Time To Wake Up

Many I talked to about such widening of their awareness, of activating the extensive abilities hidden deep within us, voiced deep-rooted doubt that they'd ever be able to experience anything higher, anything greater, anything more expansive than what they live now. There seems to be a widespread, surprisingly unyielding conviction that everything is ever getting worse, that the world is trapped in a downward spiral of deterioration we are caught up in.

    But this is not the case.

    Let me explain: -

    The rishis - the seers of old - knew far more than just that the Grand Self existed and how to interact with It. Amongst much other deep knowledge how this world of matter functions, they were aware of a broad time-cycle influencing all life on earth. - And they knew the characteristic 'flavors' the different phases (yugas) of this cycle subjected its inhabitants to.

    These 'flavors' range from a long period of 4800 years, in which man's perception, comprehension and ethics are at their highest and in which life is easiest, without conflict, and lasts longest, - called 'The Age of Truth', or 'The Golden Age', Sanskrit: satya yuga, -

    - to the 3600 years of the treta yuga - a period of increasingly lesser comprehension and length of life, -

    - to a period in which technical knowledge is introduced to replace the declining comprehension how to directly handle this world of matter by the power of mind alone - the dwapara yuga of 2400 years duration, -

    - to the period with the shortest duration of 1200 years, in which perception, ethics, comprehension and length of life are at their lowest, where living is hardest and where egoistic endeavors that care not whether they hurt, kill or obstruct other beings, have a chance of dominating the world for a while, - called 'The Age of Darkness', Sankrit: kali yuga.

    These four periods advance in two half-cycles of 12000 years each -

• one of them declining, as described above, with awareness decreasing in its powers

• the other one rising with more and more comprehension, till The Age of Truth is reached again.

    (A different way of calculating these eras currently much en vogue in India is commented later in this chapter - 'A Disagreement in Calculation'.)

    A picture makes it easy to comprehend the entire cycle: -

- The cycle of eras the ancient rishis described -

The purpose of these periods of distinctly different character is to provide a wide range of settings for those wanting to experience their desires and dreads in material form, so they may confront the challenges they set for themselves in the most conducive environment.

    Since we ourselves choose which period to experience, the question that's always asked is: 'Why not permanently incarnate in The Golden Age, where our comprehension is greatest and our life entirely trouble-free?' -

    Well, the answer is easy: - The Golden Age - satya yuga does not satisfy all we want to experience in these material surroundings. Fear, anger, greed, deception etc. are not present in The Age of Truth, because everyone understands perfectly well what's in the mind of any other person, and reacts entirely naturally in a positive and supportive way. Thus we simply wouldn't be able to experience 'negative' emotions, or any egoistic ambition in that particular period.

    And then, - in a golden age where everything is as perfect as it possibly could be, we'd take much longer to learn what we intend to learn, than in an age where challenges abound, and life is chaotic and wild at times.

    The second question is always: - 'Where are we now?' - 'Which point in this cycle are we experiencing at present?'

    And here the answer is simple math. According to Hindu astronomical almanacs the last Age of Darkness of the declining half-cycle began 700 BC, lasted 1200 years till 500 AD, at which point the world was at its lowest, effective communication almost non-existent, groups of people fighting each other much of their time, sickness abounding and life's duration at its shortest, lasting hardly ever longer than 30, 40 years.

    Then the rising half-cycle began, starting with another 1200 years Age of Darkness that lasted till 1700 AD.

    And from 1700 onwards we now live in the next age, - the dwapara yuga - lasting 2400 years,

    - which puts us in the rising part of the cycle, in which perception, comprehension, communication and ethics are increasing, - and in which nothing is really declining any more.

    And yes, I've heard of global warming - if you believe in it, - I've heard of nations fighting, the world's resources coming to their end, of huge corporations trying to poison us, of young generations being so much shallower than older ones, - there's no end to this list. - But it's ever only a media-circus, it's only media attempts to hijack our attention, - to then make us watch commercials for lousy, overpriced coffee, for dog food claiming to be 'royal', and for soapsud-brands one as unremarkable as the other.

