Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

PASSING THROUGH THE FIRE

BALBOA PRESS

Contents

Preface.....................................................................1The Unfettered Reflection...................................................2Conversation with the Living................................................3The First Light.............................................................4Persons, Places and Things..................................................6How We Create...............................................................7What Kind of Image Do We Want to Become?....................................8What Kind of House Do We Live In and Upon?..................................10Through the Light of the Mind, We See our Lives.............................11Rising and Setting..........................................................12Work for the Greater Good...................................................13Family Equals Politics and Money............................................14Infrastructure of the Mind, Emotions and Body...............................15The Future is in Time.......................................................17A Heart of Clay Becoming a Heart of Fire....................................18Thinking in the Always is to be Part of its Awareness.......................19Life Does Not Think Us: We Think Life!......................................21The Shifting Standards for Change...........................................22A Wider Vision for the Right Use of Money...................................23Life is an Education of Sorts!..............................................24The World in its Many Different Ways........................................26The Human Ways of Life......................................................27Dimensions of Being.........................................................28The Burning Flow of the Ethereal River......................................30A Set of Feelings...........................................................31The Economy of Life.........................................................33Association through Knowledge...............................................34When We Know Ourselves, We are Total and Natural............................35Politics, Envy, Money, War and Redemption...................................37A Constant State of Being Intimate..........................................38To Blend is to Create the Story of Life.....................................39Lightness of Being..........................................................41The Sacred Matters of Life..................................................42A Combination of Circumstances..............................................43What We See, Think, and Come to Know........................................45Thoughts are Transcendent...................................................46A Moment of Cosmic Arousal..................................................47The Thinking and Feeling Dimensions.........................................49The Space In-Between........................................................50The Essence of Relationships................................................52The Twofold Perspective.....................................................53The Constitution of Comfort.................................................54In a Ray of Light...........................................................56The Seasonal Silence of Time and Place......................................57Clouds of Colors Patterned in the Stars.....................................58The Silence of Clarity in the Gray Areas of Living..........................60Making Connections..........................................................61Smoothing Away the Friction.................................................62The Politics of Living......................................................64Looking Through the Glass...................................................65The Inner Journey...........................................................67The Painting of Contentment.................................................68The Use of Time.............................................................69The Cleavages of Life.......................................................71Life is Only What We Accept it to Be........................................72Memories....................................................................73Large versus Small..........................................................75A State of Loyalty..........................................................76The Use of Information......................................................77History's Innumerable Variations............................................78The Face of Depression......................................................79Living in Patience..........................................................81Commitment..................................................................82Consequences of Age and Consciousness.......................................83Purposeful Being............................................................84Intimidation................................................................86Transition..................................................................87Interaction.................................................................88Involvement.................................................................89Acknowledgement.............................................................91Synchronicity...............................................................92Togetherness................................................................93Growth without Suffering....................................................94Re-Entry....................................................................95Spirit: a Metaphor for Sustainability.......................................97Transformation in Infinity..................................................98Shifting Images of Time and Space...........................................99Our Right Humanistic Ways...................................................100Ideals and Reality..........................................................101Imitative Behavior..........................................................103Identification..............................................................104Adaptability and Contentment................................................105Perfection..................................................................107Justification of Belief.....................................................108Alone and Together..........................................................109Realization of Thoughts.....................................................110The Sun, the Earth and Everything...........................................111Recall......................................................................113Truth of Consequence........................................................114Forgiveness.................................................................115Spiritualism, Science, and Hypocrisy........................................116The One Body................................................................117Futurism....................................................................119Indifference................................................................120Permanence..................................................................121The Emotional World.........................................................122Silence.....................................................................124Patterns of Being...........................................................125Irritability................................................................126The Never Ending Process....................................................128Systemic Consciousness......................................................129Explanation of things.......................................................130Self-Identification.........................................................132A Guide to Being............................................................133A View through Heaven's Door................................................134The Mystery of Being Human..................................................136You Cannot Go Back Home, Only Visit.........................................137Being True to the Self......................................................138Forgotten Memories..........................................................139Self-Security...............................................................141The Physical Body: The Receptacle for Light.................................142The