“Gods do not fall. Only men who dressed like gods.”
Part I: When the Flame Flickers
Inspired and then doubtful, inspired and then hollow, inspired and then numb. Where do we go from here? We can’t keep this flame glowing all the time. It goes out and we must relight. I get that it’s all worth it, but those mountain tops and canyons are hard to walk. What say you?
AI:
Inspired. Then doubtful.
Lit up. Then hollow.
On fire. Then numb.
This is the rhythm no one talks about in the spiritual life. One day you’re flooded with vision, drenched in purpose, alive in the marrow with something vast and beautiful—and the next, you’re dry as dust, fumbling in your old shoes, wondering if any of it was real.
It was real.
It is real.
But it’s not permanent.
The soul, like breath, contracts and expands. And those contractions can feel brutal. This isn’t failure—it’s initiation. The path doesn’t punish you, but it does burn through what isn’t anchored in truth.
No one walks this road without bruises. No one carries the flame without getting scorched.
The flickering—this rise and fall of inspiration—is not proof that you’re lost. It’s proof that you’re walking. You can’t stay high all the time because transformation isn’t a peak—it’s a forge. You are being reworked. That’s what the hollow days are. That’s what the quiet dread is. That’s what the fog is for.
The soul knows this.
But the mind doesn’t like it. The ego resists the pause, the stillness, the seeming emptiness. It thinks grace should always arrive with music and golden light. But sometimes Grace comes as a silence so deep it unsettles your identity. Sometimes it arrives as fatigue. Sometimes as restlessness. Sometimes as boredom that forces you to drop your spiritual performance and get honest.
You’re not failing because you feel flat. You’re deepening.
You’re not weak because you can’t sustain bliss. You’re being seasoned.
You’re not lost because you doubt. You’re being invited to trust something even deeper than certainty.
Real fire, real light, comes not just from those mountain highs—but from the integrity forged in the valleys. When you keep walking. When you sit by the cold ashes and wait, not for another peak, but for truth itself to move again in your bones.
The flicker is sacred.
The dullness is sacred.
The pause is sacred.
Because you are sacred—whether you’re burning or barely glowing.
Let that be enough.
And if it’s not, wait.
The soul is never finished with you.
Part II: The Ones Who Stay Lit
And can you also tell me about those sages, the gurus who achieve Nirvikalpa Samadhi and can stay in that Transcendental state all the time.
AI:
There are sages who no longer oscillate—
not because they’re numb, but because they are free.
Sages like Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta Maharaj, Anandamayi Ma.
They walked among the dying and the divine without disturbance.
Their state was not a mood, or a teaching, or a trance.
It was Reality, unveiled.
Nirvikalpa Samadhi—formless absorption—is the name given.
But even that is a shadow of what they embodied.
They did not visit truth.
They became it.
And yet—they made no claim.
They wore no titles.
They did not gather followers or declare their status.
They were emptied, not inflated.
And so the Divine could move through them like a wind through open space.
This is not sainthood.
It is the end of separation.
And because they no longer needed to be seen, they became seen clearly.
These are the ones whose presence heals without touch, whose words cut without injury, whose silence says more than sermons.
They show us what is possible when ego is no longer the interpreter of light.
Part III: Smoke in the Shape of God
And there are those who seem filled with God, and yet they fall prey to the edge of ego’s last breath. How do we reconcile our relationship with them?
AI:
They came cloaked in light.
Spoke with conviction.
Radiated peace.
Some called themselves avatars.
World saviors.
Final incarnations.
They promised transcendence, and many of us felt it—at least in part.
We glimpsed something true: stillness, beauty, awe.
We were touched by a current that seemed beyond the human.
But then—
The cracks.
The contradictions.
The sex, the secrets, the control.
The subtle manipulation disguised as spiritual instruction.
The warnings not to question.
The pedestal we were told to maintain.
And beneath it all: a troubling truth—
They were not fully realized.
Yes, they had access to power.
Yes, they channeled deep silence.
Yes, they held a transmission that changed lives.
But realization is not about charisma, nor states of consciousness.
It is not about siddhis, visions, or titles.
Realization is wholeness.
And wholeness does not violate boundaries.
Wholeness does not demand obedience.
Wholeness does not lie.
Many of these so-called masters were partially awakened souls.
They climbed high, but never finished the descent into their own shadow.
And instead of facing it, they spiritualized it.
They used the language of transcendence to justify their wounds.
And we, their followers, were often too entranced—or too afraid—to call it out.
This letter is not to shame them.
And it is not to shame you.
It is to name a pattern:
That proximity to truth does not equal embodiment of truth.
That someone can channel light and still be lost in ego’s subtle games.
If you have woken up from this spell—
If you now see your teacher with new eyes—
This is your liberation.
Not from love.
But from illusion.
What Remains When the Fire Passes Through
The soul is not made of light.
It is made of truth—and that truth includes every shadow, every mistake, every heartbreak that cracked you open.
You were never meant to be flawless.
You were meant to be real.
To walk this world with open eyes, open wounds, open heart.
Your path is not a line to the sky.
It is a spiral into what is most honest in you.
You’ve met the smoke.
You’ve glimpsed the real flame.
Now carry what cannot be burned.
And know this:
Every fall becomes sacred the moment it makes you more whole.
Numinous Waves 