Awakening is something to experience here and now by way of specific efforts and not a future prospect, an indeterminate hope at an indefinite distance in time. In this book, Edward Salim Michael teaches the decisive importance of a different perception of time, in order to reach another state of being and consciousness, by way of which one can be free from the law of the chain of cause and effect.
He casts a penetrating gaze on the various aspects of reincarnation, as well as on the Bodhisattva vow. He shows the power of predominant states in the process of recurrence, in this life or another life, and he explains the close relationship that exists between the phenomenon of nocturnal dreams and the after-death state.
All these teachings are the fruits of assiduous concentration practice and mindfulness over more than fifty years.
Beyond dogma, Edward Salim Michael shares his experiences and the understandings he has drawn from them. He unveils the spiritual heights that may be attained if one makes the appropriate efforts.
Excerpts :
13 – Predominant States and Recurrence
Because most seekers’ levels of being and consciousness are generally far from being elevated enough to allow them to decipher enigmas belonging to a mystic domain, it is difficult, or even impossible, for them to understand that not only is recurrence a phenomenon that might occur for them in another existence that perhaps awaits them in an undetermined future, but in reality, it is already manifesting, in their lifetime, to some degree and in a way that may be more or less evident.
If the aspirant can tear away from himself for a few moments in order to examine himself objectively—which demands of him a particular effort, which is inhabitual to him and not easy to make—he will come to discover the various states of being that have become customary to him, and which constantly reawaken within him, taking possession of his being, without him knowing it. Moreover, he will notice the numerous actions that he repeats every day of his life and that he performs without ordinarily being conscious of them. Furthermore, he will see that specific thoughts, which have become a tenacious tendency within him, come back to him often—or even continually—without him being able to find the strength to detach himself from them, or he will notice that the memory of certain agreeable or disagreeable events that have left a particular mark on him arise within him again at certain moments and that, despite his will, he identifies emotionally with them to his detriment. What is more, he will note that he cannot help wanting to repeat words that have become habitual to him, without it crossing his mind to question them. And the countless physical movements that he makes automatically throughout the day, in a state of absence to himself, must not be forgotten either. All this constitutes a form of more or less subtle recurrence that he does not think of recognizing as such and of which, without suspecting it, he finds himself, in a way, to be the victim.
By way of their constant unconscious and mechanical repetition, these states, thoughts, images, emotions, and gestures become a way of being that conditions him and plunges him into a sort of mental torpor or rather, into a very particular waking sleep that obstructs his path to his Celestial Being, thus preventing him from knowing the True Life that is destined for him.
