Hi Chris,

Thanks for your great blog on the love delusion! I don't know how you manage to put these kind of concepts into words but I'm so glad you do!

Reading the blog finally made something clear to me that I had puzzled about in the past, but I had never quite managed to "get" what it was that I was being shown.

About 8 or 9 years ago when I lived very happily in a little hamlet and felt very at one with my surroundings I got the same repeated experience in different situations every few weeks over a sustained period of many months.

I would be doing something in which I had become totally engrossed, which was also making my heart sing. Mostly it would be something like creating a new flower bed in my garden, but I can also remember one deeply loving conversation with a friend and also, once, designing a project on the computer.

There would be a distinct moment when the "engrossment" stopped and I would move about, maybe come inside, or get up to put the kettle on. Several times I can recall looking at my watch at this moment and seeing the second hand moving. I would also be reading the time, only to then see the house clock telling me the time was actually anything from 40mins to an hour and a half LATER than it said on my watch. There had been some kind of time slip on my personal watch, but there was nothing wrong with the battery and once I had reset the time it carried on just as normal. The watch never appeared stopped when I looked at it, my attention was always drawn to the moving second hand, but I was aware that when I looked it was immediately after something had changed in my awareness from being completely engrossed to being in normal everyday awareness. (During the engrossed period, when the watch must have stopped, of course I was engrossed in something, so therefore not checking my watch.) I even changed my watch and it still continued to happen.

Back then I kept thinking, "What's happening? Am I "going" to some place where time doesn't exist?" I would discuss it with a few people, and remark on how it only happened when I was utterly and totally, completely absorbed in something, in a much more intense way than is usual, so that it felt almost like a bubble had burst as I "came back" to everyday awareness.

Well now I "get" it! I was so engrossed I had overcome the feeling of separateness and therefore, for me, time had stopped. I wish you could see the big smile on my face, it's like the penny has dropped. I think I can even venture to suggest I was experiencing the source and having experience at the same time. Wow, this feels like a real "Eureka" moment!! Thank you!

With radiant love and smiles,
Lesley

Eureka!

Yes its exactly those moments where we're so utterly engrossed that all time and space disappears. This to me is an enlightened state. The important thing is though that neither were you lost in it. There was a presence that was noticing what was happening - this is the Seer or the Source as I've described it.

Its a wonderful story you share Lesley - a miraculous experience indeed. I've discovered when we're fully in that state, all manner of extraordinary experiences arise.

Interestingly children can tend to be in that state too. Like when a baby is born it knows no separation from its mother or the surroundings at all. We have to be "educated" in the concept of separation. It normally begins with the first short, sharp smack on the bottom!

I'm so thrilled the penny has dropped for you Lesley.

Much love

Chris

I'm not sure that I understand what "getting lost in it" would be. Can you describe how that experience might be?

I'm glad you used the word miraculous, because it reminds me how blessed it is to have such a seemingly "impossible" or "magical" experience.

When these incidents happened I was in a place of knowing it had happened but also questioning whether the origins were more mundane than miraculous, so I first changed the battery, then the watch, of course as similar experiences repeated all doubts as to mundane vs miraculous disappeared.

However. I puzzled over it for so long trying understand the message behind what I had been shown, and thinking back occasionally over the years, still wondering, that I had become so "familiar" with what happened that I'd lost sight of it's miraculous nature. Thank you for reminding me.

One more quick question. Would a person be in that engrossed but functioning state all the time if they were enlightened?

Thanks,
L

Hi Lesley,

I love where this conversation is going to! Its right at the nitty gritty of truth! Right at the cutting edge!

By being engrossed but "not being lost in it" what I mean is that there's always a presence which is making a conscious choice to stay engaged. Also, the choice to stay engaged is only the slightest preference.

So for example consider the classic stereotypical situation of a teenager being engrossed in a computer game. They're not feeling anything beyond their involvement in the game. Not only that bu they have little or no choice about being engaged in it. It becomes an addiction. You can probably think of many behaviours like this.

