Zingdad: Hi, 8.
8: Hello, my dear friend. It is good to be talking to you again.
Z: It is! And although we talk all the time, it's been several months since we wrote the previous chapter together.
8: And you have been quite busy in that time, have you not?
Z: I certainly have. After the sale went through on our land, things became quite frenetic for Lisa and I. We had a building site to prepare and then we had a construction company come in to do the structural work on our new house while we cleared vast tracts of invasive vegetation from our land. This took them four months to complete and then the construction company left us with, basically, just a timber frame on stilts. Since then, Lisa and I have been working with a handyman completing our house. The three of us have been working on site every hour that God gives. And now, after four months of exhausting labour, we have at last moved in. The house is very far from done and, to some extent, we'll be living on a building site for a few months still. But we have all the basics and we are here now, in our own home.
8: And you built it yourself.
Z: One of the most rewarding things I've ever done.
8: And now you are ready to record another chapter together?
Z: Yes, indeed. While my hands have been kept busy with the building of the house, I have felt as if my soul has been pupating. So I am very keen to continue the journey of The Ascension Papers with you. And I do believe we are now going to have a conversation about Love, are we not?
8: What is about to unfold is so much more than just a conversation.
Do you recall, in your discussions of your Mountain Experience with Joy-Divine, you came to the understanding that you brought that experience to yourself by choosing to follow your heart? And that your Mountain Experience was the moment of the transition of your soul from one level of consciousness to another?
Z: I recall, yes.
8: Well, what I'd like to add to what Joy-Divine said is that the reason this was the moment when you moved from third density consciousness to fourth density consciousness was because this is when you moved your ego into your heart. You see, by deciding to “follow your heart” you are aligning the separate part of self that resides in duality (which is your ego) with the part of yourself that is connected to the oneness and resides outside of duality (which is your soul). That is what it means to follow your heart.
And when you become a heart-centred being, you are of the fourth density of consciousness.
And, of course, since your Mountain Experience you have done a great deal more work. The preceding chapters of The Ascension Papers have since then been written and there is a great deal of additional work that you have done too that has not necessarily been recorded in these conversations. And so you are ready now. It is time for the next transition in your consciousness.
Z: My second Singularity Event?
8: Yes.
Z: Really, 8? But how? How will that happen? I've been on countless hikes since my first and, well, none of them have...
8: Don't be simplistic. It was not “hiking” that brought you your first Singularity Event. It was your consistent and repeated choices to follow your heart. As it happened, that hike was simply the perfect place at the perfect time for you and Lisa to reach a moment of perfect stillness. It all came together in divine-right fashion for you to touch the heart of oneness and to feel your own eternal connection with All That Is. But it's not about the details of what was going on in the environment outside of you! It's about what happens inside of you...
And inside of you, since your first Singularity Event, as recorded in the preceding chapters, you have willingly opened yourself to the notion of oneness. You have embraced the mystery and accepted the position of the mystic: that you can have a direct experience of, and relationship with, the divine. You have also been willing to face your fears head-on and deal with the very concept of fear itself. And you have been willing to take responsibility for yourself and for your creation of your reality. So you are ready for the next transition.
What is needed now is another moment of true stillness. You clutter your mind with so much noise and your life with so much activity that it becomes very difficult to allow for these great transitions of your soul. Perhaps it is counter-intuitive to you, but indeed it is so that your greatest transformation will always happen when you are at your most still.
Z: Can you help me to understand that?
8: Let me use a very simple example. Throw a stone up into the air, as hard and as high as you can. It accelerates out of your hand in the skyward direction. This is its outward flight. Then, as gravity begins to tug upon it, the stone begins to slow. Finally, at its apogee, the stone comes to a halt. And only then, in this moment of perfect stillness, can it change direction and begin its homeward flight back to you. The flight home features an ever-increasing acceleration, it is true. But the moment of change of direction is right in the middle of the stone's moment of greatest stillness. And you are, right now, again at a point where you can have a great change of direction in your soul. You should have come to this transition already but for the fact that you have not come to stillness. Quite simply, you don't know how. Noise and activity is such an habitual thing for you that you actually know no other. But you really must come to stillness now. Without this stillness, you will not change direction.
