The other day, I had a very interesting experience. And although usually I try to keep this sort of thing to myself, this morning I’m really feeling an urge to write it down and share.

Right now, I’m part of a startup venture with my wife. And, for anyone who’s ever been part of a startup, there’s a lot to stress out about on a day-to-day basis. What if this deal falls through? What if we can’t get enough customers on the platform? What happens if we run out of capital? How do we bring on a key person when we can’t quite afford to pay their salary yet? The list goes on (and on!).

So a couple days ago, I took a bit of a break from all the business stuff. I had a great meditation in the morning, worked a little, and then took some time off to do some Qi Gong to music. If you’ve never tried Qi Gong, I highly recommend it. And if you’ve never done it to evocative music, that works even better. Talk about getting the spiritual juices flowing! That continued into dinner, and I found myself meditating to Mozart’s Requiem (my favorite from when I was a teenager). So by this point, I’ve been meditating and working with energy most of the day, and over the hours worked my way in a very blissful altered state. And then, I received a pretty epic download.

It started off slow, with a very basic realization common to the way my brain tends to work. That realization was that sound and light are really just vibrations, and shouldn’t be thought of as two separate things. We have ears, and we have eyes, and we’ve learned to process these inputs as two independent things since they come from two different sensors in the body instrument. But really, it’s all just energy vibration.  The same goes for all the senses. They’re just different ways of feeling into the vibration. But it’s not five different vibrations. It’s ONE vibration. Five sense organs, each of which taps into that singular vibration at a different wavelength.

Interesting, right? But there’s more, because we have another sense that we don’t tend to think of as a sense: the perception of time. Who says that time is separate from those other vibrations? Is it really? And where are all these vibrations happening? In the aether? In “energy”, whatever that might mean? No, they’re happening in consciousness. Consciousness is EVERYTHING. All of this phenomena, like plants and animals, humans, planets, the universe. All of it exists within the fabric of consciousness.

Ok, great. So then what about God? Does God exist? Yes. If everything is consciousness, then if consciousness thinks of God, then God exists. And God, as a state, can be thought of as consciousness being fully aware of itself.

And that begs the question, is there a place where consciousness cannot go? And the answer to that too, must be yes. Because if consciousness can conceive it, this also must exist. This is the black hole. The void. The nothingness. When the atheists say there is no God, are they right too. They’re looking at the nothingness. Everyone is right! It’s all true. Not one or the other thing, but both together. ALL THINGS.

And here’s the twist. That black hole, that void, what is that? That’s duality. That’s the place where consciousness can’t see itself. It’s time and space, and me and you, and self and the other. That void has allowed creation to happen. And by allowing that void to happen, God can exist. And so can you. You exist in the void.

So who are you? Consciousness.

And who is God? Consciousness.

And this world of phenomena that we experience, what is that? Consciousness.

So what is happening? What specifically is going on here? Consciousness is exploring itself. And thanks to the void, we have the illusion of motion and the ability to tell stories to ourselves, and have adventures, and fall in love.

It’s beautiful. It’s also difficult to grasp, because as humans, we just aren’t smart enough to really hold it in our day-to-day lives. We see things are separate. Time is in motion. There is uncertainty. But—and this is a BIG but!—that uncertainty only exists on this side. On God’s side, everything is seen, and known, and planned out already. You have already solved your problems, and all of it worked out in the end perfectly. How do we know that it worked out? Because you’re telling yourself this story, and your will is the will of God, and your desire for happiness is God’s desire for happiness, so how can it not?

Hopefully I’ve managed to explain the gist of this. Now, I understand that to some, this all may sound like wishful thinking or philosophical ramblings. And at the time I’m having these thoughts, that was also there in the back of my mind. Yeah, this is a great concept. But in the here-and-now material world, how can I know that any of this is really true? Sure, to get something like that in meditation is awesome, but what happens when you come down and have to do the dishes?

So now after thinking for a time on this, and wondering if maybe it’s just all a concept rather than the blueprint to reality, my wife comes in. One of her spiritual practices is to draw and interpret Tarot cards, which she’s very good at. She’s got business on her mind, since while I’ve been out on the couch listening to music, she’s been in her office cranking away on spreadsheets. And now that she’s done, she asks if I want to draw a card with her.

I’m watching her do her shuffle, and spread her cards, and I think to myself, if what I just experienced is really the truth, I’m going to need a sign. I need hard proof, outside of just being in a blissed-out state thanks to a day of spiritual practice. The sign has to appear in the mundane world, outside of my own mind. I also know exactly what it has to be: my wife has to draw the right card. What card, you might ask? Well, the card that represents the void. Because that’s also that card that most represents God, the perfect mind, which has already solved all my problems. There’s only one card that (to me) would perfectly represent this: Death.

Ok, maybe that surprised you. Death is the card that represents God?? Yeah. In the context of what I’ve just been talking about, it’s the only one that fits, doesn’t it? And as I know this, I know God must also know it, and I know God must have the power to manifest it. If the base level of everything is consciousness, then consciousness should have no problem doing this within itself. It’s an easy ask. So, it’s all on God then at this point. I’m just going to wait and see what happens. As the human part of the equation, that’s all I can do anyway.

My wife does her spread, and draws a card. She’s asking about what will happen to the business. She gets a good card, something strong and beautiful. But it’s not Death.

My turn.

I do the shuffle, ask my own question about the business. I draw a card.

And what card do I get???

No, not Death.

I actually drew Brilliance. Which is good. That was a good card to get. I do find it funny that I was really hoping to draw Death. I usually dislike that one. It’s sort of the “worst” card in there from my normal perspective.

So I shrug and lay back down. Oh, well. It was a beautiful day, and I’m still feeling lots of good vibes. I will just accept this as a good experience, and go on with my life. It didn’t have to be some magical revelation of the Universe. Consciousness didn’t have to reach out through space and time to perform a card trick for me to validate my revelation, even though that would have been really, really cool.

A minute goes by as my wife writes some notes in her journal. She always writes her questions and the cards she drew down in a journal in case she wants to go back later. When she’s done, she turns to me and says, “I asked a question five days ago about this too. Check this out…” She reads her question back to me. “And the card I drew as the answer? Death.”

(!!!)

So there it was, already drawn five days earlier! Before I even knew I was going to have this experience or ask for a sign. Drawing that card in the moment would have been amazing. But pre-drawing it days ahead of time before I knew I was even going to ask??? Let’s just say, I continue to be impressed by God’s very entertaining sense of humor.