All wisdom traditions are trying to snap us out of the trance of looking at our life from the ordinary, egoic perspective, which perceives the world through the eyes of linear causality. Their intent is to introduce us to a new set of lenses through which we can view our life from outside the reference point of linear time, a place the Aborigines call "dreamtime." This new perspective, which we can call the transpersonal dimension of consciousness, is the very thing which redeems our suffering as well as restores a sense of meaning to our life.

We enter this new state of consciousness when we begin to see the deeper pattern inherent in the events of our life. Situations become very synchronistic and symbolic, simultaneously both hiding and revealing a deeper process at work. We begin to realize that there is a deeper dream field that we are at the same time both playing a role in as well as helping to create. It is a mutually arising, interdependent situation with no causality in which energies in the greater field that we are a part of and are helping to create move through us.

It is important to realize that the group field that is expressing itself through us is not separate from us at all; on the contrary, we are having an effect on the greater field (our relationship, the family or group we are in, as well as the entire universe) by our reactions to what is arising in the field. Buddhism calls this situation "interdependent co-origination," which implies that every part of the universe is interconnected to and helps to evoke every other part. There is no separation between any parts of the universe in either time or space.

In terms of dreamtime, we begin to realize that we are all sharing a mutual dream in which we are all, literally, dreaming up our shared universe moment by moment. Every moment is recognized to be the unmediated manifestation or expression of the deeper dreaming process which is unfolding. We could even say that the recognition that this is actually happening is the key to receiving the blessing from our situation.

This recognition makes no sense whatsoever to us and hence remains so much nonsense as long as we are interpreting our experience through the intellect, which by it's very nature is separative and dualistic. The transpersonal dimension of consciousness is only available through a much more wholistic way of viewing our experience, which, quite literally, is transcendent to the conceptual mind. Seeing the universe in this new way is not a question of belief or figuring something out via the intellectual mind; rather it is simply a matter of experiential realization. We either see it or we don't. Christ's saying from the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas comes to mind, "The kingdom is spread all over earth and people just don't see it."

This all-embracing realization is not of the ego, which would be what Jung would call inflation, but rather is itself an expression of our getting in phase with our true nature, which is by nature whole and one with what Jung would call the Self. This realization points to the essential part that each of us plays in the creation of our universe moment by moment. As more of us awaken to this astonishing situation, we discover that we can actually begin to dream a better dream. The only limitations are self-imposed by our own minds; the possibilities are truly endless.

For more articles about dreaming, see www.communityconnexion.com/levy