rabbi come, you may ask? If history prevails, it will surely be from among the Christians, in Rome. Only the Abrahamic religions have endeavored to incorporate the symbols of the cosmic mental seasons, of sheep and fish, into their recent dogma.

But one could argue that, globally, Rome is part of the West, the land of the setting sun, of the Martyr. Aquarius is the first ascending sign of the new Great Year Cycle. And as the sun rises in the east, perhaps this new messiah will be incarnated in the land of the three magi (astrologers) who visited Bethlehem two millennia ago bearing gifts. No doubt their search for a new messiah had been inspired by the progression of the spring equinox into the stars of the constellation of Pisces indicating that a new age had arrived. It is an interesting notion. One that deserves further consideration.

While the West has been obsessed with material prosperity and conquering life, the yogis and tantrics have been promoting the wisdom of the ancient spiritual sciences of the previous golden age and how to conquer death. Sri Yukteswar’s book, The Holy Science, was one of the first to reveal the secret knowledge of the Mental Wheel of Time—knowledge yet to be discovered by the West.

Many iconic Western philosophers, like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, and Kant have explored the nature of truth, knowledge, and existence and how to bridge the chasm between science and religion. But none compare favorably with what ancient Tantra and Yoga have to offer.

The problem facing Western logic is that, just as you can’t deduce the stated formula of a complex mathematical equation from its solution, you can’t grasp the underlying truth of existence by studying phenomena. To successfully interpret phenomena, you need to have first glimpsed the underlying truth —the picture on the box of reality’s puzzle—to give the correct context. A vision of the wisdom of the causal that has been the subject of my search.

There is a very good chance that The Perennial Truth will first find adoption in America, the current stronghold of Christianity. The U.S. has been the leader of the free world since the Second World War, putting liberty and individual freedom first. Perhaps New York, arguably the leading media hub of the world, will become the new place from which The Perennial Truth will spread to the rest of humanity.

***

When I first received the inspiration to write this book, I thought it was to better explain the esoteric meaning of the Bible. Since then I have come to realize that its purpose is rather to offer a truth that transcends cosmic seasons and their corresponding religions.

In Part 1, I share my spiritual journey and experiences—more specifically, how I gained access to The Perennial Truth. Part 2 presents this truth, which has remained hidden for thousands of years—the truth that will defeat ignorance during this age, enable your personal understanding of existence, and lead you back to trust in yourself, God, and others. There is far more to it than can be contained by a single book, or even the mind, and more will be revealed in years to come. Part 3 includes the techniques that demonstrate the mechanisms of this timeless truth so that you can observe its workings for yourself.

Consider this book a foretelling, to be refined when the Messiah of Aquarius arrives to reveal all. Much has been sifted from esoteric resources, leached from the sediment of ancient scriptures, and you may recognize ideas or doctrine that you have encountered before.

In order to commence your personal journey toward the truth, sincerity is required—not to others but to yourself. Unless you step beyond your ego’s conditioning and admit that you do not know the truth firsthand, through personal experience, your journey has not yet begun. Instead, you live the life of a spectator, resting in the shade of a tree rather than courageously traversing the path that leads through the valley of the shadow of death toward the peak of human consciousness.

I would like to assure you that the journey to the higher realm of existence does not end where it began, as do the mortal journeys of life that are subservient to the wheels of time. Its destination is the present moment, the abode of your soul, the only place that’s real. Being in the present moment connects us to all of creation through the oneness of the soul. The past is dead, and the future never comes. Along the way, you will discover that the journey to the truth is a spontaneous dance, one of give and take; an intimate communion with life and the beyond.

Once you admit that all you have is another’s truth and not the truth of your soul, the journey has begun. There can be no greater quest. It is the quest for the Holy Grail, the philosopher’s stone that turns lead into gold, you into your immortal self.

PART 1

MY SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE

2 Mortality

My first memorable spiritual experience occurred when I was eight years old. It was Christmas day, and our neighbors were celebrating beside their recently completed pool. Its crystal blue water sparkled in the sun. The children laughed and screamed with joy as they splashed and played. They all appeared to be having a great time.

Christmas at our house was a more solemn affair. There was the turkey lunch my mother slaved over for hours to look forward to. Trifle for dessert. But little else. Our family was poor compared to the others in our low-income neighborhood, where many of the houses were government developed and subsidized. We didn’t own a car and had to rely on unpredictable public transport to go anywhere. Christmas church service was a two-mile walk.