    Yet the evidence of increasing comprehension, of expansion, of rising ethics is right before us, right in our present life, if we only direct attention towards it and interpret it from facts and not from media-hype.

    So just look at the long period of peace we enjoy in major parts of the world for the last 65+ years (or 140+ years within the US), peace that by now stayed longer than ever in the last three millennia, and which gave rise to huge prosperity for all.

    See the unprecedented expansion of our knowledge of technology and electronics since 1700, providing comfort and luxury to the entire world, - totally inconceivable at any time before.

    Famine - a major recurring problem in the dark ages - is something entire generations now never experience. Sure, this progress is not completed yet, but we're closer to a worldwide solution than in any previous century (see -> Global Hunger Index 2011).

    There's the increasing life-span rising from about 30 years average in the Middle Ages to more than double - 83+ years (2022) - with the clear tendency to increase further.

    There's worldwide communication with instant connectivity between virtually everyone, and more and more knowledge made available everywhere and for free.

    Entire nations now wake up to their natural rights and rid themselves of megalomaniac dictators and power-groups, who took whole countries to be theirs and to be reigned at whim.

    There's the advances in medicine, e.g. providing everyone a functioning set of teeth for their entire life, - the speed and comfort of our present transportation, - the proliferation of democracies and personal security, - the increased efforts for a clean environment, - the luxury of our own lodgings not even kings enjoyed in previous times, - all this entirely unimaginable a mere century ago, -

    - all this - and much more - powerful signs of a fundamental, robust, self-amplifying, positive transformation, if we only want to see this development in a new light.

    Sure, there's fallout still from the dark ages, - of animal reflexes, egoistic themes and the assumption of a 'god-ordained' right to dominate others - either within individuals or still holding entire nations at bay. But then we only are 310+ years into the dwapara age, coming out of altogether 2400 years of darkness and chaos that installed deep egocentric mechanisms within humankind it only gradually is shaking off.

Let's - just for fun - project this expansion two hundred years into the future to see what's about to happen.

• Technical advances will lose much of their luster, - to be replaced by far more fascinating explorations of awareness-dimensions we can directly experience within us - without the help of any machinery. The insights we bring back from these 'journeys' will then enrich our entire material existence.

    After we achieved optimal physical comfort, new-fangled gadgets will seem like mere distractions. We'll cease to regard them as something with which to prove that we - just by having a new toy - would be so much farther advanced than others.

• Medicine will shift to mainly preventing sickness in a holistic way, instead of merely patching up parts of the body gone array - as they do now. Since people will be generally healthy, any medical service will be uncoupled from the monetary considerations and the hugely inflated costs that trouble us today.
  
  

• Knowledge and art will be freely available, its dissemination not hampered by corporations who never generated it, but only siphon off the lion's share of profits without giving the originators their fair share.
  
  

• Religion will turn into what it really is supposed to be: - inspiring us to re-connect to our Grand Origin and switching from mere belief to really experiencing this Magnificent Existence deep within everyone, - alerting us to ways of encountering our material desires in a much smoother, far more efficient way.

    Individuals will connect directly to their Grand Self without any intermediary. And those in need of assistance will be able to freely choose from a wide variety of groups catering to their exact needs.

    The ceremonious priests and pompous officials of today's churches will have disappeared altogether because they became obsolete, - a self-accelerating process that actually started already three hundred years ago.

• Fun and recreation will be by far more satisfying since they focus more and deeper on our emotions - the very seat, the very center, where all our joy, ecstasy and happiness is generated in the first place. This doesn't mean we won't have discos any more, but that experiencing them will create far intenser feelings and satisfaction within us.
  
  

• The children - or children's children - of people presently amassing huge egoistic wealth by taking money from those scrambling to get by, will be of a different ethic disposition and right the wrong their forefathers inflicted upon society.
  
  

• Life in general will become much more cooperative, - making it increasingly easier to experience all we intend to confront in material form.

