The
Seven Gates and the Something Else[Excerpted from a piece originally posted on CraigsList, April, 2002]
There are Seven Gates and there is Something Else
(but don't just take my word for it, check it out...)
The First Gate:
Learn to Open to the Unknown. Eh? It begins with a question. We open ourselves to the unknown and stand humbly before what has never before unfolded. The present moment is before us right here begging the question -- what else is there? If not now, when will you rise to meet it? Open your heart to dare -- fall off the edge of the cliff that is the prison you build to contain yourself, to limit yourself into a mere pinpoint of your true potential and self. But first, meet it with humility and be clear -- You Do Not Know. Remember this. You are only just being born. Over and over again.
The Second Gate:
Learn to Be in Love. There is the timeless adventure of life in love with itself. Tripping the light fantastic. On the grand adventure. The intricate dance of pure being-ness. The place that came (and will go) before duality and fragmentation -- pure flowing uncontained by edges. Everything is perfect just as it is. We are children at play in the fields of grass -- the sun-kissed rapture which is an endless summer afternoon. This is a place of peace, innocence, beauty, and abundance. Miraculous. No doubt about it.
The Third Gate:
Learn Who You Are. Stand firm in I am. In the midst of the dance of love we stop -- only for an instant, but that's all it takes -- and notice there is someone dancing. The world shifts into crystalline forms. Energy travels in rivulets defined by labels and concepts. Things separate and come into being around us. "Reality" forms. We sense the structures taking hold of Becoming It-Self. We learn who that someone is, by referencing what it is not. We break off parts of ourselves, and leave them in the dirt, or pin them on gods. Attach them with labels to other beings. We try to forget. We collide with matter. We notice an edge at the skin of our physical body. We are astonished, and frightened. We bleed in the collisions. We build walls of safety. The walls get thicker to meet our rising fear. We balance at the edges of definition. We clamor to be heard above the din of the forgotten ones. We proclaim -- I am. Notice me.
The Fourth Gate:
Learn How to Seek. Somehow we believe we got lost. Or lost something. It becomes incredibly important to find it. Or Self. Following attraction and fleeing repulsion becomes a full-time job. Defining our path by what screams loudest. Or glows brightest. The snake slithers on its belly as it seeks heat. The river flows in its course as it seeks the sea. Source coming home to meet itself, gathers the fragments of itself in its path, increases momentum and force in time. Each moment signs to be read and deciphered. Recognition. Anamnesis. Remembering who we have forgotten we are. Picking up all those myriad parts we left behind. Letting the magnets in our hearts draw us along. Letting our tongues flick out and about -- seeking, seeking -- what is hot, what is cold? What is new, what is old? The maze is amazing, and we follow its course, laid out long ago, the path ours alone.
The Fifth Gate:
Learn How to See Another. You. I see you. I meet you in the places that are yours. I lose myself in the seeing. My self dissolves in presence entering into you. My being becomes you. I begin to know and recognize you. Your eyes meet mine, and reflect back in endless halls of mirrors. Into infinity. Beyond being. The nature of connection paradoxical in the absence of separation. Duality dissolves. Self dissolves. There is nothing but you and I and the ricochet between us that has been going on for eternity. We merge and repel, we flip like magnets. One day attraction. Next day repulsion. One day pleasure. Next day pain. One day the end of loneliness. Next day more lonely than ever before. There is no self. There is no other. There is only one thing, and I meet myself in you. All of you comes home into me. All of me comes home into you. There is no longer you and me. It is the most beautifully sad thing of all.
The Sixth Gate:
Learn How Powerful You Are. Right and Wrong. The powers unfold. The creator realizes he/she votes on all levels in all moments. Determines outcomes. Chooses. Creates reality. The implications are huge -- responsibility (for everything, even). In infinite creativity, the imagination is limitless -- unfolds in an endless stream of complexity beyond fathoming. No matter how carefully hidden, all dreams and visions manifesting. The interactions infinite and unpredictable, yet our doing. We are shocked at how we've been choosing. We try to make reparations. Right the wrongs. Try to repair the rips in the fabric, patch the holes in the vessels. We exhaust ourselves with the patching, become martyrs at the hands of our own powers and creativity. The holes appear despite ourselves. The water escapes the container anyway. We are more powerful. And more guilty. We are terrified and in awe of ourselves.
The Seventh Gate:
Learn to Die. Death. The void which cannot be a-voided. The dark nothingness that is encircling and entering into us speaks. Sometimes with a whisper at the window. Sometimes with a horrific lurch. The dreams of yesterday and smaller-than-self beg for compost. If anything will ever rise above this, it will need fertile ground. We fight and struggle to avoid, but the void multiplies. Gaining power from our resistance. Swifter on our heels than we dare examine. It is inevitable like winter night. What we had believed, who we are, what we have built (no matter how elaborately or beautifully) is no defense. Finally and completely, we shall be erased. This is beyond too much to bear. But something is tired, and ready to surrender despite ourselves. And it's getting harder to keep from nodding a tiny little nod of approval just out of earshot from ourselves -- okay, take me, I surrender. Swiftly or slowly, death reclaims us. Right through the grinder into extinction. You are only just dying. Over and over again.
The Something Else:
This is not really a Gate. It is the place where space and time and concept and consciousness flip inside out and come out the other side of themselves. Or some other impossible to describe geometry.
We are scattered to the fates, forgotten. Our molecules of memories are separated from each other in the icy depths of infinity. Structure reverts to emptiness. Movement to stasis. We have died, for what always feels like the very first time, or to such an extent, or with such finality, or for real anyway. And at the end of the out-breath... the in-breath comes. Someone strikes a match in the darkness, or zen-claps one hand in disbelief, and we are standing again at the birth of a moment -- we feel a question starting to form in the bubbles of our spit. Eyes are wide and, Eh? We Don't Know a Thing. Back at the First Gate.
Repeat until you are done, if done is an option.