My gaze shifted to the earthy-brown décor of my parents’ bedroom. I went there sometimes to escape everyone. They had separate beds, and I was perched on my mother’s, closest to the window. It offered a view of our neighbor’s backyard. I was feeling depressed, and part of me wished that I didn’t exist. I closed my eyes and sighed deeply. The next moment I was out of my body, observing myself as if from the outside. I could clearly perceive this person I had become as a separate entity. It struck me that this poor mortal’s life would be but a fleeting experience of which nothing would remain when he was gone.

I realized that becoming this person had been an utter waste of time, like building a sandcastle in the path of a rising tide. The futility of it struck me with despair.

The emptiness that arose in me was so overwhelming that I didn’t even realize that I was the observer and not the observed. I silently vowed never to enter that void again. I was Neo in The Matrix choosing the blue pill over the red; the dream called my life over the truth of my existence.

In that moment, I had shunned the very experience so many spiritual seekers yearned for: to perceive the mortal self as apart of themselves. But instead of its helping me to realize my true self, my ignorance had rejected it.

The following two decades, I spurned that void every time it approached within. I avoided its emptiness by engaging in all sorts of activities, adhering to the creed that idle hands are the devil’s workshop (Proverbs).

But the void wasn’t finished with me yet.

3 The Three Beings

My next significant spiritual experience came early in May 1991, a whole twenty years later. And only because I was unable to avoid it. By that time, I had become a certified public accountant and was practicing competitive bodybuilding as a sport.

I had been dieting for months on end, and my body fat was below five percent according to the calipers. With a sense of accomplishment, I was practicing my posing routine in front of a large mirror that stretched the length of the dining room wall. Beating down the fire of desire had been a relentless battle, a feverish struggle between ambition and appetite, both threatening to consume me. There were days of crumbled resolve when I would wolf down an entire bag of oatmeal cookies in one sitting, but they were few and far between, and powerless against the repetitive days of grilled chicken breasts and brown rice.

I turned into a side pose—chest out, left elbow pulled back, stomach tucked in, right hand gripping my left wrist, flexing the left thigh. The dark tan, nurtured for weeks under the African sun, made my skin appear almost translucent, like a thin layer of spray-on paint stretching to accommodate the bulging muscles quivering below.

I didn’t remember collapsing to the floor. The last thing I remembered was a momentary glimpse of the bright ceiling lights slowly rotating overhead before everything went dark.

When I came to, awkwardly sprawled on the dining room carpet, the world seemed strangely still, as if suspended between breaths. I pushed up from the floor and lifted my gaze. My mind was pinprick clear, devoid of any thoughts. Everything within sight appeared colorfully vivid, like in a maxi-theater, when you put on the 3D glasses for the first time, and images pop from the screen. Reality imitating art.

Then, to my astonishment, a voice spoke, not courtesy of sound carried to my ears but rather as an alien missive inserted directly into my mind.

Go to your kitchen drawer, it commanded. Inside you will find a note you wrote.

I hesitated to consider the absurdity of what was happening, then shrugged at my muscle-bound reflection in the mirror and rose from the floor. Heading toward the kitchen, my body felt strangely distant. A puppet on a string. I pulled open the top drawer, but all I saw was a pile of white plastic placemats.

Underneath.

It was confident, seemingly omniscient. It felt as if it were a deeper part of me I didn’t know.

Lifting the closest end of the pile, the cynic in me expected to prove it wrong, but a piece of folded stationary paper stared back at me. The maid, whom I regularly annoyed by leaving things lying around, must have put it there. I would like to say that I am so organized in my mind that order on the outside was superfluous. But maybe I was just a slob...

Distant hands struggled to unfold the piece of paper. The voice spoke again:

In the hall closet, you will find a second.

It seemed to guide me as I walked trance-like to the cupboard. Hands reached out instinctively to locate a second folded sheet tucked between two books. I hadn’t even known it was there. Something in me concurred that this was the correct one.

It then led me to the main bedroom bed stand, where I retrieved a third note, hidden from sight in the deepest recess of the drawer. I returned to the dining table, its large black granite top reflecting the bright overhead lights.

Open them, and place them side by side.

A strange spinning sensation enveloped my chest. This was beginning to feel like an intervention. I did as it said and squinted at the three notes. During my varsity years, I had acquired a habit of taking notes on random pieces of paper whenever struck by a seemingly bright idea. A waste of time you may say, considering I never kept track of them.

Do you see the connection?

