THE FIRST CONDITION
EMPTINESS

 

At first glance, the beginning of the Alpha Passage may appear to be nothing more than a routine introductory statement that says, "Before the important events of the day took place, Jesus happened to travel into the desert." Actually this statement is far from routine. To see why, let's look more closely at the statement. It is in no way a casual statement. Rather, it clearly reveals the first critical condition that must always be established when precipitating a miraculous event.

Think about it: What is a desert really? What is the true nature, the essence of such a place? A desert is an unusual environment in the sense that it is almost completely devoid of any useful resources. A desert has no food, no water, no shelter, and no vegetation. But more importantly, a desert has no people, no commotion, no politics, no arguments, no books, and -- no words. A desert is a place of profound isolation, silence, and emptiness.

In essence, when Jesus went into the desert, he situated himself within a kind of vacuum. A vacuum is a very special kind of place. Because it is empty, it possesses a tremendous potential to be filled. Like a magnet, a vacuum exerts a force that pulls things inexorably toward it. The less a vacuum contains -- the emptier it is -- the more powerful the attractive force it exerts on the surrounding world.

Consider for a moment what it would be like to be within a vacuum. Imagine that you are sitting somewhere and all the air, all the matter, all the energy, all the light immediately surrounding you is taken away. What would you observe from this unusual vantage point? Looking at the world around you while situated within a vacuum you would see something very interesting: You would see everything rushing towards you. You would see energy and resources automatically flowing toward you from every direction.

Why? Because of a principle that everyone knows: Nature abhors a vacuum. Whenever a state of emptiness or lack is created, Nature immediately mobilizes to fill it.

And what is Nature? There should be no confusion on this point: Nature is Spirit, or at least a very large part of Spirit. Therefore, another way of stating this law is that, Spirit abhors a vacuum.

A vacuum is a state, a condition. When carefully analyzed, any miracle can be shown to begin with this condition. Consider the greatest of all miracles -- the creation of the universe itself. Modern physics and ancient religions agree: Before anything came into being, perfect emptiness existed -- there was no space, no time, and no matter. We know by looking at what then happened that the intelligent creative force that underlies all things was not satisfied with that vacuum and set about to correct it. In other words, Spirit filled the void with the universe, which is still expanding with incredible force in every direction.

The miracle of the loaves and fishes begins in the same way. By going into the "desert," the demonstrator established a condition of emptiness, a vacuum, thereby setting into motion powerful and automatic forces that began to alter the processes of flow around him. Using the original Greek, let's look carefully at the exact words in Matthew's description:

 

 

Here are the translations of the key words in this phrase according to Strong's Exhaustive Concordance:

 

Iesous is obviously the Greek name for Jesus.

Anachoreo can mean "to depart," as the traditional translation indicates -- this is clearly one of the words meanings. But anachoreo can also mean "to withdraw the self." In contemporary psychological terms, we could quite accurately substitute the word "ego" for self. In modern English, the definition then becomes "to withdraw the ego."

Topos can refer simply to "a place," this is true. But it is critical to note from Strong's Concordance that this word can also refer to a "condition" or "opportunity" -- in other words, a place of potential. Kata means "down."

Eremos can refer to a "desert" but can also indicate "an empty or solitary place."

Idios can indeed be translated as "privately." But Strong's Concordance tells us idios can also be translated as "pertaining to the self."

 

Now, using this straightforward information - obtained directly from a universally accepted reference dictionary available to everyone -- we can easily translate the passage in a new way. This translation reveals a deeper, richer, and far more useful level of information: Jesus went away into the desert, alone. There he withdrew his self, or ego, by going down into a state of emptiness and inner stillness -- a place or "condition" of potential.

It is fascinating to note that the demonstrator didn't just go alone into the desert before the miracle took place. Verse 23 tells us that he went back into the desert after the miracle was concluded:

 

In other words, the miracle started from a place of emptiness and silence and, once completed, ended at a place of emptiness and silence. As we will see, one of the concepts that surfaces over and over in our study of the miracle is that of circularity.