    Yet while experiencing matter, we'll have clear parallel awareness that our real existence beyond our 3D environment is far greater than what we physically perceive. And this inner awareness will offer far better guidance than any outside theory, dogma, belief-system or scientific finding can ever provide.

    All during the past 300 years a different type of people than in the previous two millennia took on material existence, - seeking inner and outer expansion, ever clearer insight, deeper ethics, technical advancement, intenser communication and widening cooperation. Despite world wars, genocides, restrictive or destructive ideologies, economic collapse and constrained freedoms there's an inevitability in this expansion that fuels its rapid growth ever anew.

    No individual nor group could ever stop this overall development, - couldn't even slow it down for a brief time, since this broad rise continues to manifest in all other parts of the world not subjected to such influence; - until the egomaniacs' 15 minutes are over and the region under their sway clicks back into overall progress and expansion.

    As the aristocracy controlling the world for more than two millennia became obsolete and lost all influence within a mere few decades, - as the power of religions and priests fades as ever more people decide against their life being dominated by repressive religious dogmas, - in the same way other current restrictions will fall away all by themselves simply because our children and their offspring will recognize them as empty and superfluous.

    Future generations will inevitably think, feel and act in far more expansive ways than we do now, - as our present thinking, emotions and desires command abilities and ways of action markedly different and more expansive than anything previous generations ever deemed possible.

    The evidence for all this is right before our eyes: - We only need to recall how uniquely different we shape our world today compared to only sixty years ago.

    It is - of course - entirely your decision which view you want to adopt -

• going for growth, - and be supported by the powerful expansion the rising cycle naturally provides,

• or believing in the decline the media propagate, - to then encounter this very deterioration in your life.

    What you experience is entirely your choice, since -

What we think, that we become,
- this is the eternal mystery.

Maitri Upanishad VI.34

    My personal recommendation is - you might already guess - to take advantage of this rising cycle and go for expansion.

    But then, - if you desire to experience themes within your current material environment that won't allow for such expansion, - you may want to neutralize such longings first, before other themes will open up for you.

    Yet being aware of that huge potential within you just waiting to be actualized, - being aware that beyond any current material desires you really are this fabulous Grand Self, - may assist you immensely in confronting these longings, - so that new dimensions and meanings will ultimately reveal themselves, - if this appeals to you.

Now let's go back roughly three thousand years. This was the time when wise people knew the time-cycle to soon enter a period in which all knowledge concerning inner growth would be entirely forgotten, where people would be at each others throats for the most immaterial reasons, and where they - because of narrow belief or creed - might easily wipe out the most valuable information crucial to the expansion of future generations.

    How to transfer knowledge to a generation 3000 years into the future, when you know for sure that all people manifesting in physical form in the intermittent period would be incapable of grasping even the smallest part of what you now know.

    How to go about it? -

• Write it all down? - Script definitely existed in those days, but writing materials were scarce and certainly wouldn't last millennia. And then there always was the danger that fire, natural catastrophes, mad leaders, indifference or simple neglect would destroy the written information. And even if you stored the scriptures in supposedly 'safe' places at multiple locations, these locations might easily be forgotten during a long three thousand years.

• Chisel it in stone? - Well, - apart from being hugely cumbersome, you'd then also need to shield these stones from natural erosion, so your script wouldn't be washed or worn away. Thus there'd be the need to build elaborate protective structures around it, - possibly temples, - to emphasize the preciousness of the inscripted knowledge. Yet what about earthquakes, dilapidation, collapse, rising sands covering it in future desert-like periods and other calamities that could not be foreseen and may render all such efforts useless.

• Electronic storage did not exist in these ancient days, but this was rather of advantage. If already today we are incapable of reading data stored on tape a mere 50 years ago, - if CD's and DVD's begin to deteriorate after only two decades, with the likely unavailability of compatible reading devises in 20+ years time, - if the current en-vogue 'cloud' storage can be (and is) switched off, deleted, blocked or distorted by one single political, technical or monetary decision, any electronic 'securing' of invaluable knowledge is far too fragile and always open to attack. And after thirty centuries of decline the technical basis for electronic storage might not even exist any more.

