So many times when I feel or see Spirit, whether in form or simply pure light, it is so filled with intense joy and laughter, waves upon waves of laughter. I am reminded of a video I once saw called Life After Life, which showed interviews of people who’d had near-death experiences. They all mentioned that the Being of Light they encountered during these experiences had a really good sense humor. I thought about how our sense of humor is truly as spiritual gift, one of the things we can carry with us beyond this life.
I remembered a story from my own life. I hope this won’t sound sad, because to me it’s very joyful. I had the opportunity to help care for my beloved sister Susan just a couple days before she died. She was very sick and had a lot of intense pain. Her husband and I took turns every couple of hours giving her a shot of strong pain killer. She seemed to be almost in a coma. She would wake up slightly when it was time for her medicine and reach a trembling hand to her forehead to let us know she needed it, but she couldn’t speak.
At one point when it was time for her shot I began reading the label on the medicine bottle. It said, “Warning, do not drive after taking this medicine.” Somehow this struck me as funny because this medicine seemed to totally knock Susan out. I couldn’t imagine someone driving after taking it.
I said to her husband. “Paul, look, it says do not take this medicine and drive!” Paul chuckled too. Then we heard a sound from Susan. Looking down, we realized that she was laughing. It was so amazing to me that here she was in such pain, at death’s door, and she still had her sense of humor. I knew that Susan was going to be able to take that sense of humor with her beyond this life.
As it turned out, a couple of years after she died, Spirit blessed me with an incredible visitation in which Susan came back to me as a blazing, brilliant light. At first it was just the pure light to me, my divine Beloved. I was swimming in that ecstasy, and then at the very end of the experience, I noticed that there were two blue eyes inside the light, and I recognized them as Susan’s eyes. I recognized them from her unique vibration and from the sense of humor coming out of those eyes, and the laughter and the joy.
She said, “See how incredible, how joyful, how blissful it is to be One again with the Father of all fathers, and the Mother of all mothers?” And she laughed in pure delight.
I was reminded of a beautiful vision that came to me years ago during a Sunday service. I found myself standing out in space, looking upon a gigantic galaxy with huge rings and a shining center. An angelic being next to me was holding its hand out toward the sight, as if to show me. Then the being began to laugh deep within so joyously, so infectiously, that I almost laughed aloud.
The cosmic joke was this: Look upon the beauty, wonder and majesty of this creation. The secret is: It’s all you! You think that you are all these separate images and faces, but in truth there’s only one Spirit. It’s all God, the most beloved, the most high. There’s no separation between you and this gigantic galaxy, and all the stars.
In Christ consciousness there can be no desires, for everything that exists is already ours. So let us be joyful, thankful, and light-hearted!
The self-conscious mammalian brain has developed over the millenniums, and today, on this planet we are expressing it in its full potential. Why meditate? Meditation leads us within where we gain freedom from our limited ego consciousness and realize Divine Consciousness, and our immortality.
Human’s higher brain structure has the ability to create all of the abstract images its imagination can produce. We see around us every face is different. What a fantastic thing this is, this divine consciousness which is all of us! This consciousness is the point from which all things came forth; and it is contained in each one of us right now. It can be directly perceived through meditation.
We suffer, we are sad, only because we do not know who we really are within. Cosmic consciousness is for each and every human being. It is only when we begin to inhabit our higher brain structure that we begin to understand our relationship to the world and all life forms. Then we truly begin to caretake all the images that the Creator, I Am That I Am, as created—including our own bodies.
Scientists studying subatomic particles find they have mysterious abilities. For understanding, the science of the future will be investigated within man and woman in solitude and meditation, within the great higher brain. Subatomic energy is I Am That I Am. It fills the space between the atomic structure of our bodies. Remove the space between the electrons and protons of your body right now and you couldn’t be seen. We are looking at space when we look at each other.
Our bodies are a mass of particles of light that represent the physical. It is an illusion that each of us has a personality with a name, likes, dislikes and desires. We think that we have limitations. We think that we are suffering or are weak. We think we have desires unfulfilled. It is an illusion. For all is this one Divine Consciousness momentarily conceding to be each one of us until we wake up and realize that each one of us is it. We are actually the wealth of the whole creation, the instrument that I Am That I Am created so that it could enjoy the creation.
“Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven and all things will be added unto you.” Why was that said? Because it’s a fact. What is heaven? It’s all space and eternity. It’s the creation and Divine Consciousness everywhere and in everything. Oh, what a miracle to be alive—a glorious thing!
Remember the great gift of this body is to investigate it and to use its powers that you might, from this vantage point on this planet, perceive the whole universe. It’s a great blessing to be alive. The lesson for every individual is to learn through consciousness and thought to move life force and control light. This you can do. This is why meditation. Let’s meditate.
OM…Mighty Spirit, we love you. Mighty Spirit, we love you; you love us.
We love the world. We are one with all images.
All images are me.
OM
My teacher, Norman Paulsen, always stressed that Sunburst’s teachings were not a religion, but a way of life. I recall that Paramhansa Yogananda also stressed that one did not have to give up or change his religion to use the path of Kriya Yoga to help himself grow in his relationship with his Creator.
It continually occurs to me that I’m much less concerned with which religion a person practices than I am with their integrity, and fairness. Jesus was asked by a Pharisee lawyer, “Which is the greatest commandment in the law?”Â
Jesus answered, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”
To me this should be of primary importance in one’s religion and in one’s life. The dogmas that have come into being are the ossification of teachings that were once fresh and alive. These teachings were given to people to help them live better lives, live together in virtue, and grow closer to their Creator. Members of different religions and sects would do well to realize that there is only one God, though there are many paths to Him. His ways of reaching out to people are as infinite as He is. God is unlimited in his methods of expression. Religions should help men to understand and love one another, rather than serve as rallying points for confrontations.
When I reflect on the vastness of God, it seems natural that God would accept and enjoy a wide variety of methods of worship. Norm has long encouraged us to strive to see the Spirit in every person with whom we have contact. And hopefully, we realize every face is a reflection of our own.
God is all around us, in every animate and inanimate object, as well as in every person we meet. If we want to be with God, we must learn to find Him in all we see around us, and in every person we see. All men and women are sons and daughters of God and God is in each one of us, waiting for us to recognize Him and love Him.
Seeing God in others will help us learn the action of Love. Christ Consciousness is the embodiment of Love. As we express our love to the Spirit we see in others, so will the Love rain upon us from Spirit.
Can we imagine the patience of God,
waiting for lifetimes to be recognized within us?
Waiting, watching, and loving, through thick and thin.
God is always right here,
the Spirit within the soul
that quickens and recognizes Oneness revealed,
inherent and ancient, long standing and pure.
God is always right here.
Security is knowing God loves me, always,
and loving God, always.
Contemplate the fact that in whatever direction you may gaze into space, there is an end to the visible expanding sphere of creation. Reaching the outer limits of the expanding sphere, one would be confronted with the unmanifested, primordial sea of life and consciousness. Our self-conscious; minds cannot conceive of an endless eternity. The forces of speculation and meditation lead us on to this realization eventually, that eternity does indeed exist. The soul, the center of our consciousness, is able to contemplate eternity. Why? Because it is our true home.
True meditation is direct contact with the eternal, living, Divine Spirit; the experience of being one with life; of Spirit’s dual forces, entering into us, embracing us, circulating freely; of Divine Mother and Father encountering one another in the stillness of our heart, bringing the conception of the Christ deep within—the ignition of birth and light.
Each day, a tremendous amount of life force exits outward through the five senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. This is necessary in order to experience the phenomena of our physical world. Very often our conception of a living, Divine Spirit, in time and space, consists of only the limited perceptions of our five senses. If one can succeed, in deep meditation, to still the parade of images before the conscious mind and senses, the life and vision of Divine Spirit, I Am That I Am may be experienced. We then see into the great, boundless immensity of inner space.
The form of meditation we practice at Sunburst was present within the forces which generated the first ignition and birth of the expanding sphere of creation. Many ancient civilizations in the remote past have used this technique. If practiced with devotion, along with a life of service, it can lead to a face-to-face encounter with the Great Being, the Christ Light, I Am That I AM.
I had seen visions,
gazed across celestial panoramas,
encountered spheres of light
and sat beneath brilliant rainbows of color in inner space.
I had conversed with saints and adepts from the remote past,
and visited ancient and future civilizations.
I thought my progress on the spiritual path was good,
until my first encounter with I Am That I Am, the Christ.
My body, mind and spirit were so shocked,
that all I had experienced in the past
was nothing before the incandescent brilliance of His gaze.
by Norman Paulsen
