Part I: The Calling
With the quiet passing of December 21, 2012, humanity escaped yet another threat of doom, and we happily continued with our daily lives. Some of us made fun of the Mayans, and others ridiculed the concept of a predetermined doomsday. As for the rest, some were disappointed because they were expecting a radical change. Yet none of the changes people expected took place, but are we so sure of this?
First, the Concept of Extraterrestrials
If your expectations center on the coming of extraterrestrials and their role in saving us from ourselves, you are wrong. You will look up at the heavens, but all you will see is a starry night. This does not mean that extraterrestrial beings don’t exist, it just means they are unlikely to interfere in our lives. This is especially true if you were expecting intervention from an advanced civilization, because in the universe, advanced means advanced in terms of spiritual development. As for us, we think about advancement in technological rather than spiritual terms. This difference stems from the fact that spiritually advanced civilizations would never interfere in the development of another’s soul. They are rather like spectators watching a butterfly leave its cocoon. They could help the butterfly by enlarging the hole in its cocoon, but they know its wings would never develop then. That’s why they watch us, offering support from the heart and making a few suggestions, but they will never come and do everything for us.
As for other technologically advanced civilizations like our own, they are very much like humanity is today in their spiritual development. Like us, their motivation is to acquire and conquer. They don’t interfere—they want to take over. Likewise, if we were to develop intergalactic flying saucers, our first action would probably be to go and loot other planets. These civilizations do not watch the butterfly emerge. They take the cocoon, boil the butterfly, and make silk to turn into nice clothes. Does this sound familiar? For them, the cocoon is not a vessel of life but a product they can claim. So, if extraterrestrials were to visit us, they would probably act like this. When so many such communities already exist on our planet, it won’t be easy to handle these like-minded extraterrestrials as well. Thank God that someone or something is preventing these attacks from happening, although it has been suggested that there have been such interferences in the distant past, but this is yet another topic! (Look up the Annunakies for more information.)
What about Doomsday?
Another prediction was that we were to face the day of judgment as explained in many religious teachings. There are similar concepts in most religions, but I want to approach the subject from a familiar point of view: The process that starts when Israfil blows the horn. On December 21, 2012, I expect many waited for the Sur (horn) to sound like sirens through the cities. Please don’t laugh! Do you know why the campaign to “Kill the Traffic Monster in You” was started? It was because studies showed that people really believed that such a monster existed, as did the Monster of Inflation. It sounds childish, doesn’t it? In a way it is, because it involves not only the physical and mental development but also spiritual development. There are millions of people on Earth who have fit bodies and sharp minds that can engage in intelligent conversation, but their spiritual development is like that of a child or adolescent.
In fact, it isn’t that hard for people to understand the level of their spiritual consciousness. If they keep blaming others for their own deeds, saying things like, “Mom, it really wasn’t me. It was the boy next door/the monster/the devil/the angel,” then I would tend to think their level of consciousness is akin to that of a child. As for those who blame the next person for everything, they have the level of an adolescent. Those with developed souls, however, bear sole responsibility for all their actions. They never try to blame anyone else. At this level, there are no accusations, and concepts such as crime and punishment do not exist. Mature souls know that every step taken echoes through the universe, and they are fully aware that they alone are responsible for the effects of those echoes.
What Is Responsibility?
The word responsibility can be perceived in a negative sense. I myself sometimes get irritated when I hear the word, because I see before me an angry, accusing face telling me, “You are responsible for everything you have done!” I guess this is something that is peculiar to me, but then again, maybe it’s the same for many of us.
Another irritating time to use the word is in situations where you are obliged to do something that you don’t want to do. One example is when a six-year-old boy comes home from school and wants to play, but he has a ton of homework to do, and this homework is his “responsibility.” In a way, I am sure there is “school homework” lying beneath all our hidden laziness. You decide to go and become initiated into Reiki. At level one, there is a 21-day basic task. Most of those I talked to have never completed this task, and I haven’t either. Why is this? It’s because deep in our subconscious there is still the concept of homework. This is why we spend so much of our time watching TV or reading Facebook instead, so we miss many of the things that would have benefitted us. I see no use in saying, “We are good friends” just because we read posts every day on Facebook about things we haven’t been doing and what we been missing. Our reactions to these posts are then limited to clicking “Like” or “Share.” Do we act on these posts? No, we don’t, because these remind us of the teacher shouting, “Why aren’t you living up to your responsibilities!” In childhood, we didn’t react, but we react today by folding our arms and doing nothing.
