Jon Marc Hammer

Is There Life, After Birth?
By Jon Marc Hammer

I can still recall my first experience of satori (awakening), as though it were a moment ago. Of course, that is what makes the epiphanies of the spiritual journey what they are: holy instances which imprint us with what is Eternal, and eternity has nothing to do with space-time whatsoever!

I was but twenty one at the time; newly arrived on the island of Maui, meditating six hours a day, and getting a fatal dose of Zen Buddhism from a monk passing through to boot. I can still feel the sudden shock of seeing, really seeing, that up until that moment, I had not even begun to be alive! It sent me reeling to see this being I had called ‘myself’ was nothing but a bundle of influences: parents, siblings, schooling, culture: nothing but an effect of a countless causes.

In this one flashing penetration of the Great Spell, it was clear that “I” hadn’t even begun to show up yet! And yet, there “I” was, something more vast than I could have hoped to imagine, witnessing this palpable bundle of unconscious patterns, a pitiful impostor, that had been masquerading as my Self for nearly a quarter of a century! Talk about a dose of cosmic humility!

We all go through it. Better, we all enter into it, this Great Spell of a separate self, swim in it and, if our commitment for Enlightenment carries us to the doorstep of Grace, we pass through it . . . into Life. Radical truth Number One:

The problem isn’t overpopulation: very few souls have ever accomplished the rare feat of Incarnation.

I am convinced that humanities suffering is directly related to the shocking fact that 99.9% of births end up partially aborted: trauma, fear, and the need to survive overwhelm us in ways and to depths that require satori to even see at all: when every one drunk, everything seems perfectly sober!

A Course in Miracles states, “There is a way of being in the world, that is not here.” Being fully present as the Truth of Spirit is both unknown, and unknowable to the world. It requires a radical reorientation of Self, or the ‘Bubble of Identity’ that rests as the core, or essence of our selves.

Genuine spirituality is all about this ‘relation-shift’, a death and re-birth of Identity from the ordinary view as a ‘skin-encapsulated ego’, the bodymind with a name and a history, to the extraordinary Reality of an Identity which embraces Infinity itself: Consciousness as Such, the avatar, the messiah, or – in simple terms – the One Self God created.

From that satori, I have traveled the labyrinths of consciousness throughout the rarefied domains of spirit, as well as the horrific depths of the shadow, only to discover that saint and sinner, Light and Dark, are but the masks of my own Self, wherever they appear.

Enlightenment is our goal, our way, and our Beginning. It is our natural, and ever-constant state. It is not so much created, as recognized, and then consciously incarnated as a free act of devotion and gratitude to the Creator. So, clear principals begins to emerge for us:

1. Gratitude is the attitude of enlightenment. In all moments, under all conditions.

2. Devotion is the motion of enlightened inspiration. Every thing, everything is transformed into the free and enjoyable act of praise. Mind is no longer directed by the need to survive, or to be right, or to get (because all sense of lack has ended). Rather, action is creative, and done only to enjoy expressing gratitude to God .

3. Praising is the raising of the soul’s frequency. With practice, it resonates more and more with the most refined vibrations of the Essence of Divinity, which yogis call Sat-Chit-Ananda: Pure Being - Pure Knowing - Pure Bliss!

4. Life begins when I get out of the way of the Way. Since the “I” I thought I was, isn’t and never has been, Life begins when my resistance dissolves, surrendering the insane notion that “I” could ever hope to live life “my” way!

5. I am not here to win. I am here to demonstrate that God Is, period. And only God can do that. My job, to echo the enlightened words of St. Paul, is to “die daily.” (I would make that, breath to breath.)

6. Enlightenment, Life, Incarnation, and Enjoyment are the same thing. They all require one key ingredient: Trust.

7. I cannot find God/Enlightenment. I can only let God find me. To become fully transparent to my self, is to be revealed before God, who passes judgment on the one before Him/Her: “Behold, it is very good.”

8. This means I have never been right about myself. Be honest! Isn’t it true that you think you aren’t enlightened yet? Who’s view can this be but your own? And that ‘you’ is a fantasy!

9. There is only one cure for suffering the pangs of enlightenment: Get Over It! Stop struggling to live. Instead, struggle to discover Who lives, now.

10. When God said, “Let there be Light”, He wasn’t referring to celestial illumination. He meant, “Lighten up”. For the final principle is this: Nothing occurring at any moment need be taken personally, since there is no such ‘person’.

Pilgrims of the heart, rest in the Soul of your soul. Recline in the Mystery of your very existence. Dig up the tap root of your being, there, in the depth of this thing called “I”, and discover Who is aware, Who is living your life now, and Who alone is the poet, the rhyme, and the reader. Look quickly: who is aware of these words, now?

Look quickly, break the spell, and be free. Returned to That One, the spell destroyed that had veiled the heart, we raise our eyes to creation and behold: God was right, after all: it (all of it) is very Good.

Isn’t this what we yearn for? To be rid once and for all of this constant struggle we feel waging war within us? It is possible, you see, for there to truly be Life, after birth. If you are willing to die for it!

Jon Marc will be in Houston Feb.9-14 conducting workshops.

Index by Author | Index by Topic | Service Directory | Calendar of Events | Horoscopes

Email: Phone: 713.526.8822 or 1.800.640.5191

Mail: P. O. Box 540444, Houston, TX 77254

Hit Counter