Dream Analysis of the Week- Runaway Train

Dream: I  dream I go to the station to catch a train and somehow miss it.  This happens repeatedly. The scenario plays out over and over. I wear different clothes and each time I reach platform to watch train pull away.  What gives?

Insight:  In human waking life, are you waiting too long to make a decision? Life may show you many examples where you think you are just about to make it, yet don't and are confused, frozen or disappointed.  You may just about reach the mountaintop yet, something prevents it. You almost reach mouth-watering fruit in a tree, and then a bird gets it. You may just about win a race and stumble. You may strive to achieve a certificate that becomes obsolete or just miss getting a promotion.  The repeated 'almosts' are pointers.

The ego mind might echo things do not happen your way because you are not good enough, not experienced enough, not qualified eough, do not have enough stamina patience or whatever it takes. What other reason might exist?

When something happens repeatedly, it invites us to see what we are missing or not seeing clearly.  Reflect on the nature of delays in current experience. What are we postponing and why? Fear of something undesirable is the common answer. Being proactive changes the game. Rather than wait for something we may not want, speak our mind, create boundaries, step up the initiatives. IN chasing what we think we want, we may be missing something else.

On a more universal level, this dream is a metaphor for how the mind functions.  The mind is running after life and somehow seems to miss it continuously. Why? When we shift focus of attention away from the present moment to the past or future, we miss the proverbial boat. The dream itself symbolizes the mind.  It is always missing the train.  The mind is bound to miss what it is reaching for because in taking time to think, that thing is already gone. Time waits for nobody.  Its the analogy of sand slipping through fingers.

So, to live in the moment is to be spontaneous, trust and surrender to the unknown.  It is also to be enlightened, to feel truly alive wherever you are.  To think about anything is to miss it.  In this light, enlightenment (peace, bliss) is not a goal to work toward or something we decide to accept or not after exerting effort.  Its the revelation we only have the present moment to live, to take chances. The mind lives in tomorrows. To truly live only happens right now.  Say what you mean, mean what you say. Be brave Be here now. 

Among our services, we offer Dream Consultations to explore dreams on your wavelength.  We also offer an Astral, Luid & Dream Yoga Course.  Contact us to discuss.

Get to root of dis-ease

Notice we must each get to the root of our dis-ease (discomfort) if we truly want freedom to be our reality. How deeply can we heal our bodies or the bodies of loved ones when it comes to healing? How can energies outside the body be harnessed to heal? The energy that made the body can heal the body.

The what always comes before the how. The feeling or sense of direction presents itself in conscious awareness before the path that allows it to happen, before even clarity of exactly what is blossomin through us or in our midst. We get cues from body signs and signals, the environment. Opportunities show up. We may act in the moment before mind attempts to talk us out of it.

Trusting our gut is just as important as listening and allowing ourselves to tune into subtle senses. It helps to make deliberate choices, about relationships and situations we engage in. We can empower ourselves by deciding to stay engaged for a period, create boundaries, or an exit plan rather than allow others to create our limits, decide for us, take the upper hand. The ball is always in our court.

Consider dreams are the brain’s way of processing information that’s left over from each day. They are rich with valuable data – experiences, memories, learnings. Theya re valuable tools to work with if we allow this. Paying attention to dreams can provide information that we may not have access to when awake. Before falling asleep, we can turn our thoughts to any unresolved issues or situation. Focus energy on exploring options or resolutions as we fall asleep. This is an exercise in both self-directedness and surrender

Consciously engage in this moment

Notice regardless of what we encounter, a shamanic initiation mirrors our own healing journey. Initiation is also a metaphor for the journey of transformation we are now making and experiencing through the matrix of the Earth, planetary and cosmic environments. More than ever, each of us benefit from stepping up into new levels of initiation, going deeper into our psyche, working out how we really process energies in this world. The point is to grow familliar with strong forces that when misused can hurt ourselves, others, prevent us from seeing beyond.

The classic shamanic initiation involves the experience of a catastrophe, mental and physical suffering. Heredity may come into play, signs at birth, a gift detected in childhood, a realization arising from a pivotal ceremony, vision quest, our response to the crisis of someone we know. However it comes, we accept or resist the information we bring to the surface of ourselves for healing. Every thought and feeling is directing and redirecting the course of our existence.

