The other day I received an Email from a thoughtful cultural-creative, with the following question:
There is a saying in mystic tradition: “As above, so below.”
Do you think that this is true in meditation?
Is going up into the upper realms the same as descending into the lower realms?
Or is meditation like the children’s board game, Snakes and Ladders? You climb the chakra ladder, and sometimes you slide back and have to climb again?
Here is my answer:
I love your question, so complex and pertinent.
There are three different principles and how they relate to MEDITATION that you’re talking about here:
- The adage “As above, so below.”
- The different realms of consciousness, or worlds as they are described in various mystery schools, such as the underworld, the middle world and the upper world, which correspond to the subconscious, the conscious, and the super conscious mind.
- The seven chakras in the human system starting from the base and reaching into the crown.
FIRSTLY you’re talking about the adage “As above, so below!”
In essence this adage is a principle that is describing the law of RESONANCE.
It can be understood as a law of nature, a modus operandi, which is stating that like attracts like, which is expressed in the adage “As above, so below.”
Thomas Browne in his Religio Medici (1643) confidently stated: “The severe schools shall never laugh me out of the philosophy of Hermes, that this visible world is but a portrait of the invisible.” (R. M. Part 1:12)
Implied in the meaning of the adage “As above, so below” is the understanding that nature is holographic. The New Age understanding has taken this adage to mean that thought reflect itself in matter.
Students of the LIVING FROM VISION course know this from experience. The magic and miracle of this course consist in actually learning HOW to apply that adage “As above, so below!” and hold the inner state of energy, so that thought and intention will MANIFEST.
SECONDLY you’re talking about rising into the higher realms and you ask if rising into the higher realms is the same as diving into the lower realms.
In various cultures there is the notion that there is the underworld/demonic world, the normal/daily world, and the upper world/the heavens.
This division is also reflected in many cultures and studies of the mind, in the division of states of consciousness such as:
- the Subconscious State of Awareness
- the Conscious State of Awareness
- the Higher State of Awareness
In my video about meditational states I describe the necessity to acknowledge and work together with the various levels of our consciousness, integrating all three levels harmoniously, on the path of evolution of consciousness, in order to reach into the most sublime states of God awareness.
We do indeed need to enter into our deeper subconscious state, in order to cleanse it, and transform our subconscious mind.
Here we often find embedded negative beliefs, about our physical needs, desires and our egoic identification. We can transform these into the higher versions and become a luminous being.
When we listen to the deeper levels of our subconscious mind and start to communicate with the so-called denser or lower parts of our selves, we can find out what these “lowly parts of ourselves” truly wish to create for us. They then become the stepping stones on our path of evolution.
Embedded within everything are two potentials directions:
- a downward spiral which leads to self-destruction
- and an upward spiral which reaches into the greatest sate of expansion and expression.
In my video where I talk about the process of Meditation.
I speak about the various stages of consciousness that we can go through in order to reach into the greatest most sublime states.
- We start by quieting the mind, calming the lake so to speak.
- Then we commune with our subconscious, at times this means feeling into the unruly parts of our self, in order to then transform these into their most expanded and most beautiful expression.
- After having transformed the subconscious aspects that were less than productive, we often start pre-imagine our life from a higher dimension. We begin to arrange our daily lives, goals and visions from the inside out.
Doing so allows the meditator to use their higher focused mind to effect a change in their own lives and affecting reality positively. The meditatior working from above, so to speak. This is applying the principle you spoke about “As above, so below” being used as a principle of co-creation.
After having cleansed the subconscious aspects of ourselves, whether they are emotional, or mental and after utilizing the co-creative power of our consciousness to assist in the manifestation process of our true visions, and desired realities, we then ascend into further higher realms of more sublime frequencies.
This ascension process, as it’s often called, should maybe not be understood in terms of going up. It often times is spoken about it that way, because people do feel a sense of lightness associated with the heavens, or flying.
Ascension is not describing a location, as much as a movement from denser to finer vibrations, which is ultimately transcending time and space and entering pure awareness.
THIRDLY, in your questions your were describing the evolutionary process of moving up the ladder of chakras. And likening this upward movement to a game where we ‘gain some and lose some.’