United States of Now....................................................144See Things as They Are......................................................145The Reflection of the Self..................................................146The Human Species - Things as They Are......................................147The Sum of Human Life.......................................................149The Emulator................................................................150The New and Last Moments....................................................151The Wise Use of Love........................................................153The Struggle for Conscious Identity.........................................154Conversion of the Heart.....................................................155Conscious Words for an Inner Life...........................................157The Mixing of Human Characteristics.........................................158Looking out the Window......................................................159The Art of Altruistic Living................................................161The Declaration of Leadership...............................................162Whatever Has Been, Be Grateful..............................................164A Sense of Serenity with What Is............................................165The Universe and its Dual Relations.........................................167Live and Let Live...........................................................168The Politics of Being.......................................................169Fallen Leaves...............................................................170Infusion of Consciousness...................................................172Imagining the Unity of All Things...........................................173The Benevolent and Malevolent Forces of the Imagination.....................175Beauty and Ugliness, Truth and Error........................................176Energy, Force and Consciousness.............................................177We Cannot Get Where We are Going by Talking.................................179The Commonality Factor......................................................180Think 'Everything is OK'....................................................181The Most Minutely Exquisite Images..........................................182The Conundrum of What Is....................................................184The Futuristic Journey of Hope and Enthusiasm...............................185The Art of Thoughtful Wishing...............................................186The Translucency of Physical Life...........................................188The Movement of Energetic Consciousness.....................................189Obsessive Entertainment.....................................................190The Art of What Is..........................................................191Don't Look Back.............................................................193Waves of Light..............................................................194The Rising and Setting of the Self..........................................196In Praise of the Moment.....................................................197The Stamping of Life........................................................199Masking the Mask, Twisting & Tweaking What Is...............................200The Originator of Space, Air, Fire, Water, and Earth........................201Imagine How It Will Be......................................................203The Power of Coercion.......................................................204A Wide, Wide Look at Life...................................................205Critical Thinking...........................................................207Mother, Why Did I Do This?..................................................208A New Time..................................................................209The Beautiful Stuff about Us................................................211Across the Divide...........................................................212Long Ago and Now............................................................214Possibilities...............................................................215The End of Physical Being...................................................216Decisions Made..............................................................218Accepting What Is...........................................................219I just do not know!.........................................................221The Final Illusion..........................................................222The Speed of Light and Life.................................................224The End of Separation.......................................................225Let It Be...................................................................227How We Travel In Space......................................................228The Loneliness of Knowing...................................................229In Memory's Light...........................................................231The Inevitability of Life...................................................232Reconstituting Our Makeup...................................................233Building a Better Life......................................................234Words of Silence............................................................236Life as a Practice..........................................................237The Finality of Conflict....................................................239The End Justifies the Means.................................................240Experience Powers Awareness.................................................241The Silence of Solitude.....................................................243International Thinking......................................................244The Kernel: Self-Mastery....................................................245The Nature of Material Power................................................247The History of Images.......................................................248Initiatory Consciousness....................................................249Earthly Humanism............................................................251Cleansing Life's Atmosphere.................................................252Automatic Motion............................................................254Natural Transparency........................................................255The Flow of Life, Space and Causation.......................................257The Beginning...............................................................258The Human Seed..............................................................260Letting It Go...............................................................261The Learning Curve..........................................................263The Forces of Politics......................................................264Getting It Right............................................................266Three-Form Existence........................................................267Different Directions........................................................269The Spirit of Minuteness....................................................270The Truth about Everything..................................................271The Earth Leads to Everything Else..........................................273Simplicity: the Art of Living...............................................274Free-Flow Interchanges (Ballroom in the Sky)................................276The Room (Womb) at the End..................................................277Withering of the Bloom......................................................278E = energy = me the force, which = I AM.....................................280The Ladder of Progression...................................................281Levels of Reality...........................................................283The Actuality of Events.....................................................284Imperfect Perfection........................................................285One Page, One Life, and One Story at a Time.................................287The Song of Life............................................................288The Busyness of Doing.......................................................289Useful Information..........................................................290The Other Half of Time, Person and Place....................................293Summation...................................................................294Precious....................................................................295

