Are you surviving the mushroom cave?

This tale tells about a father's son who has made a wrong choice. What follows is not for fainthearted to hear because it takes courage to face the results of one's wrong actions. This story is meant for those who want to return from their journey. It is a story that wakes up the dream.

It all began when a son derived pleasures from opposing his father's will. Thereby he had to live without his blessings and oblige himself to journey into the wilderness.

The physical dream world is such a wild place where a man will fall from one mishap into another. It is a place where one loses his way and ends up in a ditch.

That actually happened to the disobedient son in this story. He was laying in the ditch with an aching body and as he looked around in despair, he suddenly noticed an opening to a vast cave,. As he crawled inside, he found trance-inducing mushrooms growing all over its walls and he thought, ``drugging myself would be just right!''

Self-destruction will turn into a pleasurable desire to a resentful man, and what followed became catastrophic -- his state of bitterness turned into a hate for his father. From now on, whenever he was confronted with a suggestion that said: ``No! You can't have your way,'' he became angry. And to escape the resulting pain he went deeper into the dream. He disconnected himself from his ``guilt feeling conscience'' (Soul) and escaped into a ``will of his own'' (ego). Now at last he could od what he wanted to do -- to find the fulfillment of all his hidden desires. It became a life that was experienced apart from his father's will.

But only too soon did he wake up to the awareness that his life as a nightmare and he ate more mushrooms. This went on for a long, long, time.

Planet Earth serves as a mushroom cave where humans can od what they please and get away with it. And when the awareness of their futile lives enters into their dream, they quickly conjure up mushroom-related activities. (smoking, drinking, eating, worshiping, entertaining, working, exercising, etc.)

As the body of the caveman became less able to absorb the poisons, the awakened state began to filter into the dream. The true condition came to the surface. The pain of wrongness was unbearable and he stormed for the opening. But -- there was no opening. What was left of the way out had shrunk to the size of a fist. He was buried alive and he screamed and hollered.

Had the opening disappeared? It really had not -- anger had distorted his perceptions. Unconsciousness had blocked out the pain but not the results of his wrong acts. Eating intoxicating substances had the effect of producing a growing ego-body which now threatened to squeeze him out into a never, never world where escape from pain would become impossible. Contemptuously he ate more mushrooms. The trance that followed came abruptly to an end when his growing body had run out of space -- the cave simply squeezed him out of his body. Extreme hate became his only life. Unconsciousness is a deliberate act, but nature came to his rescue and let him escape into the body of a dog. (Dog is a reversed expression of God). At last he could express his life again.

Fighting for survival had always been the ego's greatest accomplishment. But this story could have ended differently. The Soul can become aware of its growing ego before it is too late for its awakening. The Soul has to bear the pain of self-investigation. Awareness is the beginning of the way out. The shock to see the truth about one's self has to be endured. This will create the ability to ``remain awake.'' The desire to maintain the body by natural means will come back. Now escape becomes possible.

An awakened consciousness will always make a tremendous effort to turn away from the lure of the physical life. The higher will not come down to rescue the lower because it has no connection to it. The physical world began where the spiritual left off.

Self-observation is able to reveal that ``cause'' is being awake, and ``effect'' is the CHOICE to fall asleep. An awake man will not accept effects, he remains at cause in every situation. In Heaven there are no effects.

The material universe came into existence as an effect of a choice. There are no choices in Heaven. The dreamworld is real only to the degree the desire for a choice is real. That was the lesson the rebellious son had to learn.

All your life is but a going out to the place of execution, to death.

-- John Donne