John: In my next dream, I see the image of a frontier. I’m looking at a map, but it feels like I’m having a depth perception problem: I can see a small body of water on the corner of the map, but I’m unable to orient myself to it.
I know that I have to get properly oriented to the small body of water in order to determine where I am with regard to an even larger body of water. It seems I need to break through a time-and-space limitation in order to reach this determination.
I feel that if I’m able to overcome what appears, in this state, to be a physical limitation, then I’ll be able to get closer to that which is now intangible.
Here again the dream addresses the idea of awakening to a spiritual life, in that it shows how we must accept our initial bewilderment. Until we do, we are limited to having to make sense out of everything we see and experience. Such use of our faculties leaves us confined to the physical level of existence.
However, when we realize that we can actually go beyond that – tune into something more – and bring from afar a closer awareness, that’s when we take a small step on the inner journey which awakens us to a spiritual life.
Until then we are endlessly trying to make sense out of the confusion of the outer reality. In that state, we’re unable to access that which is more real. However, in this imagery, there is the sense that I am being nudged a bit to break this state of amnesia. I’m shown that I lack the perception and alignment to function properly.
In the next dream, I find myself bidding for a property at auction. I’m surprised to find out, when I get the property, that it’s where I grew up as a child, even though its appearance has changed. It’s the same land, but the trees have been cut and the place is more visible and less protected. It’s more out in the open.
The little house that had been there is gone. Instead what I see is a small house that’s been built into the ground; soil even comes up over the roof and I see things growing around the top.
Outside the house I see tall, closet-like furniture pieces that are nicely varnished. I draw the conclusion that whoever lives there now remains hidden in the house, but when he comes or goes to work, or moves about, he’s designing and shaping a product that can be used by others. This product is varnished and really sparkles and is designed to hold things.
One way to understand this imagery is to say that the time comes for every human being to realize that there is more to life than just their history in the outer world – the record of what they have done. This is when spiritual life takes another step, and we begin to probe our inner depths. We start to go underground.
In my particular case there is something hidden (we don’t see the owner of the house, but we know he’s there because we see his work outside the house). The two aspects – the inner and the outer – haven’t pulled themselves together yet.
So in the outer world, I’m still functioning with this gap. The house itself is underground. I’m shaping and designing things, but the depths of my inner self are still buried. In the outer world, there’s the polishing. I’m using the outer world to polish, but I still have to retreat from it and go underground.
The mystery of the inner and the outer is astir, but hasn’t come together. The external evidence glistens to a certain degree as a type of container, but I’m not able to actually look or go into the containers. I’m standing and looking at them from afar – they’re shiny and varnished, yet I don’t know quite what they’re meant to hold.
The spiritual life in us begins to unfold as the above and below are reconciled, the inner and the outer.
In these recent dreams I have dreamt three phases in the awakening process that everyone is destined to experience as they come into spiritual life (see The Stirring Within). Until a person comes out of the first phase and becomes conscious of something more, the predominant outer world prevails and spiritual life remains dormant.
So again, I must say: every person is meant to awaken to a spiritual life and that awakening takes time. These steps, which are little steps at the beginning, can bring a person to recognize that there is something more, but that only brings them to the threshold.
