So let’s begin by reiterating the fundamental teaching of this retreat, which is the same teaching that is known as the “perennial philosophy”—it’s been taught since time immemorial in every culture—it’s known by secular beings, and it has become a cliche even: “life is but a dream”—it’s a camp song. But if we remember those words of Calderon de la Barca, “Qué es la vida? Un frenesí. Una ilusión, una sombra, una ficción; y la mas grande bien es pequeño; que toda la vida es sueño, y los sueños, sueños son.”
So the world is a dream, a frenzy, a shadow, an illusion, a fiction, and the greatest good is small because it’s all only a dream, and the dreams are dreams within the dreams—there is nothing real within the phenomenal plane. This is the key. If you don’t understand that the world is unreal, you’re going to be afraid, paranoia will strike. You don’t want to fall victim to that, you want to be free, that’s the whole point of yoga. The point of reaching Jivan Mukti, liberation while alive—not after the death of the body but here and now, through the simple act of silencing the mind that lives in duality and projects this dreamworld. The world is not separate and self-standing from your consciousness—it is your consciousness—if you don’t get that you won’t be able to understand and relate accurately to all the teachings that follow and are consequent upon it.
So this is the key point: do not yield to the illusion of the unreal by identifying with a body that feels like it is in danger. This is the illusion that we must transcend. Furthermore, the world cannot be real, and it’s very important that we understand that. Even scientists nowadays, if you google “simulation”, you’ll see more and more scientists are saying the world is almost undoubtedly a simulation, a holographic cinema show, but that’s really just the high tech equivalent of saying it’s a dream. It’s not as if there are aliens who have made a computer of some kind that puts us in it, no, because they would also then need to be inside the computer of some other super-aliens, and it would be an infinite regress, no. All of it is a dream and there is one Dreamer, and the good news is the Dreamer is benevolent; the Dreamer of this dream, God, is not out to get you, but to actually awaken you and save you from the suffering in the dream.
And it is that benevolence that brings grace, if we will link to that Source and not be cynical and skeptical and unwilling to surrender, but if we are humble and open we will receive the shakti that will lift us out of the illusory vibrational frequency that makes the world seem like a scary place. But we also have to be realists and not in denial and using the ostrich method of dealing with the world—we have to recognize what this dream field is presenting and respond with reason. But the world can’t be real unless time is real and it’s very clear that time is not real, because if time is real then there is a past, a present, and a future. But if you ask yourself, what about this present? How long does it last? And if you try to analyze it, even if I say the word “present”, before I get to the –ent the pres is already in the past—much like the president in Washington is almost in the past. You can’t be in the present, it’s infinitesimal; and the whole world is based on the present, and the future and the past are linked to that, but if the present is not real, it doesn’t exist, you can’t locate it in time, then what about the past and the future? Where is the past? Does it exist somewhere that you know of? Can you reach it? Does the future exist? No. They are all illusory, the world does not really exist. Time is not real. Science even admits that.
So they try to postulate, “Well, it’s a block universe. All time is here, now.” That’s the actual scientific perspective, but if all time is here now and you’re seeing it from another perspective—from another dimension, really—then aren’t you saying that the world is basically a dream object and you are in a dimension transcendent of it? And only in that dimension can you see the truth that all of time is here now, but that means no time is here now. Nothing happens. There is no change. That’s the illusion. Once you understand that then you understand that if the whole thing is already here, there’s nothing you can do anyway about the future because it’s not really future—but what you can do is be in that dimension that is beyond, and if you link to that dimension beyond there is some very good news, which is that if you learn the lessons that karma is meant to bring you through suffering—if you learn them before that karma hits in the flow of time—that karma will not actually have to happen to you, because it’s all about education and learning. If you learn ahead of time, you actually teleologically change what you thought would be the future, or what the future trajectory was looking like it was heading towards.
Now even that learning that will change it is inherent to it, so even then there is not any real change, but by getting to the higher vibrational frequency in which you have learned those lessons, you then become part of the dreaming intelligence, not the dreamee. And it’s because you are then part of the ordaining intelligence that that power of shifting the apparent trajectory of time is given. So the possibilities are unlimited for how you deal with what seem to be events that are coming into unfoldment from the apparent future, and if you are fully present, you will be able to respond to those events with the intelligence of the Dreamer that will be able to navigate very accurately and easily around the obstacles, because time will not only slow down for you, but it will literally stop.
This is the secret of martial arts by the way—the great marital artist knows how to slow down time so that the opponent’s punches and kicks come in slow motion, but the response can be in quick time and so one is always able to parry and respond with accuracy and with an ability to turn whatever negative energies are around and spiral back into a harmless form—so it is the same with our ability to deal with the matrix of maya if we are at a high enough level of frequency. Patanjali, the great author of the Yoga Sutras, spends a whole chapter talking about the yoga siddhis—they are special powers that are given when you retire states of consciousness—one of them is slowing down time. There are other paranormal powers that he of course says “don’t go for those”, because first you want liberation, and if you get enamored of having some superpowers you won’t be liberated from karma; you will make use of the illusion but you’ll still be trapped in it. Get free of it, but if in the course of getting free and in union with God, in the service of God within the matrix, if necessary, those siddhis will be given. This is very important at certain times to understand, but it is most important to reach the one Maha Siddhi of liberation from the illusion. Only that will bring an end completely to the illusion of being an incarnate entity.
