Trimorphic Protennoia

This is an early Christian initiatory rite developed by the Savior, whom we know to be Jesus, discovered in the cache of documents now known as the Nag Hammadi codices.  These scrolls, some predating the gospels By Mark, Luke and Mathew, have brought back into sharp focus that which the early church dismissed out of hand and represent a powerful understanding of the route to the divine that lies within each of us.  These documents were discovered in the mid-40's outside of a town in Egypt at a time when we were more ready to see them for what they are, which is a sacred path to awakening the divine that is within each of us. 

The Nag Hammadi Library

Trimorphic Protennoia

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Translated by John D. Turner

I am Protennoia, the Thought that dwells in the Light. I am the movement that dwells in the All, she in whom the All takes its stand, the first-born among those who came to be, she who exists before the All. She (Protennoia) is called by three names, although she dwells alone, since she is perfect. I am invisible within the Thought of the Invisible One. I am revealed in the immeasurable, ineffable (things). I am incomprehensible, dwelling in the incomprehensible. I move in every creature.
I am the life of my Epinoia that dwells within every Power and every eternal movement, and (in) invisible Lights and within the Archons and Angels and Demons, and every soul dwelling in Tartaros, and (in) every material soul. I dwell in those who came to be. I move in everyone and I delve into them all. I walk uprightly, and those who sleep, I awaken. And I am the sight of those who dwell in sleep.
I am the Invisible One within the All. It is I who counsel those who are hidden, since I know the All that exists in it. I am numberless beyond everyone. I am immeasurable, ineffable, yet whenever I wish, I shall reveal myself of my own accord. I am the head of the All. I exist before the All, and I am the All, since I exist in everyone.
I am a Voice speaking softly. I exist from the first. I dwell within the Silence that surrounds every one of them. And it is the hidden Voice that dwells within my, within the incomprehensible, immeasurable Thought, within the immeasurable Silence.
I descended to the midst of the underworld, and I shone down upon the darkness. It is I who poured forth the water. It is I who am hidden within radiant waters. I am the one who gradually put forth the All by my Thought. It is I who am laden with the Voice. It is through me that Gnosis comes forth. I dwell in the ineffable and unknowable ones. I am perception and knowledge, uttering a Voice by means of thought. I am the real Voice. I cry out in everyone, and they recognize it (the voice), since a seed indwells them. I am the Thought of the Father, and through me proceeded the Voice, that is, the knowledge of the everlasting things. I exist as Thought for the All -- being joined to the unknowable and incomprehensible Thought -- I revealed myself -- yes, I -- among all those who recognize me. For it is I who am joined with everyone by virtue of the hidden Thought and an exalted , even a Voice from the invisible Thought. And it is immeasurable, since it dwells in the Immeasurable One. It is a mystery; it is unrestrainable by the Incomprehensible One. It is invisible to all those who are visible in the All. It is a Light dwelling in Light.
It is we also who alone have separated from the visible world, since we are saved by the hidden wisdom, by means of the ineffable, immeasurable Voice. And he who is hidden within us pays the tributes of his fruit to the Water of Life.
Then the Son who is perfect in every respect -- that is, the Word who originated through that Voice; who proceeded from the height; who has within him the Name; who is a Light -- he revealed the everlasting things, and all the unknowns were known. And those things difficult to interpet and secret, he revealed. And as for those who dwell in Silence with the First Thought, he preached to them. And he revealed himself to those who dwell in darkness, and he showed himself to those who dwell in the abyss, and to those who dwell in the hidden treasuries, he told ineffable mysteries, and he taught unrepeatable doctrines to all those who became Sons of the Light.
Now the Voice that originated from my Thought exists as three permanences: the Father, the Mother, the Son. Existing perceptibly as Speech, it (Voice) has within it a Word endowed with every , and it has three masculinities, three powers, and three names. They exist in the manner of Three ... -- which are quadrangels -- secretly within a silence of the Ineffable One.
It is he alone who came to be, that is, the Christ. And, as for me, I anointed him as the glory of the Invisible Spirit, with goodness. Now the Three, I established alone in eternal glory over the Aeons in the Living Water, that is, the glory that surrounds him who first came forth to the Light of those exalted Aeons, and it is in glorious Light that he firmly perseveres. And he stood in his own Light that surrounds him, that is, the Eye of the Light that gloriously shines on me. He perpetuated the Father of all Aeons, who am I, the Thought of the Father, Protennoia, that is, Barbelo, the perfect Glory, and the immeasurable Invisible One who is hidden. I am the Image of the Invisible Spirit, and it is through me that the All took shape, and (I am) the Mother (as well as) the Light which she appointed as Virgin, she who is called 'Meirothea', the incomprehensible Womb, the unrestrainable and immeasurable Voice.
