I am  walking, walking along a narrow lane, in a large, open urban area – almost a park like setting.   After passing the park and entering an urban square, I came upon some people:  A man, a woman and an elderly lady with them, who were prostrate towards a nearby building, kneeling on the concrete, sweating, bowing, transfixed with one-pointed attention towards something in the distance.

“Selah!!!”  They would proclaim with both hands in the air, then they would bow all the way to the pavement.  It seemed they had been worshiping like this for a very long time, perhaps all day and the night before.  All 3 were clearly exhausted, and their bodies betrayed the full spectrum of the motions, but their intense devotion was unwaveringly directed despite their bodily aches.  I could tell that the three seemed to be of south Indian descent.  My curiosity is peaked.  Where am I?

I looked at the building they seemed to be worshiping.   It was octagonal in shape, and tall like a tower.  My mind identified it as a hospital or place of healing.  And it was dirty, old and had old clothes seemingly strewn from the patios, 3rd-world-ish enough that I realized I might actually be in the South of India somewhere.

Following the devotional energy, I decided to go and inspect this healing sanctuary.  What about this place inspires such fervent ecstatic devotion?  However, when I got in, I discover  it was no more than an apartment or dormitory.  The decorations, strewn laundry hanging, smell of spices, earthy down-home living conditions all made me feel like I was in India somewhere.  And yet, no people.  The place seemed utterly empty of inhabitants.

Faced by the sheer emptiness of inhabitants in this place, compelled by intrigue, suddenly, I am on a mission.  Like a floating log down a current of river, I am captivate by a stream of invisible devotional energy that endlessly rose to the top floor of this healing – apartment-like holy place.  I was on a mission to get to the top of this building – compelled by the outside worshipers’ prayers flowing like a steady stream of energy underground to the base of the tower then rising to the top in an endless circuit through the devotees outside.

This giant white tower has eight walls that rise ten stories high. Once inside I can see that every residence on every floor has a balcony walkway out front with a nice open view out front. I climb to the middle floor using the outside staircase that flanked each side of the building, and entered the residential hallway.  I came to an apartment unit, in the middle of the building, that had no front door.  This is the door to the heart of the tower – the middle door on the middle floor.  Through the doorless doorway to the heart of this 8-sided white tower,  I stop to peer in to inspect the inside of this apartment, then I go inside to look around.  To my dismay I first see the space is a studio – dashing any hopes to see someone around the corner of a bedroom who might come out to greet me and ask for me. Perhaps guide me.

Alone in the heart of the tower, heart longing for guidance, devotion and connection to the divine within, the dream takes a nightmarish turn as a huge pack of about 1000 emerald-colored spiders all suddenly emerged, spilling out in droves from underneath a small armchair.  Each spider was about the size of my palm, and had 2 diamond shaped markings, a shiny platinum color, on each side of their emerald green abdomens.  As they began to surround me, I panicked, stomping my feet on ground in a brazen attempt to shoo them away – but it was in vain.  I knew any one or 5 of them would have scurried at the deep hollow thrust of my feet against the ground, but these spiders were emboldened by their sheer numbers and called to each other that they had found a meal in my arrival.  Entering the empty space at the heart of the 8-sided tower, I was consumed by the heart.

Thousands of emerald eight-legged spiders pressed ever closer around me.  I am paralyzed, seemingly, as one spider, then another – then a handful at a time jump 6-7 feet in the air to try to land on top of me to try to bring me down.  Instead of waking up from the nightmarish experience, I change perspectives as I often do in dream combat – looking down from above or afar in a 3rd person view rather than 1st person.  I watched, powerless, from afar as my seated body was devoured by the host of spiders.  The bones were all that remained after a very short time, then, through the power of everlasting life, all seemed to regenerate and I was myself again, or so I thought.

There is one very important difference in my body now:  I am now only 3 1/2 feet tall!  I’m the size of a four-year old!

I look again at the scurrying, attacking, confused spiders – and picking one up I noticed that its body now appears as a shiny nylon-like fabric material.  “These are puppets,” I thought to myself, and the sense of nightmarish powerlessness from the previous scene melted away.   I’m a small child. In this empty studio at the heart of the 8-sided tower everything is brighter, everything is taller, and as a small boy I’m arising from a soft bed made of cute green 8-legged stuffed animals who could have been my playmates and sleeping companions forever.  My eyes face the doorway of the heart through which I came, amazed to see from knee-high my surroundings.

