Exploring Uncharted Legions of the Mind

IMG_0123

View of the grounds at TMI in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia

How brave are you really? Would you dare to enter the uncharted legions and depths of your mind?

I did. Repeatedly. I’ve always been interested in how the human mind works; I should have been a psychologist. Through my personal studies, though, I’ve discovered that truly NOTHING is impossible. Whatever the mind can conceive, it can achieve–or–if you can imagine it, you can make it happen.

I just completed a six-day program at The Monroe Institute (TMI) in Virginia, called “Timeline”, which focuses on the exploration of past, present, and future lives and how they influence our current lives. Fascinating stuff.

This painting by Salvador Dali pretty much sums up the sort of things I’ve experienced during programs at TMI:

Salvador Dali

Wait–you don’t get it? No, no drugs are involved. Let me attempt to explain.

You spend most of your time in your CHEC unit (Controlled Holistic Environmental Chamber), which is more or less a bed that’s enclosed on all sides except for an opening, which allows you to crawl in and out. A heavy black drape covers the opening so that the entire unit is completely dark to minimize external sensory distractions and maximize internal focus. Through headphones, you listen to recorded exercises, which are similar to guided meditations with the incorporation of Hemi-Sync® binaural beats. (More about this later.)

CHEC Unit

CHEC Unit

IMG_0149

The founder, Robert Monroe’s home, where the “Timeline” program took place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What does it feel like to enter another dimension of consciousness?

(Please keep in mind that these are my personal experiences—those of others may vary.)

After a series of mental steps to help you feel comfortable and safe during your “excursion,” you are then guided to different levels of consciousness which are referred to by number, i.e. C-1 represents full, waking consciousness, followed by F10, F12, F15, F21, F27 and so on. The “F” stands for “Focus Level.” F10, for instance, indicates the state of “mind awake/body asleep” and in F10, you feel as if you’re on the verge of falling asleep, but you can still feel your body lying on the bed and you’re fully aware that you’re in a room and what you’re doing there. In F12, (the state of expanded awareness) you begin to let go a bit more, and when I “arrive” in F12, I often “see” someone waiting for me there. Sometimes it’s someone I know in my current life, or sometimes it’s someone I’m familiar with but don’t know personally. It appears that these “people” always have a personal message for me, something I’ve been ignoring and need to address because they seem to get immediately in my face and are generally very insistent.

Often the images I encounter in the different levels of consciousness are symbolic or metaphors for something in my waking life and sometimes I know exactly what they mean; other times I never seem to figure them out. So far, the meaning of the images I encounter immediately upon my arrival in F12 are pretty easy to decipher, because it’s always a person (as opposed to an inanimate object, or a sound or a feeling) and he or she instantly moves toward me as if we’re opposite magnets.

Throughout any focus level, I am always in complete control of what I’m experiencing, and I have the ability to end the session or ask for clarification on anything at any time I choose. This is extremely important, because before my initial sessions at TMI, I was afraid that I would somehow relinquish control of my mind. But this is NOT the case. Ever. I always have control, but sometimes I have to remind myself of that fact! Just like in my everyday life.

galaxy-379213_640 Most of the Timeline program took place in F15, the state of consciousness where time doesn’t exist. It is a very deep, meditative state and there’s a feeling of floating. During my first experiences in F15, I found it a bit difficult to breathe; it felt as if my “surroundings”, for lack of a better word, were thick and intense, as if I was floating in a substance as dense as ketchup. Once I became more familiar with it, though, I told myself to relax, told myself that I could breathe easily, and that knowledge allowed me to float effortlessly and allow experiences or realizations to come to me. It’s like having a dream, where you’re in the REM state and you’re not aware of your physical body.

What I’m attempting to relate is nearly impossible to describe in words, because I experienced a richness to my sessions, where my visuals were accompanied by feelings and the use of all (or most of) my senses, but in a much more heightened manner. My perception also varied from one session to the next. (Sometimes I would simply “click out” or fall asleep, and experience nothing! This isn’t uncommon.)

