The Cross, As Symbol

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Eupsychia Institute
PO Box 151960
Austin, TX 78715-1960

(800) 546-2795
Local (512) 327-2795
Fax (512) 327-6043

The cross can be used as a symbol to demonstrate the difference between ordinary and non-ordinary consciousness. The horizontal "arm" of the Cross represents the normal reality of our everyday lives. Here we collect our experiences and relationships on a past-present-future "timeline" of ongoing occurrences. Ordinary consciousness is limited to this material world of sequential events.

Non-ordinary consciousness puts us on "the vertical arm of the Cross," where we access soul memory. There we move in and out of different time periods without ever leaving the present moment's experience; in other words, we're in a timeless state. We may dip down and remember something from the past, or move upward and be shown something from the future, or we may do both at once! But on the vertical dimension, whatever comes in is always experienced as happening now!

In this way, we regress, turning back to re-experience and reclaim pieces of unfinished psychological work. Things that were repressed are released so we can truly know them and let them go. Or we might progress, moving forward to enter a greater reality or a "heaven world" out in the cosmos to learn some holistic truth, or simply realize we are bigger than we seem–which is healing in itself. Whether moving backward or forward, when the body feels as if it's being transported to the other dimension it is a present-moment experience.

Trance states, such as those produced by dreams, process hypnosis, meditation and various kinds of breathwork, provide access to the various dimensions up and down the vertical arm. ... When we are rising "above the horizon" on the vertical arm of the Cross, mystical experiences transcend ordinary time...When our consciousness drops us "below the horizon" in the vertical dimension of the inner worlds, deep psychological healing is possible. We can clear painful issues left over from the past that have long been repressed and untapped in our ordinary waking state.

... Besides representing "horizontal" events of ordinary-world time and the far less earthly experiences of "vertical" timelessness, the Cross reminds us of balance. ...Too much ego work (the horizontal) becomes a deadly preoccupation with the past, or getting so caught up with detail we lose sight of the bigger picture. Too much transcendence (vertical) makes us "spacey" and inefficient in ordinary life; it can take us into an irrelevant, time wasting "spiritual by-pass." Wholeness comes from living right at the point where horizontal and vertical meet. This is being centered, our natural healthy state. [excerpts from RISING TO THE CALL, pg. 47-51]

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