A Nimbus for All

Your friend SAM: Saturation, Affirmation, Mentation

Everyone lives in the often difficult aura of the world, in the aura of nations, groups, families, associates, and friends. Some helping professions, such as counseling, by their nature expose the helper to often horrifically difficult auras of troubled people.

People vary considerably in their sensitivity to these auras, some more “open hearted” people are especially prone to absorb energies from the surrounding ocean of human emotions. Many of us are mediumistic, psychically sensitive, or resonant to this surround. In general, it is is the “heart type” that is most subject to the collective and individual auras that make up their personal surround. The devote, the artists, and certain types of educators and “people persons” are especially sensitive. Such sensitive people can become debilitated, disrupted, or weighted down by the heaviness of what comes upon them in the normal course of life. By contrast, it is the “head type” that is less subject to the auras of other persons—the active mind provides a measure of insulation that makes them less vulnerable. Yet even head types sensitive to the surround, just not as keenly as their brothers of the heart.

One must remain sympathetically in touch with others and compassionate toward the world, so it is not advisable to attempt to isolate ones self completely—an impossible task in any case. Nevertheless, there are certain actions that can be taken to soften the impacts and help us stay in a more healthy state, despite the difficulties of the world and people.

To render this memorable, let us call it “SAM,” that being an acronym for Saturation, Affirmation, and Mentation. Let us elaborate these three.

SATURATION

“Saturation” is both the nature of the problem and, at the same time, a solution. When sensitive, we become saturated with the surrounding energies of persons and circumstances—we absorb them like a sponge. That is, we are apt to do so if we are not already saturated with something better—something benevolent and deliberately chosen by us. One way of attaining the necessary saturation is reading. For instance, if we fill ourselves with inspirational reading, with something that is attractive, uplifting, enlightening, then that “fullness” will tend to prevent us from absorbing too much of the world and persons. For this to be effective, the reading should be frequent, persisted and over a considerable period of time—it should be something that we want to make a part of us, something that we will then carry with us at a subconscious and sometimes conscious level.

AFFIRMATION

Affirmation is one of the most powerful forms of meditation. Find, memorize, and take to heart a brief and bold formula that begins with phrase “I am…” This should be brief, because that makes its use more powerful and when brief is easier to use frequently. This should be a metaphysical formula. An example is:

“I am a point of light within the mind of God, I am a strand of loving energy within the stream of love divine.”

Needless to say, the effective use of such a formula requires feeling, one must put ones full self into it, speaking with conviction. Speak it from the deepest level you can meditatively access. Act as if what you are affirming is a realized fact in your personal consciousness. Used often, and well, such a formula will tend to dissipate the lower energies that we may have absorbed.

MENTATION

There are two parts to mentation– we could call them Limited and Unlimited.

Limited: Use more of your head and less of your emotions. It is on the emotional level that we are most vulnerable. The mental level can and should be a quieter and more illuminated place. For example, you are assisting someone who is in trouble. The scientist in you actively seeks clear understanding and is thinking about how best to handle the situation. There is a challenge here, and you are mentally intent on rising to meet it. You are not to be a mere dumping grounds for the others woes—instead you are mentally and spiritually present and full of solutions. You are the remedy, the health, and the cure and it is this that your mind will be vibrant with.

Unlimited: I’ve suggested above that the mind should be a quiet and illuminated place. The light of the mind descends from the intuitive realm which is, in fact, a great world of light. One of the basic revelations in that light is the fact of the unlimited nature of life and of the soul, and there also is the knowledge that Good will inevitability triumph. No matter how horrific the person or circumstance is that confronts you, the fact is that they will be transformed toward the good and ultimately attain the well being that waits for them. It may not be soon, and you may or may not be the one who turns the key for them—but it will come. This last “remedy” is the most difficult to appreciate and apply. I’ve defined the “Unlimited” here, somewhat in the abstract. I will close with a passage from Walt Whitman who offers us a definition of the same in more concrete terms.

“I saw the face of the most smeared and slobbering

idiot they had at the asylum,

And I knew for my consolation what they knew not,

I knew of the agents that emptied and broke my brother,

The same wait to clear the rubbish from the fallen tenement,

And I shall look again in a score or two of ages,

And I shall meet the real landlord perfect

and unharmed, every inch as good as myself.

The Lord advances, and yet advances!

Always the shadow in front! always the reached

hand bringing up the laggards!

Out of this face emerge banners and horses—

O superb! I see what is coming,

I see the high pioneer-caps—

I see the staves of runners clearing the way,

I hear victorious drums.”

The Turn from Night to Day

Inevitably, things become better. The beginning and ending of karmic cycles and the weaving and blending of waves is exceedingly complex. It is difficult to say what is ending and what is beginning, or even sometimes what is for the best and what is not. But our spirit perceives the beginning and the conclusion and is secure in the knowledge of the inevitable triumph of Good. This knowledge is at the heart of that perennial optimism that sees the light of tomorrow. We know how thought shapes the future and how our attitude and orientation contributes to the stream of events. We are alert to the worst possibilities as temporary delays in the cosmic scheme, yet we remain alight with the vision of the best and with our hands and feet well employed.

The future of mankind exists as an archetypal reality. Each one who sees this helps manifest the inevitable, forges a link with brotherhood, and lightens the burden of humanity. One can directly experience the coming renovation in human consciousness because the focus of true individuality is in continuity with a greater life or being that is the foundation and root of unity.

Sacred Ethereal Pressures

 

Thought is poised between dimensions, dropping easily toward earth and more rarely deep into luminous reflections of other worlds. In thought is an opening door, a world of rainbow silences lovely as light, where then, when the veil wears thin, thoughts come with the lighting edge of fire.

Where then, when the veil wears thin, the gleaming surfaces of objects dissolve to exquisite meanings. And in ready moments, mind glides quietly into the blue and into landscape of distant worlds, where with all drawn close to the eyes, the way is clear.  And for company in and through all the glowing silences of lost spaces, are true friends, and love in the air all surrounding.

And more sure than fine sun of cloudless day, interior radiance proves spirit well.  So clear, pure, tremendous, the ethereal pressures of sacred things to be, mount within us, and mysterious shadows of ancient days crowd round us in night and day. See then the Life laid out, a clear and certain path, even to the most distant stars and times. And Life as something far beyond our reach, proves illusion, for distances dissolve and real life fills the creative fires of each happy day.

Infinite Divinations

Runes, cards, I Ching, sticks, books, leaves, hands, stars, numbers, words, symbols, forms–all the same face, giving nothing or everything. Every pattern, every symbol system, the waves on the sand, the child’s face, every language, the same; the whole universe divined by I-evoking magic. Does it matter where we turn for the answers? I divine there is little virtue in the pattern, in the form itself; most virtue being in the reader or in the reader’s magic relation with “out there.” The sky and the earth are as full of Runes as is any man women or child.

Psyche: the Fiery Angel

A fiery angel comes to live with us, in her face the memory of all we have known, in her all the fiery angels of past ages. Her hand traces the brightest patterns of life, the hidden structures of worlds and time. With her, into the earth for a time, to sleep, to dream, and finally to wake, until now we see the creative, the essence of ourselves, the soul incarnate. Near her, the face of the whole world shines with fluid light. Near her the obvious invisible flame, and in this the world of subtle pattern, the flow of deep purpose, the great mystery. We live in this flame in our true aspect, and in it are all the faces of love in all times.