For a miracle worker, the conditions of a miracle are sequenced like the chambers of a powerful combustion engine: They go through cycles. These cycles enable a miracle worker to consistently and reliably manifest that which is necessary and beneficial. In this universe, the true power -- the great flow that brings life and energy and lavish abundance -- travels in a moving circle or spiral, that constantly returns to a new starting point, recharged and primed for another powerful cycle.

Miracle workers understand this circularity at a deep level. They instinctively know how to move with the flow. They work with the great cycles, never against them, and in doing so, are able to harness their extraordinary power.

The information we have covered will allow you to now understand an extremely important event that transpired the day before the miracle was demonstrated. This critical event, a tragedy of the highest order, is not normally thought to be connected to the miracle. However, it was clearly an integral part of the process of cause and effect that led to the great demonstration of abundance.

Do recall the terrifying story that immediately precedes the Alpha Passage? It is an account of how the demonstrator's great mentor, friend, and father figure -- the man he looked up to most in all the world -- was not only taken from him, but taken in the most horrifying and sickening way possible.

The day before the miracle was the day that Herod had John the Baptist beheaded and his head delivered on a platter. This for no better reason than to pacify Herodias, the mother of the young girl with whom he was having an affair.

There is nothing anywhere in the narrative to indicate how the demonstrator reacted to this. The art of describing how people felt internally was not incorporated into writing until centuries later. We are simply told that, directly before the miracle occurred, he was told of theh unfathomable loss, and that when he heard of it he went alone into the desert.

Think about it for a moment. Imagine that you are an extremely unusual person. So unusual that you have only one other person in the whole world that you can relate to as a teacher and friend and equal. Imagine just how much this person would mean to you. Now, if it is possible, try to imagine how incredibly lonely, how grief stricken, how empty you would be to learn that this special friend, your lifeline to humanity had been severed forever.

Nothing happens by accident, certainly nothing in the life of an enlightened being who is about to trigger an event that will be an inspiration to billions of people for thousands of years into the future. The timing of John's death is critical. Remember that we said that the emptier a vacuum the more powerful its ability to stimulate flow? What bigger vacuum could possibly have been created in the life of the demonstrator? Only the death of his mother, or perhaps Mary Magdalene, his other close friend and confidant, could have produced the magnitude of loss that he experienced.

But the enlightened don't cave in when presented with a setback. It is one of their hallmarks. It is said that you can judge the true depth of a saint's enlightenment by watching how long it takes him or her to recover from a terrible blow. Ordinary people may take many long months or years to snap back from a major loss. By contrast, when put to the test, the truly enlightened snap back in a matter of hours or days.

Such was the case with the demonstrator. Loss, lack, and adversity could never keep him from generating positive changes. In fact, quite the opposite was true. As is the case with all advanced beings, Jesus of Nazareth had the ability to use loss as a fuel, as a kind of raw material to stoke the engines of transmutation. The enlightened are, in essence, processing plants, energy centers that constantly transmute. That's what they do. They constantly convert everything around them that is base into gold, everything negative into the positive, everything dark and ignorant into light and knowledge.

And, consciously or unconsciously, the way they accomplish this is by setting up and maintaining the twelve conditions.

 

Translating these passages, learning about the power of emptiness and other conditions of a miracle, is not a mere intellectual exercise. The information contained within the passage you are contemplating has vast practical value. This is why it is critical for you to learn exactly how you can work with these concepts, how you can apply this knowledge to your own particular situation.

It won't help you to simply read about what happened. You have to act.

Just how can you "go into the desert," set up a vacuum, and so put yourself in a position to experience good things flowing toward you? This must be accomplished on two different levels -- the internal and the external. Internally, "going to the desert" means going to a place deep within and emptying the mind of thoughts.

The expanded translation discussed at the beginning of this chapter makes this clear. Suspending your internal dialogue is essential in activating the first condition of a miracle. The demonstrator, like most holy men and women, had a strong tendency to seek out isolated places such as deserts and mountaintops.

And why do the enlightened covet silence? It is not so much because silence helps them to think more clearly, but because silence enables them not to think.

