HOPEFULLY, AFTER READING the last chapter, you've taken into consideration some of the things I have said and have taken the first steps towards clearing your consciousness of the damaging dogma of church and science. For reasons that will become clear in this chapter, if you want to move forward, you need to have "right thoughts." If you don't, you may run into some trouble when you face the glorious waters of creation, the deep Fabric of Consciousness, that is your birthright and original state of existence.

In order to explain what I mean by the above, and to kick off the breathing and grounding section of this book, I would like to spend a little time talking about myself and my vision of the world. As you already know, my name is Michael Sharp, and although I fancy myself a bit of spiritual teacher, storyteller, and world teacher, nevertheless I am not special in any way. In fact, I am just like you. I am bundle of describable and indescribable things. I am a Scorpio. I am a parent. I am a partner. I am a worker. I have hair, eyes, teeth, and feet. I have my likes and my dislikes. When I'm pricked, I bleed. If I am poisoned, I die. In every way that is important, I am just like you and just like you I have, from time to time, struggled to understand the world around me. I have looked at the pain and the suffering, the homeless crying and the children dying, the war, the chaos, and the seemingly headlong rush to global destruction and I have said to my self, "Self, what the heck is going on?"

"What is this all about?!"

At one time, my answer to what was going on was that all this, all the lunacy and irrationality of this earth, was the result either of a lunatic, demented God playing some sadistic game of cosmic chess, or was the senseless result of a random, violent evolution. Humans struggling in a universe of evolutionary (if you are scientifically minded) or spiritual (if you are spiritually minded) madness.

Take your pick.

Science version or religious version, it doesn't matter because at one point I realized the awful truth, the visions both come from the same place and because of that, they are both ugly visions.

They are hierarchical visions.

They are exclusionary visions.

They are grotesque and the worst thing about them, they are both totally unconcerned with the horrendous level of suffering that goes down on this earth. In fact, when you stop to look at them closely you see, quite clearly, they both justify the suffering, accept it, and consider it "business as usual."

Spiritual explanations talk about sin, karma, and fallen souls as a justification for suffering. You get the pain in your life because you deserve it in some way. It's either a karmic thing or a "tempering in the fire" thing. You suffer because it's good for you, because it's what god wants, because it's the only way to make you right again after your ignominious "fall" from grace.

Yuck!

Scientific explanations, on the other hand, talk about evolution and survival of the fittest. You're poor, you struggle, you die not because of the twisted social, economic, or political system you live in, and not because of some lunatic, warlord leader, but because you are weak and undeserving. The strong dominate and thrive. The weak serve and suffer. What doesn't kill ya' makes ya' stronger.

Ya right!

As you can see, both cases present limited, narrow visions of this universe that we live in, and neither one offers much in the way of a choice. Behind door one you get violent Darwinian struggle. Behind door two you get submission to a sadistic, divine authority that doesn't seem to have a clue.

What kind of choice is this anyway? I mean, both visions suck, and in a big way.

However, happy to say, it is not like that for me anymore. I don't mind saying that nowadays I don't worry about the world at large so much. I have my own personal troubles like everybody else and I deal with them as best I can (I struggle to be a good parent, for example), but when it comes to looking at the larger world and the way it is unfolding, I am at total peace.

You could say that my vision of the world has changed.

Now, don't get me wrong. It is not that I am tuned out to what's happening in this world or that I am unconcerned about the goings on, on this planet.

I am concerned.

It is also not because I don't care about the suffering and the pain that is everywhere around us.

I care deeply.

It is also not because I don't want to work to see a better tomorrow. I absolutely positively do want to see things get better and I absolutely positively am working to create a utopia in this lifetime. It is just that nowadays I see neither a random, evolving universe nor a lunatic and abusive "father figure" in the god seat. Instead, when I look at the world, I see pattern and meaning in all things.

I don't see random evolution or spiritual darkness anywhere.

Instead, I see an expansive and loving God everywhere.

When I look at the world and the people in it, I see the bright light of the creator shining in each and every one of you. When I see the world, I see it as divinely inspired, where Spirit walks and where everything, and I do mean everything, has been under our control since we started this "experiment" way back in the way-gone ages.

Now I admit it, my vision of the world is different than the "normal" vision of the world. I also admit that my vision of the world is a stretch, especially considering the sorry state the world is in these days. Pain and strife, struggle and confusion, war and waste of life are common features of our day-to-day reality. In this context, to think that an expansive and loving God/Spirit is "in control" seems ludicrous. If that was the case, why aren't things any better? I mean, this earth is not exactly what most people would consider the epitome of a divinely inspired, God-given Garden of Eden, is it?

