What is Eternal?

As our spiritual nature unfolds, we begin to experience things that appear eternal. They appear unbounded in time. At its highest layers, creation is a nested series of infinite virtual space-times, each in a self-aware bubble.

However, as I touched in Dying Awake, some things that seem eternal can turn out not to really be. When we transcend the space-time dynamics of self-awareness, we discover that all of those infinities eventually “sleep”. Awareness steps back from being self-aware, space-time collapses and creation ends. The Divine Mother sleeps.

Even the sense of eternal existence is dependent on awareness. We cannot say that something exists or doesn’t exist unless we are aware of it. When awareness ends, so too does all qualities, all expression, all sense of being.

This may sound like a barren place but in fact it is the opposite. We find ourselves in Brahman, in the Totality of wholeness. All expression arises within and is as-if contained by Brahman. Brahman is inherently alert and lively, leading to awareness and creation emerging again. Brahman also contains a memory of its “history” of experience, called Smriti and expressed as the Vedas. We could say Veda is eternal, though it may or may not be expressed.

But what does eternal mean if there is no time, no “now”, no before or after? The language for this gets very tricky as language occurs solely in space-time. We could say that everything at essence is eternal and nothing is eternal. Both are true in some ways, and neither.
Never say ever. 
Davidya

Dying Awake

I’ve heard teachers I respect say different things about what happens when you die (drop the body) post-enlightenment. Something I read recently discussed the variety and I realized a resolution to the differences.

Before we go into it, the first thing to understand is that we go through a series of lifetimes, driven by past karma (cause and effect) and unresolved desires. When we awaken, non-stop samadhi (silence in activity & bliss) roasts the remaining seeds of future actions/desires and we mostly step off the “wheel” of karma. With the completion of our human life, we resolve the last of the sprouted seeds. We are thus no longer reborn. (Though I understand that if we reach some basic awakening but not a full enlightenment and have unfinished business, we may have a choice to come back and finish the job. This would be one reason why we sometimes see people awaken early and easily, picking up where they left off. We may also make the shift during death.)

In the Vedic literature, there are 6 systems of Philosophy. These are known as the upangas or darshanas. Each (except the 1st) reflects the reality of a different stage of evolution. The last of these is Vedanta or “end of the Veda”, also known as Uttara Mimamsa. The primary text is the Brahma Sutras, though sometimes people associate the Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita with Vedanta due to their stories of the essence of full awakening.

Vedanta speaks of the total oneness of Brahman and on that all the highest sages are agreed. But there are 2 schools of thought about what happens after an enlightened yogis death. Both are described in the Vedas so I suggest we actually have a choice, driven in part by our history and tendencies.

One is Advaita or non-duality (without distinctions) of whom Adi Shankara is the best known exponent. He taught of a total oneness where the atma merges into Oneness with Brahman. On death of the body, any individuality or form would dissolve. The wave settles into the ocean. Totality of Oneness. (This is much deeper than the internal unity of nirvana/ Self-realization/ cosmic consciousness – this earlier stage is where ego (individual self) becomes atman(cosmic Self))

Other masters such as Ramanuja, Madhva, and Narayana speak of the transcendent space or world within Brahman. This outlook is called Dvaita or “with distinctions”(not dualism). This space within pure awareness is known as Vaikuntha Loka and is beyond all universes, humans and devas (angels). It is the first space, the first expression. We’d gain a pure light body and retain a subtle value of individuality and live with other such enlightened sages and forms of God. The ultimate heaven we could say.

As a friend observed, from that state one would have the option of returning as what the Buddhists call a Bodhisattva, an enlightened sage that may appear on occasion or for a time. Avatars (God in human form) such as Krisna reside there and may arise from there.