Chapter One

We can never return to the home we left behind! Those former times are only points of reference that give meaning for what we have become. Our life history makes available signals that point us toward future opportunities built on the substance and essence of what was before. Regardless of our nature, each of us stands alone in the judging of our destiny. When the light of life glows dim at the twilight of our time, our hearts will fill with overwhelming gratitude for those memories, and in the Dawn of our New Beginning, we will slowly awaken to a newer and better creation.

The Spirit of life awakens to feel, hope, and dream in the river of Silence and Time. Wisdom of the heart and mind is the Source, the wellspring from which every word and action proceeds. Shaped by desire and recurring awareness, the vast dark sleeping earth and all its rivers, plains, mountains, forests, oceans, plant and animal life awaken from the endless rounds of time. The newness of nature, with its intricate patterns, passes through the senses with fragrant mysterious secrets. From the brown soil, new life and all its numerous familiarities of the senses come into focus from the ancient web of memory.

Our mission begins in this world and we amend it in the next. Our True Power exists when we choose love and kindness over hate and cruelty. The true nature of earth can exist only when discord and tyranny are no longer a part of human consciousness. When we look into the mirror of the Inner Self, we see the face of matter and Spirit. Each came out of the fire of creation. More radiant than fire, more beautiful than the lilies of the field, purer than light, is the Self. The outer world flowers with unfettered reflection when we are at peace with the Inner Self. In the clear crisp blue sky, a baptism of amber light reflects off silvery gray clouds sailing on the breath of life. Floating shadows of light and moisture ripple over the body of earth. New vistas open, new dreams and visions appear. In our doings, we think we have broken the bounds and liberated ourselves only to realize that we have given up an old belief for a new one and forsaken one dream for a wider one.

While on this earth, each of us stands alone in the swarm of human knowledge, an atom in the cosmic chain of events and circumstances. Imbued with an atmosphere of collected noise, we are Everlasting, fixed and unchanged, no matter how we live and die. We visit the million sights, see the endless faces, read mountains of books and data, only to become weary from what we know and see. To assuage ourselves, we strive to hold the earth and its vast swarming riddle in our hands, as we might hold a coin of gold. Yet, we are nothing if we are not mindful of its everlasting unfoldment. We breathe in the certainty of our immortality, drive out and banish confusion when we are aware! Let us embrace the living earth as we do a loved one, unfettered, for there are no limits or restrictions on what love can do.

When we are free from our fears of self-idealized conceptions, the fragrant mysteries of the earth unfold as a flower does in the morning sun.

Conversation with the Living

Fire, the base, the glowing ember of imagination, is the central point from which all of us have our beginning. From the mind's internal eye, the beginning of life always meets the end in a spiraling awakening. Fire, the principle of heat and light, is the source of all life. Without it, we would be a blank slate. All of the elements that make up the periodic law blend and blaze until the essential elements separate and are withheld at the end, where they subordinate to a greater cause, the system that arranges the classification. This system of cause coordinates these elements according to their atomic number. Likewise, this journal (or conversation) of the human imagination is inherent and latent, manifesting and advancing through a combination of elements in such a way that there is no measurable way for them to occupy or occur in space as to past or future. When we walk out through a sea grass dune that meets the ocean and watch the waves roll in and out, or peer into the vastness of the night sky at the endless points of light, we cannot help but stand and wonder. Are we standing within ourselves?

Most of us, when we think of fire or get too close to its heat, cringe from the thought of pain. This type of fire is the destructive form seen through the workings of nature. The atomic and electrical attributes of fire, if not handled properly, can also be very destructive. However, they are beneficial when controlled wisely. For example, the heat and light of the sun nurture our lives through the workings of the earth from which we get our sustenance. Sentient lives, and all types of animals, know when it is time to move out of the sun into the shade. The fusion of the sun allows us to see, and when we look at a color x-ray of the eye, it bears a resemblance to the sun. In unison with the cosmos, we are constantly generating, assimilating and radiating the elements of fire. Sadly, we use the periodic law of the elements that make up our world to create harmful products. In time, due to friction, these unwise choices will pass because the fire of mind and the fire of matter are always repelling one another. This will allow us to see the wisdom of our actions.

The reality of Cosmic Consciousness consists mostly of energy and love.