    The solution the ancient rishis came up with was ingenious: - To keep this essential knowledge alive, - to transfer it to us, - they created a living chain of people, who generation after generation learned the information by heart, knowing its importance if not their content, transferring it to their offspring, - and who thus were able to react in real time to inevitable catastrophes, to then intelligently escape, avoid ravages by war, insane rulers, famines, epidemics and other calamities, always while carrying this invaluable knowledge within.

    And within this tradition the handing over of knowledge was an essential part. Its main focus was communicating the wisdom, never keeping any of it secret.

    An ingenious solution that really worked: The knowledge of the ancients how this world really functions is all before us presently and in pristine condition. It's now our generation's task - during this rising tide of the time-cycle - to decipher this information, to pry it from the domination of dry, scholarly translators who almost suceeded in rendering these most valuable insights unintelligible and irrelevant. It's now within our power to reactivate this information, to test it in real life, to apply it, - and to communicate this to others.

    And it is also our prospect to take part in something truly expansive, in something that makes our life so much greater, - something that prompts us to actually become what we ever wanted to be - and more.

    The people currently choosing material existence command enormous creativity, a keenness for ever greater visions of this world, a readiness to throw out obstructive power-structures and docile behavior of the past.

    And ever more of these 'rising tide' people will incarnate, actively shaping their world for intelligent growth instead of stagnation, - for universal comprehension instead of holding back knowledge, - for compassion and collective assistance instead of egoistic amassing of wealth and resources in the hands of few to the detriment of many, - for expansion into unexplored regions within themselves instead of sticking to a particular creed.

    There's grand adventure ahead for those intent on venturing into this new phase of their existence, - to actively employ the immense abilities dormant deep within, - to explore the rich, yet unknown dimensions this world offers us on top of everything we presently are aware of.

    It's all happening now, - and all around us.

    We just need to click into it.

Since I selected only a small number of stanzas from the entire volume of upanishadic texts, the question naturally arises, what kind of information the remainder offers. Since the main theme of the scriptures is the Grand Self, an abundance of further insights might still be hiding in the work.

    How to get an overview? - How to chart a map of an extensive, complex body of scriptures, written by hundreds of authors over a period of more than 800 years?

    To proceed along the 'evolution of intellectual reasoning' - as most scholars love to do - doesn't generate any useful clue, as will become clear further down.

    Thus - for an effective approach - I looked at the way the main theme was portrayed from the oldest Upanishads to the youngest, - to see whether there'd be any change of character, style or aspect.

    And here I found something: - The oldest texts merely list how the Grand Self - Brahman - connects to the physical world, - the middle field attempts to provide a logical framework, - while the texts written closest to our times present numerous themes unrelated to Brahman, with intellectual arguments of sometimes pompous reasoning thrown in.

    There's an obvious shift from powerful evocation - to attempts of logical portrayal - to overemphasizing minor points and irrelevant quibbling.

    To try to explain these distinct changes with any 'evolution of intellectual reasoning' would rather document intellectual degeneration than an increase in lucidity. Would the texts indeed portray an 'intellectual evolution' then the young Upanishads should get more comprehensive, more brilliant, more proficient, - which they don't.

    Yet if we consider the declining comprehension as it occurred during The Age of Darkness - kali yuga, - this strange shift begins to make sense: - Understanding was still intact as the initial Upanishads were composed, but deteriorated more and more as The Dark Age deepened, until humankind totally forgot that within they carried a fantastic key to an entirely different type of life.

mainly list numerous features of our life and describe how they connect to Brahman.

    The absence of any instructions how to gain access to the Grand Self tells us that at that distant period most people probably had fundamental insight into the Self, and thus merely talking about It, merely mentioning, merely evoking It was entirely sufficient to enliven the listeners' vital link to the Majestic Being within.

    Many of the early texts list complex chains of factors required to 'create' our material world. They describe in intricate detail how desires actually manage to manifest physically, - thus telling us that those ancient people were far more familiar with these mechanisms than we are now.

present elaborate narratives and some complex cover stories to embroider what the older Upanishads described. These decorative tales add nothing to the core content, but probably made the texts more palatable to an audience increasingly less aware.