TMI logo photo by Baja Rock PatFor instance, I interacted with energies that were clearly not human, but whom seemed to know me and (often) love me unconditionally, and the words “alien” or “angel” or “spirit” or whatever familiar term one might attach to it, does not adequately describe what I thought, felt, saw, or heard. The terms alien, angel, or spirit are relative terms anyway–they mean something different to each of us. TMI refers to them as “other energies or other energy systems,” a more appropriate description, because these “individuals” weren’t made of flesh like you and me, but of vibration, or energy, or thought. And just because they weren’t in human form didn’t mean they were more intelligent or advanced than we are. Now isn’t that an interesting concept?

walnut half During several sessions, I received a “knowing” that where I had requested to go (you set an intention for each exercise) required me to leave my physical body behind, and I worked very hard to make this happen. (That was my first mistake–“working very hard.” I now know that by trying to force things, it only hindered me–again, just like life.) In F15, my body felt heavy and “crispy,” and like a walnut shell that’s cracked in half, if you scoop out the nut, the empty shell remains the same shape it was in before you removed the nut, so too, my body retained its shape, but it was as if the top part had been removed, and my “insides” were rather gelatinous and began to “slosh” back and forth horizontally from head to toe like when you shake a bowl of jello. This gelatinous part of me then began to vibrate as it attempted to float upward, but it never got “out” completely. It rose up about three or four inches, but something kept it attached to my crispy shell (body).

Many who have experienced the out-of-body state, describe a vibration feeling that happens just before they leave their bodies, but some describe leaving their bodies without that feeling. I think my focusing too much on trying to achieve the out-of-body state may have been the very thing that kept me tethered at times. And although during the entire 6-day program, I never got the feeling that I completely went out-of-body, I’m certain that it happened many times without my ever realizing it, because there were times I knew I was completely immersed in another dimension of consciousness without regard to how I got there (because “how I got there” wasn’t important at the time; I wasn’t focusing on that aspect). My body felt paralyzed, in a sense, but my mind went jaunting off into other “territories”.

In addition to being limited by words to describe such experiences, another challenge is that there is no empirical proof whether the things one has experienced are real or imagined; but perhaps a more important question is: “If I just imagined all this, why did I imagine this particular scene and not something else?” The mind is a powerful tool, and when you let go of trying to control your environment, and simply allow things to come to you, amazing things happen. This isn’t just true for TMI sessions, it is true for one’s everyday waking state as well.

meditation-389700_640 The Timeline program reinforced in me that I am much more than my physical body, and that “I” do not end with death. In several sessions, I actually experienced the dying process of my physical body in previous lifetimes, although I did not allow myself to feel the pain associated with it. I realize this sounds frightening, but I learned so very much from these exercises. What I experienced was a separation of spirit and body, a release similar to my being given an epidural during the births of my children, and the moment the drug took effect, the pain vanished instantly. The death experiences felt similar to that–the moment the spirit left the body, there was instant relief from pain, combined with a release from mental anguish as well. This was completely unexpected, and the “I” who was witnessing the whole scene, was surprised at the tremendous sense of relief and release.

In 2003, I had an out-of-body experience (OBE) in the middle of Sammy Hagar‘s concert, and that moment changed my life. While in the out-of-body state, I “saw” landscapes that were clearly not earth, and beings that were not human. Thousands of them. I wrote about this in Dance of the Electric Hummingbird. At the time, I assumed they were representations of alien worlds that exist beyond human comprehension. Now, after the things I experienced at TMI, I wonder if they were glimpses of previous lives that I had lived, or future lives, because there is a school of thought that considers that we may indeed, be living all of our lives simultaneously, similar to the space-time continuum theory in physics. With this theory in mind, some say that just as each of our cells makes up different parts of us, all these other lives are merely different aspects or parts of us–each being integral to the whole. And ultimately, just as these different aspects of us make up one whole that we think of as the “self”, we too, are all different aspects of what we call God–each of us connected to form one consciousness that is God.