Then the Perfect Son revealed himself to his Aeons, who originated through him, and he revealed them and glorified them, and gave them thrones, and stood in the glory with which he glorified himself. They blessed the Perfect Son, the Christ, the only-begotten God. And they gave glory, saying, "He is! He is! The Son of God! The Son of God! It is he who is! The Aeon of Aeons, beholding the Aeons which he begot. For thou hast begotten by thine own desire! Therefore we glorify thee: ma mo o o o eia ei on ei! The Aeon of Aeons! The Aeon which he gave!"
Then, moreover, the God who was begotten gave them (the Aeons) a power of life on which they might rely, and he established them. The first Aeon he established over the first: Armedon, Nousanios, Armozel; the second he established over the second Aeon: Phaionios, Ainios, Oroiael; the third over the third Aeon: Mellephaneus, Loios, Daveithai; the fourth over the fourth: Mousanios, Amethes, Eleleth. Now those Aeons were begotten by the God who was begotten - the Christ - and these Aeons received as well as gave glory. They were the first to appear, exalted in their thought, and each Aeon gave myriads of glories within great untraceable lights, and they all together blessed the perfect Son, the God who was begotten.
Then there came forth a word from the great Light Eleleth, and said, "I am king! Who belongs to Chaos and who belongs to the underworld?" And at that instant, his Light appeared, radiant, endowed with the Epinoia. The Powers of the Powers did not entreat him, and likewise immediately there appeared the great Demon who rules over the lowest part of the underworld and Chaos. He has neither form nor perfection, but, on the contrary, possesses the form of the glory of those begotten in the darkness. Now he is called 'Saklas', that is, 'Samael', 'Yaltabaoth', he who had taken power; who had snatched it away from the innocent one (Sophia); who had earlier overpowered her who is the Light`s Epinoia who had descended, her from whom he had come forth from originally.
Now when the Epinoia of the Light realized that he (Yaltabaoth) had begged him (the Light) for another order, even though he was lower than she, she said, "Give me another order, so that you may become for me a dwelling place, lest I dwell in disorder forever." And the order of the entire house of glory was agreed upon her word. A blessing was brought for her and the higher order released it to her.
And the great Demon began to produce aeons in the likeness of the real Aeons, except that he produced them out of his own power.
Then I too revealed my Voice secretly, saying, "Cease! Desist, (you) who tread on matter; for behold, I am coming down to the world of mortals for the sake of my portion that was in that place from the time when the innocent Sophia was conquered, she who descended, so that I might thwart their aim which the one revealed by her appoints." And all were disturbed, each one who dwells in the house of the ignorant light, and the abyss trembled. And the Archigenetor of ignorance reigned over Chaos and the underworld, and produced a man in my likeness. But he neither knew that that one would become for him a sentence of dissolution, nor does he recognize the power in him.
But now I have come down and reached down to Chaos. And I was with my own who were in that place. I am hidden within them, empowering them, giving them shape. And from the first day until the day when I will grant mighty glory to those who are mine, I will reveal myself to those who have heard my mysteries, that is, the Sons of the Light.
I am their Father, and I shall tell you a mystery, ineffable and indivulgeable by any mouth: Every bond I loosed from you, and the chains of the demons of the underworld I broke, these things which are bound on my members, restraining them. And the high walls of darkness I overthrew, and the secure gates of those pitiless ones I broke, and I smashed their bars. And the evil force, and the one who beats you, and the one who hinders you, and the tyrant, and the adversary, and the one who is King, and the present enemy, indeed all these I explained to those who are mine, who are the Sons of the Light, in order that they might nullify them all, and be saved from all those bonds, and enter into the place where they were at first.
I am the first one who descended on account of my portion which remains, that is, the Spirit that dwells in the soul, which originated from the Water of Life, and out of the immersion of the mysteries. And I spoke, I, together with the Archons and Authorities. For I had gone down below their language, and I spoke my mysteries to my own - a hidden mystery - and the bonds and eternal oblivion were nullified. And I bore fruit in them, that is, the Thought of the unchanging Aeon, and my house, and their Father. And I went down to those who were mine from the first, and I reached them and broke the first strands that enslaved them. Then everyone of those within me shone, and I prepared a pattern for those ineffable Lights that are within me. Amen.

