Creation

When the Source first stirred the primordial soup, and Is folded back on itself to know itself – and there were two points where there had been a single point, creating space, and then the expanding, evolving plenitude of visions – it must have felt as I do in 'Second Life' when I stretch out my arm and materialize a sphere, make it rise into the air and float, expand it, turn it into stone and place it on a wall I’ve made.


Creation growing from imagination seems to me the most godlike activity of humans. The author who fantasizes people and places which he later holds in his hand as his book, a woman painting colors on canvas to portray her night’s dream, Mozart pouring out as sound the product of his genius, an architect seeing his incorporeal images move from mind to lines on paper to a breathtaking gleaming building, a computer programmer watching his fancied world coming into colorful being on a screen . . . those are people echoing the nature of God.

A person who follows a recipe to make a cake, or a carpenter who obeys a construction plan build a shed, are somewhat removed from that godlike activity but are nevertheless creating, while the person who merely amasses money, or whose ego feeds on humiliating or tormenting others, is far removed from the divinity of creation.

What about human imagination which does not go beyond an individual’s subjective experience – for example the self-proclaimed writer who always has a novel in progress but never writes anything? I’m sure there’s going to be disagreement about this, but I think that merely dreaming without more is not the equivalent of bringing a dream into some tangible form. We creatures and our surroundings may exist only in God’s dream, but for us the dream is obviously a reality, as much as the Taj Mahal is a reality which rose from an architect’s dream.


There are probably no humans more often accused of “wasting time” than those with imaginations reflective of God’s who are in the process of creation. It is difficult for some parents and teachers to realize that staring out the window at rain, or going for long aimless walks, are essential parts of creating the Taj Mahal or the Ring of the Nibelungen or Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.


My time spent creating and transforming objects in a computer world, and making more and more elaborate forms and structures from them, is undoubtedly a complete waste of time by some standards, but to me it is a thrill, an elation, because I feel in my experience the echo of God’s unbounded creativity. Yes, from an objective point of view it is a step below bringing a poem or a painting into the real life human world, but as a personal experience it is gratifying and exciting to see the fruits of my imagination grow in a visible computer world.

It occurs to me that there is one way in which my Second Life creation might satisfy the clods who always want practical results. Some presumably enlightened people tell us that we create our own heaven, that what we experience in an afterlife beyond this plane is fashioned entirely by our own desires and imaginings from a vast reservoir of possibilities. If so, then ‘Second Life’, with all its possibilities for realizing fantasies, is an excellent training ground for our creation of our next life. What could be more frightening to most of us than to bear the sole responsibility for deciding what we want to be and to experience? What a multitude of questions flood our thoughts when we accept that we are personally responsible for designing our future life! A little orientation and practice in ‘Second Life’ can’t hurt.

A Higher Level of Being

Is there more than one level of Being?

I’m referring to the experience of Being, beingness, and not to “beings”, entities, persons.

I was in bed early this morning, probably asleep, when I had a vivid impression of a level of Being above the one I’ve always known.

That’s all there was to my “vision” or dream: First, the accustomed level of Being, and then a sensation of moving up, brightening, expanding – revealing that there was something beyond what I had ever known.

You might suspect that I experienced some heightening of my senses, but my senses were hardly involved in my experience, which took place in a kind of awareness without perceptible content – except that I was left with the visual impression that the higher level of Being was indicated by a light gray square with rounded corners, which later brought to my conscious mind the idea of an entranceway or hatch.

The entranceway did not open for me. The “vision” woke me up, and dumped me into my usual state of Being, but with a conviction that there is a higher level. As I went about the routines of brushing my teeth and making coffee I felt a dimension of hopefulness I had not felt before. This “higher level of Being” was something that I and others might aspire to attain.

It has become popular to say that what we experience in the life after this life is determined by our own beliefs, desires, and imaginations. I find that idea believable, and creating a good afterlife for myself has become a priority. At first I was somewhat distressed to find that the highest and best thing I could imagine was paradisiacal sex. I was distressed because I’ve often been told that such physical desires, though in no way “bad”, will bind us to go through more of this mixed bag of physical suffering, fear, and short-lived pleasure on “the Earth plane”.

So, I would enthusiastically welcome a paradise populated by beautiful females –- or just the right female -- especially if hors d’oeuvres were available -- but it presumably would impede my evolution to higher planes. Other than imagining my spirit body flying over oceans and across new solar systems, I couldn’t come up with a goal to compete with a woman. But now that I’ve experienced an awareness of a higher level of Being I feel that I have been shown a new path to explore.

To get an idea of my pre-dawn experience, imagine yourself in your house at night with all the usual lighting on, when suddenly all the lights become brighter. You think, “This is much better!” “I never imagined it could be like this.”

I’ll conclude by mentioning another, similar, experience I had a year or two ago. I’m not good at meditating, but I’ve tried, and while in a meditative state I had what might qualify as a “vision” because it was visually so clear and memorable: It was as if the top of my head was open and I could see above me a sky of incredibly deep blue surrounded by rich golden clouds – colors unlike any I’d seen before. The spectacle was shaped like a sky painting in the dome of some European cathedral or castle, but the quality was superior, and there were no annoying cherubs. I felt that I’d had a glimpse of a heaven. The vision continues to inspire me.