My experience is genuine initiation begins as unforeseen crisis, but this is actually the tip of the iceberg. Our illusions are systematically called into question, until we dismantle them and let go. Encounters with illness, suffering, and death, not only open other worlds to the shaman within, they also ground the work of social, personal, and environmental healing. Our personal reality is shaken up when we are ready. Everything prepares us for the unforeseen.

We share our journey with mythic heroes, those who have had death-rebirth experiences in rites of passage, the posthumous journey of the soul, clinical death experiences and LSD or other hallucinogenic experiences, and to what one can encounter in deep spiritual and meditation practices. Its all here right now.

To embark on a shamanic journey offers us insight into human development, evolution, devolution, and society's relationship to nature. This guides us to understand social values as they are reflected in art, myth and shape our relationship with the Earth.  It is significant to understand what happens in the journey of unravelling our crisis because we are undergoing this on a personal, collective (global) and cosmic levels simultaneously.We a re a filter for energy flow until the filter is no longer.

At some stage it dawns, for initiation to be effective, it must be entered personally, whoelheartedly, not thru heresay. It is an experience that does not function at a distance but under the skin of each the energy passes through. The benefits of initiation only arise as the path is directly experienced and known. Its visceral and energetic language flows through the body. When one is ready, opportunity is knocking. Everyone is chosen but not everyone hears the call. Opportunity passes through our timelines and experiences again and again in varied forms.  Consciously engage in this moment.  Watch that happens.

Shamans are conscious shapeshifters.  This requires the ability to transcend our attachments (ego) to identity and who we are. To move through attachment to labeling self and openly letting go of identity, we can be virtually anybody. We can slip in and out of different shells, masks, even different animal forms or deity forms. 

Move beyond your own Resistance

Notice nothing stands in the way of the unfolding of who we are in this physical reality except the nature of our own resistance. Spirituality is part of every soul destiny. We grow, expand into an intergrated version of Truth at unique rates.  At some stage it dawns we cannot simply live vicariously through, mimic or truly grow another's experiences. We must navigate our own alchemical journey.

Some still ask whether human lives are predestined, whether we have any control. Truth is, this is not a personal problem, it is a philosophical question. Our lives are both predestined and not. This applies to all. On some level, everything is predetermined. Whatever is physical in us, material, mental, is predetermined. Yet, something within also untouchable, unpredictable. That something is the nature and flow of consciousness.

Thing is, if we identify with the body and material existence, in the same proportion we are determined, limited by cause and effect. Yet, if we are not identified with material existence, with either body or mind – if we feel self as something separate, different, beyond and transcendent to body-mind – then that consciousness is not predetermined. It is spontaneous, free.

Many people seek to prolong experiences of freedom in the physical world, and wonder why such feelings do not last. Matter implies slavery. Thus, much depends on how we define ourselves and live our lives. If we believe, ”I am only the body,” then everything about us is completely predetermined, beyond our control. If we say that man is only the body, we cannot say that man is not predetermined. If we feel we are just a material existence, then true freedom is not possible. Those who do not believe in such a thing as consciousness believe in fate. Matter means that which cannot be free. It must flow in the chain of cause and effect.

Yet, one who has known consciousness has known freedom. Consciousness itself means freedom. Only a spiritual person can harness the energy of freedom to consciously co-create. Once someone has tasted consciousness, enlightenment, s/he is completely out of the realm of cause and effect. He becomes absolutely unpredictable. He exists in the moment as the flow.

For many, human existence is simply a chain of events in which every step follows the past. Living in this vibration implies the future is not really future, but a by-product of the past. It is only the past determining, shaping, formulating and conditioning the future. That is why the future is predictable.

Some say a HU-man is as predictable as anything else. The only difficulty is that we have not yet devised the means to know the complete human history (total past). It is said that the moment we know, we can predict everything about humanity. Yet, if one being in the whole history of mankind is free and unpredictable, then man as a whole is potentially free and unpredictable. The whole possibility of freedom depends on seeing ourselves as more than a body.

So, if you are just an outward flow of life, then everything is determined. What about the inner? Do not offer a predictable reply. Do not say, ”I am the soul.” If we feel nothing exists inside, then be honest. Honesty will be the first step toward the inner freedom of consciousness. To go deeply inside, it hits everything is just an extension of the outside. That is, the body, thoughts have come from without, even your self has been defined by others. We are taught to adopt labels, beliefs, experience and do so unless energy shifts occur to change it.