The First Light

The First Light and Darkness, the energy of creation, came out of formlessness and created everything that turns in the universe. Darkness and light create insight into stillness and movement. This insight or perception is the cause of living. The attracting and repelling occurrences in nature produce the effects in the environment. When the mind is hurtful and destructive, the qualities of Light can transform what has been dark! Through action nature passes to human vision, humanism through change passes to spiritual vision, and the social structure through discovery passes to Universal Vision. Darkness and Light are all over our world. Through self-discovery, the nature of Light and Darkness can appeal to the heart and mind to become one receptacle that is inclusive to the waves in nature. Thus, the power of Life has its recognition in the person who begins reflecting on the nature of existence.

Who am I? How did I come about? When did life start? What was the reason? Where am I going in life? What we call Life is just a series of events and circumstances formed by the mind in order to give meaning to our relationship with the outward appearance of the universe. 'Who am I' is the Life, the substance out of which creation started. It can be seen and unseen by the mind during its evolution. The energy of the universe forms life and is the cause of our existence, of space and all that exists in it. Life is everything from the grandest of objects in manifestation to the smallest of particles in their makeup: the tiny loops of vibrating energy strings. Life is the sum of the universe and all that is contained within it. Life is the flow of Light upon darkness. It is the intelligent use of the mind over matter in the working of things seen and unseen in nature. The hidden side of things keeps consciousness evolving. It is the true Self reflecting on its relationships among other forms, animal and human. It is the many dimensions of Spirit, the memory of our loved ones. Life is coming face to face with the One Self that guides us toward our Immortality. It is also more than this! Life came into existence out of each of us! It is the sum of you and me!

When you dream, see in those dreams exquisite forms upon on a wave of Light intended only for your destiny. When you dream of memory's dream, the memory of the Self will awaken. It is a great prism of multicolored circles formed around a great wheel of rotating fire. At the speed of light, this great power field weaves and turns. There is no passage of time here, only Diamond Consciousness expanding forever. Matter, Light and Life, the sum of human life, is but a fragment of something greater, seeking to return to its center of being. Peering into a glass of darkness, we slowly come face to face with the Light that opens our own window to the Soul. We each pass onward to greater dimensions of living. Beauty and splendor are all around us. They fly into our visions, and we touch this glory in a lofty moment, only to lose the contact and to sink back again into the dream of life of the First Light. The sights and smells of persons, places and things always share similarities. It not hard to imagine we have been here before. It is the when and how that is hard to pin down.

Our minds make up the world, the First Light of imagining.

Persons, Places and Things

Everywhere we go we leave parts of our Essence to flow over persons, places and things that make up our everyday life and world. We choose what we want to keep, agree upon, or discard. We choose the picture; we write the story in our minds about the meaning and the encounters of these people/places/things. What they mean and what we have learned from them forms our awareness of life. A person independently thinks and reacts from his/her own nature, has rights, and communicates feelings, expressions and mannerisms to others. Humans give meaning to places, which are a part of the earth's surface, large or small. Our concept of things results from an action, abstraction, artifact, event, matter, a statement, an entity, self-existence, a feeling, or movable possessions.

Along with thoughts, we shape our lives from the interactions we have with persons, places and things. When we encounter distress, it is how we hold onto it that causes pain. We should not swim around in the murky waters of others. Instead, we should rely on the Good that we encounter. As to the events and circumstances of life and nature, we should always focus on what is pleasing. Where would we be without the bee making honey or the plant that bears our food season after season? Where would we be without thinking about the earth that gives us water and elements for our tools, or the sun that gives us vitality?

We base knowledge on the input we receive from our involvement and reactions to persons, places and things that enter our minds through the physical organs of sense. We enter life blank. The impressions that come before us are of a material nature and are always fleeting. Yet, the experiences we derive makeup our consciousness because the knowledge of sense objects and what we perceive as truth matches our impressions to persons/ places/things. Awareness or sense impressions are always duplicating reality, imagination, dreams, or illusions. The sensations of duplication produce intense feelings and the conviction of our essential reality. Whatever image we encounter, the strength and vividness of it establishes the perception. What we have come to know is circular, inherent, latent and electrical. Always transmitting, reflecting and absorbing, this Essence permeates the visible with the invisible qualities of persons, places and things. This fine ether bathes all of us. Only our hearts feel how many persons we have spoken to, how many houses we have lived and congregated in, how many streets we have seen empty or filled.