Ultimately though, Shankara’s is the highest truth. Some of these other masters refer to this transcendent space as eternal and the light body as absolute. However, while one may remain in this space for astonishingly long times, that space is not eternal. In a recent article on Yugas, I described some of the larger cycles of time. One cycle of Yugas is known as a Mahayuga. 1,000 Mahayugas is a day of Brahma. 100 Years of Brahma is a life of Brahma. A lifetime of Vishnu is 1,000 lives of Brahma. A lifetime of Shiva is 1,000 of Vishnus. And a time of the Divine Mother is 1,000 of Shiva. When the Divine Mother sleeps, that transcendent space is unexpressed. Now, 429 million trillion (Yukteswar) or 154 billion trillion (standard) years is a long time, but it’s not eternal.

This can also be further established with 2 other references. The story of Bhusunda the crow unusually being able to continue between creations while the great sage Vasishtha does not. And the experience of creation ending that may be part of a Unity shift. At some point, all those waves will dissolve back into the ocean. At least for a time.

Are we to dissolve or hang around awhile first? Be bliss or live bliss? Our own destination we’re not likely to know clearly until well along. We usually even forget why we’re here while in human form. But it can be amusing to consider.
Davidya

The Foundation of Belief

In our western culture, many of us were raised in Abrahamic faiths like Christianity. But most of the teachers we meet had not experienced what they preached. They asked us to believe without evidence. Have faith. As readers of this blog know, I talk about letting go and surrender. This is indeed a form of faith, but it is much deeper than a conceptual belief. It is a willingness to let go of those notions of reality so we can step through the door into the next stage. I also strongly favour understanding what the process is and relating it to our experience. Then it is faith founded in experience.

And that point is the key here. Knowledge comes from Experience, Not from Belief. But belief is a powerful filter of experience. If we lean on conceptual belief alone, we will only go as far as the story can take us. But with correct understanding, we can step into deeper layers of reality and gain experiential verification.

What has replaced religion for many has been science, a belief system of its own. While it is largely based on evidence (experience), it has a tendency to hold a physical focus and reject anything non-physical. This means it can’t address the big questions of life. In fact it tends to reduce life itself to an accidental byproduct, contrary to physical laws. This approach also lacks a moral compass and tends to give us a rather jaded perspective on life; survival of the fittest, every man for himself, and all that.

The magic is found when we can bring the 2 world-views together. Science can help us  understand who we are and how best we might live, beyond dogma. But science has to step out of its physical box to do that. Religion needs to go back to its roots and revive systematic means of direct experience. Then we can explore subjectivity objectively.

This is a more important idea than people realize. Often, when you have a discussion on metaphysical or spiritual topics, people will assume you’re arguing from a conceptual platform and will counter with their opinions & beliefs. They’ll even argue a position that is not their experience. Many forget the difference between an idea and an experience. But are concepts without experience any greater than dogmatic belief? More importantly, does growth happen through experience or belief?

It’s quite natural for the mind to develop stories about the world. It helps us understand and relate to it. The trouble is when our beliefs are based on false assumptions or are divorced from the reality of our life. Then our life is much more difficult. With direct experience of the nature of life, our stories become aligned with reality. And life becomes so much better.

The foundation of belief is experience. If you want to know something, find a way to experience it. Anything else is just a fantasy.
Davidya

The Third Descent

In this post, I’ll take little different global perspective of the process of evolution; the three descents.

The first decent is what is typically called the soul. Awareness becomes aware of itself both globally and at every point. One of those points as-if descends into the 7 chakra structure at the heart. This is called things like the flame or space in the heart or the soul.  The effect of this is that we step into a time-line or apparent sequence of experiences through the mechanism of a series of physiologies or lifetimes. We are here for Self to experience itself more completely so we descend into the process of experience itself.

The second descent happens closer to the end of this section of experiential unfoldment. The kundalini rises to the top of the head and we connect with the divine again. The divine then descends into the physiology and we experience the apparent stages of enlightenment or higher states of consciousness. Head, heart, gut and root.

The third decent happens after our awareness crosses the final veil and come to oneness, beyond even the duality of awareness aware of itself or of creator and observer. Once in awareness, that field of Totality can descend into our layers of experience, much as in the second descent. But this descent is through a much larger “pipe” and has an all-absorbing quality rather than an awakening quality. As it is not at a level where anything moves or flows, it also doesn’t really “descend” although it is experienced as if. It’s more that the ultimate nature of everything is revealed. From the descent, it grows out to absorb all in Totality.