I was suddenly aware that I had passed the first test, and was allowed to ascend higher up the tower.  “I am the only inhabitant of the heart,” I realize as I walk out of the room to the balcony with a fifth floor view at the midpoint of the building.  Amazed that my head can’t see over the top of the balcony railing, I turn left to the stairwell at the end of walkway and continue up the apartment levels, but in search of what?

Up the stairs 3/4 or 4/5 of the way to the top of the building, three more flights of stairs and I exit the eighth floor, of the eight sided white ten-story tower and come upon an older Indian woman.    I was shocked to realize that she is the first inhabitant of this place I had come across.  And she was only 3 feet tall as well, but after my transformation with the spiders, we met eye to eye.  My mind raced as I met her gaze:  Was this a single residence?  It was huge!  Who could own a whole apartment building like this?  Did she know about the spiders below?  Were they her ‘puppets’?

Here I am, firstly purified by being consumed by the heart, standing before the Divine Mother appearing as sage. The old woman had a test for me as well, the second test for spiritual wholeness is to let the Divine Mother inquire and search my heart’s honest truth of pure knowing. She has a question she wanted answered and I’m more than happy to oblige.  “Why are you here?”  It was a warm-up.  I didn’t even have to answer that one, she already knows I’m in search of the inhabitant of the tenth floor.  Our eyes catch each other’s glance and then we both softly smile and I feel such deep love, such deep welcoming, such ecstatic oneness of knowing between beings.   We both know the second test to spiritual wholeness wasn’t completed yet, so then she popped a big one:  “How was the problem your fault?”  The lacerating question makes me feel extremely vulnerable, but after being heart-purified by emerald green spider jaws, and arising in innocence, the fear of self-exposure no longer dominates me.  My heart sees plainly how my actions contribute to some failure, and I say, “What I did to cause the problem?  What I did to cause the problem is that I said YES.”  She seems satisfied with my honesty, and let’s me pass with her blessing to continue ascending the ten-story tower.  Her advice to me on parting:  “If they judge you for being self-effacing, do not blame yourself.  They would have found a reason to judge you later anyway.  Such honesty is really about being accountable to Heaven, not to man.” In her presence feeling both ashamed and confident:  ashamed for my shortcomings, and confident in my ability to take greater responsibility.  Her presence and her searching of my heart is ever-present and ever-searching, my heart always welcomes her and she is always with me.

I finally reach the top tenth floor of this 8-sided white tower just two stairways up. At the top of the stairs lies a partially open door at the end of a very short dark hallway, giving the slightly ominous feeling of entering a cave. Outside the dark door standing partially ajar, I hear what must be the master of the house call curtly to come in.  Through the dark doorway a giant room opens up, with a back wall and ceiling that are so far tall and deep that they appear black, but the front of this vast room is setup as if for the greatest scientist that ever lived. Small walkways pass through rows packed with scientific instruments from every age, every culture and every era of history and beyond.   I wonder, “Where is this Master whose voice I heard calling me inside the door?”  Finally starting to exit row upon row of tools of knowing, I come to the front of the room where the whole wall has been setup as an electric neon blackboard of some kind that was full, absolutely full of equations connecting the cosmos and all life in an ecstatic mathematical splendor.

Facing away from me, transfixed writing something high above his shoulder on the wide screen, there stood an old man, shorter than me even though I was only 3’5″, wearing a white tunic and turban.  He didn’t seem to notice or face me to interact in any way.  Here I am, at the tenth station, in the presence of the Heavenly Father or Divine Masculine appearing as sage, who called me into his sacred cave, surrounded by endless tools of deeper knowing, and filled only with profound silence.   In his silent knowing I instantly recognize my 3rd test, and decided to wait.  To wait upon the silent lord of the tower becomes my place of home, my place of devotion, knowing that I’m surrounded by the greatest wisdom and the One who is guiding it all electrifies my being in wise electric presence.

3 TESTS FOR SPIRITUAL WHOLENESS

1.   Be consumed by the heart
2.    Let the heart be known
3.    Come into your radiant silence