The Discourse of Protennoia: One

I am the Voice that appeared through my Thought, for I am 'He who is syzygetic' since I am called 'the Thought of the Invisible One'. Since I am called 'the unchanging Speech', I am called 'She who is syzygetic'.
I am a single one, since I am undefiled. I am the Mother of the Voice, speaking in many ways, completing the All. It is in me that knowledge dwells, the knowledge of everlasting. It is I who speak within every creature, and I was known by the All. It is I who lift up the Speech of the Voice to the ears of those who have known me, that is, the Sons of the Light.
Now I have come the second time in the likeness of a female, and have spoken with them. And I shall tell them of the coming end of the Aeon and teach them of the beginning of the Aeon to come, the one without change, the one in which our appearance will be changed. We shall be purified within those Aeons from which I revealed myself in the Thought of the likeness of my masculinity. I settled among those who are worthy in the Thought of my changeless Aeon.
For I shall tell you a mystery of this particular Aeon, and tell you about the forces that are in it. The birth beckons; hour begets hour, day begets day. The months made known the month.Time has gone round succeeding time. This particular Aeon was completed in this fashion, and it was estimated, and it (was) short, for it was a finger that released a finger, and a joint that was separated from a joint. Then, when the great Authorities knew that the time of fulfillment had appeared - just as in the pangs of the parturient it (the time) has drawn near, so also had the destruction approached - all together the elements trembled, and the foundations of the underworld and the ceilings of Chaos shook, and a great fire shone within their midst, and the rocks and the earth were shaken like a reed shaken by the wind. And the lots of Fate and those who apportion the domiciles were greatly disturbed over a great thunder. And the thrones of the Powers were disturbed, since they were overturned, and their King was afraid. And those who pursue Fate paid their allotment of visits to the path, and they said to the Powers, "What is this disturbance and this shaking that has come upon us through a Voice to the exalted Speech? And our entire habitation has been shaken, and the entire circuit of the path of ascent has met with destruction, and the path upon which we go, which takes us up to the Archgenitor of our birth, has ceased to be established for us."
Then the Powers answered, saying, "We too are at loss about it, since we did not know what was responsible for it. But arise, let us go up to the Archgenitor and ask him." And the powers all gathered and went up to the Archgenitor. They said to him, "Where is your boasting in which you boast? Did we not hear you say, "I am God, and I am your Father, and it is I who begot you. and there is none beside me"? Now behold, there has appeared a Voice belonging to that invisible Speech of the Aeon which we know not. And we ourselves did not recognize to whom we belong, for that Voice which we listened to is foreign to us, and we did not recognize it; we did not know whence it was. It came and put fear in our midst and weakening in the members of our arms. So now let us weep and mourn most bitterly! As for the future, let us make our entire flight before we are imprisoned perforce, and taken down to the bosom of the underworld. For already the slackening of our bondage has approached, and the times are cut short, and the days have shortened, and our time has been fulfilled, and the weeping of our destruction has approached us, so that we may be taken to the place we recognize. For as for our tree from which we grew, a fruit of ignorance is what it has; and also its leaves, it is death that dwells in them, and darkness dwells under the shadow of its boughs. And it was in deceit and lust that we harvested it, this (tree) through which ignorant Chaos became for us a dwelling place. For behold, even he, the Archgenitor of our birth, about whom we boast, even he did not know this Speech."
So now, O sons of the Thought, listen to me, to the Speech of the Mother of your mercy, for you have become worthy of the mystery hidden from the Aeons, so that you might receive it. And the consummation of this particular Aeon and of the evil life has approached, and there dawns the beginning of the Aeon to come, which has no change forever.
I am androgynous. I am Mother (and) I am Father, since I copulate with myself. I copulated with myself and with those who love me, and it is through me alone that the All stands firm. I am the Womb that gives shape to the All by giving birth to the Light that shines in splendor. I am the Aeon to come. I am the fulfillment of the All, that is, Meirothea, the glory of the Mother. I cast voiced Speech into the ears of those who know me.
And I am inviting you into the exalted, perfect Light. Moreover, (as for) this (Light), when you enter it, you will be glorified by those who give glory, and those who enthrone will enthrone you. You will accept robes from those who give robes, and the baptizers will baptize you, and you will become gloriously glorious, the way you first were when you were .
And I hid myself in everyone and revealed myself within them, and every mind seeking me longed for me, for it is I who gave shape to the All when it had no form. And I transformed their forms into (other) forms, until the time when a form will be given to the All. It is through me that the Voice originated, and it is I who put the breath within my own. And I cast into them the eternally Holy Spirit, and I ascended and entered my Light. I went up upon my branch and sat there among the Sons of the holy Light. And I withdrew to their dwelling place which [...] become glorious [...]. Amen.