Evolution of consciousness does not happen in a linear fashion by moving from the lower chakra to the higher chakras, but is rather a much longer process of refinement of awareness over aeons of time, until we blaze like a diamond in the sky.
Although you could argue that the denser lower chakras apply more to the physical reality and the finer, upper chakras apply more to the heightened states of awareness, we need to have all of the facets of the diamond polished and illuminated in order to shine like a star.
Like I said before:
If you don’t clean the basement, eventually the rot will reach the roof. Many a guru has fallen from grace by preaching one thing and doing another. So we learn that all facets need to be illuminated in order to shine like as a whole.
Rather than linearly ascending, we need to radiate into all the realms of our being.
In order to reach the greatest potency of singularity, God awareness, we need to have cleansed all levels of our internal levels of consciousness.
So when you ask, if the adage “as above, so below” applies to meditation in the way that being in the higher world is the same as being in the lower world, the answer is: NO.
This adage is describing a working principle, a law of nature, and not so much describing a movement of consciousnesses from lower to higher frequencies, nor likening the lower and the higher worlds to one another.
However, in as much as we cleanse the many layers of the lower and middle state of our consciousness, we can more fully enjoy the purity of stillness.
When all of our chakras are illuminated we create a more illuminated manifestation inside as well as outside of ourselves, whether it applies to our physical life (survival and sexual), our emotional life (power and love) or our mental life (self -expression, logic and foresight).
If any of our chakras are contracting, let’s say our solar plexus is out of balance due to anger, we will have to make a choice:
Do we wish to condense our energy further and utilize our energy to destroy that which apparently is the cause for our anger?
Or, we can ask our selves:
Do we want to expand again, transform our anger into what it truly wishes to create and thereby create a beautiful outcome that we are actually hoping for?
Ultimately in meditation we are trying to refine our awareness to such a point that we can reach into the most lofty realms of consciousness: Eternity, God, All-ness.
And this requires that we refine our many layers of existence, the subconscious parts, the conscious parts and the super-conscious parts.
Through ultimate stillness we are able to perceive the Face of the Divine.
But if we have not mastered our subconscious self, we will find that the heightened lofty states will not last long and in worst case scenario create quite a bit of chaos, due to the law of resonance.
So let us make sure we apply ourselves to purify all of our levels of being, in order to stand on both legs, instead of only one.
What is meditation:
Ascension into finer and evermore refined states of consciousness results in us becoming so deeply still, or so vast in our awareness, that we encompass eternity, and become the purest diamond of Oneness, which is opening in the lotus flower of the universe.
As not to confuse the mind, meditation and evolution of consciousness might best be described not so much a movement upward as maybe more accurately as a complete intensification of being single pointed.
Ultimately this single pointedness, allows us to reach beyond the speed of light, which ultimately leads us to the center of creation, often described as God, where we become one with eternity and are embracing all time and space. It is often described as a movement upward, but it is equally a movement inward, or no movement at all.
To the degree that we have cleansed our subconscious levels of any constrictions, to that degree we can rise into eternal stillness.
In that sense “the below,” the subconscious parts of our consciousness definitely will be reflected in our journey to “the above.”
So the ascension process, or let’s more accurately say the movement of our awareness into the center of creation, is a process that takes time, and requires a cleansing of ourselves on many levels, and actually the passage can be felt more like an expanding spiral, ever rising, to encompass the greater whole.
By saying “upper world” often times we are implying a position in height. I believe it is an attempt to create a mental map, a map that is created by a mind, which can understand non-locality much better by using imagery of the 3 D world.
In the process of evolution, often times terms are used that indicate spatial movements such as the movement upwards, but much of this terminology evolved, because we are an upright walking creature, and we experience up and down based on our experience of gravity. We are being pulled onto the surface of the planet and flying up into the skies.
The adage “As above, so below,” like I said, is more an operating principle and refers to the fact that our universe is holographic in nature.
It could easily also be said “As within, so without.”
Meditation is a process of moving to the deepest level of stillness or the greatest speed of awareness, to a point where all stands still and we witness ourselves as eternity.
