From final chapter of Shattering the Crystal Face of God


I’m holding on to a tree or some manifestation of energy or some geometric shape or some representation of a formula. It’s all moving faster, ‘round and ‘round, and it’s dizzying. I’m not this specific being any longer. I feel the consciousness of everything around me. I’m becoming one with the trees and the creek and the flowers. I’m feeling the awareness of the earth and everything upon it. I’m expanding like a mist to fill the universe. I’m a part of it all, the general, the universal. And then in an instant, a timeless point on the wheel of time, I’m at the top, the center. I’m in the God-consciousness, and I’m everywhere at every time, and I could change anything. But in that instant I realize that the God-consciousness isn’t a position of power, but one of appreciation. Everything is perfect, has always been perfect, and will always be perfect.
    And in that instant, that timeless point outside of time, another realization comes. Once I become the most general and universal, I also become the most specific. God is singular, alone, the only awareness in the universe, and the instant that is known, it shatters the god-face into pieces beyond number, the great, diverse, expanding complexity of life.
    And I’m one of those pieces again, looking down into a pool in the stream. Looking back at me is an unremarkable, middle-aged man with gray, thinning hair and weathered skin. He doesn’t look too familiar, but I suppose he is me to some degree. But when I look closer, look into his eyes, I see all the stages of his life from embryo to the grave. Looking even closer, I see the basic pattern of humanity, along with the watchful vulture on that Sonoma County beach, along with the lizard on the small rock on a half forgotten trail, along with all the music and art, along with a million waves on a million beaches, along with the fragrances of spring, along with all the stars in the desert sky.
    The universe is all around me, and I surround it. The universe is wild and unpredictable, strange and mischievous, giddy and profound. The universe is delirium and ecstasy and intoxication, and the universe is mine.
    And it all begins again.