On Fate: Two

I am the Word who dwells in the ineffable Voice. I dwell in undefiled Light and a Thought revealed itself perceptibly through the great Speech of the Mother, although it is a male offspring that supports me as my foundation. And it (the Speech) exists from the beginning in the foundations of the All.
But there is a Light that dwells hidden in Silence, and it was first to come forth. Whereas she (the Mother) alone exists as Silence, I alone am the Word, ineffable, unpolluted, immeasurable, inconceivable. It (the Word) is a hidden Light, bearing a fruit of life, pouring forth a living water from the invisible, unpolluted, immeasurable spring, that is, the unreproducible Voice of the glory of the Mother, the glory of the offspring of God; a male virgin by virtue of a hidden Intellect, that is, the Silence hidden from the All, being unreproducible, an immeasurable Light, the source of the All, the root of the entire Aeon. It is the foundation that supports every movement of the Aeons that belong to the mighty glory. It is the foundation of every foundation. It is the breath of the powers. It is the eye of the three permanences, which exist as Voice by virtue of Thought. And it is a Word by virtue of Speech; it was sent to illumine those who dwell in the darkness.
Now behold! I will reveal to you my mysteries, since you are my fellow brethren, and you shall know them all.
(5 lines missing)
I told all of them about my mysteries that exist in the incomprehensible, inexpressible Aeons. I taught them the mysteries through the Voice that exists within a perfect Intellect, and I became a foundation for the All, and I empowered them.
The Second time I came in the Speech of my Voice. I gave shape to those who took shape, until their consummation.
The Third time I revealed myself to them in their tents as Word, and I revealed myself in the likeness of their shape. And I wore everyone's garment, and I hid myself within them, and they did not know the one who empowers me. For I dwell within all the Sovereignties and Powers, and within the angels, and in every movement that exists in all matter. And I hid myself within them until I revealed myself to my brethren. And none of them (the Powers) knew me, although it is I who work in them. Rather, they thought that the All was created by them, since they are ignorant, not knowing their root, the place in which they grew.
I am the Light that illumines the All. I am the Light that rejoices in my brethren, for I came down to the world of mortals on account of the Spirit that remains in that which descended (and) came forth from the innocent Sophia. I came, and I delivered [...], and I went to ...
(5 lines missing)
... which he had formerly, and I gave to him from the Water of Life, which strips him of the chaos that is in the uttermost darkness that exists inside the entire abyss, that is, the thought of the corporeal and the psychic. All these I put on. And I stripped him of it, and I put upon him a shining Light, that is, the knowledge of the Thought of the Fatherhood.
And I delivered him to those who give robes - Yammon, Elasso, Amenai - and they covered him with a robe from the robes of the Light; and I delivered him to the baptizers, and they baptized him - Micheus, Michar, Mnesinous - and they immersed him in the spring of the Water of Life. And I delivered him to those who enthrone - Bariel, Nouthan, Sabenai - and they enthroned him from the Throne of Glory. And I delivered him to those who glorify - Ariom, Elien, Phariel - and they glorified him with the glory of the Fatherhood. And those who snatch away snatched away - Kamaliel, [...]anen, Samblo, and the servants of great holy luminaries - and they took him into the light-place of his Fatherhood. And he received the Five seals from the Light of the Mother, Protennoia, and it was granted him to partake of the mystery of knowledge, and he became a Light in Light.
So now ...
(5 lines missing)
... I was dwelling in them in the form of each one. The Archons thought that I was their Christ. Indeed, I dwell in everyone. Indeed, within those in whom I revealed myself as Light, I eluded the Archons. I am their beloved, for in that place I clothed myself as the son of the Archgenitor, and I was like him until the end of his decree, which is the ignorance of Chaos. And among the angels I revealed myself in their likeness, and among the Powers, as if I were one of them; but among the Sons of Man, as if I were a Son of Man, even though I am Father of everyone.
I hid myself within them all until I revealed myself among my members, which are mine, and I taught them about the ineffable ordinances, and (about) the brethren. But they are inexpressible to every Sovereignty and every ruling Power, except the Sons of the Light alone, that is, the ordinances of the Father. These are the glories that are higher than every glory, that is, the Five Seals, complete by virtue of Intellect. He who possesses the Five Seals of these particular names has stripped off garments of ignorance and put on a shining Light. And nothing will appear to him that belongs to the Powers of the Archons. Within those of this sort, darkness will dissolve and ignorance will die. And the thought of the creature, which is scattered, will present a single appearance and dark Chaos will dissolve and ...
(6 lines fragmentary)
... until I reveal myself to all my fellow brethren, and until I gather together all my fellow brethren within my eternal kingdom. And I proclaimed to them the ineffable Five Seals in order that I might abide in them and they also might abide in me.
As for me, I put on Jesus. I bore him from the cursed wood, and established him in the dwelling places of his Father. And those who watch over their dwelling places did not recognize me. For I, I am unrestrainable, together with my seed; and my seed, which is mine, I shall place into the holy Light within an incomprehensible Silence. Amen.

