Chapter 09 - The Continuing Story of Adams, the Avatar

I was fortunate to experience three "visions" over my first six months in Play as Being. They are documented in my blog and in my reports of them in the PaB sessions in the days following. I have never discussed them together and i wonder if my experience might be of any interest. I make a disctintion between these and the many dreams I have recorded during this time and that is the physical element in the "vision". Each of the visions felt very real; I felt transported bodily. It would have been easy to either overplay their importance or to be afraid of them. Fortunately I had people to help me from doing either of the above. At the same time I treasure these experiences, or maybe better, I appreciate them as the presence of Being.

Each of the visions contains elements of suggestions, or even statements that people had made in the days preceding them.

My first experience took place during a regular nine-second pause. It began as I was doing a body scan, in this case, menatlly scanning around and around my body from the head down. All of a sudden I felt my body lifted off the ground and I felt myself rising upward, through the clouds toward the sun. There I saw a bearded God sitting on a cloud and I looked at him in surprise, he smiled at me. When God smiles at you, you smile back and I must have looked pretty silly there in my office with a broad smile on my face.

The second vision took place as I was lying in bed in late July. I felt under a bit of pressure because my mentor had recently pressed me hard to open the door to God. God was knocking at my front door and I was not answering but instead i was going out the back door. Our shared imagery was from a Pre-Raphailite painter, Wlliam Holman Hunt.

I insisted I did not know how to open the door to the vexation of my mentor who in exasperation told me then to just tell God that I did not know how to open the door and please come in. That night while laying in bed, somewhat distressed and feeling that i was just not "getting it", I repeated the mantra "please come in" and then started doing a body scan. All of the sudden I felt the bed rocking back and forth like a cradle. I started slowly, continued for a few seconds, and then slowly stopped. I tried to keep it going but I had no control of it. 

The third vision took place in early October and affected my sleeping for the next two months. The record of it in my October 2 blog entry is very brief and to the fact. it was the middle of the night. I was physically transported to a great space. In it I felt tremndous freedom as all my cares fell away. It was tremendously exhilarating. I realized that I had been living my life in a series of compartments.At the time I thought I had doscovered something to which I could return. After the "vision" I woke up in the middle of the night and could not return to sleep for hours.

Looking back, I began to see my own compartments and how they interacted. Soon after the vision, I had a dream of a bus ride back from the "vision" in which I was returning to a dark, ugly space. All of my avatars were in atendance (in disguise). It was the first time I saw a connection with my identities.

Each dream or vision seemed to clarify things a little more. I had a dream in early December where I could see these spatial compartments from the exterior (they were tierribly ugly-based on the imagery of Hieronymous Bosch) and I saw they all led to a bright space in the distance. Pema suggested I step aside and go directly to the space. Looking back this was a visualization of the concept that there is no need for a path. If we can only find a way to step outside, the paths are only compartmentalized spaces preventing us from seeing the great space that lies outside. As Pema noted, we can just then walk over to the light.

It was a revelation to see relationships between the spatial compartments I was building and the various identities. As I tried to understand them, it seemed they were battling each other and me. It was Pema who rescued me by talking me into dropping all these identities to listen. His words had a soothing effect and I could feel all the identities just drop away all at once and I felt tremendous peace. Since then I have been trying to learn to just drop them at will.

Moving On

Reading through the blogs I have become very conscious that my experiences are somewhat cyclical.I often report a new insight that sounds like one that I had months ago, or will have again later. Talking it out in PaB sessions I become aware of weaknesses in my understanding. Someone asks penetrating questions looking deep into me. Sometimes then I realize inconsistencies or just some lack if understanding. each time I come around the cycle i seem to understand a little deeper. Through my first ten months, I am learning more and more about myself.

Over the winter I mostly worked on trying to drop the identities. At the same time I learned to take them more lightly and, in doing so, learned to accept them, and even love them. Still the ability to drop them at will eluded me until March 2 when Stim noted that he saw presence of APAPB in the context of timelessness. that was a key for me and is opening new insights as I write this. Others seem to be able to drop their selves/identities in a much different way. At this moment, this is the way for me to drop them and be able to listen, to have the burden of my selves/identities lifted off my shoulders. This is a much more satisfying experience than "visions", which I know now that although spectacular, they are another story. The stories are interesting and fun but we must be able to drop them too. So for now, I am wondering what else is in store for me in this great adventure called "Play as Being".

What was next was a reacquaintance with "love". I have been skating close to this in the past few months but a series of explorations led me to another powerful experience this time of love. I have known this love over the years but I seem to have found other things more important and forgot the power of those moments. I never truly understood how important they were at the time.

At the very end of the month I am thinking about how some of our "roles" become tangled up with one another. How can we ever begin to untangle them? How do we learn to choose what is useful from what we are taught without being burdened by the falsehoods passed on to us?

Updated March 31, 2009