When you're reading this post for example or typing a response to it, is the reading or typing all that you can focus on whilst doing it? Is the typing/reading happening within you or are you within it? Is there still an overriding presence through it all?

I used to notice for example that I would get lost in the writing when I was typing something especially if it was something really intense like when I was writing a book. I asked Benevolent Consciousness for help. Suddenly I found myself noticing if I typed the wrong key, or if my attention was suddenly drawn to key words I'd just typed, or if strange occurrances suddenly happened. For instance when writing this post I mispelt "occurrance" which instantly created a red line underneath it. The red line confirms to me through that Benevolent Consciousness is present speakinng through the synchroncity around the word "occurrance".

So it causes me to ask "am I present and therefore noticing literally everything that's going on?" Or am I lost with an intention within the action - ie "I've begun writing this sentence so I'm going to continue right until the end no matter what happens".

If I am being completely present then I have a choice. I'm not dictated to by my own addiction or behaviour. At any moment I am free to follow a pull to something else and there is something within it all that is processing that choice. Then I'm engrossed but not lost - this is an enlightened state.

In the beginning, an enlightened state will feel totally miraculous because it feels totally interconnected with all things. As I write this I don't feel a "me" in here - no small "I" writing it. I don't even have an intention about what I'm writing. I'm simply writing and responding to what I perceive to be "right action".

After a while though, an enlightened state begins to feel incredibly ordinary - when we are interconnected, there is nothing that is not connected therefore nothing that is out of the ordinary!

Except every now and then, especially in the matrix where most people are not "reading the script", a shift happens within the field bringing those who are out of line back into line. Its kind of like the huge fissures that are appearing in the Antarctic Ice Shelf - we're so out of sync that something major happens to bring us back in line.

Am I making sense?

Chris

Yes , that mostly seems really clear.

In answer to the question "Is the typing/reading happening within you or are you within it?" I would say that in the absorbed state it feels like whatever the activity is I am in some kind of linked state, not that I have dissolved, I am still there but it feels like the boundary between me and the objects or people involved in the activity have dissolved. Like if some kind of external giants hand appeared to suddenly pluck me away there would be a kind of stretching of the zone between my body and the flower bed or between my head and shoulders and the computer screen as the giant hand pulled me away. Like when two objects that have been glued together expand a sticky trail between them if you pull them apart.

But also something else is happening, that within this linked or shared space, all kinds of movements, or shapes or "chance" occurrances are speaking to me like an interactive dialogue hey guess what, I just spelt "occurrances" wrong, perfect synchronicity there!) Inanimate objects are giving me clues to follow, using simple but inventive ways of developing a language with me so that EVERYTHING feels like it's a living thing.

I guess everyones experience will be unique to them, but that's the best I can describe mine.

Maybe you could expand on your last paragraph a bit,

"Except every now and then, especially in the matrix where most people are not "reading the script", a shift happens within the field bringing those who are out of line back into line. Its kind of like the huge fissures that are appearing in the Antarctic Ice Shelf - we're so out of sync that something major happens to bring us back in line"

I don't quite get the immediate link between the other text and this, and I'm not sure if I feel "shifts in the field".

Thank you,
Lesley

What you describe Lesley sounds like an enlightened state. Where the inner and outer world kind of unfolds into one. I love the way you describe this "Unity Consciousness"...

"Like if some kind of external giants hand appeared to suddenly pluck me away there would be a kind of stretching of the zone between my body and the flower bed or between my head and shoulders and the computer screen as the giant hand pulled me away."

But there is one other vital ingredient you describe which points to the enlightened state; there is still 'someone' - the Seer - inside noticing the magical language of synchronicity where everything speaks to you.

When I arrived at this state, after a while I was given to understand it intellectually so that I might help others recognise and attune to that state themselves.

As I opened up to understanding, a question arose: "how are choices made within this state? and who makes the choices and based on what criteria?"

It took quite some time for the realisation to drop. My personality wanted to keep owning that state and start making decisions again - to take over. But I kept resisting - kept dissolving the little "I".