The Discourse of the Appearance: Three

Trimorphic Protennoia, in Three Parts
A Sacred Scripture written by the Father with perfect Knowledge

Original translation of this text was prepared by members of the
Coptic Gnostic Library Project of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity, Claremont Graduate School.
The Coptic Gnostic Library Project was funded by UNESCO, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and other Institutions.
E. J. Brill has asserted copyright on texts published by the Coptic Gnostic Library Project.

The Mother

When I awoke, when I had that burst of energy up my spine that left me changed as a human being, I really only had at that time the one thing I had always had at my command to make heads or tails of this experience; observation.  I didn't know what it was that was happening to me.  I wasn't terribly scared, but I was alarmed a bit and wondered what on earth had happened.  Observation is a powerful thing.  This is what I observed in that first year....

Once I realized that this energy was going to stay with me and was not some accident or stumble into some unknown land, I began to observe what this thing was doing to me.  It wasn't hard.  I just sat quietly and began to do a simple form of what I would later learn was Mindfulness.  I just watched. 
As I observed, I noticed that my awareness seemed to clarify.  I realized that I had not looked so closely at myself.  I had taken myself, my insides for granted, I suppose.  It isn't that I didn't observe myself before because I certainly did in meditation that I had developed over the years that I developed that was a good fit for me.  But this form of observing myself was.....different.  And the energy in me was different, too!  I guess it was like a new day.  It was.  It is hard to compare anything from the old ways to this thing.  What I noticed was that as I got very quiet, I could really feel the bliss flowing through me. When my mind was stilled from the rush of a thousand things we endlessly think about and chatter to ourselves about in any given moment, I was just amazed at the WOOSH of bliss.
 
Looking at this bliss, I asked what it felt like.  What was it?  How would I describe it?  What I realized was that one side of me felt masculine while the other side felt feminine.  I wasn't always completely sure which side was which, and other times, it was very clear.  What was always clear was that there was this feeling as though something was embracing within me.  Something was now in an embrace that was without end.  It was an endless moment of love and the bliss that we feel when we are with someone whom we love, whom we yearn for, whom we cannot get enough of.  I felt into myself and found that the more I placed my awareness on them, the stronger their embrace became.  It really was an embrace.  I saw my body from a distance and as I looked down at it I saw these two forces as a masculine warm energy and a feminine cooler energy.  The thought here is that hot goes to cool. The man is drawn to the woman, and she is receptive to her beloved.  That was how this energy was.  And there was an intelligence within it!  As I let go of the who what when where and why's, and simply let go and let this amazing crazy thing happen in me, I felt their energy grow in the way that a gentle wind might fan the flames of a fire.  As this energy grew, I became distinctly aware of an energy beginning to form between these two columns that went up my torso.



I didn't know it, but I was describing kundalini.  I just wasn't there yet.  I was there still observing, feeling into it, and wondering what on earth was happening to me.  I was lucky, I think, because it helped me to realize something hidden within Christianity that I had suspected, sensed, but did not know what it was....something had been missing, I knew it all my life growing up. There was a secret.....not some kind of conspiracy....just something hidden.  But what?  The answer came when I awoke.  The answer was there, and as I looked later, I saw it.  It was going to become plain as day.
Feeling into this this third energy, I thought about how I might describe it.  And really, it only had one description; it was a transcendental child.  It was the product of their union.  This was the most elegant image I could come up with.  And yet?  There was nobody there.  So odd.  And yet, there was someone there, a higher order consciousness was emerging within me and I was getting to observe this.  Something about consciousness could be described as a family unit! 

I was at this early time in conversation with a pretty intuitive person who had gone to seminary but left because he found it too restrictive.  When I explained what I was feeling, he suggested that I take a look at the Nag Hammadi documents, those scrolls discovered in the desert of Egypt outside of the town the cache of documents is now named after.  These were early Christian documents that had a vocabulary that was very different from mainline Christianity. 