The way to make people act is not to scold, push, or force them. People only act if they themselves want to. You can only point out things that will make them understand why they aren’t acting. If you can see why you aren’t doing the things you should, then and only then will the obstacle be lifted. How can you achieve this? It can be done like I did just a moment ago. As I was writing this article, I realized why I remained inactive in so many situations.
Responsibility is being aware of the sound made by your every step. Every step has an effect in the universe, and we should know it stems from ourselves. The beauty we face is a reflection of the step we took. Every “difficulty” is nothing but obstacles made by ourselves. Mature souls know that anything they are angry about, or react to, is actually also related to themselves. They follow the leads and find the roots of whatever it was that made them angry or reactionary. They then observe it. In fact, the observation itself means accepting it, and the inner wound then starts to heal. Soon, they realize they no longer react or become angry when faced with similar situations. These situations are no longer a problem. It has done the trick yet again, kind of like paying a visit to the doctor for a checkup. Because it no longer hurts or prompts a reaction, it means it has been healed.
What Happened to the Horn?
So, I started with the blowing of the horn sounding like sirens through the cities, and look where I ended up. The concepts I mentioned will be useful for us, however, because Israfil has blown his horn and judgment day is here…
Part II: Awakening
How has life treated you since December 21, 2012? From what I’ve seen and messages I’ve received, I would say it’s been quite difficult. I have heard of so many cases of people being hospitalized. I’ve heard many saying their anxieties have multiplied and their fears worsened, and they are at a loss. For many, it has been a time to change course. This seems natural at any point in time, but when it happens in such large numbers, it’s different. I am sharing with you my observations in general, as well as what I have been going through personally.
December 21, 2012
I wanted to experience December 21, 2012 in a special place. I had Egypt in mind, and according to my plans, I would have been at the Dendera Temple on the day if I had been able to go. This is a special place for me, but it unfortunately didn’t happen. There was such an outcry about it when I decided to spend it with my family in Izmir. My wife also insisted that I get out of the house after that day. In short, I did nothing special that day. The next day, our photographic workshop had a “Day After” party, which I attended…
In fact, I was really in the mood to party because I had always believed and said that December 21, 2012 should be a day for celebration. Just think about it: It was the end of a 26-thousand-year cycle, and the world was being reborn in a way. Also, according to the spiritual society of the Mayans, it was the end of the fifth sun and the birth of the sixth. The civilizations of the period around 1500 BC lived through the previous transition from the fourth to the fifth sun. During that time, a massive volcano erupted on what we know as the island of Santorini today. This triggered the collapse of the Minoan civilization and affected many other civilizations. But even this date wasn’t as spiritually important as December 21, 2012, because our world hadn’t finished the 26-thousand-year cycle then. This cycle started with the passing of our planet through the region known as the uterus of the Universe in the Milky Way. Now, after 26 thousand years, our world is passing through it again. This symbolizes a rebirth. In short, while you’re reading this article, our planet is passing through the same spot where it was born. Furthermore, according to the Mayans, the first 13,000 years was a period of light, while the following 13,000 years was a period of darkness. This means that as of December 21, 2012, we have exited the dark half of the cycle and entered into the light of a new cycle. So, shouldn’t we be celebrating such an event?