But you know what? That doesn't matter because what you and I see when we see the "normal" vision of reality is only the surface of a much larger reality, with a much deeper purpose and meaning, than we are used to seeing in our "normal" lives. Indeed, the "normal" reality seen by your average, somnambulistic human being is not even the tip of the iceberg of what lies "beneath the surface." If I may wax poetic for a moment, what you see when you look at the world around you is merely the meniscus on the water of the consciousness of God. That is, what "normal" people call "normal" reality is merely a "thin crust," beneath which expands a reality so vast and so grand that if you were to poke a hole through that membrane without preparation, if you were to even get a glimpse of the "power and the glory" while still caught deep in the maya (i.e., the illusion) of the world, you would experience, depending on the number of erroneous and negative ideas you have about the spiritual universe you live in (see the previous chapter on Right Thinking) various levels of discomfort and discombobulation. The truth is, beneath the meniscus that is your work-a-day reality is a reality that is so vast and grand that it boggles the sleeping egoic mind and terrifies the dogmatically straight-jacketed consciousness.

It is the stuff of Annunaki nightmares.

But don't get me wrong.

Don't get all freaked out.

I am not trying to scare you here.

I do not want you to think that the depths of consciousness are too much for you (or anyone) to handle.

Far from it!

Quite the opposite, in fact.

Indeed, let me be the first person to tell you that the reality "beneath the surface," the water that expands into infinity underneath the meniscus, is your home reality. That reality, the deep Waters of Creation, as I like to call it, is where you come from and once, not so long ago, you were like a fish, swimming and at home in this vast cosmic ocean of consciousness, as comfortable in the breadth and the depth as a guppy is in a pond.

So what's the problem, then?

Why the attached warning label?

Well, the problem is not that you can't handle it (and by you I mean your immortal, conscious soul). The problem is that "you" (and by you I mean your body/mind) can't handle it. The problem is, your waking mind, your bodily mind, that part of you that emerges out of the firing of neuronal synapses, the ego that arises from your brain, is simply out of touch with the power and the glory of its animating consciousness. Let's be honest here. When it comes to things of a spiritual nature, your body/mind, trained as it is in a culture and society that knows next to nothing about spirituality and consciousness, is clueless.

Why?

To make a long story short, you (and by you I mean your body/mind) have been cut off by a socialization and child-rearing process that is decidedly hostile to authentic spirituality and high conscious experience. The problem is that although the vast divine reality was open to you as a child, and although as a child you were comfortable in that reality, as you grew older your understanding of it was never nurtured. In fact, exactly the opposite happened. As you grew up, your understanding, your connection to The Waters, was crushed. As part of the spiritually hostile socialization you received on this world, your connection was severed, smashed, torn apart, ripped asunder, and shredded. You were taught by your parents, by your teachers, and by the media to "leave it behind," to "stay here," and to stay focused in something that "they" (i.e., the people who presumably know about these kinds of things) like to call "reality." You were taught, through constant "tests," punishment, "consequences" and reminders of the precarious nature of your physical existence, to stay focused and present (I would say locked) into "normal." In order to reinforce that disconnection, you were taught to fear "the other side." You were fed silliness about ghosts, goblins, and scary-boo boogey men like the mythological Satan and his army of twisted demon torturers.

All nonsense!

All designed to scare you away from the great pond of consciousness you were able to swim around in as a small child.

Of course, now you don't notice what's missing. You don't notice the fact that your connection to a wider reality, a wide "space" of existence, doesn't exist anymore. It is a frog in boiling water sort of thing. Since "they" get you early, the loss is gradual and unnoticeable. By the time you are an adult (or by the time you attain "adult" status), it is gone and you don't miss it. Sadly, any abilities or sensibilities that you had as a child that were attached to the bigger reality, things like intuition, telepathy, and other nascent skills that need, like language, to be nurtured, are also gone. Like anything, lack of use means atrophy and since the higher reality is closed off from an early age, by the time you are an adult you have no remembered experience, no memory, no left over skills, and no ability to deal with the power and the glory should you inadvertently come into contact with it.

This is the problem.

By the time you are an adult, the deeper reality is as foreign and strange, startling and striking to the narrow consciousness of your egoic mind as life in another universe would be. Stranger, in fact, and, thanks to the priests, pundits and scientists of this planet who fill your head with demons, devils, and Darwinian predators, far more discombobulating and frightening - especially if you're coming at it from spiritual cold turkey, which almost all of us do.

Now, if the awareness had been nurtured in you, if you had stayed awake instead of falling into a spiritual slumber, it wouldn't be this way. But it is and so there you have it. But again, this shouldn't stop you. Like I said, at one time, you were a fish swimming in the water and although we wouldn't want to just throw you back in unprepared, with a little good advice, and a little time to orient and prepare, it doesn't take long for you to get your swim fins back.

Which is, of course, why I'm here.

Like I said earlier, I am going to show you how to access the deeper realities (i.e., I am going to show you how to awaken) and, most importantly, I am going to show you how to change your vision of the world so you can see the depths safely and without disjuncture. I am going to teach you how to peek beneath the surface without danger and I am going to do it in such a way that the mind associated with your body (i.e., your bodily ego) will not be frightened, shocked, or otherwise discombobulated by the total awesomeness of it all.

It is not a big deal, really.

