Riding Winged Books to the Imaginal Realm

"Robert, this is direct knowledge. Suhrawardi is the key to your understanding of the dream cosmos. Use his geographies - of Hurqalya, Jabarsa and Jabalqa.
    "Hurqalya: roofed with shining convexities, plane within plane, like crystals that interpenetrate and turn into each other. It contains the Hall of the Masters, where they project themselves into shimmering stability of form."

I rose from the liminal state between sleep and waking to record these lines in my journal, on March 13, 1998. Though the words are very foreign in English, I recognized them as locations in the Imaginal Realm, as described by the medieval Persian Sufi philosopher Suhrawardi, whose work was known to me primarily through that of Henry Corbin. 
    I did not feel the need to identify the exact source of the communication. My feelings told me it came from a source I could trust. It drove me to deepen my researches.*
    Four months later, after reading deep into the night in the pages of Henry Corbin's works on the Suhrawardi and Ibn 'Arabi, I lay in bed after 4:00 am and felt I was floating between the worlds. I had strong impressions of fabric patterns, predominantly rust-reds, mauves and yellow-browns. I thought of Gabriel, of Khidr, of Suhrawardi's Perfect Nature, of my occasional perceptions of a celestial Self, of my heavenly Twin.
    A sense of presence grew, but without the flash of light that usually accompanies one of the high ones. The suggestion came: Rise from your body, and I will descend to you.
    I loosened physical focus, without separating from the body. I had the impression of a handsome young-seeming man of "Persian" appearance, wearing modern clothes, a suit and a shirt with banded collar. He carried something of the essence of Suhrawardi's teachings. He told me his name was "Shams". He suggested I should begin my journey to the realm of Hurqalya at Mount Qaf.
    I rose from bed and went back to the books. In the old Thackston translation of "The Red Intellect", one of Suhrawardi's visionary stories, Mount Qaf is described as follows:

Mount Qaf surrounds the world and consists of eleven mountains. When you are delivered of your bondage you will go there, for you have been brought from there, and eventually everything that exists returns to its initial forms.

The way through these mountains is fantastically difficult, but a traveler who has been there and returned counsels that "if you become Khidr you can easily cross Mount Qaf." Khidr is the guide of those who have no earthly guide.
    These words gave me shivers. Towards dawn, I drifted into sleep and dreamed:

WINGS OF SOUND

I am in a palace that is open to the winds, a place of soaring arches. It does not seem to stand on earth, but among the stars. It is roofless, open to the night sky, which is dark yet light at the same time, shimmering in every particle. There are twelve spacious rooms in the palace. Each contains marvelous musical instruments, shaped like butterfly wings. Some have multiple wings or leaves. They resembled stringed harps, yet the "strings" are so fine as to be invisible. Cosmic winds blow celestial harmonies through these wings of sound. I marvel at the beauty of these harmonies.

In a second dream:

THE PARS

I take a spiritual text and use it as the portico to two meditations, borrowing from more obscure sources. One of these is an invitation to the soul journey to higher realms. The other brings the power of meditation and concentration into everyday life.

I rose from these dreams buoyant, charged with energy, eager to return to my researches. I reopened Henry Corbin's Man of Light in Iranian Sufism and found Suhrawardi's hymn to Perfect Nature. Freely adapted, it contains this magnificent invocation of the Guide:

You, my lord and prince, my most perfect angel,
my precious spiritual being
You are the Spirit who gave birth to me
and you are the child who is born of my spirit
You are clothed in the most brilliant of divine lights
May you manifest yourself to me in the highest epiphany
Be my bridge-builder between the worlds
Lift the veils of darkness from my heart
Show me the radiance of your dazzling face

I have used these magnificent words, in guiding meditation and imaginal journeys in my circles of active dreamers, to open the heart and facilitate direct contact with the "soul of the soul," the Guide on a higher level. As in my dream, there is a two-way movement. We make a journey of ascension, rising from the heart center to the place of the Guide. Then we return, with heart, to carry the radiance of the Higher Self into embodied life.