    Also at this time a trend towards intellectual explaining set in, - which renders the texts more easily accessible to our present generations, but which actually is just another sign that true comprehension was on the go: -

    Intellectual argumentation – as much as we treasure it currently – tends to stir up multitudes of differing views, rather than conveying clear insight into the very content the author wants to communicate.

    Intellectual presentation and reflection is certainly en vogue today, but our actual life we steer mainly by mechanisms far beyond rational or logic thought.

    When we e.g. need to cross a street, we intuitively sense whether any car traversing our path could possibly harm us, and decide with lightening speed and in the fraction of a second whether to start walking or not. Yet if we would solely intellectually think about this, our process of decision would be by far too slow for fast everyday life. Using intellect and reason alone, we'd probably still be standing at that spot without ever getting to the other side.

are generally very short. They mainly concentrate on clarifying minor points - sometimes using highly exotic arguments in this process, - and deal with many themes utterly unrelated to Brahman. Many of these texts appear entirely superfluous at first sight.

    It seems as if from the oldest Upanishads onwards consecutive generations added ever more details to the main body of scriptures to adapt and take into account the differing developments and changing ways to express within society, -

    - thereby involuntarily documenting the deterioration of comprehension as it occurred in The Dark Ages.

Yet the above depiction of three upanishadic phases provides only a rough, first orientation of what to expect.

    If you are interested in studying the Upanishads yourself, here's an indication of what's ahead of you: -

    Let's fictionally jump ahead to the year 5000, roughly 3000 years in the future.

    The technological advances of our current time would be long lost and forgotten for at least 2500 years.

    Now, - in this future time a religious minded archeological scholar unexpectedly discovers something he never encountered before: - the manual for a computer.

    He mulls over this for a while and then comes to the conclusion that that ancient book contains some unknown pre-historic philosophy expounding how to handle and amplify mysterious, entirely unconceivable powers, - and translates it accordingly.

    The outcome of his efforts certainly neither explains the use of a computer, nor would it ever generate a sensible philosophy.

    As fictional as this sounds, as applicable it is to present interpretations of most ancient Indian scriptures. Pretty much all available translations sport severe shortcomings since the scholars of the last two centuries attempted to impose academic, theoretical concepts upon the texts, thus turning them into lifeless doctrines, - while in actuality the texts simply portray practical mechanisms how to expand and employ awareness, - mechanisms thoroughly forgotten for at least 2000+ years.

    The earliest of these translations were much inspired by religious orientation and are actually quite readable, though far from any real comprehension.

    Yet some of the newer interpretations are so totally garbled that one wonders why the writers ever bothered to put this down in print, - and also whether they had any tangible grasp of the language they were translating into.

    Nevertheless, there's timeless content still to be discovered. The Upanishads and other scriptures of similar antiquity still conceal such an abundance of valid, deep and powerful instructions that it would be worth the effort to decode further passages in a new perspective.

    This certainly would bring to light highly precise, subtle mechanisms to manifest intricate features of the very world we experience today, and may open insights into fields entirely unknown at present.

    Some knowledge of the Sanskrit language does help to locate alternative, more suitable readings of the original words, but I wouldn't in any way want to suggest to learn that language prior to reading the texts.

There's a controversy between modern and ancient ways of interpreting the length of the 'yugas' or 'eras'. One contemporary reading currently quite popular in India is that the shortest epoch, 'The Dark Age' - kali yuga - would last 864.000 years, while 'The Golden Age' - satya yuga - would be 1.728.000 years long.

    Yet it's actually a miscalculation that gave rise to this 'long' count: - As 2700 years ago The Dark Age - kali yuga - began, nobody dared to tell the reigning Indian king about this fact. And since at that time no-one really knew how to calculate the yugas any more, his scholars simply extended the duration of the previous, less menacing epoch - the dwapara yuga - to keep him happy.