All it takes is a bit of spiritual deprogramming so that you can see through the fears and nonsense, and a little basic technique so you can navigate The Waters safely. It's not that hard and, more importantly, and at the risk of unnecessary repetition, it is not a question of skill or talent on your part. You don't have to worry about whether or not you are worthy or "graced" or ready or "initiated" or special or chosen or anything like that. Remember, you are, even now, a fish in The Waters of Consciousness. Once you are confident in your own abilities, the barriers that you yourself have erected in response to your socialization and indoctrination, the barriers that keep you away from The Water, will fall away with little or no effort on your part. When that happens, then I will say, "Welcome to my worldview."

Now, as I said at the beginning, this is a chapter on breathing and although I have not said it yet, I'll definitely say it now. In the context of this discussion of the meniscus and the deep waters of consciousness, breathing is the single most important tool that you need to have in your spiritual repertoire if you are going to go poking at the meniscus of this conscious universe.

Breathing is a tool that you cannot ignore.

You must know how to breathe properly.

You must master breathing because breathing, more than anything else, has incredible ability to ground, enliven, enlighten, awaken, and empower. Bottom line is, breathing will help keep your egoic consciousness (i.e., your bodily consciousness) safe and secure as it takes its first tentative dips into the depths of consciousness that lie beneath the surface.

Now I know I am making breathing sound impressive, and it is. What is even more outstanding about it is that breathing is not a difficult tool to master. In fact, even as breathing is the most important tool in this book, it is also the easiest tool to use. The trick is, remembering to do it.

So when do you do it?

When do you deep breath?

Well, whenever you are doing any kind of spiritual work whatsoever, i.e., whenever you approach the meniscus of consciousness, whenever you stick your little toe into the deep waters, whenever you are feeling anxious about what's happening, whenever you are feeling unsure, frightened, or otherwise agitated by "things" around you (spiritual or otherwise), simply engage in a few moments of deep breathing, the deeper and slower, the better.

Allow me to demonstrate.

Do it with me now.

Close your eyes and take ten very deep breaths. Breathe in until you cannot breathe in any more, hold for a moment and then exhale, calmly, gently, and with control. Do not force the air into your lungs. Simply fill them to their expanding capacity.

Expand them, stretch them to the limit, and exhale.

Ready?

Breathe in... and exhale...

Breathe in... and exhale...

Put the book down now, close your eyes, focus, and do it eight more times with me.

Go.

...

Done?

Then welcome back.

Now pause for a moment and pay attention to the state of your consciousness as you exit from the deep breathing exercise.

Do you notice the shift?

At the very minimum, when you deep breathe like that you will notice several things. Assuming you are not brutally exhausted and at the end of a long day, you will notice that, as a result of the extra oxygen going to your brain, your "mental alertness" will have increased.

You will also find yourself more focused and more "tuned in."

You will also notice a subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) shift in consciousness.

What kind of shift?

It depends.

It is different for different people.

The truth is, how you experience the shift will depend on what you are shifting out of (or into). For example, if before your ten breaths you were feeling anxiety, afterwards you will have shifted and there will be less anxiety. If before breathing you were feeling buzzy and ungrounded, afterwards you will have shifted and be more grounded and calm. If before you were lacking presence in the moment, after you will find yourself more in the "here and now." If before you were experiencing fear, afterwards you will have calmed. In truth, the shift depends on you. However, more importantly than that, you must realize, you control the direction of the shift. If you need to ground yourself, just say as you breathe "I want to be more grounded." If you want calm, say that. Breathe deep and say, "I wish to calm down." Whatever you need to do, intend it and breathe.

It works!

That's all there is to it.

Now, I cannot overestimate the importance of breathing. As you progress in your awakening process in the days and weeks ahead, breathing will be an important exercise for you, so practice it.

It works.

It is physiological.

It is primordial.

It is deep magic.

Really!

The magic is programmed into the core reality of your body and mind, so learn to do it. And don't let the simplicity of the exercise fool you. It's simple, but it's powerful. No matter how prosaic I might become, I cannot overestimate the importance of breathing. The high truth is this: Breathing is primordial. Breathing is archetypal. Breathing is divine. If you want to get right down to it, breathing is the first act of creation. Breathing is what the original monadic consciousness, the original spark of Light, the Divine Logos (god with a little "g" if you must know) did upon deciding to create. Breathing was the first act, and as such it is a thing that reverberates and is reflected at every layer of reality, in every universe, and at every stage of The Unfolding, throughout all of creation.

My god.

Breathing is "the word" of God.

It is powerful beyond measure.

Breathe deep and say to yourself, "I wish clarity," and you will have it.

Breathe deep and say to yourself, "I want to awaken," and the universe will take note and begin moving the energies in order to fulfill.

Know that breathing is the single most calming, grounding, life-affirming, manifestation-supporting exercise that you can do. When you are feeling anxious, when you are under stress, when you feel threatened, when anxiety wells up, when fear rises up in you, when you want to change direction, when you want to manifest something new, deep breathing helps.

Take breathing seriously.

Really, when you think about it, breathing is more important than even food and water for the continuation of your healthy life. You can go weeks without food, days without water, but only seconds without air.

Learn to deep breathe and make it a daily habit.

The practice is powerful beyond measure.