I frowned. The first note was penned in purple marker:

Pain is not the enemy.

No pain, no gain.

Not very original, I know. No Pulitzers beckoning on the horizon. It referred to the pain barrier I kept hitting while performing squats in the gym.

The second note, written in red, was from when the diet was really kicking in:

Whatever I resist, persists.

Indulge once, and let it go.

This insight came after wolfing a box of those damn cookies. But the advice was sound, as many a randy adolescent could attest to. Not the ones with hair on their palms, mind you—they were clearly overdoing it.

The third note was a little more esoteric, copied in blue:

When your heart is in it,

There is no effort.

Do you see? the voice said.

The only connection I could fathom was the upcoming show. But this was clearly not what it meant. I felt like a fortune hunter, staring at a selection of tarot cards, grappling for meaning.

You are three... a trinity.

The notes seemed to swirl before my eyes, and I instinctively braced against the table, pinching my eyes shut. A scene came to life in my mind’s eye: on the left, a red man, seated in the pose of the Thinker, separate from other red figures. And on the right, a sky blue Madonna with wide arms embracing a crowd. Then the two merged, and from their union, a third appeared, a violet child. The vision struck me with awe.

Father, mother, and child, the voice intoned. Nature’s trinity.

The image faded, and I opened my eyes, staring at the notes on the table. How they related to the vision, I had no idea.

Body, mind, and heart. The same trinity. As below, so above.

I grappled with the insight. The purple note, which resembled the color of the child, was obviously about the body. The blue note specifically mentioned the heart, leaving only the red note about the desire for carbs. I wondered how this related to the mind.

The child must be the body, the heart the mother and the mind, therefore, the father, I muttered out loud.

The only trinity I’d ever learned about was while attending Bible school during my youth. But the church’s Divine Trinity had no mother. Unless... unless the Holy Spirit was, in fact, the Divine Mother, the Divine Feminine. Did Constantine and the founders of the church get this wrong? Was that why so many Catholics worshiped Mother Mary—some unconscious need to acknowledge the Divine Feminine?

You will rewrite the past, reveal the true message of the Holy Son, the Heavenly Child, the voice whispered. Its intensity made me struggle for breath.

I reminded myself to relax, to breathe slowly. Ever since I stopped attending church during my varsity years, the Bible had been furthest from my mind. And I could hardly be called a spiritual person... not if the commandments were my measure. Certainly not a seeker of truth, or even God for that matter. If anyone were to be chosen for the task of interpreting the Bible, it would most certainly have been a spiritual type, endowed with the ability to write—a craft I was blessed without.

I sighed deeply and brushed the whole notion aside. It was far more fantasy than even I could bear.

Cookie? I asked my perplexed reflection.

Yet the confidence of this inner entity persisted, like a smitten cloud clinging to a lowly mountaintop. Never, had I ever felt this level of certainty about anything, let alone such a supercilious mission.

How do I reach you? How do I reach this state? I asked out loud, defying all reason.

You will be shown the way. But this contest is the last time you glorify the body. Bodies are all destined for the dust from where they come. With that the voice was gone, taking its assuredness with it.

I stared at the three notes arranged on the dining room table and suddenly felt so alone. Tears of humility sprinkled with hope flooded my eyes. The true context of these notes had escaped my comprehension all along. I hadn’t even been aware of the color of the pens I had been using. How much else was there in life that I had simply not grasped? Had this inner entity been pulling the strings of my life all along, with me blissfully unaware?

Lying in bed later, struggling to fall asleep, I wondered if any of this had been real, or just the vivid hallucinations of an overly ambitious mind starved of nutrition.

4 Gurdjieff, the Remarkable Man

The following Monday morning, my first day back at work after the competition, the office was quiet, as month end was still a week away. Our finance department worked in waves and our busiest time was when we prepared the monthly business reports. Later that morning, I was visited by Michael, a vendor, who was promoting digital presentation solutions. My first impression was that his technology could be quite useful for our monthly board meetings.

After completing his pitch and getting ready to leave, he said, Have you ever heard of higher states of consciousness?

The question came out of the blue, catching me off guard. I couldn’t fathom why he would raise such an esoteric subject in a formal business meeting. Risky move, if you asked me. But his expression was sincere.

Considering how to respond, something in me threw caution to the wind. I... did have some kind of experience last week, I blurted.

What happened? He shifted forward in the chair.

I described the scene with the inner voice and three notes but left out the part about interpreting the Bible, not wanting him to think I was deranged.

"That’s incredible!