    Centuries later other scholars noticed the error. But instead of reverting to the original calculation, they arbitrarily defined one year of a yuga to be 365 human years, thus giving rise to the 'long epoch count' interpretation as it is popular today.

    Yet the original scripture which actually introduced the calculation of the yugas - called Manu Smrti, - or 'The Laws of Manu', - clearly mentions only human years, and defines the eras as having 4800, 3600, 2400 and 1200 = 12000 years for one half-cycle, making up 24000 human years for one full cycle.

    'The Laws of Manu' is of similar antiquity as The Upanishads, with the knowledge contained in it originating in an even farther distant, almost entirely unrecorded history.

    [ And just for the indology-minded: - Amongst many other features how to comprehend and intelligently steer life, the Manu Smrti introduces a way of defining intervals of time (chapter 1, sutra 64 - 68), - starting with 'one twinkling of the eye' (nimesha) - which roughly compares to a second, - to units resembling our minutes, hours, days, years etc. - to very long periods like a 'day of the gods' and a 'day of Brahman' which are similar to our way of labeling extended periods 'Ice-age', 'Pleistocene', the Middle-Ages etc.

    During the Age of Darkness scholars arbitrarily selected the unit 'day of the gods' from this universal time-scale to define the length of the yugas. But they neither recognized that this unit was merely one item amongst the definition of many other time-units, - nor that nowhere the text indicated that this particular unit should be applied to yugas, - nor that the Manu Smrti's original Sanskrit mentions nothing other than human years in this context. ]

    Yet apart from the (intentional) miscalculation at the root of the 'long age count', such 'long' time interpretation would hardly be of practical value for us, since time-spans of 864.000 to 1.728.000 years are simply far too long to help us understand and steer life in our present circumstances. Furthermore such huge time-spans are not at all in harmony with all other highly useful, real-time advice The Laws of Manu offer throughout its text.

    To declare the 'long count' as originating in the divine would relegate the entire question to a sphere of religious belief, which by definition is beyond discussion.

I present selected parts of The Upanishads to provide insight into what this body of scriptures is all about.

    It's like breaking a first trail through a thick forest considered impenetrable before. Once one reaches the other side though, one can always go back and investigate all the rest at leisure.

    So if what I portray helps you to truly access the gist of The Upanishads, - if you are able to utilize this new perspective to expand your life, then that's infinitely more than reading or translating the entire body of scriptures (as many scholars are ambitious to do) - and understanding nothing.

    Sure, the Upanishads contain more topics and details than I could possibly cover in this book, but then, once we gain access to the Grand Being, - Brahman, - the central theme of this group of texts, - and in this process become aware of who we  really  are  inside and have been all along, - then we've found the very master key to the entire spectrum all other parts may unfold.

And I've heard the objection that my way of depicting these ancient scriptures is too simple, that this body of texts would be by far more complex.

    But then, - why should it not be simple?

    Things we now do as grown-ups, we admired as almost godlike abilities when we were at the age of three - e.g. observing an adult operating a car; - yet today this feels entirely normal and easy.

    So why should advanced, more subtle, more powerful ways of conducting our life be complicated in the first place?

    All things we do well we do easily.

    Something we regard as difficult only indicates that we do not truly understand it yet, - or that the person defining it as incomprehensible does not want us to gain access to it.

    Sure, - if we want something to be not simple, then nothing written or said might ever divert us from this opinion.

    Yet if someone firmly intends to think that life is difficult, this doesn't mean that all others have to follow this same belief and that they too would need to complicate their lives in a similar way.

This book was written for YOU, and only concerns YOU. Never read it with the question in mind whether your neighbor, or the plumber down the road, or someone of a different country may understand it as well, or if it could have helped people in the past.

    Never make your understanding dependent on whether other people may comprehend it as well. Just test if these ideas give you insight how to steer your life now, - this helps others more than you may think.

One surefire way to discover new dimensions and the greater context behind our immersion into our present environment of matter is to seek to know why we experience this intense, not always pleasant world.

