A Midsummer Night's Dream

    It was meant to be a completely passive experiment. My goal: to make contact with the 'space people' of the Tibetan Buddhist pantheon (also referred to by the terms "Rainbow People", or "the People In-Between). That night I learned that the border between passive finally blurs into a single state of Beingness.

    And I learned much more.

    My companion and I had received permission from the ground's beloved, holy Care taker to spend the night in meditation at the sacred Stupa, a Tibetan reliquary monument.

    The Stupa appears as a large, square, partially stepped white and gold shrine. Deep within it, 180,000 images of the Shakyamuni Buddha dwell, along with various sacred relics of power and it's own intense current. It's object is to emanate peace, enlighte nment, understanding, and wisdom: no small task!¹

    It was midnight when we entered the sacred grounds. We silently walked to its location; a white column on a dark moon night.

    The secret of Night lies in its promise. Here live the things unseen by day, and here are the phantoms of your mind. The darkness leaves the mind to loop back upon itself, and it can require a deep understanding of Self to tell your mind's demons from the surrounding multi-verse of forms.

    I slowly circumnambulated its great circular gravel path seven times chanting the Muni (strength) chant. (Om, Muni muni, Maha Muni, Maha Mun-i ye, So-Ha!²). I lit candles, spoke invocations to Yamantaka (conqueror of death), and Mahakala (he wh o eats all hindrances to our spiritual growth).

    Laying down, the top of my head touched the point of the Stupa where North meets West, aligning my upper chakras with it's own current. before my eyes shone the stars of a clear night sky.

    I began to smell sweet incense. Mentally tracking the flow of current, I sensed the power of the stars as it was drawn down into the Stupa's uppermost point. This is where a quartz crystal resides, suspended within a ring of gold. Flowing down into the ma mmoth body, the power melded with the sacred artifacts enclosed therein, and then raced like lightning into the chakras above my head. from there, its tremendous force exploded into my crown and then to my physical body's chakras.

    The stars began to swim. This is not an uncommon phenomena when star-gazing, but it appeared that they were moving around each other, dancing merrily, and paying no attention at all to the constellations within which they supposedly took their rest.

    For awhile I lay distracted by this, then remembering my purpose, I closed my eyes to focus more clearly.

    Wrong. My eyes were assaulted by images-highly colorful rapid scenes which I could only just sense before one melted into the other, reminding me of hallucinogenic days long past.

    Within an endless cycle of time, I gave up my quest. Aeons later, I left, discouraged. It wasn't until the next day that it began to make sense.

    In retrospect, it is difficult for me to be1ieve how I managed to not recognize these visions as being a communication to be unscrambled, understood and replied to. I considered my method of inquiry: laying down BETWEEN the four directions, and its divine coincidence with the Tibetan term -the people in-between. I thought of the small satellite our race had sent up to the stars to communicate our sentient nature to anyone who might be out there-remembered it, and how I myself had been unable to make any s ense out of it-like the night's visions. I thought of all the Stupas being placed all over the world, aligned and consecrated, drawing down the life of the stars into our Earth, of Crowley's Thelemic drawing of Lam, and it's similarity to the shaven-heade d monks.

    It seemed as if the Stupa itself was an entity; a great Being created by the conjoining of the earth-egg and star-sperm.

    The Stupa, (like the ritual instrument, the Vajra), was a giant antenna, continuously and literally earthing the stellar flow.

    And I thought: but the stars are out in the DAY, too. They simply can't be seen in a daylight sky.

    But they are There.

Footnotes:

1. Stupas came into being after Shakyamuni died. He had instructed his disciples to cremate and enshrine his ashes upon his death. When the cremation had been accomplished, a quarrel ensued over where the ashes would be kept. This resulted in an eight-fol d division of these ashes. Each representative of the four directions and four cross-directions were permitted to take a part of the remains. Thus, the eight major stupa designs were created. "The various levels of the stupa correspond to the various leve ls of the spiritual path, culminating in full enlightenment." --from "IMAGES OF ENLlGHTENMENT,--Snow Lion Publications, Ithaca, N.Y.

2. phonetic spelling.