Click Here If You Missed Part III

Sunrise and there’s a rainbow over the mist of the canyon falls.

Birds celebrating in play above me. Lizards escaping from beneath their rocks at my feet. Absorbing those life-giving rays.

Greens, purples and dusty reds of the thirsty valley emerging out of the shadows. A moment ago, the biting cold of the desert night. Now warmth, light, life.

Jogging up the elevation path of the canyon, the crunch, grind, roughness of the dirt path beneath my rubber soles. About 500 yards in I hear Hi’s voice.

“Run high, Josh! Run!”

What a relief. Hard work paid off. Persistent, hard work. Overcoming my old self. Battling with that beast within. And now, the first time I had heard his voice in months.

The dark blueThe dark blue light inside me—I could feel it. Ii had built up over these months. Now it powered me. I ran high. light inside me—I could feel it. It had built up over these months. Now it powered me. I ran high.

The rhythm of the run, of panting breath, of panoramas passing by my eyes. Faster. Higher. A bigger sky. Greater light.

Now the light no longer came from the sun. It came from within.

“Run high, Josh! Run!”

The canyon is still. The city noise cannot enter. You walk there every day and you become sensitive to its sounds. Soft, gentle sounds from between hard, sharp rock.

Now I’m hearing quieter, liminal sounds. The sound of each thing breathing—every bush, every stone, every grain of sand. The lizard. The acacia tree. The cliff. They breathe. They sing as they breathe. The lizard. The acacia tree. The cliff. They breathe. They sing as they breathe. Their song shines—that same deep blue light, each its own light, each its own song.

Now the light no longer belonged to me alone. Each thing contained its light. Each glowing.

There are no things. There is only energy. All is energy. Energy of life. Energy of being.

“Run high, Josh! Run!”

No longer lizards and bushes and stones. All is transparent. All I see is their song. Their chattering with one another. A chorus of a hundred thousand voices.

I am a song. The bush is a song. The canyon is a symphony. I am running through its living score.

My feet fly upon a path of sound.

“Run high, Josh! Run!”

Words vanish when you reach the world of thoughts.

I merge into that thought. I am a thought. The trees are thoughts. There are no trees, only thoughts of trees. There is no time, only the thought of time. There are no trees, only thoughts of trees. There is no time, only the thought of time. There is no space, only the thought of space.

There is no Josh. There is only a thought. Running.

All is one.

“Run high, Josh! Run!”

Running in perfect stillness. Breathing intense, endless light. Merging into the light.

In the depths of the human psyche, there are no thoughts. They are there, but they have no place to stand. They are there, still inside their womb, awaiting their birth. Like words engraved in a bright sky. Like a light show inside the core of the sun, lost within their origin.

So too within the depths of all existence. There are no things, only Beauty. There are no things, only Awesomeness. There are no things, only Love. All as One. Opposites as one. There are no opposites. All is one.

Deeper. There are no things, there is only Knowing. A Mind Knowing. A flash of light. Blinding light. Light that contains all that could ever be, and yet more. From where does it flash?

“Run high, Josh! Run!”

This time it is my own voice that rings. I must find the source of the light.

“Not there, Josh!”

I have no choice.

“Josh, that is too high! You don’t belong there.”

Too late.

Jump the cliff. Jump high, without end. Jump into the light.

Love roars like a supernova exploding.

Run, Josh, run from the light.

Awesomeness roars in explosion.

Run, Josh, run.

All is exploding.All is exploding. The light is returning. The fragments are falling, afire. The light is returning. The fragments are falling, afire.

I am watching from above. I see my body emerging. Forming from the fragments. My living body, but not me. Here it is magnificent. Now it is falling.

Spinning. Nothing to grasp. An endless fall.

Endless, because there is no time. A fall, because it passes through each world I have seen on the way up.

In one world, the fragments fall and settle. At first, only noise. A flash of light. Now they shine a sweet light. A world of light.

Falling, endlessly. Through infinite worlds. I am calm, my body is screaming.

Another kind of world. Here, the fragments whirl chaotically. This time, only the memory of a flash. They fall into harmony. A world of memory. Yet a world of harmony.

Falling, endlessly. Becoming smaller, yet smaller, infinitely smaller. From magnificence to meat and bones.

Now there is only sound. Chattering. Loud and maddening. Angry voices. “Why did we fall?! There is no light here!”

A soft voice speaks to them, leads them. A world of song. They are healed.

Crash to the ground. Something snaps. Pain.The bush is screaming. The stones are screaming. All is screaming, each its own scream, as though the other does not exist. Something is broken.

Unbearable noise. The bush is screaming. The stones are screaming. All is screaming, each its own scream, as though the other does not exist. Endless noise.

My eyes are tightly closed. I try to heal the noise. The blue light will heal it. It will make harmony. But I do not know how.

Lying still upon the dry grass and stones. There is world. There are things. The blinding light is gone.

Hi is standing over me. I really needed a guide at this point.

“Hi! Stop all the noise!” I pleaded. “Why are they screaming?”

“I cannot stop the noise in this world,” Hi“You went to that place. You must heal it.” said. “That is up to you. You went to that place. You must heal it.”

“I don’t get it. You said I would see the world as it truly is. That was the real world?”

“Was it beautiful?”

I took a breath. Then another, deep breath. “It was,” I said. “Until …”

“Until you saw that which you must heal.”

“Why was there harmony higher up, and down here just noise?”

“In every other world, the fragments of Tohu were put in order by the light of Wisdom,” said Hi. “That is called tikkun. But in this world, the tikkun is not so simple. Those sparks within each thing—they seem to be noise, but in truth they are the most divine, the highest sparks of light. It is up to you to redeem them. Your mission is to struggle with the noise, the darkness that holds great light.”

“Hi, show me how.”

“Don’t run from it, Josh. It is not for you to fly higher and higher. Whatever light you find, you must bring that downward with you, to heal and to reveal that which is hidden.”

“Hi, show me how.”

Hi pointed his finger towards my heart. “Start with the noise within yourself,” he said. “Does the beast scream within you?”

“The beast has been barking like a wolf at bay since we last met. But I listened to you. I disobey it. I make my soul its master. I roast the beast with that dark blue light.”

“Good. Consider that to be a console inside you to the universe outside of you. When you quieten the noise within, all the universe attains harmony. When you quieten the noise within, all the universe attains harmony. When you tame your inner beast, the darkness that chases you loses its power. When you offer that beast upon the altar of the divine, a great light swoops down like an eagle to snatch its prey—the sparks of holiness that have fallen, trapped within the lower worlds.”

“But where does it get such power? It takes all I’ve got to overcome. And even then, sometimes …”

“The beast comes from that world into which you leaped, that world of hyper-intense light where all is in a state of explosion. The world of Tohu. Your soul comes from the World of Tikkun. The beast has access to power beyond anything your soul has known.”

I shuddered at those last words. “Then how can I win?”

“Because I will be there to help you. I will connect your soul to its essence-core, in the Source of All Light, beyond all worlds.” Hi held my hand. “ You do your job, and I will do mine.”

A pause. Then, in a softer tone, as a mentor to a student he truly loves: “Josh, don’t run from the beast. Face it, head on, from a place of strength and mastery.”

And Hi was gone.

My eyes open.

I’m looking up, but my vision is blocked by the face of my stepfather looking down at me. I try to sit up, but a nurse holds me back. My body is harnessed by tubes and needles.

“Don’t worry,” my stepdad says nervously. “They said your insurance covers everything.”

“Let me out of here. I’m going home.”

Continue to Part V