After the two episodes of successive lifetimes for which Journeyman Paul carried forward regret and remorse--one as the young priest who served as an unwitting accomplice to the horrors of the Children's Crusade and the other, a parish priest who was forced to witness the burning at the stake of his entire village as punishment for his "heretical" teachings, Paul meekly, numbly chose a few lives with extreme privation and early deaths. Just desserts, he felt. The now-familiar France was his rather mindless, rote choice these next few incarnations.
The lifetimes of abject poverty, wholesale suffering, and early demises were just what Paul thought he deserved. They were self-prescribed punishment for the roles he played in those two priestly lives in the first half of 13th Century. Once he thought he had "served" an appropriate sentence, he followed with a few monastic lives in France.
One of these lifetimes in particular, a lifetime spent in a monastery in France, inadvertently instigated some healing in Journeyman Paul. This came as a direct result of a talent he expressed as a young monk for the adding of artistic color flourishes to text copying--what became known as "illumination." Monk "Alberic" developed into an average copyist possessed with fairly good, well-disciplined calligraphic technique. He became recognized, however, and complimented for his particular talent and flair for peppering the borders of the columns of the pages of text he copied with decorative flourishes, what scholars call "painted marginalia." He never achieved (nor did he seek) full status as an illuminator or master copyist, yet Alberic knew the joy and satisfaction of being allowed to express himself artistically. He also achieved some healing benefits to his poor self-esteem due to the recognition and praise he received for his work--an unexpected yet well-deserved boon, to be sure.
The comfort and 'ease' of these lifetimes of impoverishment and monastic vows allowed Paul just the time he needed to do gain some perspective. Silence, mindless attention and dedication to daily routines and rituals, surrounding himself with other men dedicated to peace and the spiritual life--all these provided Paul with the environment he needed to re-convince himself that he was not evil, that he was harmless and that he meant well, that he could once again deserve and receive love and respect. But it took him a while as he had unknowingly become quite immersed in the Illusions of Duality.
Once Journeyman Paul began to recover his will, he began to feel ready to take on some responsibility and conflict. At this time Paul and his Spirit Community decided to re-try planning for an incarnation in which he would have some power and authority. It was at this time that he did also decide to leave the Catholic world--to test himself a bit. This is when he chose to incarnate into the body of the Mediterranean island boy that became Ibrahim, the Islamic mufti.
"Ibrahim" is the name we're ascribing to the educated religious scholar from the Mediterranean island in the 16th Century who made a living doling out opinions of Arabic religious law to the population of his small fishing village. Ibrahim thought highly of himself--and well he should: He was his village's mufti. As mufti he believed, as was in accordance with the dictates of his religion, that his education and constant study of his people's sacred religious scriptures entitled him the respect and authority to set up a practice of delving out his personal opinions and advice. Since his village members were all members of the Islamic faith, religious law was the single most important (and valued) guide--and law--in determining proper behavior in both civic and moral affairs.
Ibrahim came from one of the area's wealthier families. From an early age he expressed an interest and talent for book learning. Though the overwhelming majority of his society's members were engaged in manual labor for their subsistence--which were comprised principally of fishing and agriculture and the industries that supported the two--there were needs--or room for "intellectually" oriented members to help guide policy and behavior. As Ibrahim showed very little interest, talent, or ability for manual activities it was quite natural for his family to have him specially educated. They could afford it. Under the guidance of hired tutors Ibrahim's his intellectual interests could be guided into pursuits that might prove useful to Allah, to his people. Eventually Ibrahim's family found him an apprenticeship with a well respected elder, a religious cleric.
When he finished his education he returned to his hometown, to his family, to try to establish a law practice. There a neighbor girl, whom we shall call by her spirit name, Toril, took it upon herself to try to befriend Ibrahim. She had always been fascinated by Ibrahim's intellectual prowess. Her amiable ministrations were mainly intended to try to help Ibrahim become more known, more intimate and accepted with the townspeople, within society. Ibrahim, however, construed Toril's attentions as more than friendly and thus took this opportunity to fulfill his religious obligation to take a wife. Thus they married. Toril was quite fine with the arrangement as she understood Ibrahim far more thoroughly than he.