If you do not come to stillness, then we can have a long and interesting conversation about love. I can tell you many interesting things about it and we will go off on all those curious tangents that we both enjoy so much and it will all be fine and fascinating, but it will not actually take you where you need to go. You will attain some intellectual understanding about love. But you will gain no knowing in your heart. And the discussion we need to have here must be built upon that sure knowing. Without it, the conversation we both really desire to have, will not occur. We will talk around the heart of the matter and never really get to its essence.
And you will not have the transformation of the soul that such a deep knowing will bring.
Z: So I must... what... meditate? And then?
8: Something more than your normal meditation is required of you. You meditate fairly regularly and that is good. But your meditations are not actually the stillness of being that you think they are. Every meditation chases after one purpose or another. There is no fault with that, but something else is required now. You see, it is now time for you to change your mode of being entirely. Like the stone that has rushed away from the home of the hand, so you too must come to perfect stillness before you can change direction. And, from within that stillness, you must listen only to your heart. It might take you some time to get this right. You are so used to filling every corner of your consciousness with noise and movement that you might need to practice being still quite a bit before you achieve the goal, and are able to really hear your heart.
But I understand that all this is just so much theory to you. What you are asking of me is that I should give you something practical to do.
Z: Yes, please.
8: It is a beautiful irony: until you know how to truly be, you will still need something to do to enable being. (He smiles) This is similar to saying that until you know silence, you need to find something to say to permit your silence. What a marvellous cosmic joke.
But I am able to help you with this. Here is what you should do:
Pick a day in which you have no appointments. Set that day aside. It is to be your day of stillness and listening. Tell everyone that you will be non-contactable on that day. Tell those who share your home with you that you will not speak to them on that day and that they are not to speak to you either. It is your day of silence.
The night before your day of silence, you must switch off your mobile telephone and all such devices that might intrude upon you. You must switch off your computer, your television and your radio. All devices, which you use to input information into your consciousness, must be silent for your day of silence.
On the morning of the day of silence you must allow yourself to awaken without input. In other words, no alarm-clock or similar device. Awaken naturally. Stay in bed and be still. Listen to your heart.
Z: What does that mean, 8? What does it mean to listen to my heart?
8: In due course this will become second nature to you – much more normal and natural even than listening to a sound with your ears. But for now, I do understand that you need some guidance.
You should know that your heart is a portal. It is your connection to the Divine. It can be said that your Inner-Self resides within your heart. It can even be said that the oneness is within your heart. All wisdom and truth and creativity are instantly available and accessible to you through your heart. But you need to learn to listen, truly listen, to your heart. Because it speaks to you quietly and gently in the language of love. But believe me when I say, it speaks very eloquently when it needs to.
Z: Okay. But how do I listen?
8: For a start, make sure there is nothing else taking up residence in your consciousness, making a noise. Your heart will not compete for your attention! This is why you need to ask your family not to speak to you. It is why you must not engage with reading matter, not check your email, not speak to anyone. No external input at all. But you must also not busy yourself with work or chores or other activities. All of these things create thoughts and noise inside your mind. You must come to total stillness within your mind. And the maximum possible stillness of your hands, your body and your ears will assist this greatly.
That is the start.
Then, when you are still, you must listen to your heart. You can, if you need something to do, just listen to your physical heart beating. That will help you because it is a literal listening to your heart. But then you should seek to still your consciousness and see what you receive.
And this is how you should spend your day. Be still. Listen. Wait upon your heart.
Your heart might speak to you more in "feelings" than in words. But, if you pay attention, you will know exactly what those feelings mean.
Z: And then?
8: Then you see what it has to say!
Z: What if it has nothing to say?
8: Don't be obtuse child, all of the oneness is in there! All of life is in there! And life will express itself if you will but pay attention! Look around you at the universe, teeming with vigorous activity. Look at the world outside your window. Look at a drop of water under a microscope. Look at the nucleus of an atom. Where, anywhere, is the oneness saying nothing? The oneness is speaking with passionate eloquence all the time. The only problem is that you are sitting with your fingers in your ears, shouting nonsense doggerel, drowning out the truth and beauty that is flooding in at you all the time from all directions. For just one moment, do you think you can shut up and listen?
