Beyond the Island

by John W. Steele

Chapter 4

In the beginning I didn’t understand what I was doing. Lord Nagual would lead me to certain women. They were always blonde and possessed a style, presence, and natural beauty that was unique. All I had to do was bring them to Lord Nagual, who would take them somewhere.

The Nagual claimed no harm would come to them; and because of his godlike powers and my fear of him, I believed him. In return for my service, he provided me with more money than I could spend, always deposited in an off-shore bank account with my name on it. I had entrapped six victims so far, and Karen would be the seventh.

Despite my newfound wealth, Lord Nagual kept me so busy with rituals that I scarcely had any time to enjoy the money. He demanded that I focus my complete attention on the mundane sense impressions of my day-to-day existence.

He was meticulous about time and had an obsession with moments. He referred to moments as arrangements and said that moments were windows in eternity. Those able to control moments were able to create their destiny. The Nagual said all meaningful change depended upon the windows and that the windows we choose to look through become our reality.

Lord Nagual referred to me as an islander, and he claimed that islanders are incarcerated in the material realm of existence. He called those imprisoned on an island “wanderers” or “frags.” He told me that everyone sentenced to an island is rooted in an Overself that can never die. They remain trapped in the realm of illusion because they use the filter of discrimination to conceal the inconceivable totality of knowledge that surrounds them.

As his apprentice, I was expected to sit for hours with no particular objective other than to listen to the sounds of the world around me. In the beginning, this ritual was so boring it almost drove me mad, but as time went by, my ears seemed to unplug.

I realized that I’d lost contact with most of the sound impressions that composed the fabric of my awareness. This observation was true for my other senses as well. As I progressed in these meaningless exercises, I began to understand that the borders of my reality were created by a mere fragment of the limitless raw data outside the windows of my perception.

Through sustained periods of pinpointing the awareness, my concentration grew powerful. The windows of perception expanded and became transparent. Inside and outside were no longer separated and became as one. Chambers of mind forever hidden in darkness were revealed, and the source of the data that created my island was exposed. Reality became more and more synthetic until I could no longer accept its premise. I realized mind was a prison in which I’d been incarcerated.

Though there were times in a waking state when I could not rationally accept that these astral journeys had occurred, they were etched in vibrant pictures and emotions on the canvas of my memory. And though the matter in these realms was of a different nature, I could not validate beyond a shadow of a doubt that many of the images that comprised the chronicle of my memories were anything more than illusions when viewed from the summit of the present.

Ordinary and non-ordinary memories were identical in substance. They existed as descriptions and fragmented pictures, entirely subjective and incomplete at best. I realized that all I understood about the world was created by my description of it. What I perceived as reality was my interpretation of sensations exposed through the windows of my awareness.

Because my perceptions were entirely subjective, there was no way to validate if my reality was similar to that of others on my island. This insight forced me to accept that general consensus created the accepted definitions of reality. This consensus formed the walls of an island regardless of the foundation on which the walls were established.

As I became more familiar with the different levels of awareness, it became apparent that much of what I understood as personal history was only a series of memories based on a shared consensus of the moment. I had formed many opinions within this consensus that were entirely erroneous.

After careful observation, I realized that perception was subject to flaws and misinterpretation, and that hard evidence lost all significance when exposed to the glaring beacon of truth and ideals. The reality of the present moment was not the same as the reality one thousand years ago. Therefore, it could not be called reality. The present, past and future were all an illusion established by the fashion, style, and manipulation of conditions and circumstances that exist where highly defined lines of time and space intersect.

My journeys through inner space grew evermore vibrant and genuine until I was no longer bewildered by the different states of awareness a consciousness can perceive. I felt as if I’d been reborn and I marveled at the unexplored vistas that were now open to my perception. I knew that I’d passed through a conceptual barrier and I became quite proud of my achievement.

When I attempted to relate these experiences to others on my island, my efforts were rebuked. I discovered I’d been labeled a lunatic. Because others were unable to experience my awareness, and I could no longer accept the established paradigm of programmed illusion, I became dark, gloomy, and filled with a sense of angry frustration.

After extensive ridicule and humiliation by others of my species, I grew smug and indifferent to their ideas. I refused to acknowledge the opinions of those I felt were brainwashed by the security of thralldom and hypnosis. I believed I had discovered the original cause, and I became self-righteous and sanctimonious if anyone disagreed with my beliefs or ideology. I knew it all and nothing could change my world.

But everything I ever believed, every opinion I cherished, was annihilated the fateful night I wandered into the primal essence of Id and found myself face to face with the source of my awareness, the indomitable ruling monarch at the throne of my vibration: the inconceivable Lord Nagual.

To be continued...

to Challenge 332...