*Suhrawardi is known as the Shaykh al-Ishraq, the Master of Illumination. He insisted that understanding reality requires "the knowledge of presence" - direct experience of realms beyond the physical. He wrote many works of visionary philosophy in Arabic, and spiritual tales including "The Red Intellect" in Farsi. He brought together the high traditions of the Greek neo-Platonists and ancient Persia with mystical Islam.  He is also known as "the murdered philosopher" because he was put to death in Aleppo in 1191 on the orders of the famous Saladin, who disapproved of Suhrawardi's influence over his son, who was governor of the city. According to Saladin's enforcer, Suhrawardi was crucified. 

Note: Suhrawardi has surfaced again in my life, and I am moved to re-post this narrative I first made public five years ago, based on my journals from 1998. A good story keeps coming back.
   
Book with Wings - Anselm Kiefer. The Modern Art Museum Ft Worth Texas. Photo by Timothy Boss. 

Nine Keys to Living Consciously in the Multiverse

1. The only time is Now. All other times - past, present and parallel - can be accessed in this moment of Now, and may be changed for the better.

2. We dream to wake up. Dreaming is not fundamentally about what happens during sleep. It is about waking up to a deeper order of reality. Dreaming is a discipline; to get really good at it requires practice, practice, practice.

3. Treasures are waiting for us in the Place Between Sleep and Awake. The easiest way to become a lucid or conscious dreamer is to spend more time in the twilight zone between waking and sleep, or between sleep and waking.  This liminal state is a place of encounter with inner guides and of heightened psychic perception and creative breakthroughs.

4. We live in the Speaking Land, as the First Peoples of my native Australia say. Everything in the world around us is alive and conscious and will speak to us if we are paying attention. Navigating by synchronicity becomes very simple, even irresistible, when we stream into this mode of understanding.

5. To live well, we must practice death. We bring courage and clarity to life choices when we are aware that death is always with us, and that we should be ready to meet it any day.

6. We must feed and honor our animal spirits. A working connection with them gives us immense resources for self-healing.

7. We have a guide for our lives who is no stranger. He is always with us and does not judge us. This is the Self on a higher level. When we rise to the perspective of the Greater Self, we are able to make peace between different personality aspects, including our counterparts in other times and parallel realities.

8. We are at the center of all times. The dramas of lives being lived in other times and in parallel realities may be intensely relevant to understanding and navigating our current relationships and life issues. We can learn to reach into those other lives to share gifts and lessons. We can dialog with our own older and younger selves within our present lifetimes.

9. We must entertain the spirits, starting with our very own – the child self, the inner artist, the passionate teen, the animal spirits, the creative daimon.

Text adapted from The Boy Who Died and Came Back: Adventures of a Dream Archaeologist in the Multiverse by Robert Moss. Published by New World Library.

Art: "World Tree" by Annick Bougerolle

Giant grey sheep opens the way to a guide

I am swimming in a very clean canal with green meadows to my left. I've been told that if I keep going this way I can swim directly to the great country house where a meeting will take place; the name of this house is something like "Cairncross".

I see a grey sheep grazing. It must be the size of an elephant. It has a black face, curly horns and black legs and the head is quite small in proportion to the vast body. I guess that sheep of this kind are bred for meat rather than wool. I remember being told that my hosts would roast an animal for dinner; maybe it will be a sheep like this.

The canal is getting quite shallow. Soon I can no longer swim without scraping my chest or belly against the gravelly floor. I get out and notice a large body of water to my right, perhaps a lake. I can just slide down the bank and continue my swim there.

Interruption: My 11-pound puppy wakes me up, barking for me to lift him back up on the bed.

Feelings: Intrigued. Frustrated at being pulled out of the dream.

Reality: I recall that in the Celtic immrama (voyage tales) you know you have reached the Otherworld when there is a dramatic shift in scale. For example, the voyagers come to an island with ants the size of calves.

Action: When my puppy is settled, snuggled down in the small of my back, I decide to reenter and continue the dream.

Reentry experience:

Easy to get back to the giant sheep and the canal. I go down the bank into the lake. The water is delightful, but I am soon aware that there are other inhabitants. I catch a glimpse of them. They are giant eels the size of treetrunks, armed with many rows of spiky teeth. They are blind, but are drawn to movement. I decide it's prudent to continue my journey along the edge of the lake.

I come to a rise and see, through woods, another body of water below me. A giant yellow fish, the size of a marlin, breaks surface and I decide that perhaps I won't be swimming here either. There's the back of a house visible through the trees. Maybe this is my destination.