What I discovered was that in the state where I was not efforting to make a choice, or not afraid of what would happen if I didn't make a choice at all (kind of feels like flowing with a river thats about to go over a gigantic waterfall!), then my attention would automatically be brought to certain events in my environment; either thoughts, feelings, chance occurrances (mispelt that word again!), movement, patterns etc etc. Again the key is not to effort to understand what that all means. If we don't effort then something truly miraculous arises - the soul!

We have created for ourselves a "consciousness landscape" and magically the soul picks its way through this landscape - its destined pathway.

This pathway is completely at-one with all things because rather than just flowing around the choices of the 3rd dimension (a very limited aspect of reality) we are in fact flowing around choices made from multiple dimensions - observing synchronicity provides access to the 5th Dimension for example.

It takes a great deal of commitment, practice and courage to live this way completely all the time - because it often seems to bring us into conflict with the 3rd Dimension - until we realise that the conflict is just an internal tightness - once more the need for a particular outcome in the 3rd Dimension has arisen.

This brings me to my final point. So few people are really living that way such that they create a consciousness landscape that is completely out of alignment with the other dimensions. This is what causes major action on the part of the Universe to bring the dimensions back into alignment - like the fissures in the Antarctic. Or terminal chaos at Heathrow's new Terminal 5, where people's "baggage" is causing the problem - don't you just love how the 5th Dimension speaks to us?

Chris

I notice something I wrote earlier which feels a bit inaccurate. I wrote:

"Inanimate objects are giving me clues to follow, using simple but inventive ways of developing a language with me so that EVERYTHING feels like it's a living thing."

I guess a better way of putting that would be to say benevolent consciousness uses inventive ways of developing a language with me, including through inanimate objects, which makes it feel like everything is talking to me, which makes me notice "the one life" within and through all things.

Another thing I notice is that these "enlightened state" experiences given to me came at a time that was within one or two years after I transitioned gateway 1 and way before I was going to transition gateway 2. (not that I'd heard of the gateways then) I have a feeling that although I can now clearly see the gateways exist, (and I think your book does a fantastic and much needed job of explaining them, and what to expect) the experiences within the five periods of spiritual progress can seem a bit variable, like you maybe sometimes, somehow, dip in and out of the sections that have been described in your book. Although in the broadest sense they seem to follow very closely what you describe. Would you agree with that?

I would also say that I'm having the experiences now, but they feel more ordinary as I've got used to them, and that I think they either last longer and I'm less drawn to notice when they begin and end, or it could be that instead of jumping from a zero state to a full state I'm in some kind of fluctuating 50% to 75% state, most if not all of the time. Am I making sense? I think that does make sense, because if you are on a journey from being asleep to being enlightened, your awareness is raising all the time, so if you've tasted an enlightened state
you probably would feel the difference in your rising awareness as some kind of half way house.

Time to stop my late night ramblings I think!
Lesley

Yes I totally agree with you when you said...

"benevolent consciousness uses inventive ways of developing a language with me, including through inanimate objects"

I experience this as "spiking my consciousness". When we are no longer governed by the small "I" and if we allow Benevolent Consciousness to guide us (by being open to it), then I notice how my attention is drawn to apparently random things in my environment - a bird singing for example.

The key is then to ask "how does that make me feel inside?" or "what might that be revealing to me?". Sure enough the more we do it, the more we experience the whole of life speaking to us. Just like Doctor Dolittle we really can talk to the animals (by the way the synchonicity of his name just hit me like a thunder bolt - we can only do this when we're just being - in other words when we're "doing little!").

Eventually even the questions themselves disappear and we just flow with the magical weave - now we're being as one with the Universe. The more we do it, the more 'ordinary' it becomes - and yet it never feels (to me at least) less than magical.

To your other question about the gateways of expansion - yes the experiences can be variable. We can seem to dip in and out. We might also get tasters of the higher gateways even before we get there. Likewise, when in a higher state of consciousness we might still revisit some of the lessons of the previous gateways.

I know that the experiences for me were quite marked and defined - perhaps so that I could write the book!

Much love

Chris