Transcendent Experiences
YHWH's Name becomes the Key in the Cosmic Lock protecting all the Treasures of the Universe...And it begins to turn.
There. Now that's a proper chapter heading. It's the only way I know to express the otherworldly and profound nature of that time as YHWH's Name really began to take hold within me.
In the 5th month I stopped the outward ritual of chanting The Name in the morning and the night. But by that time it was "too late." Or, more properly, superfluous. My devotion to the Name had, by that time, created what I can only liken to a gyroscope effect. The Name was "vibrating" within me, and my inner man continued to chant / sing / echo The Name without any further direct, conscious involvement on my part. It was much like when you hear a song on the radio and simply cannot get that song "out of your head" the rest of the day. The Name was there, constantly in my soul, and there was nothing I could do to turn it off, even if I had wanted to. This is true for me even now, 24 years later.
As I was walking I would notice that, "behind" my normal daydreaming thoughts, "Ani-Yod-He-Vav-He" would be constantly repeating in synchronization with my footsteps. As I sang songs The Name came easily to mind in a lyrical substitute for the normal words. And I started to notice this Name everywhere. Everywhere.
Folks, I realize that many of the thoughts and ideas presented here in The Church of Yahweh seem foreign and way out there. To many they are wrong. To others they are actually dangerous. So most people are surprised to find I have a real old-world, classically orthodox approach to the world of religion. I don't do astrology, fortune telling, psychic readings, or channel anything. I believe in, and have actually experienced the value of, much of the old-fashioned "stuff" that fundamentalism is made of:
 | Private Bible study - Folks, you have GOT to be "In The Book." There is simply no substitute for a hands-on approach. And this includes commentaries, cross references, and the whole thing. |
| Group Bible Study - You need to hear other people's ideas, and you NEED to share your own. |
| Fellowship - If the only conversations you have with people (spouses included) center around money and sports and drugs and sex and rock and roll then you cannot possibly gain the full benefits of a community approach to religion. |
| Church - Yes, I believe in regular Church attendance. As a new believer, a babe on the spiritual path, you go to hear & be inspired. But as you mature (and yes, folks, there ARE different phases and levels of spiritual maturity) you need to go to Church EVEN MORE, so you can share and touch others. Whatever your gifts are, they will grow exponentially as you share them. You never learn nearly as much as when you try to teach. "The teacher learns the most of all." (Something about that is just soooo cool I have never gotten over it. It's all connected to the magical and mysterious "As you give so you will receive, pressed down & shaken together....") |
| Prayer - You need to get connected to the Source. This is not about idle thoughts or philosophies, but a dynamic, living RELATIONSHIP with The Divine. |
| A moral life - The 10 Commandments and all that stuff the government wants to make illegal. You simply cannot progress along the spiritual path if you are harming other people in any way. And you cannot have a relationship with Yhwh if you don't even respect simple human relationships. |
| Health - Any kind of external substance will weaken you. But beyond being free of drugs you need both strength and stability. If you are anorexic, obese, a workaholic or any other kind of -aholic, you are harming yourself and you will not progress nearly as quickly, if at all. |
Over the course of time I came to recognize this as The Revealing Science of God. To take the ideas we have learned about the scientific method (seeing a problem, doing book research, consulting colleagues, performing experiments, publishing our results, etc) and applying them to the Quest for God.
The experience of momentum is real. Everything you do propels you toward similar experiences. All of the above factors begin to work together, and the whole is greatly diminished by the loss or weakening of even one aspect.
Now I hadn't formulated any of this when I started chanting The Name. But I was most blessed that all of those factors were present in my life:
| Being a religion student, and being personally interested, I was doing a lot of private and group Bible study. |
| Having been burnt so badly the previous summer, I was 100% substance free, riding my bicycle a lot, very healthy and strong. |
| I was playing the organ at a Church, so was involved in regular worship. And since I was playing music, I was sharing with others what I had been given. |
| And I was most definitely involved in daily prayer and meditation (not the same thing, of course, but often related.) |
And, for me, the "environment of my life" was a magnificently balanced environment (again, in no small measure due to the hard work and love of my parents) within which the Seeds of God Consciousness could begin to grow.
Self Transcendence
The overriding experience at that point, as I relate in the previous chapter, was this "Phase-5 Prayer" wherein my personal identity evaporated into this all-consuming Divine Communion....With-Union.
And then I noticed Christ talking about "Not my will but Thy will be done." And talking about how he and the Father were one. "He who has seen me has seen the Father."
