journey

THE JOURNEY

A stream of grace seduces me into itself.
The light is so bright, yet so gentle.
It cradles me like a child –
Healing me, and giving me Love like I’ve never known. As I grow comfortable wading here,
The seasons change. The waters rise.
And the stream becomes a flowing river.

The river is passionate, like a lover
And it enters every orifice and satiates every desire, More than any earthly man could.
What more do I need?
I have everything here!
So I dive in, trusting the flow of the river.

The seasons change
And the river grows more intense.
Its raging waters deposit me into a furious ocean.
I thrash around, struggling for life, gasping for breath, Abandoned and betrayed by the light. Darkness is all around me now – no light to be found.

I keep trying to escape,
But all I meet is fear, anger, helplessness, and pride. I grow so tired. My heart is broken, Shattered to the core.
Death would be a welcome relief.

But I am suspended in this deep, dark ocean Waiting for what, I do not know. Exhausted and beaten, I finally give up the fight.
I am ready to die. I have nothing left to hang on to.

I fall into the dark stillness I have always feared. I face it. Breathe it. I rest in it, and I become it. The ocean that was swallowing me becomes me.

The tides change.
I am washed up on the shore, But strangely I am the shore too. I am the bird that sings,
The pebbles that shine in the sun. I am even the sun. “Where did I go?” I wonder.

Now I know.
My small I has been replaced by everything.

intro

INTRODUCTION

There is a secret doorway to our Divine Self that is simple, obvious, and available to us in every moment. We do not need to run away from the world of people and problems; we can fully enter into this world and receive the gifts that each situation presents.

When I was younger, I neither welcomed life’s challenges nor enjoyed interactions with people. I felt that such ordinary engagement with life would interfere with my connection to my inner Self and preferred to live in a state of separation. I considered day-to-day trials and responsibilities to be boring and just wanted to be free.

As I matured, I saw that all of these “boring” trials were actually doorways that could take me deeper into my God Self. I also learned that it is difficult to enter these doorways when we believe only the surface experiences of boredom, pain, frustration, and other passing states of mind. Believing such states to be the only real- ity leaves us without love, peace, or joy. There comes a time when we become so tired of the empty repetitiveness of the surface reality that we long to find the key that will open each door and allow us to return to who we really are – beyond our personalities, concepts, and facades.

What then is this key? I have discovered that it is an alchemical fusion of two elements. The first is love and acceptance of our present state, however bored, sad or frustrated we might be. The second is our sincere intention to know the truth of who we really are. This magic key forged from self-acceptance and a sincere desire for the truth can transform ordinary vision into extraordinary vision. It can help change our perspective so we see life anew. With the help of the magic key, our “boring” everyday life becomes a gift from the Creator, and our “limited” partner becomes a god or goddess. The magic key helps us realize that we don’t operate alone. The love of God permeates every particle of the Universe; all aspects of our life, relationships and reality are an expression of that Love.

baby

 

It is only with the magic key of love and acceptance of what is that we can be freed of the boxes, labels, and judgments that have been imposed upon us and have limited our true potential. When we learn to accept all aspects of ourselves as God, then separation dissolves and wholeness reigns supreme.

 

In her video, Living, Loving and Aids, Elizabeth Kubler Ross spoke of the scientific community wanting to use children born with AIDS as guinea pigs for research into the disease. Dr. Ross considered such intrusions to be a violation, and instead adopted some of the babies and offered them unconditional love and one-on-one bonding. This love had such a profound effect that some of the babies were able to develop their own antibodies. According to Dr. Ross, if the babies were cared for, cuddled and loved, “They just blossom(ed) like a flower.”

We may not always be held or cuddled like Dr. Ross’s AIDS babies, but if we show ourselves and others the same compassion, and if we uphold a wholehearted intention to know a higher Truth, then a presence of Love does begin to surround us and hold us.