After the “Day After” Party
We had our party, and I, with my limited tolerance for alcohol, had quite a few drinks. But after that day, a period started where, if I can be so blunt, I was “fucked up”! It was as if I was engulfed in fire, and I felt trapped. Later, the reflections of this in my life started to appear. First, the arguments with my wife started. It reached such a point that I almost left home. Each day seemed harder than the one before. Then New Years Eve came, and we, the whole family, came down with food poisoning. It was my first New Years Eve that I celebrated from bed while staring at the TV. What’s more, our dinner had been a light dish of boiled potatoes of course! After the New Year, everything went from bad to worse. With my aura on fire, the tension was unbearable at home, and things were little better at work. I was at a point where I didn’t know what to do. It was a time when I needed to take a step forward, make a decision, and take a choice, so I did…
Here Is My Choice
I stopped. I did nothing. I did not take a step, nor did I decide anything. I did not even come close to making a choice. I only stopped and looked. I looked at my burning aura, and I took a look at my home. I looked at my wife and children. I looked at my work. Eventually, I turned and looked at myself.
I was at a stage where every step I took burned me. I could not sit still, yet I didn’t want to be anywhere else. To live or to die, I wanted a solution to all this. I was so estranged, it felt like my soul wanted to leave my body. I wanted to escape, but there was nowhere to escape to. I monitored all these feelings, and then I felt I had to do something. I had to go within myself, face myself, and talk to myself. Luckily I had a tool to do this: the meditation I had learned from my Reiki teacher, Gülüm Omay. This meditation lasted two and a half hours. I’d done it many times before, but recently I’d been neglecting it. In fact, it was not the meditation I had been neglecting but rather myself. It meant being with myself for over two hours, and I was neglecting myself by not doing it. The results of this neglect were apparent, so I sat down to meditate.
Time to Wake Up!
I have always believed we draw up our plans before we are born. It is as if you are going on a trip the next day and have to wake up early. You set the alarm, so you can wake up early. It rings at the set time, and your first reaction is you would really like to sleep longer. You are comfy in your warm bed, and it’s cold outside. You wonder why you are bothering to go out into the cold. Because it’s an outing you have planned yourself, you eventually get up. If it had been school, though, would you have really wanted to leave that warm bed?
I remember many “negotiations” with my mom over another five minutes in bed. In the same way, there are alarms set before we come into this world, both individually and in the masses. The worst thing, however, is that this time you cannot turn off the alarm. It keeps ringing, and you cannot reach it from your bed. To turn it off, you have to get out of the bed and walk over to it. By the time you reach it, you are already fully awake.
Let’s say that what I have explained so far is your individual alarm clock, but there are also wake up calls for the masses. In the holy teachings, this call is explained as Archangel Israfil’s horn. You cannot turn off this alarm even if you leave your bed. You hear it ringing even if you hide under the bed covers, even if you cover your head with pillows. This is not a big deal for those who are half awake, but it presents a great problem to those who never woke up. Sometimes, while laying next to something warm, you dream of burning. In the same way, those who have not woken up from their dream, which they probably think is their life, still feel the same discomfort from the alarm. This is because we all came into this world knowing and wishing for humanity to go through this change. We planned to be here to contribute to the spiritual development of this planet, and we planned to wake up when the time came. However, we are reluctant to wake up when the alarms ring. We are still in bed and warm under our covers. What’s the use of leaving this comfortable place?
Let me give you some good news here: You don’t have to wake up! You were wrong if you thought I told you that you had to wake up. You were wrong if you thought I was shouting that we should all wake up. There is no such coercion in the universe. In the design for spiritual development, there is also a need for those who won’t wake up. The product is magnificent regardless of how many accept that role. A great construction will rise even if five billion continued sleeping while five million woke up! (If it is possible for five million to do so?) Dear friends, this is why you can continue your sleep, but the sound of the horn might still disturb you. Be warned, it may even enter your dreams.
Has the Trumpet been Blown then?
Yes, ever since Dec. 21, 2012, when the crank of doom started turning. This is the “Doom of Consciousness.” It is the Universe’s call to awakening, whether to the already awake or to the sleeping ones. There is place for everyone in this great construction. The Director is calm, and the choice is yours. I personally choose to wake up and play an active role in this play, and I hope I will succeed. What about you? What do you choose?