I come to a gate in a high wire fence, and step through. This must be the back entrance. I pass a group of people eating what may be Thanksgiving Dinner. In contrast to the giant sheep, these people are smaller than ordinary human sized. The men are all dressed alike in longish black coats that remind me of butlers' livery. The woman are wearing copious country clothes, patterned like tablecloths.
They don't seem aware of my presence and I don't feel I have anything to learn from them.

I enter the house and find myself in a huge room that looks like the builders left it unfinished. The walls are untreated plasterboard and plywood. There are just a few sticks of furniture and a kitchen nook with very basic appliances and cupboards.

I become aware that a guide is present. I don't see him distinctly, but I sense he is larger than normal human size. However, even his gender is indistinct. I receive his thoughts directly. Our dialogue begins like this:

- Why is this room unfinished?
- It's waiting for you to choose the design and decor.

I think: I'd like a blue room. Instantly the walls are powder blue, hung with gilt-framed mirrors and set off with gilded boulle tables, very rococo French, with touches of Fragonard. I find the effect cloying, and substitute library colors and features, deep greens and cordovans.

This fooling around with room design is not why I am here. I remember now that I am seeking to learn more about how we can keep in touch with multiple personalities - all related within the multidimensional Self - who are living and acting in different times.

The Guide produces a sphere. It floats in midair, soft white and opaque.

- Go inside

It's as simple as thought. I project myself into the center of the sphere. Around me, in every direction, scenes from different lives in different times are playing, as if on multiple holographic movie screens. Sometimes an element from one of these life "movies" will bleed through into another movie. Sometimes what is going on in one of the lives can touch and influence all of them.



Photo: Gotland sheep

A night with the Princes of the East

The Assignment

An old friend has asked me to lunch with a pair of foreigners, a man and a woman who are Persian or Near Eastern. We go to a restaurant where he disappears to converse with staff in the background. I join the foreign couple at a table. We seem to be the only patrons in the restaurant, which is either windowless or has the windows heavily draped. the decor is expensive but anonymous, generic hotel or airport lounge style.
     The first phase of the conversation is guarded and superficial. I decide I'm ready to go, having discharged my personal obligation.
     My friend approaches me, highly agitated, as I prepare to leave. He gestures at a set of handwritten notes and a typed memo that he slipped to me earlier but I haven't bothered to read. These papers, especially the handwritten notes, make it plain that the people I am lunching with are top priority. It is vitally important for me to pursue the conversation and draw them out, so that their words can be captured on tape. I have been picked to pursue this opportunity because the couple trust me.
     I yield, lingering at the table to drain glass after glass of cheap armagnac. The man matches me, glass for glass, with cognac. The mood is increasingly jolly and intimate. I can only guess at the size of the bill for all these drinks, but I plan to present the bill to my friend. The waiter, an oily Levantine type, seems to be in on the plot. He refers to us as "Excellencies" and "Your Highnesses." It seems the "assignment" will be completed by the end of our session, which looks likely to continue for the rest of the afternoon.
     I woke from this dream in a pool of moonlight, lying on a bed in a cabin in the Hero Islands on Lake Champlain. I was excited and intensely curious, wanting to know much more about the message I was supposed to record. I needed to go back into the dream, and made it my intention tod do this, lying on my back on the bed. I kept a pad and paper close to my hand. ff I succeeded in resuming my conversation with the mysterious strangers, I was determined not to forget my assignment to record the proceedings.

The Prince and Princess of Fars

I focus on the restaurant as my portal for dream reentry.. The name of the restaurant is "The Golden Cage" or "The Golden Bowl". I confirm that the restaurant, though spacious, is tightly sealed - no views of the outside.

     I try to examine the papers my friend gave me. I find there are three documents, in a large manila envelope: handwritten notes, on several smallish pieces of high-quality bond; a typed memo; and a clipping from a newspaper. The newspaper is the Tehran Times. The headline describes a visit by "The Prince and Princess of Fars."

     I need to talk to them.

     The man shows himself. He is pleasant-looking, clean-shaven, with an oval face, black hair combed straight with the slightest suggestion of sideburns, large dark brown eyes, immaculately dressed. The woman's features, by contrast, are indistinct. She is veiled, not in Islamic style but in "High Priestess" mode of the Tarot trump.