As I read through some of these documents, two things stood out.  One, was that these old writings seemed just as riddled with distortive elements as any other Christian document, some because of translation errors, and others as a result of a story being told verbally enough that it changes or shifts depending on the person telling it.  There was enough evidence to show that these stories that make up the gospels were written  a good pace from the actual events.  Memory shifts, changes....and small misunderstandings creep in.  I say this because so much of what I read in these hidden documents were speaking directly to the experience of awakening.  The thing though, is reading the mainline gospels, the King James's version, you might never catch on to what was being said....the deeper story.  For all its faults, these books were saying something pretty huge and the interesting thing is that they were the very first documents that I read that put me on the path to understanding what was going on with me.  Jesus was talking about Awakening!  The Kingdom, he said, was in us, all around us, and we see it not.  The Kingdom, he said to his followers, had already come, but they just didn't know it.  They didn't know it because they had not yet awakened. Did they wake up?  There is some suggestion that they at least got a taste of the Holy Ghost descending on them, but the degree to which they each tasted the elixir of this experience, I can only guess. 

What I did find was Jesus saying "I am one with the father and the mother."  Exactly.  He spoke about the death of the ego as the seminal event that takes place prior to moving mountains, the means by which the power of awakening is realized in ones life as evidenced in strange coincidences, small miracles, or synchronicities.  He spoke of this mother in a few places, yes, enough that it was clear that his followers had been told about it. Philip probably guaranteed that his gospel would never see the light of day when we mentioned the elephant in the room when he said, "Those who say Mary begat with the Holy Ghost are in error.  For when has a woman begot with another woman?"  He was pointing to a misunderstanding some had at the time about the family unit within human consciousness.

The Holy Ghost was the mother! Same as Shakti.  Same as Yin. And in Christianity, it is a very important, but missing, piece.   It was not correct that the story would say she begot with a consciousness that was female, no, it would have been that she was overshadowed by the Father.  What this points to is how there may have been an effort to obfuscate the role that the feminine has within cosmic or Christ consciousness by effectively anonymizing her into a "ghost"  early on in the rise of Christianity as a path.  Perhaps even during Jesus's own life, even.  It is clear his disciples bickered with each other, and did not "get" everything that Jesus was saying to them.  He even said so.  Were some of them simply dedicated to his cause but asleep?

"I place you back where you belong by SEEING you, knowing you, drinking deeply of your essence, and letting your sweetness undo my bitterness....show me."

The Ghost is this vast presence within all of matter, within all of creation, bred and born and replicated all through everything, and this ghost is She.  A vibration of energy, or consciousness, which we all seem to feel or know is part of the world dreaming, the creation, and is active in each and every moment that we are alive and rides on our own waves of creativity.  The more you are aware of this part of you, not as a literal woman, but something that is receptive, grace-filled, wonder-filled, and awe inspiring, the more that you can feel it.  Just as I sat and observed, the energy just went off the charts.  I am one with the Mother.  But to be one with her, she must lay upon my lips each moment.  In my journey, it has been easy and hard to do that, in turns.  I just keep asking, keep surrendering, keeping myself humble.

"Show me.  Please.  I am hard.  Soften me, melt me.  Take me apart; show me how I can be....different. Birth me anew."

I will tell you that looking back into my past pre-awakening, for as artsy and right-brained as I was, I was also caught in the tide of paternalism as everyone here is.  There is so much that we are not even aware of that is taught, handed down, but not looked at. By not really looking at it, we leave it as it is and it remains static but alive in us.  This is how the generations can hand down behavior for thousands of years until something disrupts it, shakes things up, and changes things.  I woke up knowing there was this force in me, male and female-feeling.  I am returning to that awareness again, today, yesterday, last week, last month, asking it to teach me anew.  Teach me.  Show me. I need you in my life.  Soften me, break me apart.  Take me down to chaff and wheat.  Blow gently across my soul and leave only what is best in me.  Let the rest go.  I am ready.  I now know the love that you bear is powerful, once scary, now seen as so wise, so ruthless in its honesty.  I am the fool.  Make me into what I have not yet been able to become.  Maybe this is my practice.... If there is to be one.  I never really thought of myself as having a religion.  I haven't. I have sought using my own compass to guide me. But silently, quietly, privately, I pray to the light.  I do.

This is not an abstraction for me.  It is right here, swirling in what the Taoists call the 10,000 things.  This presence is in everything, yin and yang, female and masculine-feeling.  It is the Shakti and her Siva.  And yet?  And there is nothing material there!  But there is Presence.  When my awareness opens to it, I feel something beautiful in me, that KNOWS the feminine superconsciousness because it is in some way inside of me.  Looking into myself, I see out into the multiverse.  You see, you CAN learn a lot by inquiring within.  We think we only learn by looking outward.  But the road goes both ways.  Look both ways.