Part 3: The Healing
I was frustrated. I was in my photography studio, the studio I loved so much, yet I wanted to leave it. I went home, but my frustration grew. I was in a state where I didn’t know what to do. I then suddenly remembered a similar condition I experienced two years ago, in January of 2011, where I had sat down to meditate, the meditation I had neglected. I prepared my environment and started to meditate.
Meditation? What Sort of Meditation?
It was a meditative practice consisting of nine stages. It was performed by spending 15 minutes sending Reiki to the five basic bodies, specifically the ethereal, emotional, mental, and spiritual bodies, as well as the connections between them. Gülüm had instructed us to do each stage every day, but I had misunderstood him and thought that it should all be done in one day.
This worked out well in a way, because I got to spend over two hours with myself. Fifteen minutes a day isn’t enough for a concentration like this. We spend hours using Facebook, but if we spent those hours on ourselves instead, how different everything would be. (Meditation was just my choice. You can spend time with yourself using whichever practice makes you feel right, whether it be yoga, different meditation techniques, and so on.)
As I meditated, I have to tell you I experienced a lot of visions. I took a journey within myself, just like a movie where I am the hero and the one affected. In a short while, you will get to see the results of these visions.
Here We Go!
I closed my eyes and let the background music flow over me. Nothing happened during the first few minutes. The first stage is a bit like starting an engine. You send Reiki to all of your body. You focus and start adjusting to the environment.
My Soul in a Roman Bath….
Upon opening my eyes, I found myself in a Roman bath. In front of me lay three mid-sized pools, and right behind them was a larger pool. In fact, this wasn’t a bath but rather a healing center. I had three helpers who greeted me and told me they would help me to remove my armor. I was about to ask what armor they were talking about when I saw it on my body. I thought I had taken it off, but there it was. The three helpers approached and started removing my armor. What lay beneath was horrifying. My body was covered with wounds and cysts. The only parts of my body that looked healthy were the parts the armor hadn’t covered. My skin hurt so much that I didn’t want the helpers to touch it, but they approached with cloths in their hands. They started rubbing my wounds, taking away the scabs. I screamed in pain. (While I was even more frustrated, I knew from previous experience that I shouldn’t stop. I had to go through all this for my body to heal. I knew I was close to solving it all as I lived through these visions.)
Under the scabs, my body was covered in worms and parasites. There were so many white worms. They took out a parasite that was white and snake like. I had three more of these snake-like parasites in my back, and they took those out too. (With the help of these symbols, my soul was telling me how our deep-rooted fears and thoughts eat up our energy.)
I was then told to enter the first pool, so I did so. The pool water was a shade of yellow, and it engulfed my body, which was still covered with wounds. I was told not to worry because the pool would heal me. I became aware that my efforts to protect myself had deeply harmed my body. All these defensive tactics such as armor and shields, I thought they were necessary to protect myself, but just the opposite had occurred. I let myself go in the pool.
The Aftermath
My visions continued as I entered each pool. The last pool was for my spiritual body, and I left that pool thoroughly cleansed. I still had my wounds, and it would take time for them to heal completely. As I was about to end my meditation, I saw the pieces of armor that I had thought would protect me. I was wrong—I didn’t need any armor.
After the meditation, I sort of felt better, yet I was still frustrated. These techniques are like operations in a way. There are no magical techniques that you can practice today and be completely healed the next. I needed time. I needed time because this was just a preparation for what was expected of me later.
Israfil’s horn isn’t blown just as a wakeup call. Waking up is only the beginning. You are bathed and cleaned to prepare you for the next confrontation, a confrontation with no armor or shield whatsoever. Step by step, I was getting ready for this confrontation. I was to confront myself, but before this meeting, a powerful rival was waiting for me and had been for many a year. I was to face my fear…
Part 4: The Awakening
I don’t know for how long I have been dead. Maybe it’s since my birth; maybe I’ve been dead for many lives. Maybe I came to this world alive at first, and I got lost somewhere and left myself to die. My body continued to live, and my soul continued to dream, but I was a living corpse who thought he had risen from the grave.
