Question
It happened about, I think two months ago. I was trying to sleep but Instead ended up in meditation where I had a vision of the Archangel Gabriel. I was sitting upon a cloud in the sky, when Archangel Gabriel flew down towards me and placed a shell necklace with a silver heart In the middle of the necklace around my neck, then he took off in flight back the same way he came. Then appeared an Image of an extremely beautiful Caucasian women. She had black hair and was wearing a green dress. She was staring at me with a smile on her face for about 1-2 minutes and then it was all over. Just last night i had another vision, I was in the same place again, but this time i received Angel wings. I was wondering if you could tell me what this may mean? Thank you for your time.
Answer
Hi, Jody.
I wonder what your motivation is for writing about this. There was some pleasant imagery, like in a dream. Often when I have certain kinds of dreams, afterwards I feel like there was some kind of healing or opening up happening. It happened on its own and it's done now.
It's usually pretty clear to me that the content of the images is completely arbitrary. Someone raised in a Hindu culture might see images that are interpreted by the conscious mind as Krishna. That's the visual and cultural imagery that is learned by that brain.
I guess since you asked what I thought the meaning of your experience is, I would say the meaning is that whatever happened is over and took care of itself and that there is no significance at all to the specific images - of angels, wings, caucasian women. These are symbols the brain is using to sort experiences. I hope you will not put any particular importance on the ideas behind these images.
We might say that the mind opens and heals when it is not trying to hold onto its own imagery. Freshness of mind can happen when the mind is not going over and over old things that happened before.
Maybe what really struck you about your experience was that there was something fresh about it, as opposed to the old ways that we usually act and think and feel. You may wonder how this moment of relative freshness and freedom could have happened, if you did something to make it happen and if you could do that again, more. I can only say from my own concern about this and years of observation that openness of mind, of being, is not a result of something we do. It cannot be practiced or rehearsed. On the other hand, it may be available at any moment if there is an interest in what is going on right now. Freshness is always now, this moment.
Fresh seeing may simply reveal that the mind is running around and around trying to do something or get something or avoid something or control something. To see this is fresh seeing at that instant. It doesn't matter what the state of mind is. If the state of mind is seen, that is freshness, regardless of its content or images.
If you are interested in the possibility of a freshness of being, I suggest that you not be concerned about whether there is a lofty state of mind or a dark state of mind, lofty images or stuckness. Just become interested in the fact that the state of mind can become visible and notice how much the rest takes care of itself when the state of mind is visible.
When I say state of mind, this also means the state of the heart. When I say the state of mind/heart can become visible, also along with this the world around us becomes visible at the same time. The sounds are heard, the wind felt on the skin, smells, the feel of the body, the presence of others. All of this is revealed in one space of openness. If this is noticed, one becomes interested in the world as a whole - as it is revealed right in this moment - and the passing torrent of images in the mind - noble or dark, pleasant or uncomfortable - is not a big concern.
I don't know if that addresses your question. Please feel free to write back to ask me to clarify something or to raise some other questions.
Best,
Jay
Hi, again. I'm responding to your comment that you thought there might be more meaning to what you experienced, and that maybe it did have something to do with healing of habits from the past, such as having to be the one to help other people all the time.
In considering what you said, looking into my own experience, I would say that yes, there is a sense that there are all these "meanings" in me that are trying to come out, come into awareness, somehow straighten themselves out and rearrange themselves in a healthier way. The question is "What is the best and simplest and healthiest way for this to happen?" We might also ask if there is something going on that prevents it from happening as much as it needs to. I know for myself that this need for meanings to straighten themselves out has always felt like it's backlogged, that there is more of it that needs to be done than there seems to be time or energy or opportunity for it to happen.
I don't think we give this kind of thing much priority in how we live our lives day to day. There are lots of immediate things we have to take care of, lots of interactions with other people, lots of struggling and trying to keep our lives together. All of these things seem to add more to the pile of things that need to be digested and healed, so at the end of the day there is more of a backlog than there was at the beginning. No wonder it all seems backlogged!
Usually by the end of the day we are just tired and go to bed with all of this unfinished stuff in the mind and the dreaming is a way to try to work it out but it doesn't seem to be able to keep up.
You sat down quietly, meditatively, and these images you described came out. If we can be awake but not adding more activity to the mind, there is the chance that this healing activity can take place on its own. We don't have to "do" the healing, just to stop adding more mental activity and mental input. Then the healing has a chance to happen. Of course the stuff that needs healing is so backlogged and sometimes so deep that it may come rushing out in strange forms.
What I mentioned in our first communication was how important I feel it is to realize that the content of the imagery that comes out is not "real". It is the arbitrary imagery that has somehow, almost randomly, gotten into the brain from something that was seen or heard before. I mean, if there is imagery that you recognize as the image of Archangel Gabriel, it doesn't mean that there is an Archangel Gabriel or that anything you experienced has anything to do in reality with Archangel Gabriel. In fact we don't know if it does or doesn't. Some people have vivid imagery about another person - maybe seeing that person having an accident in a car - and they think that the information is real and try to warn the person. Sometimes it actually is a real premonition but the majority of the time the imagery only has internal meaning for my brain and nervous system.
I think that hanging onto the content of the imagery - trying to think more about Gabriel or wondering how your experience fits into your other images about Gabriel - to me this usually taints the healing that has already happened, adds more new stuff to be sorted out, makes the thinking more complex instead of simpler. For me it's better to forget the content of the imagery and just continue to leave the mind alone so it can heal without adding more stuff to it.
I have personally always felt almost and bottomless need to give this kind of simple, uninterfering presence more chance. So I have gone to many 7 day retreats - often three or four or more a year. For me this has been the most powerful way to let this healing happen more and more deeply. Eventually it has changed how I live day to day so that there is less of the build up of stuff that has to heal and more ability to give the healing the time it needs in daily life.
In some ways this is radically different than how most people live, since most people in the world are overwhelmed with trying to protect their lives and ignore the possibility of real healing of it. So it's nice if the importance of this healing is noticed by you.
Feel free to write back and let me know if you have some other questions or observations.
Jay