The constant clamor and commotion of thoughts blocks the still, small, subtle voice of Spirit. All enlightened individuals are acutely aware of this and are experts at quieting their minds so that they can hear clearly. It is common knowledge that the demonstrator sought deserted places so he could pray and meditate.

And what is meditation but the process of descending into the self, beneath the stream of superficial thoughts, to that place of stillness where the mind of God, including its infinite information, is freely accessible. There he withdrew his self, or ego, by going down into a state of emptiness and inner stillness -- a place, a condition, of potential

Most people have no idea that an unlimited field of intelligence rests within them like a deep pool. They cannot see that this is so because their tightly woven thoughts, like a dense bank of clouds, blocks their perception of the infinite wellspring of consciousness within.

Like clouds, our thoughts have little substance. However, though fleeting and diaphanous, they nonetheless can block the light very effectively when they hang between the sun and us. Mystics and contemplatives from every spiritual tradition have recognized this for thousands of years.

For example, the inspirational classic titled The Cloud of Unknowing, which was written anonymously by a fourteenth-century ascetic, teaches that our ideas about Spirit and the way the universe operates are so limited they keep us from knowing the greater truth. The book teaches that our fearful, rigidly bound perceptions and "logical" thought, actually blinds us to the enormity of the Creator's true nature and vast potential.

Real knowledge, according to The Cloud of Unknowing, can only be obtained by acknowledging this and by silencing all conscious thought, by consistently checking all attempts to perceive or understand the Infinite with words and logic:

Meditation is the process of shifting your awareness from your thoughts to the breaks between the thoughts. With patience, practice, and persistence, the empty spaces between thoughts inexorably widen until the spaces are greater than the thoughts themselves. This establishes a vacuum at the spiritual and mental level. When you have attained a state of inner stillness, even partially, you can immediately begin tapping the infinite field of intelligence and draw on its ineffable power.

The ability to access this meditative state is vital to the success of your dream, your miracle. Within it is knowledge and knowledge is power. And it is power -- the right kind of spiritual power -- that will allow you to change things for the better. The knowledge and power you need will come very often in the form of information. Anyone seeking to correct a state of lack needs information.

But the right kind of information may be unavailable at the conscious level. For the most part, conscious thoughts do little more than confuse the issue. To paraphrase the writer Arnold Patent: The conscious mind has only one truly useful function, and that is to make the decision to turn itself off.

The information that can really help you manifest your dreams is found at a much deeper stratum than conscious thought. The information that will lead you to the fulfillment of your dream lies waiting for you in the realm of the intuitive or subconscious mind. The knowledge you will find here is the kind of knowledge that will allow you to inexplicably know what to do or what to say or where to be. It is the kind of knowledge that will allow you to have perfect timing and synchronicity.

Miracles unfold not by magic but by knowledge. Money will not "magically" appear in your wallet. The perfect job will not be thrust upon you as you sit idly on your couch. A soul mate will not materialize from thin air and ring your doorbell. Disease will not inexplicably heal as you continue to think negative thought and abuse your body.

Instead you will learn how to make your miracle real. You will learn how to make money. You will come to understand how to go about curing the disease, where to look for your job or your soul mate or your dream house.

 

Perfect stillness of the mind is difficult but not impossible to achieve. The demonstrator, like most truly enlightened people, was a master of perfect stillness. That is why he could say with conviction, "I and the Father are one."

In the West, Christian mystics call the state of perfect stillness "Christ Consciousness." In the East, this state is commonly referred to as samadhi. Other cultures and traditions have other names, but they all mean the same thing.

The consciousness and the knowledge you can achieve through meditation will give your life tremendous power. When the activity of the conscious mind or ego becomes perfectly quiet, the full energy and light of the One pours through the self unobstructed. When this happens, miracles happen spontaneously as you find yourself automatically at the right place at the right time.

This is why, when your miracle finally manifests -- and it will manifest if you consistently establish the twelve conditions -- the process by which it manifests will seem effortless and the solution obvious.

If you don't know how to meditate, get a book or an audio program about it. Consider learning Transcendental Meditation or Zen meditation or yoga. Many of the Eastern religions have superb techniques for meditating. If you are so inclined, you can also ask your priest, minister, rabbi, or a knowledgeable friend about Judeo-Christian meditation techniques.