Death is like falling into a deep hole. You look up and see the light, but you cannot climb toward it. After a while, you don’t really feel like getting out. Deep in the hole are things that give you beautiful visions. They make you feel like you are alive. In a common dream, we were there and stayed there. In fact, the bottom of the hole is the first important stop in the voyage known as life. You might wonder why someone would want to live at the bottom of a hole, but that is an important experience as well. What’s more, this is a planet where millions of people are “dead”! No wonder we love zombie movies…
Dead? How?
Yes, dead, or in other words, being dead while believing you are alive and have woken up. I have been on the journey of knowing myself since 1955. I confront, learn, practice, observe, try… it never ends. I know it is a never ending journey, but I run and run like a hamster in a wheel. I’ve read a lot. I’ve gone to workshops, yet I feel like I return to the beginning each time, and I never understand why. I experienced this while sleeping one night. In my dream, I saw myself waking up in my room. I got out of bed and walked around the house like I usually do, but I was still asleep. That night, I dreamed of waking up at least eight times, and each time, I would tell myself I was really awake. It felt as if I couldn’t return to my body, at least until I eventually woke up.
Life is very similar to this. Yes, I’ve learned a lot, but nothing I did was to any avail. There was something basic lacking. I was lying dead in bed; I did not exist.
Facing Fear
I have always had trouble with my stomach. I later learned it was the solar plexus chakra. While chakras are rarely completely blocked, there can be mild blockages, so they might not work properly. Despite this, I have always felt like mine was completely blocked, and now I wanted to discover why. This wish would take me to my deep-rooted problems.
I started meditating and concentrated on the solar plexus. All I wanted was to see why it was blocked. I went down, layer by layer, but it felt like it wasn’t enough. I started by observing my fears. I had always been restless and fearful, and I guess this is why I’ve led my life with the hand brake on. I have always approached new ideas with refusal or reluctance, but at times there were certain ideas I would agree to. I would realize them, but then I would retreat because I was afraid. Life was a process not to be lived but to be feared. I was always ready for the blows that might come. I might be lost, yes, but what I feared most was ceasing to exist.
I decided to focus on this fear of ceasing to exist. What did it mean to cease to exist? What was I afraid of losing? What was I trying to protect? My ego could easily enter a defensive mode, and I was protecting myself! What or whom was I protecting myself from? Moreover, what was the “me” that I was protecting? The key question arose here: Who was I?
Who Am I?
This question has been asked since history began, and here it was right in front of me. I saw there was no clear answer so far, be it philosophical, psychological, spiritual, or religious. None of these disciplines had yet provided the answer. There were papers and books in front of me, but I faced a rather blank emptiness.
This was when I realized I was just a black emptiness. I did not exist, and I couldn’t answer the question of who I was because of this. What I thought was “I” was just a fake programmed by my mother, my father, my surroundings, and my environment. All of these in turn had been programmed by their parents and surroundings, and this has been so for generations. What I thought was me was in fact what had been handed down to me by my parents. I had copied them. This is what is taught in psychology classes: Characters are made up of nature and nurture. In short, you receive the existing, and present something new, but something lacks in this equation. Where is the real me?
Does such a Thing Exist?
Everyone asks this question, don’t they? There has to be a real me for me to be so fearful and afflicted. All through my meditation, I was in pain. Everything I believed was me was unraveling, and I could see who I had been imitating. This might be a normal condition, but it wasn’t “me”! So who was I?
Judgment Day
The holy scriptures regard judgment day as the day when the dead rise. The societal consciousness has interpreted this as us all dying and being brought back to life when the horn is blown. However, this is metaphorical, just as all such teachings are. It means resurrection. Waking up from death and standing up. This is a process in itself, because even when you live in a dream, you are responsible for what you have done.
I said we were at the bottom of a hole, yet there is a way out of this hole. They call this the “Sirat Bridge.” This symbolizes passing from the land of the dead to the land of the living. It also comes to mean the “Journey of Knowing Oneself.”
