The Way of Power, L. Adams Beck [beach books txt] 📗

whose wisdom and instinct alike draw them to what in India is called Realization have always understood that through dreams is a very direct way to the World As It Is—not as it appears in waking moments when earth-bound Reason stands at the helm of the many-peopled ship which a man calls “myself.”

Of course there are foolish little dreams also, mere bubbles on the surface of memory of the day’s doings, but these are easily known for what they are and nobody marks them. Sometimes, however, and often to those who least expect it, comes a dream marching with the certainty and assurance of a god, or the profoundly disturbing enigmatic questioning of the Sphinx, or the terrifying fore-vision of a prophecy, and all life is changed and deflected for the dreamer. In other words, the dreamer has for a moment stepped through the Looking Glass, or, in the Indian phrase, he has realized with a sudden shock of truth that life is not as he has thought it—but far otherwise. That man is fortunate, for to most people such knowledge comes only in the act of what we call death. It may then be guessed by the look of helpless surrender, of awful recognition on the faces of the dying as their true Selves look into their hearts. Very happy are those who have seen glimpses already through the eyes of Death’s younger brother, Sleep. And this is one of the many reasons why some knowledge of the world of dreams is desirable.

So strongly were the Greeks impressed with the haunting mystery of this state of consciousness that they offered divine honors to the Triad of brothers, Hypnos, Oneiros, Thanatos, or Sleep, Dream, and Death; and looking upon their dark brooding faces yearned for the Knowledge to which each is in turn a gateway.

One of my own first steps through the Looking Glass of early perception into the true world behind it was in the revelation of a dream. I can tell it only in part, and it is inherent in the mystic nature of dreams that they can never carry the conviction to others that they do to oneself. That is inevitable, springing as they do from roots deep-set in long-past experiences of personality.

I was going on a very long journey, full of doubts and loneliness, leaving much behind. It was hard to go. I think death must have that same bitterness on the cup’s edge from which all must drink excepting those who know that death is nothing—a mere link and by no means the most important in the chain of psychic evolution.

But one night far out at sea, a dream came walking the water. Dewy twilight and an old garden at home, flowers tall in the borders, fading into forgetfulness of color and light, the mouse-angels (as I was taught to call the bats) weaving magic circles about them under a dawning evening star. So far, all familiar, but in the shadows a Personality not to be bound in any earthly words I know, unseen but in the deepest sense of the word absorbing my being into what was far beyond my understanding. I found myself (it was long ago) pleading for the right to grief. How could it be otherwise when the cup of bitterness is thrust into one’s hand and the Angel of the Darker Drink invites the soul forth to the lips to taste it?

“It is so far—to the other end of the world,” I said, and much more that cannot be told. The answer was—but whether spoken or not I never know: “You are ignorant indeed. All such grief is self-pity. And furthermore in the real world there is no far or near—only states of mind. Step out from it into the light. Even here, when you know a very little, everything is just round the corner. If you try with all your might you cannot lose touch when you know the truth. Everything is Here and Now.” And suddenly I knew, and the shock of delight which woke me forever destroyed in me the fetters of “far and near” or any vestige of belief in parting made by time, distance or death. There was more than that, and how conveyed I cannot tell for I despair of repeating the assurance which freed me from one of the most painful maladies of ignorance.

India has always recognized three planes of consciousness connected with sleep: Waking, Dreaming, and Deep Sleep. The first they class as the Gross, the second as the Subtle, the third as the Pure. From deep sleep are brought back the incommunicable dreams—often completely forgotten by oneself—which bring us in touch with the Eternal Self. The subtle states of consciousness with the one hand lull and numb the obstinate perception of the senses and with the other free that huge submerged subconscious self, in relation to which man’s everyday consciousness has been compared with the vastness of the submerged area of an iceberg in comparison with that part which appears above the surface.

When this takes place many very singular things may and do happen. Men may easily remember acts and scenes of experiences in former lives. Not infrequently the strangest, most educative type of dream springs from this source, and it should be regarded with deep interest for obvious reasons. That has been a subject often dealt with in fiction but never, so far as I know, in the fullness of certitude with which it comes in reality. It is a state very difficult of investigation because dreamers are naturally shy on such a subject, but I may say it is almost a test of truth that when such experiences are revealed they are natural and simple. They seldom are connected with violently dramatic experiences or the arrogance which claims great place or position in former lives for the dreamer, and they bring conviction to those who experience them because they reveal the secrets of development and arrest, and throw light on the way that still remains. I have never heard of one in which the whole life was remembered except when perfection of perception is attained, and such instances come rarely to the world’s knowledge.

