Journey

The first journey I call the journey to presence. Our inquiry is primarily in our familiar conventional reality, exploring the beliefs and barriers that keep us from resting in the immediacy of our present experience. In this journey, the functioning of the essential aspects, the various qualities of our beingness, serve to motivate our inquiry. (Spacecruiser Inquiry, pg 50)

The second journey begins as we learn to recognize Essence, the dimension of essential manifestations of Being …this second journey is a journey with presence, meaning that the dimension of the essential manifestations of Being is available to all experience as a matter of course, whereas in the first journey those manifestations are tasted only occasionally and serve mostly as incentives to continue the journey of discovering Being. So, on the second journey, as new dimensions begin to arise, one after another, we need a nonconceptual openness to drive our inquiry. ...developing this capacity for immediate and direct contact with one’s experience and the understanding of how this contact is available at any time becomes an ever present ground for the open not-knowing that characterizes the second journey. (Spacecruiser Inquiry, pg 51)

The third journey is a way of referring to journeying in presence, in nondual reality ...in other words, in the third journey, the traveling is an immediate and continually spontaneous manifestation of realization ...perception at this level is nothing but the illumination of the Absolute essence of Being. There is the perception of this mysterious depth, and its glimmerings are the manifestations of the various dimensions, the various star systems. Whereas in the second journey, the manifestations of Being continually shift from one to the next in the dynamic movement of the soul’s unfolding experience, in the third journey the unfolding is no longer a movement through time but a constant arising of all experience from the absolute source in the now. There is no spatial travel, no sense of process taking us to another dimension. The dimensions manifest spontaneously and instantly, as the continual emanations from the mysterious essence of reality. (Spacecruiser Inquiry, pg 53)

Journey and identity

In the first journey, your identity is on the ego level, which is the familiar sense of self-recognition. This identity is a reflection of the particular ego structure that defines you in relation to your experiential field. In the second journey, the identity is the Point, the point of light and existence, the Essential Identity. In the third journey, the identity is the mystery of Being itself, the Absolute. (Spacecruiser Inquiry, pg 162)

Journey and mandala

In the second journey, the distinguishing characteristic of your personal thread is the essential presence, something that is not available in the first journey. Because of this, we can’t clearly talk about unfoldment – the direct impact of the dynamism of Being in the soul – in the first journey, even though there is the current of experience. We can speak about unfoldment quite precisely in the second journey because the center, which is the essential presence, is arising as one quality after another. Inquiry in the second journey means inquiring in order to know where you are – finding out where you happen to be on your journey. I don’t mean just your location in the field of the mandala – the manifestations of your life such as your emotions, thoughts, or actions. I mean where you are at the center, the place that is touched by Being. This means finding your place, recognizing your location in the essential space. (Spacecruiser Inquiry, pg 164)

In the journey of ascent, the individual soul penetrates the various dimensions of creation and manifestation, which are garments in which the absolute was hidden. The journey of descent, however, is conscious donning of these garments by the absolute. The ascent is like a movement inward, while the descent is a movement outward; in the first the absolute gains its conscious awareness, and in the second it retains this awareness within manifestation. Hence, the descent is into manifestation, but not into exile and alienation. Therefore, just as the journey of ascent is that of shedding and separation leading to the simplicity of singlehood, the journey of descent is that of integration and union leading to the richness of wholeness. (Inner Journey Home, pg 415)

Whenever we do any work on ourselves, or engage in any way in the inner journey, we are invariably working with our soul. There is nothing else to work on. When we can recognize the soul explicitly, our work becomes more exact and to the point. Understanding the soul clarifies what needs to be done and how it can be done. (Inner Journey Home, pg 16)