People who really want to wake up start their journeys first in the world of dreams, or the world we live in. Here your deeds stand before you, but not to punish or to blame you. Those images stem from the patriarchal society and the power of the strong father figure. It is the interpretation of the crime-and-punishment society, where all that is demanded from you is to accept all responsibility for everything you have chosen to do. On hearing this, all you think about is negative judgments. You feel like you have done something wrong, and now you will be judged and punished for it.
This is why, all your life, you refused to hear the sound of the steps you took. You refused to see the effects of your choices on others. In reality, it isn’t what we have done to others but only what we have done to ourselves. We refuse to raise our heads and face it. We are scared it will hurt us, so we escape from it throughout all our lives. If you have come this far, and if you really want to be awake, you have to accept and hug everything you have refused so far. Maybe it will be hard and painful in the beginning, but once you can say, “Yes, I did it!” and start crying, the healing will begin. Whatever has been blocked will be cleared, and it will start to flow again.
Every step we take opens a parenthesis, and this is called Karma. Once these parentheses are closed, the programs start working properly. This holds true for both math and grammar. Once you close a parenthesis you opened earlier, awakening starts.
Am I Light?
When the meditation was over, I hurt so much. I was hurting because I knew I hadn’t found the answer to who I was. At least I knew the “I” that I thought existed did not. That was why my life felt like a void, a fear-filled emptiness…
If you think I will suddenly say, “I suddenly realized I was light; I was the core of existence,” then you are wrong. These words are like opium because you fear the lack of an answer, so you cling to these words. It is like thinking of sheets of paper instead of the emptiness. You can hold them in front of you and read the affirmations on them, and this obscures the emptiness from you, but you can’t hold them like that forever. Eventually you lower them, and the emptiness will be right in front of you like a black hole.
Call to Awakening
The Universe has a basic rule: Whatever blockage, problem, or wound there is, if you face it, the healing process will begin because you have come to accept it. And this will be the deep understanding that will lead me to revival. I have come to understand the basic distress within me. I greet those I can hear saying, “Is that all you discovered!” If you face that emptiness once, you won’t say such things any more.
That emptiness; the absence of “I am”; everything you have defended, believed, valued, glorified, and fought like mad to make real; and the “You” is in fact nothing but a delusion. Once you face this, you will be horrified, just like it is mentioned in the holy scripts about doomsday. The pain of not having, not being, is a pain we have suffered for many lives long.
Where Is Hell?
There was one phrase that began my adventure in search of myself. One morning, my friend Begüm and I were on a walk. We were discussing judgment day when Begüm told me, “Forget Hell…Both Heaven and Hell are here on Earth!” Of course, I refuted this and told her she was talking nonsense. Following that talk, I met her mother, who gave me a few books to read. I still did not agree with them until I experienced my first doom of waking up from sleep. They call this the first awakening in spirituality.
Dear Begüm, it’s been years since that talk, and now I take back the dismissive words I used that day. You were right—the real Hell is here on Earth. It is a hell that we who are dead believe to be real. Heaven is here as well, a Heaven we will get to see when we realize who we are, a Heaven where we will be together once the emptiness fills, a Heaven that will hold new truths.
I still do not know what kind of a place Heaven is, but I hear a voice within the depths of my soul. It must be the horn of Israfil, and that sound tells me to wake up!
This time Israfil blew his horn, and he did so to all humanity…
Time to Awaken
He suddenly opens his eyes and looks around from where he lays. He then sees what is around him. He sees his guides, who were trying to keep him alive as he lay dead. To some they are gods and goddesses, to others they are angels, and to the rest they are just guides. It isn’t really important who they are, but rather that they tried to bring us back to life. First we see them, hug them with all our hearts, and give them our thanks. Then we look at our hands and later at our legs. Finally, we look at our bodies…
We get up from where we were laying. We look around and focus on the door in front of us. The door slowly opens, and as you step outside, you know deep down you have the answer to the question that has haunted you for so long: “Who am I?” The answer will make itself felt in the body that has been dead for so long, and this answer is…
…existence and the life it brings.