Or, to put this in slightly gentler terms: can you let go of your fears and your excuses and just go and see what is there?
Z: I am duly chastised (I smile sheepishly). Yes. I'll do this. Tomorrow is Sunday. I'll make that my day of silence and I'll see what I get.
8: Good.
It might be that tomorrow is just a practice run and that you actually need to do it again at some point. You might even need to spend a few days in silence. Be prepared for that.
Z: Okay, 8.
8: But if you manage, for even a single moment, to get out of the way, to be really still and to truly listen to your heart then, I assure you, you will gain wondrous insights. And it will come to you in your heart such that you know it to be true. Which is quite a different thing from the ideas that you can hold in your head and think about. Knowing and thinking are very different things. And when it arrives, you will have no doubt that it did arrive. It will be a powerful experience. And what arrives will be the basis upon which we will be able to build this chapter.
Will you do this?
Z: I am a bit daunted. It feels like there is so much riding on this and I have no idea if I'll be even get anything out of this. But I'll certainly try!
8: Good then, I shall speak to you again after Sunday...
(Sunday passed and, as intended, I had a day of silence. It is now a week later)
Z: Okay, 8, I had my day of silence. And it was pretty amazing!
8: Very good! And I am so pleased that it went so well for you. Tell us how the day proceeded.
Z: Sure. This is what happened...
On Sunday morning I awoke to the sounds of birds calling outside. As I awoke, I remembered that this was to be my day of silence, so I stayed in bed, quietly listening. Well, truth be told, mostly I was thinking about listening. I was actually filling my thoughts with all kinds of ideas about what listening to my heart should be like and how it should feel if I listened to my heart and what my heart should be saying to me and... well... I soon realised that I wasn't really being very still. So I began to meditate, which went a bit better. I relaxed my body entirely and cleared my mind of all thoughts. Which was great until I realised that I had released all thoughts, and began to think about that. And then I wondered how it would be to listen to my heart without thinking any thoughts. And then I realised I was filling my mind with babble again!
This was when it became apparent to me just how much harder this was going to be than I had initially thought.
I won't bore you with the details of my day, but I will tell you that I was quite often frustrated with myself. "Being still" sounds easy. You just stop thinking, and then you listen, right? I can tell you, it is quite a challenge to break the noise addiction. At least, I found it to be so.
By late afternoon, I was done wrestling with myself. I was done trying to be quiet. I had had enough of attempting to find the right way towards stillness. I was through with trying to listen. So, I decided the day was a waste and that, instead of trying to listen to my heart I should just enjoy the rest of the day. I looked for Lisa to tell her that I was throwing in the towel, that I'd try again some other time. But she was out for a walk with the dogs. So instead I made a snack and went and sat on the deck to watch a truly breath-taking sunset. It was magnificent. As I sat and marvelled with wonderment at the beauty of the spectacle, a deep peace settled over me. And in that quietude something came to me. A thought sidled in through the back-door of my mind. A thought about love. A beautiful thought. And as it arrived in my mind it touched me very deeply, bringing tears to my eyes. I didn't so much think this thought, as feel it. And I felt it to be true.
And then I knew; this was what I had been waiting for! Here it was. Finally, when I stopped trying and wresting... it was simply there in my mind as if it had always been!
I came inside and sat down at my laptop and, before I could think about how I was going to structure this, or what approach I would take, I found myself typing. It flowed out of me in one go, non-stop from my heart through my hands on the keyboard. It barely even nodded at my mind as it passed through. And so here is what I wrote...
I listened to my heart and this is what it said:
In the beginning of every particle of consciousness, right from the ONE, all the way down to the smallest, newest particle of life, there is a moment when that being gains self-awareness. In The Ascension Papers we have paraphrased that moment as that being saying, "Here I am." But self-awareness is always curious. And therefore the next utterance can be paraphrased as, "What am I?"