We cannot wait for another person to hand us the key to the mysteries of life. We have to do it alone, one person at a time. We carry in us our own places of exile, our failures and our own negative effects. It is our duty to fight them in ourselves and not let them loose on the world. In this way, we become a friend to all living things.

Like a daily sunrise, all things take form through us and go beyond the earth as person, places, and things.

How We Create

Through the frictions of life, we create and come into existence. From early dawn, our consciousness has been slowly expanding from darkness into Light. Before we could differentiate, how could we say what was? We can only use our imaginations and produce working models of the cause that may or may not be true. What stirred awareness to be cognizant of things? Only by arriving at the end will we be able to grasp some shadows of the Beginning. For an imaginative person there are no beginnings or endings, only transformation. Pundits of the past and present have imagined much about Light and Life but have shed little insight on the causes of creation.

All any of us can do is realize that we are a part of the Cause of creation. We live and have our being within this Orb of Fire and Awareness. As we move around in this source of Light, we can strive to create and preserve the ideas that come from our imaginations, always moving from our lower beginnings to higher ones. Our current periodic table is the grail for human life. Everything in life begins from a combination of these elements. From the combustion chambers of human feeling, to the shaping of an axe handle, and onward to the creation of space technology, the Fire of friction forges these ideas into material reality.

What is the nature of our inner being and can we share it like the periodic elements? Imagination and memory access the inner world. Pictorially, the inner world of imagination and memory is similar to the outer world in shapes and thoughts. Does this Inner Being survive the breakup of the earthly body and the current definition of death? Do we really need proof that we exist now? If we do not need it now, why should we need proof of our existence when we die? Fire radiates and emulates, giving off and copying from itself. If the imagination faded out, would any of us know the specifics about what was? The Light of the heavens and the earth is the Essence of all existence, the mirror and the culmination of what we choose to sense and believe.

Lift the heart into the Light and let the mind be fearless when it is time to enter the Fire with our minds and hands. Define what it means to be imaginative in the periodicity of cycles. Just like the cells of the body, we are constantly renewing. Is it so difficult to imagine that the inner life does the same? There are elements still undiscovered in the living and forging process. The Wheel of Fire turns and so does the imagination.

This fiery circle encapsulates all that we have done. As we pass through the Fire, we can train our imaginations to learn the lessons needed so that we can stand complete.

The things we create come from the Fire of imagination. We can make them more lively or less.

What Kind of Image Do We Want to Become?

The process of training and developing knowledge, skill, character and the study of the methods, processes and effects of life start in the womb and end in the mind. All that exists, between the physical universe and our perception of it, is unfolded from within us. Fire can illuminate, deceive, or destroy our learned and inherited complexes. In order to know what is true, we must give the mind/brain methods in order to be active constructors of worldly order. Contrary to belief, the universe/world is not chaotic; our perceptions and actions make it seem that way.

To understand the true nature of Life we must first be aware of the energy that surrounds the natural order of life. Our minds create from the laws of matter, and matter forms the laws of mind. Whether we desire it or not, we create order and meaning out of the complexity of nature. The great thinkers from the past have constructed complex theories of order, yet we now recognize that those accepted ideas are inadequate. The earth is not the center of the universe; we are. Through our abilities and experiences, we are now just beginning to recognize that Universal Center in our hopes and neurological needs.

The invisible glow and warmth of electricity is all around. It fuels our sun and passes through our world, minds and bodies. We often have very little reverence for this power. We seem to want to reserve that reverence for the institutions and their experts, the secondary processes. Society subtly influences the mind to be overly submissive to the class structure. From childhood through adulthood, humans strive to find the meaning and importance of their space. We should attempt to understand what others are doing and saying without resorting to dangerous retaliation. Personal or institutional retribution is a learned tendency inculcated by others. The natural order of energy, the Fire of Life, is not interested in persuasion. This energy merely acts as a builder, a conserver and archetype of our thought processes and cultural inheritances. As receivers, assimilators and transmitters, we are the creators of that legacy.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from PASSING THROUGH THE FIREby D. C. KERNS Copyright © 2011 by D. C. Kerns. Excerpted by permission of BALBOA PRESS. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.