Your parentage is waiting for you there.  They will help you to grow up. 
For me, I let go of any expectations.  I let go, reached another level where I was holding on to something else in a deeper way, and loosened the grip.....

I have learned that the more I do this, the looser I am, the more ready I am for a strong wind to blow my petals open and spread the seed, or the chaff, or whatever it is that needs to go.  There is an overarching presence that is not without purpose.  You can think me crazy, I don't really care.  But it is true.  It is beyond any religion, beyond any need to believe or spin stories or tales, even as we try to do just that.  In the midst of it, this coarse self, so hardened, so unmade, dissembled, is somehow redeemed.  I am shown the way to BE. And for years, I have slowly learned how, the way one might learn a dance. But this dance requires that I do these dance steps each and every moment.  Every breath, every moment turns into a prayer.  This prayer is not for anything except to learn to be like "it."  "Please show me" I ask it.  It is as if it is aware of me but says nothing.  It knows just as I know that the only way is for me to surrender to its presence.  Its hands are like a strong-handed doctor reaching into your being and taking out what does not belong.  Sometimes this is just hard. Sometimes it is easy.  Sometimes I am afraid.  And this is the insanity I have practiced all these lifetimes, round and round; I have desired the devil I have known instead of the angel that I could become.  Maybe I feared change.  Maybe I was simply addicted to chaos.  Maybe I wanted to be right even though deep down I knew I was wrong.  Wrong!  But wrong how? 

I was wrong in how I chose to see, to feel, to be.  I say I was born into this life and was raised with no choice in the matter, but I now know that is not true.  I was DRAWN to this place, this time, this life, as a being living outside of time, within all possibility.  We are all immortals, taking on bodies.  We come here from the infinite, from all-time.....and look at the poverty with which we have painted our world!  We are our bodies, but we are an eternal spark, too!  Animate matter!  We have allowed ourselves to be fooled by the "coarse matter" which is in truth vibrant with the same consciousness animating all of creation; a world of infinite possibilities.  So in our own individual feelings of losss and lack, we seek to find an answer for it, and most often, we try to point the finger outside of ourselves.  And this, I know, is the path to suffering.  Always look to yourself for the source of all of your feelings.  Yes the world is hard, but do I need to respond to hard with hard?  With victim-thinking?

How silly to try and set people up for being responsible for our own self-chosen journey!  And how powerless, too, we make ourselves by thinking this way.  Doing this has weakened my root centers, giving me no end of trouble, and trouble to others.  Something whispers that it must be strengthened with truth.  Sweet brutal truth.  It means turning away from the fault being any others but my own.  Always making judgements that were less about the world and more about my own broken record of a story.  I was, and still am, on this merry go round.  But the only difference is that with all of the chaff that has blown away since all of this began in 2007-ish, I know I am getting down to the most major end of the big stuff that has held me up and had me tied in knots.  No one else is responsible for how I feel except myself.  I was always there defining the moment in terms of light and dark, good or bad.

How does one, so soaked in sleep know how to be as one who is awake? 
But aren't I awake?  Now that is the rub, my friends.  It is what we each must bear in mind.  When you awaken, you are given this great gift, but you get that gift based on where you are in your accumulation or loss of the inner material that does not serve you.  You awaken amidst a giant garbage heap that is your self.  Awake, the work is to remove this garbage. For me, the awareness of this was early when I asked this energy what it was doing.  It showed me.  We were to get to work on a kind of inventory and release the stuff, the baggage, the STUFF once and for all.  So for a time, you have this remainder.  The idea that we wake up and simply change like a snap of fingers is itself not really true.  Even Buddha worked on this thing he found under that tree.  the realization is one thing, the becoming is another.  You have to cross over from shadow into light.  We have all been dancing in the shadows without fully realizing it.

These are notions and expectations and beliefs that are simply not in alignment with what IS.  Whatever we are not in alignment with is like being an adulterer to our higher nature.  It is a turning away.  This, I have said over and over, is the very nexus of what we think of as negative karma.  If you want to have good karma, you will learn to know who you are deep down and seek your authentic being, the father and mother within, and know them intimately.  They alone will save you.  No church outside of you will be able to do it.  So powerful is this force that it will take you apart to the degree that you just trust its mighty force.

I am praying, you see.  All of this, is nothing more than my prayers.  Always has been. I am saluting this great power of two-into-one....no other deity really felt....right....nowhere as exciting or interesting as these two who keep after each other inside of me, slowly remaking me with each turn and brush of their amazed love trance of the other....  Find your own prayer, feel deep within and ask yourself where your error lies.  This is not something you will be able to rationally know.  it is what you will feel as a simple certainty, or a dreadful sense that you are just on the wrong path.  And yet?  And yet, we so often stay on that path because it is.....familiar.  Boom.  Wow.