     The man is the Shams of my previous encounter. He is wearing a beautiful grey-blue shirt with a narrow white banded collar under his tailored suit. He says I may know the veiled princess as Fatima. He urges me to study the typed sheet my friend gave me. I review the paper, and find it contains a list of 20 questions. The first questions give me shivers:

1. What is the nature of exile?
2. What are the conditions for the return?

As I record the questions on my pad, Shams, gives me his responses, for the record:

1. What is the nature of Exile?

To be an exile is to be separated unwillingly from your homeland. This is the condition of the soul when it comes into the body. It is the condition of the higher man when he is separated from his Higher Self.

2. What are the conditions for Return?

The return requires courage, the willingness to deny the ways of the world. It is always a journey to the Mountain. It requires cutting the cord of attachment to worldly things.
There are many tests and obstacles along the way, also distractions and temptations. But Home reaches out to guide the returning exile. There is always a guide. The appearances of the guide are almost always unexpected. The face may be that of a familiar friend, or a stranger.

3. What is the Source?

The Source is the bottomless well of remembering. You may see it as a passage or a bore-hole, leading to inexhaustible reserves. Do not confuse the bore-hole with what lies beyond it. From a certain viewpoint, the bore-hole is also the birth canal. You may learn to swim back, into the Water of life, into the womb of the Ancient Mother.

4. Who is the Guide?

The guide is the emissary of the level of Intelligence - the level of the Real - that you are able to work with at this time. The guide takes the form you are ready to recognize.

5. What is the Kingdom?

The kingdom is this world. But a true crown is earned only through the blessing of the Other World. the true crown is Xvarnah.

6. Is there eternal conflict between good and evil?

There are competing forces in the cosmos. Humans interact with the battles and struggles of races beyond the human. The conflicts of this world are related to those of subtler kingdoms.
In dealing with problems of good and evil, humans must know that
- In the universe, humans interact and have intercourse with beings other-than-human that are friendly, neutral, hostile or inimical to men.
- Demons are real, often generated by human thought and emotion. The Sphere of the Moon is the principal center of demonic interaction and interference with humans.
- There are "criminal souls".
- The principle of "active evil" is also a real phenomenon.
- In the world of duality, it is necessary to take sides (witness 1939). Embodied beings, in a world of duality, cannot evade this choice.

7. What is the work of the Invisible Schools?

You are born (which is to say, re-born) within a spiritual tradition or lineage. You are called in dreams and visionary states to resume contact with teachers of your Order. You may be invited to attend other schools but you are born with one primary connection.


8. What are the conditions for soul travel?

The keys to the practice are in meditation, concentration, the presence of the guide, courage for the journey. Also a trustworthy map and a password. Above all, the traveler's robe.
It is not only a matter of leaving the physical body, but of putting on the heavenly body.
This has to be earned, to be grown (or rather, re-grown).
     The celestial body, the true Body of Light, is required for the high experience of soul travel.

I broke contact for a moment to tiptoe into the bathroom. When I returned, I was given some personal information, and was then able to return to the questions. The ninth question involved the nature of the soul. We got through 13 of the 20 questions, but the quality of my reception began to waver, and we agreed to reserve the completion of the dialogue for another time. I dated my journal report as I always do. August 1, 1998.
     I pulled on shirt and shorts and walked down to the lake. In the twilight before dawn, I lay out on the floating dock and watched the changing light on the lake. A silver streak near the horizon gradually increased in size. A rosy blush spread over it, cloudlike against the silver, until the water looked more like the sky than the sky itself. A field of bright, clear blue, shaped like an elongated triangle, emerged within the rosy "clouds". I seemed to be looking into a lake in the sky, into an Otherworld landscape. Fish broke the surface. The black silhouettes of nightbirds and early fishers glided above the lake, to plunge after fish. I saw a kingfisher, mighty in head and chest, take possession of the far shore.

The river in the Imaginal Realm is from a manuscript in the Turkish Museum in Istanbul, an anthology of Persian poets published in Shiraz in 1398. It is reproduced in Henry Corbin's Spiritual Body & Celestial Earth