The journey, it seems, always begins with, "Here I am, but what am I?” Then, the journey itself consists of, "I might be this. No wait, maybe I am that. Or, what if I am this." On and on and on and on. Always searching for the answer. Each time something new is tried, there is a fragmentation of the consciousness. New beings are sent out on a foray of self-discovery from within the consciousness of the parent being. Variations are tried. Multiples of possibilities explored. Whole clouds of consciousness are expressed. Multiplying and complexifying and then specialising and trying again. Always seeking, yet never finding, that moment of bliss and peace that comes from having found the answer to the question, "What am I?"
And, in every instance, with every answer we have tried, we have pushed away from each other and the ONE. Further and further, we have pushed out. Like a tidal wave that burst forth from but a teacup, we have surged out. Becoming a tsunami of consciousness, we have pushed off from one another – outwards, outwards, ever seeking the truth. Ever seeking the answer...
What
Am
I
?
And here we find ourselves now, living our lives on planet Earth, way down in the densest place of consciousness. You could say that this is about as far out as the wave would ever push because this is about the deepest forgetfulness of the point of origin that could ever be achieved. Thanks to the Veil of Unknowing and the choices we have all collectively taken; this is it. Perhaps it is possible to head out further? Perhaps someone wants to try? I don't. I am ready to be a part of the returning. Like all waves that have pushed up from the greatest depths of the ocean and found themselves crashing to the shore, this wave is going to return. It is going to go surging back with ever-increasing speed and exuberance to its source. To the ONE. We are returning!
And how are we to return?
It begins with the correct answer to the question, "What am I?"
And the correct answer for me, from the depths of my heart, is... Love.
Every other answer I have found only causes me further complexity. Every other answer pushes me outwards and away. Because every other answer implies something else that I am not.
For example. If I am (as I have discovered myself to be) a being called delight, the expression of joy-divine, then I am not all kinds of other things. I am not fear, pain, sadness, loss, anger, hatred or misery.
Obviously.
But I am also not stillness, peace, harmony, order, or patience. I am not even kindness, honesty, justice, valour, dignity, steadfastness, dependability, righteousness or any other such worthy thing.
Do you see? If I choose any thing at all and say, "I am that," then I am, in that very self-same moment, saying, "I am not that," to a whole host of other things. So anything that I would claim myself to be causes separation, division and a pushing away from the oneness.
The only exception to that rule that I can find is the statement, "I am love". Not passion. Not lust. Not need. Not any of these silly, temporary little feelings that we usually refer to when we say the word, love. No. I am Love with a capital L. I mean the kind of Love that looks at another being and sees God in their eyes. Sees the wonder and the perfection inside the heart of that being, irrespective of the exterior they are currently wearing. Love is that which is given to everything and everyone, everywhere, unconditionally, always. That is the Love I am talking about.
I am talking about the kind of Love that puts you down on your knees in gratitude that you are alive. That threatens to crush your heart with the beauty of the world around you. That makes you yearn to find the greatest and best and most magnificent gift that you can find within yourself, simply so that you have something that you can give back to life in gratitude for all that it has given to you.
That is my answer to the question. And so I find that I can declare with surety, steadfastness and conviction, "I am Love!"
And so, for my soul, I am an answer-bearer. I am a particle of life that is going back home. I can feel it! In the very moment of this declaration, the tide has turned. I am in the wave that is done rushing up the shore... and is now pulling back to sea.
And as I go back, so I will collect other particles of Self. I will see everything that I have ever been and done in this lifetime and I will say, "I am love and I am that." And so, yes, I am love and I am Arn who is Zingdad.
And then, as I proceed back home, so I will see particles of Self from my other incarnations and I will say, "I am love and I am this too, and that, and that one, and that one also." And so, yes, I am love and I am Arn, and the wizard, and the autistic boy, and the space soldier, and the Lyran boy... and all that I have thought myself to be. I will declare, "I am love and I am all of these beings!" And all of these beings will get carried home with me in the tide of my Love.
And then I will meet my Inner-Self. I will see it for its amazing and beautiful Self. I will fall in love with this being. And I will see too its wounds and its pain. And I will soothe them all with my capacity for love. “I am love,” I will say, “and I am that!” So I am love and I am Delight and Joy-Divine and all that I have created myself to be, all the way into separation from the oneness.
I am love and I am all of that!