There are happily few cases where homesickness for the beauty and verity of the dream-life extinguishes all desire for the Mirror of the Passing Show as revealed by the senses, and the dreamer pines through the long inhospitable unrealities of the sunshine for night and the truths hidden in darkness. This is a state as wholly undesirable as the paradises revealed by drugs and drink. It is a psychic narcotic and should be combated manfully, especially as it is invariably associated with a diseased condition of body which reveals it for what it is and marks a failure in discipline. And there are the strange dreams which I call “fusing dreams” where one personality meets another in sleep and a dual life is lived, for a time becoming a reality and remembered in daytime but out of reach except in sleep. This appears to be a foreshadowing of the intimate communication and absorption in store (when psychological matters are more clearly understood) for lovers or the highest forms of friendship. Of this state I have no personal knowledge though I have based a story (“V. Lydiat”) on knowledge gained elsewhere, which attracted interest from those who knew it was true in essentials.

I myself had at one time the very strange experience of a connected story which I dreamed nightly. It was, so to speak, serialized, in that it went on for many nights, beautiful, dramatic (as I thought) in conception and development, springing and branching as a tree does from its seed. But the singular thing was that a friend one day brought to my house a visitor supposed to have unusual perception in such matters, and when my dream-serial was mentioned he said, “Yes, I can see it,” and forthwith began to describe with perfect accuracy the terraced lawns and clipped box hedges which were always the beginning when the mists of sleep rolled aside and the stage was set. I think this was a case of mind-reading, startling in the extreme, for I had never given a detail to a living soul. I had the impression that he could have told me the whole story as easily, and regretted afterwards that I had shut down the subject. For I never knew the end though I believe it is still latent in my own perception. The experience ended as suddenly as it began.

I find that many of the subjects of my stories come to me in sleep in the form of dramas which I see clearly acted before me; sometimes also in the form of stories told dramatically after the fashion of story-tellers in the bazaars of Asia. But I have never succeeded in catching more than a flashing glimpse of the story-teller, and I know he is not always the same. I have a belief that to come face to face with him in dream would open the measureless stores of wisdom and beauty lost in the past. Is art a recovery as well as a prophecy?

The titles almost always come in the state between sleeping and waking when reason and thought lie on the threshold of consciousness like dogs on duty but still dormant. When they take charge the connection is broken and I must remember as I can. Daily events blunt the impressions very quickly except in some remarkable cases.

I had lately a dream of extraordinary beauty and perception which I shall not forget. It began in Kensington Gardens and a meeting with a little middle-aged woman there, leading up to the discovery of a strange boarding-house in London for people who had died with unfulfilled lives which apparently came to nothing, but who were now directing themselves along ways of fulfilment, absolutely unconscious that they had undergone the experience of death. I dreamed the name also: “The House of Fulfilment.” That title I have been compelled to steal for an “occult” novel which nothing else would fit, but the story abides and I shall write it one day. There were such strange people in it, and the singularity was that, belonging to the World behind the Looking Glass, they were obliged to work with tied hands in the conditions of this until they could make good. The house was in one of the little old-fashioned Georgian streets of Kensington … running up the hill from noisy Kensington High Street, very quiet, with yellowing poplars looking over the wall and bushes of Michaelmas daisies in the borders. I see it all.

I hope I shall not be suspected of any arrogance in telling these experiences. I think those things told quite simply and truly are helpful in the deciphering of a difficult subject and I should be glad to know if other writers also dream many of their stories. It is interesting, because quite undoubtedly the gift of creative art in its differing degrees is one of the roads to the Land behind the Looking Glass. There are reasons for that too long to enter into here but irrefutable, and it is a singular fact that while the saints appear to enter in great flashes of cosmic consciousness, the artist seems to take the winged way of dreams. But there can be no fixed rule in such matters, nor would one expect it.

There is one amazingly interesting fact in true dreams. It is that the dreamer goes free. He regains his birthright and is no longer the slave of the miserable dimensions of length, breadth and height which control all our waking doings. Nor is he bound by time as with a tether. Observe that in dreams time is no more. It may be to-day and tomorrow at the same moment. You may be a child,