Monday, December 15, 2008

The Journey to Absolute Knowledge

Travelers are preparing for the journey into the desert, beyond the maps, beyond the cities and the last outposts of consciousness. There are many roads that lead away from absolute knowledge, only a few that will bring the traveler to a true point of entry.

The great scholar-city of Anamnesis is devoted to opening the ways, and some fly directly from its towers towards the great shining disk that is the portico of the absolute. Elaborate maps are drawn up and plans produced showing the revolutions of the stars and the star-beings who guard the gates of the ascent to the highest knowledge. Yet some of the brilliant scholars here mistake their maps for the journey, and are lost in their studies when the call comes to take the road.

Some find their ways through the Dreamlands. Many more have become lost or entangled, and return through the parched lands where dying dreams gasp or flounder like fish beached on a shore.

Few who stumble into the Souqs of Hearsay – where travelers’ tales and talismans are traded, and dubious guides tout their services – find their way.

In the cane-brakes of Half-Remembered Things, thoughts and visions take flight like waterfowl. Most escape. Some are brought down, stone dead, by careless hunters. Only the hunter with a subtle net can bring them home.

~

We can be diverted for whole lifetimes from the journey in the closed Cities of Revelation, where people are penned within received and fixed beliefs. From some of the closed cities, no legal exit is permitted; to continue the journey you must make an escape - and risk terrible punishments if you are caught.

In the Swamps of Forgetting and the Zona Rosa, caught in the wallows of addiction, no one recalls the existence of a zone of Absolute Knowledge. In the Cities of the Reducers, ruled by scientific materialism, the possibility of higher dimensions is denied and dreamers conceal their dreams for fear of being confined to mental institutions.

~

I discuss arrangements for a journey to absolute knowledge with a pleasant couple. The woman has worked with me for a long time and has traveled through many mythic gates. Her husband is tall and lean, with glasses. He is diffident about his readiness to join our expedition. I share a vision in which he is playing a key role as our quartermaster, thanks to the immense resources he will soon inherit from his mother, a fierce matriarch and mistress of a commercial empire – sending ships and tankers across the seas – who also has a deep interest in esoteric things.

~

We are gathering horses, equipment, provisions. I tie and retie a curious pair of black sandals whose front straps are loose. The diffident man astonishes us by driving incredibly fast through narrow spaces in a busy shopping district, pulling with astonishing skill through a space only an inch or so wider than his vehicle.

~

Who returns from the journey to absolute knowledge? Where can we find them and consult with them?

Can the blind Ute woman really be one of those who has made the journey?

Can the silent old man who sits all day among animals – stray cats and dogs and others – be one of the successful voyagers?

~

My expedition is almost complete. I am discussing the final arrangements - including such technical questions as whether we will require camels as well as horses for the desert crossing - with the couple who are devoted to my work.

The entrance to the realm we are seeking appears as a desert of clean, striated white sand, edged by a few palms and the last oasis.

There can be no turning back, after this.

13 comments:


  1. Who returns from the journey to absolute knowledge?

    Only those who wish to.



    Where can we find them and consult with them?

    The heart will tell us who they are and where when we are truly ready to consult with them (and they with us) - not a moment before.

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  2. You say this very well. And it is just as you say.

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  3. Robert, there are so many clues in this piece. I'm sure I'm going to got back to this piece to chart where I am.

    First clue for me is the place of half remembered things that take flight like water fowl.

    That is precisely how dreams are recalled in waking for me. Sometimes the ones I catch in my dream, I kill, they have no life, something is missing. "Only the hunter with a subtle net" can bring them home. Oh so true!

    The monk that gave me the Illuminated script symbol in my dream is a scholar who encourages me to take the road. ANOTHER CLUE.

    The one city that I have been locked in for a long time is the city of closed Revelation that was at a beautiful religious experience once and now a closed book. The illuminated script medallion that I was given was the clue to getting out of the city....

    Thank you for helping see this.

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  4. I think the "subtle net" is wakefulness. Paying attention. The net is the action of paying attention.....

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  5. And I forgot to add, that another CLUE is that I have been standing at the edge of the desert wanting to go back, but I can't turn back now. The desert is not lifeless, but life giving if you know how to access it.

    I've left that city of closed Revelation and must go forward. I have been trying to "get back there".....back to that beautiful garden. I have got to move forward now. I now know I'll be alright. I have the decernment(sp) now and I'll be fine.

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  6. Ah, Naomi, it's wonderful to know that this story is alive for you as part of a Book of Clues. May those clues help you travel where your heart longs to go.

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  7. Robert, thanks for this zinger of a post!