To fear external opinion comes from the belief that the external is completely in control of the self, that we hold no power or sovereignty. If the external can trigger us, this implies we are still at least partly in the vibration of ego self, body, thoughts given to by others. This implies we are simply layers of outside ideas. If identified with the personality that arises from others, then everything is determined. How to move beyond this?

Be aware of everything that comes from the outside and come to a place where we are non-identified with it. The moment arises when the outside boundary dissolves. A vacuum arises. This vacuum is the passage between the outside and the inside, the door. We are so afraid of the vacuum, of being empty that we cling to the outside accumulation of ideas. One has to be brave enough to disidentify with the accumulation and to remain in the vacuum. Until courage is found, we cling and fill self with it.

Another view of being in this vaccuum is meditation. As we find courage to be in this moment, through breathing, meditation or other spiritual practie, soon our whole being will automatically turn inward. When urge to attach fades, our being turns inward. At this point, something dawns that transcends all we have been thinking self to be. Now we are no longer becoming; we are being, we are that. This being is free; nothing can determine it. It is absolute freedom. No chain of cause and effect is possible. This is the still point of consciousness.

Recall the Truth of Yoga

Image: visionary sacred geometry by David Diamondheart

Notice social media leads many people to assume yoga is about challenging postures and physical fitness. As it happens, yoga is not really about bending and twisting the body, holding breath, mudras. Much of yoga images in popular culture overlook the surface is a pointer. Yoga itself is a path, timeless technology. It guides us to a state where reality reveals itself through us. We come to ground what is larger than us, cosmic consciousness, the innate connection of mind, body, spirit. It is not about hiding self-rejection, seeking to be what we are not already. It is a journey of surrender, love, acceptance.

In fact, it dawns, every subatomic particle in the body is always interacting with everything else in the universe. If this cosmic flow stops, we cease to exist. So, yoga is to know the union of existence by direct experience. We gain insight during meditation until existence itself is a state of meditation and altered states are what we experience when we forget or move away from the vibration of yoga. To hear “God is everywhere,” or “Everything is one energy,” is heresay until awakening. We are each a 1000 petal lotus or golden flower opening to the Truth.

As we practice yoga, we start at the point of harmony or disharmony we are vibrating in mind, body and spirit. The breath guides us into presence in this moment. Yoga is the process of moving towards an experiential reality where one knows the ultimate nature of existence, how it forms, shifts, changes, that one is an intricate part. The term 'Yoga' implies a complete path in and of itself. It is like the hero's journey, coming full circle, letting go of beliefs, all you outgrow.

So, some observe yoga is about breaking patterns, cycles, building flexibility, getting fit, liberating ourselves from the limitation of memory. These views certainly have value. People may initially find yoga as it offers health benefits, is a means to reduce stress, balance biochemistry. Its physical and mental benefits are well-known. One can experience remarkable changes, know peace, joy, feel more balanced, even accelerate rehabilitation from injury. And there are many people who miraculously heal from chronic ailments in part from yoga. And yet, none of it is the essential nature of yoga.

The basic point of Yoga is to shift life experience from ego-driven pursuits to an all-inclusive, soul-guided one. Instead of being an individual, we come to feel part of an ongoing universal process. The result of shifts in consciousness blows the mind away.

In the ancient ways of yoga teaching, the physical dimensions of yoga were presented as aligning this human system to cosmic geometry. To be in perfect alignment removes friction. Internal friction means you are working against yourself; you are an issue or in conflict with yourself. So long as inner tug of war exists, peace seems out of reach. Everything is stressful. As you commit to more worldly pursuits, challenges multiply endlessly.

Turns out, comic wisdom echoes our own body, mind, emotions and energy work with us, not against us. As these four aspects are aligned, suddenly this body- mind creates miracles beyond our wildest dreams. What for us is normal, ordinary, appears extraordinary or superhuman. Whether it is business, personal , physical or other endeavours, our level of efficiency, deep understanding and flow magnify based on power of intention. Truth is, the key to everything is aligning with sacred geometry of existence. It all comes back to vibrating in harmony with cosmic symbols.