Observations placeholder

Rosalind Heywood – The Infinite Hive

To me, under mescalin, that inter-relatedness was symbolized by a delicate spidery web, like the filaments on a cactus, which linked everything to everything from atom to nebula. Not that there were solid objects or solid threads. Nothing was static. The entire Universe was in constant fluid movement. Gradually I became aware of that movement as a crucial fact: it was The Dance, the inter-weaving eternal impersonal relentless inevitable Cosmic Dance - the Dance of Beingness.

I saw the God, Krishna, dancing -'dancing', I cried out in extreme delight, 'with pure happiness!'

Part of the Dance was an endless frieze of Hindu Deities, modulating and intertwining for ever like a fugue. They were representations, I knew, of Great Essences far beyond human conception. Then, in a flash that filled me with awe, beyond and behind them - but such words meant nothing - there appeared a supreme Figure, motionless, Buddha-like, eternally at peace.

'Now I see' I thought,' why Orientals seek Nirvana.'

If indeed they had developed even a dim awareness of the relentless eternal Dance, a profound longing would ensue for the ultimate still point at which all movement ceased.

*******************************************

There are fairy stories where the hero utters a magic word and the impossible happens. Mircea Eliade points out somewhere that when, on a higher level, Parsifal asked, 'Where is the Grail?' at his question all life was renewed. The question,

'Where is Love?'

was my magic word, and the answer it evoked was such that even now, ten years later and, so experts assure me, officially sane, it seems idiotic on my part to try to describe it.

One thing at least is fortunate, that transcendent experiences under hallucinogens have become so frequent that I shall not be accused of believing that I was favoured with a special revelation. It was rather that the sun shines on the just and the unjust alike. At the same time, I did really ask a question - one so seldom does - and it has, after all, been said by no small authority that those who ask receive.

To try to describe the answer I will quote from my notes dictated while still partially under the drug. Though childish and incoherent they are at least not self-conscious or furbished up. 'Out of the gold,' I said, 'there appeared a figure clothed in soft blues and greens and purples, infinitely benign and compassionate. I knew it to be the Divine Mother and her symbols were in a sense not diamonds but pearls. She was like a pearl coming into a world of diamond.