Paul Levy

We all are dreaming. Every moment of every day. Our life is a multidimensional, holographic dream inkblot, with infinite universes pulsating like fireflies in and out of the void every nanosecond. And the universes we focus our attention on are the ones that come into focus, incarnating in front of our very eyes as life itself. Will we be deceived by our own creation, thinking it exists outside of and separate from ourselves? Or will we become truly empowered, awakening to our role as co-conspirators with this very universe of ours, which is a great responsibility as well as tremendous joy?

Our creative imagination is of prime importance in our powers of reality creation. It is like we have found ourselves in a fairy tale or dream where everything we imagine comes true, only we don't realize that we have inherited this sacred power of co-Dreamers of Reality. To the extent that we have fallen asleep in the dream and forgotten our true power of dreaming, we become victims of our unrecognized gift. Our sacred power of dreaming is so profound that we can even start imagining that we don't have it, and the seemingly outer universe, which is none other than an expression of the sacred power of our dreaming, will spontaneously shape-shift and confirm that very lack.

When we begin to realize our sacred power of dreaming, though, it is like we have fallen through the rabbit hole and find ourselves in a universe that IS nothing other than our own mind in embodied form. It is the same thing as waking up inside of a dream and becoming lucid. Our subjective experience is that we find ourselves walking around inside of a dream that a deeper center in us is dreaming.

In this fairy tale or dream, we realize, just like quantum physics has discovered, that not only is it not possible to speak about an objective universe existing out there, but that the very act of observing the universe actually evokes it. The boundary between the inner and outer, between dreaming and waking has totally collapsed. The gap between observer and observed, between subject and object, has dissolved. The difference between self and other is seen through, as everyone is recognized to be emanations of the One. We begin to realize that everything is a psychedelic, projected reflection of our own mind, including these very words. We have gotten in phase with our true sacred dreaming powers of universe creation, the self-luminous zero point energy of creation itself.

At a certain point in the unfoldment of this realization, we discover that we are, both individually and collectively, dreaming up this very universe that we find ourselves in. To quote mythologist Joseph Campbell, "one great dream of a single dreamer in which all the dream characters dream, too." It is like waking up to a hitherto unrecognized power that we didn't know we had, for up until now we have been the victim of this power, acting it out unconsciously. We are like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, discovering that we have always been wearing the magic red, ruby slippers. It is like finding the philosophers stone of the alchemists, the wish fulfilling jewel and the Holy Grail all in one.

Then the question becomes, "How do we want to dream the dream?" We fully actualize and express our sacred dreaming gifts only when we get out of our own way and step outside our narcissistic, egoically concerned self, which is continually efforting, strategizing and manipulating the dream so as to serve itself and fill it's imagined sense of lack. As if waking up from a nightmare or snapping out of a trance, we transcend the self-perpetuating universe of the fear-based separate self. We discover the true nature of our situation, which is that we are all connected, we are not separate. We realize that this universe of ours is a mass shared dream in which we have the sacred dreaming power to co-operate and collaborate with each other in a way where we can lucidly dream this dream universe of ours to it's highest unfoldment. The master we serve in this realm is named Compassion.

The equation is simple: if we want to increase our realization, all we need to do is to step into and radiate the vibraion of compassion. Everything else takes too long.

An artist, healer and devoted disciple of dreaming, Paul Levy is in private practice, assisting others who are also spiritually awakening. A long-time apprentice in alchemy, shamanism, C.G. Jung and Tibetan Buddhism, he is the coordinator of the Portland PadmaSambhava Buddhist Center. His next public lecture is "Am I Going Crazy or Am I Becoming Enlightened?" on Friday, November 12, at 7:30 at HealthQuest, 1330 SE 39th. The cost is $8, and he will lead an all-day workshop on the following day. For information, please call 234-6480.