I can certainly see now, how this could very well be possible.

I also saw that since “I” exist far beyond the constraints of my physical body and that since the boundaries of what I call “me” overlap and merge with other living and non-living beings, what I do to others (or to the earth), I also do to myself.

Too, it’s important for me to realize the blessing of existing here, right now, in this physical body, for there are aspects of spiritual growth that cannot be learned by any other means. Therefore, I shouldn’t squander my life fretting over “the small things,” because every moment is meant to be enjoyed with every fiber of my being.

wave-64170_640 I learned that if I look closely enough, and with the eyes of a child (Zen calls this “Beginner’s Mind”), I can actually see my entire essence—the very essence of life itself, in a drop of rain, the veins of a single leaf, in a freckle on a stranger’s face, the song of a cardinal, and in every being—living and non-living. All of these things are me and they, like me, since we are all fibers of God, are infinite. Time is merely an illusion; it’s something humans created to make sense of and feel in control of our environment.

At the risk of sounding presumptuous, I believe that my initial OBE during the rock concert, planted a kind of “seed” in my subconscious. This seed continues to grow the more I feed it spiritual wisdom, the sort of wisdom I uncover during TMI sessions, because these sessions put me in contact with—and enhance—dimensions of my mind (that are also in contact with higher levels of consciousness) that I previously never knew existed.

Bob Monroe's Cabin photo by Baja Rock Pat

Robert Monroe’s cabin, where he wrote most of his books on his many out-of-body experiences and the exploration of altered states of consciousness

Why is any of this important when there are people starving in the world and so many other important things one could be focusing on?

The exploration of the mind and its capabilities can give us insight into the reasons we behave the way we do, help us achieve personal goals, and give us tools to teach others, thereby healing the world by first healing ourselves. Visiting some of my other lives not only explained the roles certain people play in my current life, it also showed me how and why I adopted some of my limiting beliefs. Knowledge, then, is power—the power to change and to better myself. I shall continue to explore the power of my mind and spirit, for there is much to learn, and that, I believe, is the meaning of our lives—to grow and to experience emotion in its many forms–the greatest and most important of these–is love.

TMI by Baja Rock Pat

Giant crystal on the property

(To read about my first experience at TMI, please click here: Gateway to Altered States of Consciousness)

**TMI is dedicated to exploring human consciousness and peak human performance with the use of Hemi-Sync® audio technology, which uses the scientifically adapted method of binaural beats to induce the meditative state and bring both left and right hemispheres of the brain into balance. The balanced brain then, is much more capable of achieving things of which it may not have previously been capable, thereby providing a tool to help listeners achieve goals such as weight loss, quitting smoking, improved concentration, stress or pain relief, and many other areas of self-improvement. For more information, please visit http://www.monroeinstitute.org/resources/hemi-sync

Mystical Experiences — BRIAN WEISS, M.D. on Past Lives and Reincarnation

clip_image002

September 1, 2009

In March, 2007, I had the pleasure of attending a lecture by Brian L. Weiss, M.D. Weiss is the author of numerous books, one of which I’d read a few years earlier entitled Many Lives, Many Masters. In this book, he describes his initial skepticism and subsequent belief in the existence of past lives and reincarnation.

While treating one of his patients, a girl in her 20s by the name of Catherine, the girl started recanting things while under hypnosis that she couldn’t possibly have known. With Catherine’s permission, Dr. Weiss began to record their sessions. Through regression under hypnosis, Catherine’s symptoms eventually disappeared one by one until she was completely cured of every one of her ailments.

At first Weiss couldn’t believe what he was seeing. His medical training prevented him from believing in such things as reincarnation or past lives. But through his work with Catherine, he became convinced without a doubt that these concepts were authentic and the results provable.

And as he began to adopt these notions, he too, began to change as a person. He felt a new sense of joy, hope, and purpose in his life. Others remarked how much happier he seemed.

