In Three Awakenings: A Spiritual Memoir, I explore three experiences of Unity Consciousness I’ve had in my life. All were a surprise—a welcome surprise. All were in different circumstances involving different spiritual traditions.
In my novels, many of my characters go into altered or higher states of consciousness. I’ve based these on the teachings of the Vedas and Western Metaphysics, but in truth, all the world’s traditions recognize heightened awareness as our true human potential. Some say that living in enlightenment is our birthright.
I open Three Awakenings with this description of spiritual illumination:
I felt the ripple that was both Maharishi and I extend out of the room, across the mountains, and into the night sky. Everything was the same. One unlimited consciousness.
We looked into each other’s eyes and burst out laughing. We laughed long and full at the delightful joke of it all. About how one piece of infinity came to another piece of infinity asking to be made infinite. Asking in desperation, out of a crying need, in deep pain. And the joke was not only that this piece of infinity wanting so desperately to be infinite already was. But that I could not even have been searching, could not have even conceived infinity if I hadn’t already been exactly what I was looking for.
In Under the Stone Paw, the experience of Unity comes at the end when all the crystal holders come together to perform their appointed task of opening the Hall of Records:
Something coiled at the bottom of the Nile, down deep near Elephantine, woke and stretched its head. Power stirring from far south flowed down river, gathering force as it came. From Khnum’s island and the island of Bigga it flowed, from the root of physical form to the womb of the world, then to Kom Ombo where the great crocodile dove in and swam northward. The river of power rolled on through the great temple at Karnak, Dendara, Abydos and Edfu, the essence of each temple they’d visited joining the flow, braiding in its particular frequency, its special light. The vast flood reached Giza, the crown jewel in the spine of the Nile, and the Keepers were inundated. Just as a river surrenders to the sea, all their limitations simply washed away.
Tahir describes the experience as Unity Consciousness. Unity is the seventh state of consciousness in the Vedic (Hindu) system. It is that state in which we experience that we are the One Consciousness that has created and makes up the universe and that everything and everyone else is too. We experience this directly—not intellectually, but literally, like you know you’re sitting in a chair or holding a phone in your hand right now.
Tahir smiled. Now they knew. The quest was over. Every single human being was a living, breathing library of cosmic knowledge. All humanity would return to this high state of consciousness, this exquisite unity that could never be written down, that had to be experienced. Just as the first lines of the Tao said and the Rig Veda. Hadn’t all sages said this down through the ages?
Even this description focuses on knowledge, while the actual experience is more a vast sea of eternal awareness that supports and upholds us.
How do we achieve Unity? Most of these sages recommend meditation. Daily practice of meditation in which you allow your consciousness to go from your regular, daily reality and settle into the One Consciousness that supports you and everything. Some people use sound or mantras. Some use their breath. Some use mindfulness. I think you must find the meditation that resonates with you. Since it is a natural state, once in a blue moon it just dawns on a few lucky folks.
Power places can help—places that have naturally high frequency because of their location on the planet. Perhaps because of crystal in the rock, water, and sunlight. Places where people have done spiritual ceremony for a long time. The third experience I write about in Three Awakenings takes place at an ancient Templar tower in the South of France, an area replete with structures and natural caves that form sacred geometrical alignments.
Just regularly turn inward without focusing on the content of thoughts. Use a point of focus that allows you to sink into your deepest Self. Keep returning. Don’t worry about how long it will take. The universe is a big place and there’s plenty of time.