Masters like Jesus lived in the open doorway of divinity, and through the power of unconditional love they could look at or touch people and heal them complete- ly. Their conviction penetrated all the labels and beliefs surrounding these individuals, exposing their inherent perfection. Jesus would often entertain thieves, prostitutes and others who were seen as the dregs of society because He had no judgment toward any of God’s creatures. He responded to each person with absolute love and requested that everyone strive to do as He did:

“But I say unto you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (1)

But rather than having the “perfect” perception that transcends the labels, we’ve learned to judge ourselves and others according to assertions of right or wrong, good or bad, or according to dictums as to what is God and what is not God. Such judgments only distance us from the love we crave from the depths of our soul. To embrace the whole is to live from a place where nothing else exists but God. Every moment of our lives is another opportunity to drink the nectar of God’s Grace, not only in our churches, ashrams or temples, but everywhere, always – with everyone and everything we encounter. Then, with the eyes to see the Truth, our life and everything in it becomes a magic doorway to divinity and a temple to our own God Self.

I invite you to open your hearts and minds, to journey with me in the discoveries I’ve made from the many lessons and teachings with which I have been graced. These took me along many pathways, detours and bridges that ultimately brought me to the understanding that nothing exists but God’s unconditional Love.

ack

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to acknowledge all of the great teachers and mas- ters who have come into my life. I am especially thank- ful for my family, friends, relationships, and acquain- tances who have taught me about Love, in its many forms.

I also wish to thank Donaleen Saul and Julius Kiskis for their love, patience, and expertise as they helped me put this book together; David Pacula for his wonderful research; and J. P. Stevan whose infinite love and sup- port allowed me to birth this book.

Also, deep gratitude to the girls in my group who have stuck with me for fifteen years: Glynis, Laura, Cara, Carol, Michelle, Anne Marie, Juliette, and Leslie.

Thank you to my friends who have given their continued support while writing this book: Trixie, Shanti, Mandakini Rene, Bernard, Teja, Eckhart, Pauline, Suman, Paddy, Iala, Anne McMurtry, Krystal, Lili, Lynn, Kosto, Dhorea, Carey. I would also like to acknowledge my brothers Michael and David, and my mum and dad. And to anyone else, whom I might have missed, thank you.

A percentage of the profits from the sale of this book are donated to organizations that are committed to the physical and spiritual upliftment of humanity.

preface

PREFACE

The vision for The Magic Doorway into the Divine came to me while walking along a country road one hot summer’s day in the mid-1990’s. It was to be a simple book filled with poetry, meditations, and conversations with God. A couple of years later, I met an East Indian mystic who, upon meeting me for the first time, said, “You must write that book, it will help a lot of people.” I was startled that he would know a secret that I had forgot- ten; but I was also inspired to begin scratching down a few notes. In the process, a larger force began to take over, and eventually my scribbles blossomed into this book.

The Magic Doorway into the Divine chronicles a search that began 25 years ago when a life-altering mystical experience and profound healing awakened me to my true Self. The effect of this awakening changed my life so completely that everything I had assumed to be true evaporated, leaving me in unknown territory. For many years I walked through a fire that opened my heart, seared my soul, and graced me with the knowledge that we are not just small, limited creatures. We are one with God’s love.

Like a phoenix, The Magic Doorway into the Divine arose out of the ashes of this fire. In the writing, it taught me about the power of Divine Love and how such Love can be found in every moment of life, with every person, in every place, and in every thing. The metaphor of the magic doorway is an image to help us

understand what opens the doors, what closes the doors, and what takes us beyond all doors to the Garden of Love.

whiterose

Spirituality is romanticized by many seekers who do not fully understand or do not wish to acknowledge that the pain one can experience in letting go of the ego can be horrific at times. In this book, I share some of my experiences and hold nothing back about the suffering as well as the joy that I have encountered in this journey to Truth. Enlightenment is not a linear process and cannot be controlled or captured with the mind. I have learned that one must embrace contradiction as an essential part of the journey.

Each section of The Magic Doorway into the Divine be- gins with a conversation between God and a Being of Light from a faraway galaxy. Their discussion about a lesson that human souls on Earth need to experience is fol- lowed by a poem that takes the reader more deeply into the heart of the matter. The teachings are then expand- ed upon by a philosophical essay, followed by short self- help “meditation keys” that can open the door into the reader’s own divinity.