Could it be so easy to turn over the cart and begin an entirely new journey?  How many times have you tried to change for another person in order that your very being would fit into their lives?  How often has your own nature come into conflict with others in a way that it made you feel bad to be you?  When one is resting in the authentic self, anyone who seeks to change you is themselves living in illusion.  Didn't the Hindus say that all of this is an illusion, a dream?  Well.....I prefer to see it as a creation, full of possibility, a grand chalk board of a place where we get to discover and create wildly.  But within us.....is there a splinter?  A pain?  A hurt?  A feeling of something not fulfilled?  Our real selves are fulfilled already, needing precious little except to feel bliss and absorb the moment.  Do this, or do that, it is your freewill.  But when you come across something that feels like resistance, look within and ask yourself; is it you or them?  And maybe it is them.  And later, you might realize it was both....both of you mirroring in a place of "illusion" or delusional feeling and thinking.  My task, at least, is to find the highest.  Me, I am a bit of a glorious mess, but there is something inside of me that is perfect.  I will for now seek that, for the mother will heal, the father inspire, and the two will show me that we are two-into-three-as-one. 

For me, as a descendent of the world or the paternal journey, it is now my journey to open up to the softening of the feminine super consciousness.  It is time to get to know the Mother.

So don't think that I am someone who has it all down.  I don't.  I am here praying, I am here singing to the light because I am a creature of the physical.  I am creative.....in my own way, these are my prayers.  So take them as that.  I am not here as any proclaimer of anyone else's truth.  We each find it ourselves.  And maybe you might wonder what the point is.  It seems that this is how it all comes down.  Increasingly, as you will notice, I have become less and less verbose.  I sometimes wonder, what is the point, really, when it is so clear that we each have that compass point within us.  We each have to realize it.  No one can do it for us.  The inevitability of it was spoken to me in the first weeks of awakening as I passed over a river and felt it speak: "It is inevitable that you will return to the ocean..."  I had no idea what it meant then, but something in me seemed to know. We are each like fish swimming from creeks to ocean and back again.  We know the way.  We do.  You just need to keep it simple because the relationship of these forces in you are also simple, ubiquitous.  Thank goodness. 

Trusting The Multiverse

Trust your experience
your feelings
to tell you what needs to be known
for this very moment.
For all that remains
clouding your vision
it is there to be realized by none other than you.
As your own inner compass tells you that something might not be
quite right
something knowing
in you
begins to turn
and the Truth
which is none other than you
whispers the Way.

The world  may tell you a million different things
or the most trusted authority might say
some ridiculous thing
that you took as utter truth
that has you turning on your heel
wondering how on earth you EVER
believed such a thing.

Love is the way.
Simple as that.
Anything else falls short.
This love has three petals;
mother, father, child.
Nothing else need be known.
Our religions seek to ferret out this truth
all to greater and lesser degrees
but what lay at the heart of religion
lies in our hearts vibrant and alive
in this singular moment.
By tapping the power of the moment
we tap infinity.
This is how things are in our world
where time flows in one direction
and so thus our point of power is in the moment
and in no other stream
for now.

As we begin to change the matrix surrounding the earth
as we are handed the keys to ever greater making
we will begin to change how things used to go
and write a new Way.

There will be those who will cleave to the old and say
things were this way forever,
the authorities were correct
we must follow tradition
and the old teachings....

For a time, they were right
but I am here to say things are beginning to change.
Something is looming
and it has to do with creation.
We are cocreators
children of a still greater Being
that brought All to Be
through a simple act of intention
which was itself an act
a pulse
of divine love.
we are thus forever formed and informed by this
through all time and all place.

Rest in this moment
listening to your heart.
If something pulls you
it pulls you for a reason
and there is something to be learned there.

When the moment begins to resolve kaleidoscopic
in the moment
it may be the time
of many times
coming upon us.
This is where you will have to listen
to what you feel is true.
Its simple
and brilliant
and confused by your mind
which is why they all say to quiet the mind.
Open the heart
open yourself
to the universe
and to that which is you.

The part of you that is looking
is the same part that is in the universe
looking
you are being looked for
and you are looking.
When you reach that moment
when you touch upon the universe
as you
looking out
looking in
something powerful will resolve
as you know the journey just reached a final stage
all of that searching
living
life after life
has now reached an 'end'
which is a beginning

Trust what you feel
your experience
and quiet the mind...