And St. Paul talking about "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me."
And a host of other Bible verses. I began to see that the entire Bible is a history and guidebook to Self Transcendence, moving from the small, space-time, ego-centered little "i" to becoming a vessel for God to pour through. That we would eventually know as much about God as He knows about us (1 Cor 13:12). And that only God could know anything about God's thoughts except for the Spirit of God (1 Cor 2:11). Which had to mean that eventually God would know God fully as God.
Which is exactly what Dan told me I would find.
And the whole idea of Jesus...Not just to be worshipped, but a living power and person to be united with. United with him in his death we can be one with him in resurrection and the ascension back to Yhwh, where we too can know that "I and the Father are One."
Oh my Sweet Lord.
It was all a bit too much for me to take, the love that was shining all around me.
The Name is Everywhere
Not only was the "vibration" of this gyroscopic Name-chanting effect constantly going on, but I started to see the entire world around me as an aspect of The Name.
| The physical matter was the lower Hey. |
| All life (plants, insects) were matter inbreathed with life, the Vav. |
| And the higher animals, expressing intent and desire, were extensions of the upper Hey. |
| And the Yod (as in Yoda, the enlightened one in Star Wars, and no that is not a coincidence, and yes George Lucas knew what he was doing) represented mind and consciousness and self-awareness, and thus was the human race. |
And each and every single person had body (Hey), life (Vav), desire/emotion (Hey) and mind (Yod). They even had the indwelling spark of God itself, which the western world calls the Spirit (the soul consisting of thoughts, desires, emotions) which I realized was symbolized by "Ani", the eternal "I".
And very quickly I started to see that each and every single person was a walking Yod-Hey-Vav-Hey, made in the image of Yhwh. And I was able to meditate on the philosophical nature of Words (In the beginning was The Word), being related to Names (names being just a personalized word), and Images...Until I realized that Names and Words ARE Images, reflections in the mind-realm of the thing named.
Man, made in the Image of Yhwh.
The Name being an Image of Man.
I am God's Name.
The eternal "YHWH", God, gives life to the small "yhwh", man. The transcendence of the small yhwh to be one with YHWH. All of it compactly and incomprehensibly symbolized and screaming at me in one simple Word, the Word I originally saw over Dan's mantle, repeating endlessly and gently within my soul, seen everywhere and in everyone...
Yhwh, Name, Word, and Man.
One.
"I pray that they may be one, even as Thou Father are in me, and I in Thee, that they also my be in Us..." John 17:21
Oh my God..........
Jesus, the Bible, and The Name
As though THAT weren't enough...Just so to make sure I did not miss the importance of all this(!), I ran across these passages:
John 12:27"Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. 28Father, glorify your NAME!"
Then a voice came from heaven,
"I have glorified it, and will glorify it again." 29The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him.
John 12:12The next day the great crowd that had come for the Feast heard that Jesus
was on his way to Jerusalem. 13They took palm branches and went out to meet
him, shouting,"Hosanna!"
"Blessed is he who comes in the name of YHWH!"
"Blessed is the King of Israel!"
John 17:6"I have revealed your NAME to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word.
John 17: 25"Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26I have made Thy NAME known to them, and will make it known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them."
The message was unmistakable:
Jesus' entire life of miracles and teachings were revelations of The Name. His death and resurrection were revelations of The Name. The entire Bible is an explanation and illumination of what God's Name means!!!
The world I thought I knew was not the real world.
The Bible I thought I knew wasn't the real Bible.
The me I thought I knew wasn't the real me.
The Name as Transformer
Vibrating on your wrist at this very moment are a whole bunch of things you are not aware of. CBS, ABC, NBC, and the satellite signals for about 500 other channels...Citizen's Band, AM, FM, the glorious short wave frequencies, not to mention police, or the war department...All of those signals are present here and now, vibrating on your arms and legs and all over your face.
But you lack the ability to perceive them. You need special radios and TVs and satellite de-scramblers to change those signals into the visible and sound spectrums that you can perceive. A very good, all-purpose word for those different devices is Transformer, as in re-form the signal from one vibration to another.
God's Name YHWH works like just such a transformer, taking the truths and revelations of God Consciousness that are always present, and turning the "signals" into forms we can tangibly and directly relate to.
We worship God. The person. We do not worship His Name.
But it is my experience and testimony that The Name of YHWH is the most powerful tool available for people to use, in conjunction with a healthy and moral life, to effect their own transformation from "yhwh" to YHWH Consciousness.