Part I

Crossing the Threshold, expresses the miraculous power and healing that is possible when we touch the Truth.

Part II

The Door Openers, is a celebration of what we can be when we turn our minds to a higher perspective and, like alchemists, transmute every situation into love.

girl

In Part III

The Door Closers, the poetry is written from the perspective of the ego, which has no interest in God or divinity. These poems are intentionally provocative in order to help us see our delusions more clearly.

Part IV

The Journey Beyond the Doors, takes us into The Dark Night of the Soul, where nothing undertaken from the perspective of the personal will works. We discover that all mind-focusing concepts and techniques that might have worked in the past, no longer do. Any spiritual technique employed to open the doors to our high- er being has no power. We also find that we are unable to control our lives as we once thought we could; who- ever we have believed ourselves to be has been “erased.” This purification of the ego can be very distressing, but its ultimate goal is to take us to true humility. This, then, is where we learn that all striving is use- less; not a breath do we take without the Grace of God. There is nothing left to do but to surrender to God’s will.

In Part V

Returning To The Garden, we are new again, like chicks emerging from the cosmic egg, seeing the world with brand new eyes, seeing beauty and love in everything, accepting ourselves, letting go of the inner and outer war, and returning to the true Source.

The Magic Doorway into the Divine helps us to take our life challenges,  personal, financial, and other types of losses; relationship issues; physical, mental, and emo tional health concerns; spiritual emergencies, etc. – to a new level of consciousness. It teaches us how to bring unconditional love to every part of life, something that all of us, regardless of age, race or culture, long to experience. This book encourages us to take responsibility

for our lives and to actively participate in our healing transformation. There is nothing wrong with anything that we undergo in life. Everything is a magic doorway to God’s love.

Devrah Laval

forward

FOREWORD

In the Upanishads, Sankara, the great Advaitin scholar, characterizes the process by which one comes to know the Self as follows: “That which is devoid of all duality is described by adhyaropa and apavada, i.e. by super- imposition and negation, by attribution and denial.”

This book is about that paradoxical process of freeing the Self from all forms of attachment, suffering, and spiritual temptations only to discover, in that final phase of illumination, that the Self was never separate from God. There was no real duality to be overcome. This is the conclusion in the most famous instruction on the Self in the Chandogypa – Upanishad in chapter 9, verse 4: “Tat tvam asi, That Thou Art.”

But it would be a trap of the spiritual ego to simply know this with the mind; one must go through all of the stages of awakening and purification passionately, with one’s whole being.

Devrah’s book is a powerful application of this principle, for it has been birthed from the depths of her being. It has emerged from the burning crucible of her life so that the realization of non-duality is the Truth she inhabits moment by moment.

Rarely has a soul written of these classic stages of the mystical path with such candidness, creativity, and courage. Her “Door Openers” and “Door Closers,” which describe how the same experience can either open us to God or close us off, depending on our relationship to it, are unique.

 

sky

 

But when Devrah describes her Dark Night of the Soul, you feel utterly drawn into the immensity of her heart and thus of God’s Heart. For Devrah’s book is a passion- ate account of a lover of God who finally realizes that this whole journey is about Love. It is about God’s Love that has been seeking us since the beginning of time. In the Catholic Mass, there is a phrase, “Quarens me sedisti lassus,” which translates as “Faint and weary Thou haste sought me.” The great Jewish mystic, Simone Weil, interprets this to mean it is God seeking us out; not the other way around as is commonly believed.

Devrah’s fearless account of her own journey reminds us that we are both the subject and the object of our longing.

Shirley Anne McMurtry, Ph.D.

magicdoorway

What is this Doorway?

What is this doorway?
And does someone hold the key? When can I come through?
Who can set me free?
I punch, I scream, I kick the door And still I cannot see.
I’ll fight: I’ll kill until the end
To have my victory.
The years have gone: my youth has died, But not my misery.
There must be more that I can do.
I cannot simply ‘be’.
No longer can I fight, no longer can I kill. Who is this enemy?
Just then the door has opened wide And all I see is me.