This is similar to what happened to me, but in my case, the change didn’t sneak up quietly, it was more like the “Big Bang!”

clip_image002[6]

In another of his books, Messages from the Masters, Weiss writes about a man named John who was an audience volunteer at one of Weiss’ workshops. John agreed to be regressed in front of the hundreds of people in attendance. As Weiss hypnotized him, instead of a past life recollection, John had a spiritual experience. He saw a beautiful garden and felt an overwhelming sense of elation, beauty and awareness, causing him to realize that “Paradise on earth is possible if we choose it.”

Tears of joy flowed from his eyes because he knew something had changed for him—at that moment, his skepticism disappeared and he was introduced to the realm of raw emotion—the language of the soul.

After his experience, John began to receive synchronistic messages of gardens in many aspects of his life, as if to validate his transformation.

Weiss has since regressed thousands of people and helped them overcome physical and mental ailments. He has also demonstrated how to tap into other states of reality from our present mental state, and to “feel the pure joy, the ecstasy, the peace, and the beauty” that results from the experience.

This was precisely how I would describe what had happened to me during Sammy Hagar’s concert in Cabo: pure joy, ecstasy, synchronicity.

Past lives and reincarnation… What do you think?

The Saga Continues…

October 25, 2010

clip_image001

Jewelle St. James and I have a lot in common. Many years ago, as a wife and mother, Jewelle was merely going through the motions of life when something supernatural and unexpected happened to her involving a famous rock star. It forever changed her life.

It was 1980. World-legendary rock musician John Lennon of The Beatles had just been murdered and Jewelle, who wasn’t even a Lennon fan, was suddenly overcome by a grief so overwhelming that it consumed her entire life. Then strange things began happening. It made no sense; what was going on? Confused and concerned about her sanity, she set out in search of explanations.

What she discovered blew her mind.

Like me, Jewelle learned that she had shared a past life with a famous musician whose spirit was the driving force leading her on her journey to self-discovery. And like me, she fought against the otherworldly truths that were being revealed to her. Why? Well, for one thing, because it was preposterous!

Although Jewelle and I present slightly different angles with our stories (each person’s journey is tailored to his or her specific requirements for spiritual growth), she and I share the insatiable need to let the world know that there is so much more to life than what’s on the surface. We want others to keep their minds and their hearts open because you never know where your truths may be found. I wonder how many have had spiritual awakenings through Elvis? More on this in another post…

But truth is truth in any form, and it is my belief that we all recognize truth when we encounter it even though sometimes our logical brains tell us we’re being ridiculous.

Jewelle’s book, All You Need Is Love: A Past Life with John Lennon, is about her search for truth. It’s about reincarnation and the discovery of self through that means. Her story will assure you that love never dies and that underneath it all, love is truly all you need…

Following is our interview. My words are in italics.

P: Hi Jewelle, thank you for taking your time to reach out to others by granting me this interview. I’d like to begin by asking you what made you want to write about your experience.

J: Thank you Pat, for requesting this interview. I believe that my experience was meant to be shared, to be a voice of many, sharing personal metaphysical experiences. I hope to contribute to worldwide investigations into the concept of past lives and how they affect our present lives.

P: You’ve demonstrated that by accepting the reality of our past lives, it can help us heal in our present lifetime. Even from wounds we may have been unaware of where they came from. For instance, maybe a man has an inexplicable fear of starving, so he eats too much and although he knows it’s not good for him, he can’t seem to stop himself.

J: Yes. The evidence of  past lives sometimes emerges as unexplainable patterns in our current lives screaming for attention and healing. A favorite quote: “If you want to know your past, look at your present life. If you want to know your future, look at your present life.”

P: You also talk a little about the philosophies you discovered, such as “love is really all there is…” and “The soul is able to see all…” “We write our life script before we’re born and later we’re amazed when the right people and the right circumstances enter our lives when really, we’ve arranged it all ourselves…”

How did all these philosophies affect you? Did they make you want to explore them further?