• Now there are those who sense purpose behind their existence, but never get around to actually thinking about it, to really explore it. -

    For them it would pay off to invest energy into finding that essential motivation, - to direct mind and emotions towards enlivening their vague notion.

And once they identified their deeper purpose, they then may start an even greater journey of discovery to reach and test that goal, and to deepen its experience.

• Then there are those who feel they came here involuntarily, got transferred to this world without their actual consent, thrown into this cauldron of kaleidoscopic encounters they feel they couldn't possibly have entered of their own volition.

    Well, for those it's even more important to find what or who actually caused them to enter this strange, incessant, sometimes dreamlike, chaotic sequence of events, thoughts and feelings.

    They absolutely need to locate what - in fact - brought them here, - and, - if they don't like this world, - to find out how to extract themselves from it, - and, - even more important - what 'place' to go to once they succeed with this extraction.

• And then there are those who think there couldn't possibly be any reason behind them experiencing their present circumstances, - that living beings are mere chemical cocktails gone haywire, which then rather inexplicably became aware.

    Well, -

What a man thinks, that he becomes,
- this is the eternal mystery.

Maitri Upanishad VI.34

    So for as long as such people remain convinced of this particular idea, - no matter if they thought it out on their own or adopted it from others, - there won't be any other purpose to their existence than to experience flat material life, ultimate irrelevancy, no deeper insight, no fantastic venture of discovery, - till they get tired of this concept.

Abiding in the midst of ignorance, wise in their own esteem, thinking themselves to be learned, fools, afflicted with troubles, they go about like blind men led by one who is himself blind.

Mundaka Upanishad -I.2.8

The much publicized tenet 'The WAY is the Objective' is nothing more than a grotesque glorification of 'trying', - which in effect means to never reach a goal.

    Tell this to someone on his way to meet his lover. Reaching the beloved one, being together with him or her is certainly the goal here, - and nothing short of this will ever satisfy.

    Yet many contemporary 'spiritual' practices promote exactly such never-ending 'trying', - by endorsing mindless mechanical repetition where repetition all by itself is the objective, but never the ecstasy of attaining, never the excitement of unfolding new dimensions after the way is over.

    Many enthusiasts of modern methods believe the more regular they perform their technique, the faster they grow. And even if after years of the most diligent practice they haven't achieved any real breakthrough yet, they still cling to their sacred process of glorified trying.

    'But when I'm skiing, it is not my objective to reach the bottom of the slope, but to intensely enjoy all of the path leading there,' I often heard as counter-argument. - But then, when we are skiing, our objective is the very process of skiing, and as long as we are doing it, we fully reached that goal. In such case arriving at the bottom station was never the main objective.

    And never infer from your experience of the path how the goal might be like. The reality of the goal is always entirely different from any of the ways leading there.

    And only after experiencing the goal do we become able to see what lies beyond it, - only then do we discern the new and even higher dimensions lying ahead and waiting to be explored.

    Sure, - shifting from 'endless trying' to really going for the goal might unsettle much cozy social set-up and suave lifestyle, and disturb beloved habitual practices we got ourselves trapped in, - but, - what gets dismantled is only our stagnant illusion that we are progressing well, - where in truth we only tread on the spot.

    For me personally the goal is the only objective. And - from what I have seen of that ultimate aim so far, - would I be offered the choice between experiencing the intense bliss, power, wisdom and compassion of that goal, or - only the way leading towards it, - I'd always choose experiencing the goal in all its grandiose majesty.

And then there's the question of mystery, - whether my rather 'hands-on', matter-of-fact way of depicting this world's 'higher' dimensions would not dissolve all magic that much surrounds 'spiritual' settings.

    Well, - here too the answer is easy: - If you truly want mystic experiences, don't search for this on the levels of senses and mind, - here you only get shallow make-believe that's far from anything real.

    Go higher, leave the pretense of any social 'esoteric' circle. There's far greater magic ahead once you truly experience higher dimensions, - enough powerful mystery to satisfy all your desires, - and far more out of this world enchantment than you could possibly imagine now.

    It's just a matter of going.