 

Emptiness must be established both internally and externally. Meditation creates a vacuum within the self, but you will also have to create a vacuum state in the world around you in order to finish setting up the first condition of a miracle. Here's how this works:

Often when people suffer lack, they cling more fiercely to what they have, not realizing that this stanches the flow of good into their life. A classic example is the person who has financial difficulties making ends meet. She balances her checkbook and each month sees that she is having increasing difficulty paying the bills. She becomes anxious. She tightens her grip and does everything possible to reduce the flow of money and other resources out of her bank account, out of her life. She dares not let her money flow away leaving her account empty. She may even stop giving to charity temporarily saying "It's only for a time. I'll give again and give generously when I have more."

She doesn't realize that because everything -- including monetary resources -- moves in cycles, nothing will be coming back around to her if she releases nothing.

Look carefully at your own situation. If you are not experiencing complete abundance in every area of your life, you must be blocking your flow of energy and resources by failing to release. The antidote is to let go your death grip on your stagnating supply of energy in order to relieve the congestion. The temporary "loss" that is created as you begin to give creates a vacuum, which in turn stimulates the flow.

To help you understand more graphically how an external vacuum works in real life and how you can begin to create one, consider this simple allegory:

A farmer lived near a beautiful flowing stream that delivered life-giving waters to his crops and livestock as well as to those of all the local farmers. All was well until one summer when a minor drought caused the stream to run lower than usual.

None of the other farmers were worried. They had witnessed many dry spells and accepted them as an inevitable part of nature's normal ebb and flow. They knew that plentiful rains invariably compensate all droughts.

But the farmer obsessed and tortured himself with worry. "What if the rains never come again"? he wondered. "If the stream dries up, my crops will wither, my animals will die, and my family will starve." Each anxious thought led to another and another.

He decided there was only one thing to do. He had to build up a reserve supply of water to use when the stream eventually dried up. And so, he built a sturdy dam of small boulders and sticks, and in no time at all a large pond formed.

Although the other farmers tried to reason with the poor man and reassure him, he wouldn't listen. For he had also built a dam deep within himself -- a great, impenetrable wall of fear.

The farmers nearby shook their heads. They weren't worried about the farmer trying to hog all the water. Once full, the force of the stream would carve new channels around the pond. And, sure enough, once the pond had filled, the stream reestablished itself on the adjoining neighbor's land.

At first the large reserve gave the anxious farmer a feeling of security. But his tendency to worry continued. He had done nothing to correct that. And as he worried on, something happened that he hadn't anticipated: Once the stream had carved new channels that bypassed his pond completely, fresh water no longer flowed into his reservoir.

In the summer heat, the little pond stagnated, and algae bloomed over the surface. Silt and thick weeds choked the bottom. The once abundant fish slowly died, starving for oxygen. As the days went by, the sun beat down upon the pond, and the water slowly evaporated.

The anxious farmer watched helplessly as his pond was reduced to a shallow quagmire. "What will I do?" he moaned. The more he thought, the more confused and anxious he became. At last he set out to find a wise man that lived high in the mountains to the west.

He found the wise man meditating in a simple hut overlooking a magnificent panorama and launched into a long-winded explanation of his problem. The wise man listened patiently. At the end he laughed and told the farmer that the solution was simple. "Tear down the dams," he said, heartily slapping the anxious farmer on the back. "Both of them."

"What do you mean 'both'?" the farmer whined. The wise man's eyes made him very nervous. "I need the water in my quagmire! It's not much, and it's tainted, but it's all I have. If I release it, I will have nothing."

But the wise man just turned back to his meditation and would say no more. The farmer decided then and there that the so-called "wise man" was insane. The solution he had proposed made absolutely no sense. Upon returning home, however, he realized that unless something changed soon, he would be ruined. The water was so foul now that even the livestock wouldn't drink it.

"What have I got to lose?" he asked himself with a shrug.

It was a very good question.