J: These philosophies have given me much peace of mind and a knowing that there is a grand design in each of our lives. I am currently exploring more, but it’s a delicate balance. One cannot force spiritual understanding, it unfolds in its own time and yet clues are always present. This is my experience anyway.

 

P: Don’t ever give up! You also wrote that your sister’s spirit told you, “We think our lives are separate; it’s all one play, one picture…Tell your story so others can see where their lives are; what is their big picture, for the big picture is the only picture…”

This is exactly what I “saw” when I had my mystical experience—how everything is connected.

J: My other book, Jude: My Reincarnation from Auschwitz came about because of a memory since childhood but I didn’t think of it as a past life, it was just a part of me, like my arm or whatever.

After All You Need Is Love was written, a channeled poem (about the Holocaust) came to me in a short two minutes, and believe me I’m no poet! The poem became a guidepost in discovering my last life ending in Auschwitz.

When I visited Auschwitz in Poland, and gazed across the snowy quiet Auschwitz-Birkenau where millions of Jews had died, there was a split second where I understood that all time is one. Later it was hard to wrap my head around that concept, but for those several seconds, I understood.

P: And that’s how it happened to me too—in a matter of several seconds, I understood. The trick then becomes how do we hold onto it and incorporate it into our daily lives?

J: “Peace that passeth all understanding.” For me that quote means having faith in the unseen and the extraordinary spiritual events that endlessly flow. It took me a long time and a lot of tears to get to that point.

P: You also said that it was John Lennon’s guidance that kept you going on your search, allowing you to learn more about yourself in the process—that he was a major player in your lessons and without him, you wouldn’t have learned so much. It’s a spiritual connection. How can one know when this is real and not just imagined? i.e. a fan inventing a connection to a celebrity?

J: I was never a Beatles fan, yet I grieved for John Lennon as if I’d known him. This was the core of my confusion and for years, no one was more skeptical than me. The fact that he was a rock star made me go to the ends of the earth to truly receive the truth one way or the other. I always say, if he’d been the next door neighbor I wouldn’t have had a problem in accepting the explanation that I knew him in another life. To this day (in my mind) it’s John Baron guiding me, although I’m positive Lennon and Baron are the same soul. John Baron was the  man I knew and therefore I am more comfortable with his spiritual guidance. However, there have been unexplainable communications concerning Lennon, not Baron, that have taken decades to process and accept.

P: You mention how you constantly doubted and even when you asked for signs to verify things and they were given to you, you still doubted. You even doubted your experience. I did the same thing. How can a person avoid this doubting? Because it’s times like that, that often cause us to give up and go right back to our old ways of doing things. Then of course, we don’t grow.

J: It’s healthy to doubt when you’re dealing with the unknown, I believe. Many times I tried to ignore it all. It wasn’t until ten years ago, that I reached a point when the synchronicities and discovering the relevant ancient records, to name only two, were so overwhelming that I could no longer argue with my own evidence. Then I finally surrendered. It was a spiritual moment that could have only unfolded in its correct time. I accepted the love that is obviously guiding in my life.

P: That must have been an immensely comforting revelation—to finally be able to accept it completely. In your book, you wrote, “All of it has always been real…”

J: For so long I lived in a place of frozen confusion. It’s taken nearly thirty years to truly understand that my story is real and meant to be shared—that it’s my life’s mission—yet there are aspects of my journey that I will never understand.

P: I love how you say, “We don’t have to completely understand something to believe it’s real.” How do you know this?

J: My Auschwitz-Birkenau experience of clearly seeing that all time, and all peoples are one, was a major turning point in accepting the wonders of life although paradoxically it was beyond my rational understanding.

P: Getting back to the beginning of your story. Can you describe your initial experiences and what it was that lead you to investigate John Lennon?

J: My initial reaction to John Lennon’s death was an instant debilitating grief that lasted for three years. When I finally received a possible reason for my pain (that I had loved and lost him in another life in southern England), it gave me a focus, and a way to try to eliminate that pain. This focus resulted in twenty years of research and investigation.