It must be pointed out here that at this point in time Toril's Monadic evolution had progressed farther along the path than Paul. Her strong Ray 1 flow had enabled her to find and create much greater awareness and more successful expressions of Spiritual Flow in her Earthly incarnations--to loosen her Ego ties to the Grand Illusions. Thus it will not be surprising to learn that during this particular incarnation Toril had far more use of her Spiritual powers than Ibrahim--which she used to serve her community under the guise of a practice as a midwife and herbalist.
Ibrahim was able to pass his entire life thinking that he was highly regarded and respected for his knowledge and his wise counsel when in fact it was the community's profound respect and near-reverence for the disarming and healing powers of his wife that earned him his clientele. It was Toril's touch as a midwife, her unconditionally loving and empowering words of counsel and affirmation, her radiant presence of love and calm, that convinced pitying community members to pretend to value and need Ibrahim's counsel. It was not that Ibrahim was stupid or cruel or , it was how dry and how rote his applications of religious text were to the simple-minded commoners. He was an intellectual who was used to communicating with other educated intellectuals. His words oft-times found empty ears among the village common folk.
It was only on Ibrahim's deathbed that he realized all of this. It was as his consciousness was beginning to detach from the host bodymind--as he was able to free his Mind from the veils of Ingorance and the constraints on Knowledge and Wisdom that the human bodymind imposes--that Paul was able to realize that Ibrahim's selfish Ego pride had given him a totally false and illusory sense of importance. It was also on Ibrahim's deathbed that Paul was able to see, for the very first time, the incredibly constant and ego-less source of Love that Ibrahim had been completely oblivious to his entire life. It was his wife, not he, who had provided so much strength and solace for so many. He saw that his own words, his pretend "wisdom" and counsel, had been false all along. He also recognized that his opinions, beliefs, and their sources were not even representative of any Spiritual Truth--at least, not nearly as much as a mere look, touch, smile, or word from his wife was able to convey. Here! Under his own roof! He had slept beside a true beacon of Divine Love! He had been in the exemplary presence of the highest Truth, Joy, Beauty and Love his entire adult life! And he had been ignorant--obtuse to it--the entire time! And he understood that all of this was due to his own walls of learning, his own airs of superiority, his religion's constructs of 'expertise' and hierarchy.
Humiliated and dumbfounded, Paul left the Ibrahim lifetime full of remorse and shame. This is when he chose to create the barren Limbo/Purgatory world of isolation for his self-imposed prison; he created a place to punish himself until he was able to grieve for the loss of this "wasted" lifetime--this lifetime in which he accomplished nothing but entrapment within the false constructs of Ego--this despite the constant flood of Love, Joy, and True Wisdom of his constant companion! his very own wife!
It would take Paul much time and thought--as well as a few incarnations--to "heal"--to regain awareness of his own Spiritual integrity--to realize that at his core his Spiritual Knowledge was intact and whole. The greatest lesson we can take away from these lifetimes in the Earth School is how persuasive, almost addictive, the mental and emotional constructs of four-dimensional human experience can be. The conditioned and reinforced tools humans accrue--which seem quite necessary for physical survival as well as for success within the strange rules and conditions of human society--become so ingrained and imprinted, take on such a power and resiliency, that they are difficult to shed even after one has left behind the body and other physical confines of the Earth School! As we can see through Journeyman Paul's example, carrying the human-built Ego constructs into the Spirit World clouds and detracts from the Monad's full abilities to learn and plan. Yet, lest we cast too much blame on Paul, I must inform you that Paul is not the odd man in this pattern. The truth is quite the opposite. In fact, in this current Earth-based model we call Homo sapiens sapiens we have created such a convincing vehicle and difficult test for our Souls to try to master and control that it is now the vast majority of souls leaving the human experience who unwittingly find themselves "trapped" in attachments to Ego/Personality constructs. Under these conditions it becomes ever more difficult to remember what is an illusion and what is real. But, then, the most essential lesson to be gained here is the reminder that it is all illusion! Even the 'Spirit World' is part of the scheme of Dualistic Illusions--and especially of the grandest illusion of the all: the Illusion of Separation. Layers upon layers upon layers of metaphor, all intended for our use, our experience, our adventure, our play. Remember: the whole point of this Earth School environment is to learn to recognize and then use the Illusions for your own purposes rather than letting them use you.
No comments:
Post a Comment