With a sigh of resignation, he walked out to the dam and removed the stones, then watched as the putrid water flowed into the long-dry streambed below. Within an hour, the swamp was completely drained, and the barren mud beneath began to crack in the hot sun. "Fine. Now I have nothing," he mumbled hopelessly. "How could I have been so stupid?"

In the days that followed, though, the stream above his land began to trickle into the empty, low-lying cavities of the newly drained swamp. In a matter of days, the stream reestablished its old channels. In a strange coincidence, the rains returned about that time, and everyone ended up having a great year.

If you're experiencing any kind of lack, you are almost certainly making the same mistake as the anxious farmer by clinging too tightly in a misguided attempt to conserve what little you have. You will have to begin releasing, begin letting go. Initially, like the farmer, you may feel as though you have made a terrible mistake, but in the process, you will create the kind of emptiness that will automatically pull the flow back into your life. Your actions and your attitude will create a vacuum and energy will begin to flow inexorably toward it -- unless, of course, you immediately erect another dam of worry and fear.

What do you desire? Examine your situation carefully. Try with great effort to see if you have erected a barrier in front of the very thing you most want. This kind of soul-searching questioning can be applied to any state of lack. For example, if you are experiencing financial problems, are you clinging too fearfully? Do you give enough away to keep the channels for good open? Do you give anything away? If you lack money, release some of what you have. Money was made to circulate, not stagnate.

Create an empty space now to attract the flow of new funds. Understandibly, you will be reluctant to make a donation to your favorite charity when you cannot pay your own grocery bill. But sometimes this is the very best thing you can do. You don't have to give a large amount; what is important is that you are willing to release something and that you practice doing so regularly and consistently.

The same principal can be applied to other forms of lack. If you are starving for a satisfying relationship, you need to honestly ask yourself: Am I giving freely and openly of myself in the relationships I have now? Am I generous with my affections, with my time, and with my attention to everyone or just a chosen few? Lack takes many forms, but the basic principle is the same in each case.

Your challenge will be to see how this idea applies to your particular problem. Then you must take action. Let me give you a personal example of how this works.

Years ago I was deep in debt from years of medical school and the high cost of setting up my first practice. At that time, I gave nothing to charity in spite of the urging of my wife. I kept telling her we would give "later when our financial affairs were better."

But our finances didn't get better. They worsened each month, and I sank into a quagmire of self-pity and despair. At one point I decided to try some "positive thinking" at my wife's suggestion. I tried visualization and in my mind's eye saw how things could be better.

Right away our affairs began to improve somewhat. But we soon reached a plateau, and no matter what we did, our situation remained stagnant.

Then, to our horror, we discovered that one of our office workers had embezzled a large sum and squandered it on lottery tickets. I was stunned and decided we were doomed, that all our efforts were in vain.

Finally things got so bad and the outlook was so utterly hopeless that I hit bottom and gave in. I just gave up struggling and resisting and doubting and opened myself up, ready to try anything. I was already at rock bottom.

What did I have to lose?

It was a very good question.

At that point, I remember that by "coincidence" I came upon a self-help audiotape that detailed how generous giving could stimulate a flow of resources during a phase of stagnation. One night while sitting dejectedly in my office after all the patients had gone home, I decided to try doing what I had just learned on the tape. Even though I didn't have enough money to pay the rent or the utility bills, I wrote a check for twenty-five dollars to a charity I had always intended to support.

With a heavy heart I walked down to the mailbox and watched as this precious sum disappeared through the slot. Now my bank account was even emptier.

The next morning my receptionist called me out of one of my examination rooms. "Your business insurance agent is on the phone," she reported. "She says it's urgent."

I listened in rapt amazement as the agent told me that she had read about the embezzlement in the newspaper. "Your business policy covers the loss," she said. "I'll bring you a check right away for twenty-five hundred dollars."

I was flabbergasted. I didn't even know I had a "business loss" provision in my policy!

It was a miracle. Within twelve hours of putting my first check in the mailbox, I received one hundred times that amount in return. It was as if the universe was telling me that it had been trying all along to get me to understand. My life has been on the upswing ever since. I never let a month go by without giving.

Since that time I have been consistently committed to charitable giving. By "coincidence" I have never since been unable to make ends meet.