    Instructions to myself about The Journey to Absolute Knowledge:

    Maps are helpful, but don't get lost in fascination and mistake the tunnels of the mind for the real expedition.

    I used to think the QUESTION was primary. But now I know it is the embedded RESPONSE that transports me.

    The absolute is a half-place, missed by those who seek certainty rather than the truth of imagination.

    Cul-de-sacs, eddies, roadblocks, wallows, traps VS. risk, courage, precision, half-turns, revolutions, gates.

    On bringing visions home: don't have owner's eyes, and don't trap the beating heart of the waterfowl. Only invite the winged one into the loosely but securely held subtle net, and deliver sanctuary.

    Is the old man of 86 in the Low Country who makes bateaux and knows the slope of the side is precisely 13 degrees, a successful voyager? I would bet on it.

    Those who return are carriers and connectors.

    Points of entry are as precise as the tips of two alder leaves touching, yet are hidden in plain view. It is a PATTERN that is entered.

    The way is tricky, and return is not assured.

    It helps to be relaxed (though still vigilant) about doorways. Don't linger too long on the threshold or care too much. Zip through the tight places--just do it.

    Pack wisely, as supplies may have to regenerate themselves. Take the 20 canoe plants for all the essentials. And do take camels--they encourage the horses.

    Our physical senses are portals.

    Guardians are holders of the atom.

    The universe is a spiral hotel.

    The Wise Ones are singing ceaselessly into the dark center of the spiral. To listen, position yourself in the pattern of the star that is the map in your heart.

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  8. "The universe is a spiral hotel." What a wonderful line, Robyn. Doesn't it want to become a poem?

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  9. Robert, what a juicy blog and such a beautiful telling of the Journey to Absolute Knowledge!
    In my own travels, much has unfolded in dreaming life the past few days. It begins with me singing for two aging rockers who pretend to test all performers for drugs, but are really trying to kill us by giving us an overdose of 'horse'.(slang for heroin) I return to the dream, make a homeopathic remedy of the horse and it turns into a full size deep chestnut stallion. A fabulous ally and great way to travel. The next night, I am zooming to wherever I choose, in space or to an interesting planet perhaps, travelling by piano. ( I laughed so hard I nearly fell off my piano stool) And the night after that, I am sitting in the front row of one of your dream courses wearing a rather wonderful pink taffeta dress.
    I wish you much happy blogging.

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  10. Robert, One quiet early morning, suddenly a formless, soundless field stretches before me...surrounding me, engulfing me... when I witness it as Emptiness, It becomes Fullness; when it is seeming Fullness, It becomes Emptiness....
    What lies beyond witnessing? And who, indeed, does return? Two legged, four legged or feathered, know them by their Love, by their Freedom - and revel in the spaces between words...

    The road to the Absolute is like "walking the razor's edge"... or like entering through the eye of a needle, or like your driver racing the car through impossibly narrow streets in a busy market place full of numerous opportunities to be distracted off course. If this were my dream, this man's mother reminds me of the primal power, Kali, Shakti - bringing in his "inheritance" - his recognition and access within himself to this power. Has he been diffident about accepting this?Interestingly, he is the driver. For me the couple feel like aspects of myself, and allies. I'm curious about the black sandals and your need to keep retying them to keep them on. If this were my dream, for me, it might represent a degree of hesitancy, ambivalence about proceeding with this next step, or something I need to tie up before I can safely proceed. Or, in my dream I might associate sandals/shoes' with soles or "souls", maybe, in perhaps this last stretch of this journey, I do not need to keep even open-air shoes on - I need bring no baggage - no attachments, nothing to protect my "soul/sole"; just my bare soul is needed here. Also, all the concern with the logistics of the journey, this intellectual planning, in my dream might be simply my way of distracting myself alittle bit with the "mental trappings" by hanging on to what is familiar. But I am there, on the threshold,knowing this is where my journey leads me ...

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  11. Robyn:

    The concept of the universe being a spiral hotel, reminds me of the drawings by William Blake where he "saw" angels and men walking up and down a spiral staircase that connected earth and heaven.

    There is a book called Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges that has a short story in it called the Library of Babel. The library is the universe. He's a very interesting writer....

    I have been haunted by this story since I read it.

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  12. Karen: I must add travel by piano to my list of ways of getting around in the multiverse. I love your account of healing the "horse", a word that - in the fields of dreaming - always makes me think of the "windhorse" of spirit, the Mongolian word for vital energy. I'll look forward to welcoming you into that course in that fabulous pink taffeta dress.

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  13. Naomi, thanks for the references, I appreciate them! I am a Borges fan and like you, love these stories. I'll have to revisit Blake too, and his spiral staircase.

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