P: That’s a long time! Do you think the way you were raised may have affected what happened to you?

J: I was raised to (spiritually) keep an open mind so therefore was finally able to seek guidance from my psychic mother and sister (although that still took me years to request their help).

P: Do you consider yourself a religious person?

J: I believe in God but am not connected to any church or religion.

P: Can this sort of thing happen to someone who isn’t spiritual?

J: Although I was from a spiritual type family, when John Lennon died, I was 27 years old, a young wife and mother. My head-space wasn’t exactly into understanding my grief over his death let alone what the reason could be. So, if someone else were in my shoes, spiritual or not, the same confusion and pain would exist, I believe.

P: Even someone who doesn’t believe in reincarnation?

J: Initially my opinion/understanding of reincarnation was neutral, it held no interest to me one way or the other so if applied to someone else, it would be a matter of their personal need, or not, to investigate and receive answers.

P: Do you consider yourself psychic? Have your psychic abilities grown since this experience?

J: I feel I’m intuitive but could not give anyone a psychic reading! My awareness has grown but maybe that comes with age and wisdom?

P: And perhaps with a little help from your friends not in physical form? You wrote that John’s spirit told you, “The consciousness of the planet can be raised through the arts.” You also wrote that John’s spirit told you that your job was to keep his memory alive so people would remember the messages he tried to relate to the world through his music… This is an aspect of your relationship with John Lennon and NOT John Baron.

J: You’re right! For years, I only accepted John Baron… Baron’s incarnation as Lennon has been a major stumbling block for me. I just couldn’t grasp that. But those were in the early years—now I understand our many lives, and if a famous life gets thrown into the mix, not to turn away because of my human-based doubts.

P: I went through the same thing, worrying that I was allowing myself to be misled by Sammy’s fame and the sheer excitement of the world of rock ‘n’ roll instead of focusing on the underlying message that was revealed to me. And yet, for me, it’s all tied together. I even found myself writing in my book about how John Lennon said, “when the real music comes to me, the music of the spheres, I am just a medium to relay its message…”

J: I believe all artists channel from a Universal Source. Parts of All You need Is Love were channeled, like someone was “giving” me the sentences, someone from an outside source.

P: Since Lennon was a musician, do you think that part may have played a role? The music part? Because that’s how it all happened to me—through music. Music is a language that transcends barriers between people. Maybe even the barriers of time and death. Recently, I heard Paul McCartney say that “Yesterday” just came to him, as if through a supernatural source.

J: The musical combination of Paul McCartney and John Lennon was pure heavenly brilliance. My personal belief is that John Lennon was a Universal spokesperson, one of many messengers disguised as musicians, and through his gift of music, and long after we are all gone, the music will survive and heal and bring joy.

P: What have others told you they’ve gotten out of reading your story?

J: After reading All You Need Is Love, many have expressed a comfort of knowing love cannot die, nor can our souls.

P: What a beautiful message of hope this is.

J: Your body will whither and die but the spirit lives forever and lost loves never leave us.

P: What was the most difficult part of your journey?

J: The emotional feelings of pain and loss felt through those early years and then mustering the courage to write about my experience.

P: I don’t think many people realize what it takes to write something like this and especially to put it out there to the world in a book! What else did your journey teach you?

J: That every day, in ever way, we are guided, that we are connected to the Divine and to each other, that we all matter, we are all part of an intricate Universal design.

P: Thank you, Jewelle, for being a light in the lives of so many by sharing your story.

J: Thanks, Pat, to you and your readers for your interest.

Jewelle St. James has written several books and articles on reincarnation. For more information, please visit her website at http://www.pastlifewithjohnlennon.com/

Her candid stories continue to enlighten and inspire people all over the world.

Do you think you may have had a past life? Jewelle writes about how to begin your search for answers in “Clues to Our Past Lives.” Read her full article at http://www.merrynjose.com/artman/publish/article_316.shtml (Link provided by permission.)