And so, whoever you are. Wherever you are. However you got to being where you are. There will come a time in your journey home, and in my journey home, where we will both be looking at the same great being and we will both say, "I am love and I am that." And then you and I shall be ONE. And indeed, in due course, all beings everywhere, in All That Is, will look to the ONE. And we shall all declare, "I am love and I am that!"
But for now, I can only look forward to that moment when I will know that I am you, and you are me. But because I know that time is an illusion and that all time is really now, I can already look out at you from across the divide of this bit of text. I can see you reading this. I can look at you and say, "I am love and I am that!"
* * * * *
... and that is what I got, 8.
8: Bravo, my friend.
I am well pleased, and so very proud of you. This is beyond beautiful.
And to think that you were worried that your heart might have nothing to say...
Z: Silly, huh?
8: Perhaps. But fortunately you know better now. The only time your heart would ever be still is if you yourself were in such a perfect state of blissful oneness and perfect balance that there would be nothing for it to add.
You see, anything that you do that causes imbalance will result in your heart speaking to you. And the song of returning to balance is the heart-song.
But you must not misunderstand; "imbalance" is not a bad thing! Not at all. If there were no imbalance, there would be no universe, no life, no "you" and no "me". Nothing would exist without imbalance. And Love itself is the returning to balance. So where anything exists, there is love returning that existence to oneness. Love is, therefore, the most powerful force in the universe. It is the pull of oneness itself.
Z: I have so many questions about all this, 8. I don't know where to begin...
8: You have done the work of being silent and listening to your heart and you have thereby attained the basic understanding that you need for us to be able to share this chapter. So I'm going to help you. I'm going to tell you a story that will go a long way towards helping you to clarify your understanding of the way life works and what love is. And then, when you have a better understanding, you'll know with greater clarity what it is that you wish to ask of me.
Z: That sounds great. Thank you, 8. I'd love to hear the story.
8: Here it is then...
Z: I have to say, that is the most imaginative story title you have come up with yet!
8: You like it?
Z: I do. And I wonder what kind of a story could have a title like that?
8: It's a good one. But it's a bit different from most stories you would hear. This one requires of you that you not only listen to the story, but that you do some work to imagine the ideas I am going to express. If you do so, then you will receive the wisdom inherent in the story.
You are, of course, familiar with elastic bands. Well, I'm going to ask you to imagine something which is a little like a rubber band. But instead of being a band, it is a ball. The most curious attribute of this elastic ball is that it is infinite. Infinity is not something that you will easily understand, though, so I am going to take some time to explain this properly.
So the first attribute of the Infinite Elastic Ball is that it can be stretched out an infinite amount in any direction. It never snaps or breaks and it never runs out of stretch.
Secondly, it can be stretched in an infinite number of different directions. And here you are going to have to work with me to imagine this. A rubber band can only be stretched in two directions, right? Either end can be pulled outwards. But the infinite elastic ball can be stretched in every direction. Left, right, up, down, yesterday, next year, green, cinnamon, happy, vibrant, quartz...
Z: Whoa! Are those things directions?
8: For something that is infinite they are. They are directions in consciousness. You live in a narrowly confined, three-dimensional world. You imagine that the cardinal directions in space are the only directions you can move in. Some on your planet have become a little more imaginative and have come to the conclusion that "time" is also a direction. They are right. The next step is to realise that all things are of consciousness and that all consciousness can be traversed. But let's not get stuck here; in due course this will make better sense to you.
Back to the Infinite Elastic Ball. If you take these two properties: that it can be stretched out infinitely and in an infinite number of directions, then it follows that this ball includes everything. Nothing is outside of it, and everything is inside of it.
Z: I'm not sure I understand that. But I always have a bit of difficulty understanding the concept of infinity. Are you saying that anything that is infinite must include absolutely everything that exists?
8: Yes.
The word "Infinity" originally comes from the Latin word, infinitas, which means "unboundedness". If something has a boundary, then it is finite. And specifying that anything at all is not inside this ball, is to specify a boundary. But this ball is not finite, it is in-finite. Infinite. So there can be nothing that it does not include.
Z: That's a crazy thought. All things that are infinite, include all other things!
8: Exactly. This is actually a very interesting point that we might want t