Like, totally.
Davidya

10 Ways to Save the World

I was reminded recently of guidance on saving the world.

If we really want to save the world, first we have to save ourselves. Until we heal our own wounds and find inner peace and happiness, what we mostly have to offer the world is our troubles.

When we find ourselves rooted in peace, then we can face the world as it is. Then we can give the world what it needs, just be being here. When we are peace, that is what we give.

This is not to say we should do nothing until then. But its important to understand that how we are makes the biggest difference in the world. Peace will come when enough of us are at peace.

Here are a few principles that come to mind.

1 – Meditate regularly, in a group whenever you can. Research has demonstrated that this improves the quality of life for everyone in the community. It’s also why the crime rate has been going down. Really – there’s almost 40 years of research & dozens of studies. They’ve ended wars with it.

2 – Learn to pay attention to how things feel. You have a feeling relationship with everything in your life. It’s good to be conscious of the effect it has and what you create by how you feel. Don’t resist how you feel but learn to let feelings go.

3 – Make sure you’re acting for things rather than against them. Pro-peace not anti-war. One cultures happiness, the other anger. If you spend too much time dwelling on what’s wrong, you’ll miss what’s right and you darken the world. Solutions, not problems.

4 – Be truthful, but tell the sweet truth; tell it nicely.

5 – Always act without intending harm, to anyone or anything (see above)

6 – Avoid culturing desires for things that will clutter your life or bring harm

7 – Be easy on yourself. We all make mistakes. Learn from them rather than suffer for them.

8 – Pay attention to when is enough. Enough food, enough exercise, enough work, enough money, enough TV & Internet. Life is happiest in moderation and balance.

9 – Let things go from your life that are not adding to it. Letting go is a great practice. Charity is a great cause. Especially let go of any conflicts in your life – it takes 2 to tango.

10 – Find something good to devote yourself to and give yourself to it. Follow your bliss.

11 – Love. Someone or God, but make sure you are giving love. It is the greatest gift.

Suggestions?
Davidya

Falling Into Grace links

Links to my articles on subjects in Adyashanti’s recent book Falling Into Grace.

As I note, I found the opening chapters more introductory. But as the book progressed, there were more and more sections relevant to this blog.

The Fear of Success (on arguing with life)(Ch.5)

Opening the Hearts Door (on Intimacy)(Ch.7)

The Endless Path (there’s more than Awakening)(Ch.9)

The Moment of Grace (not a process)(Ch.8 p.170+)

Autonomy (what I call Embodiment)(Ch.9)

Virgin Birth (second birth or awakening)(Ch.10 p.208+)

Beyond Duality 1 (letting go of Heaven)(Ch.10)

Beyond Duality II (The Great Heartbreak)

Grace is (on soft and fierce grace)(Ch.11)

True Prayer (Ch.11)

 

Adyashanti’s prior book End of Your World links

True Prayer

A few years ago, I wrote on 2 types of prayer. That of asking for and that of allowing. Allowing is the deep prayer, the prayer of faith, the prayer of trust and acceptance, the prayer of “Thy will be done.”

Near the close of Falling into Grace, Adyashanti explored what he calls “True Prayer.” After exploring how defeat became grace, Adyashanti says, “We’ve all felt moments of feeling pushed down or oppressed, but the kind of defeat I’m talking about is a true surrender, a true opening, where we know that we don’t know where to go. In that sense, it’s a true prayer, and a true prayer is a powerful thing. I often tell people, ‘When you speak a true prayer, you’d better watch out, because you’re going to get what you pray for.’ And what I mean by a ‘true prayer’ is one that is spoken, or made, when you open yourself to the entire universe, from a place of not knowing and not expecting anything in particular.”

[Update:] When we tell God or the universe what we want, we have to ask ourselves if we’re really opening ourselves to what is. Are we opening ourselves to grace? He goes on to describe his own such prayer experience and how he received everything, not always in an easy way.

While what I call Deep prayer is pure surrender, Adya’s True prayer is asking without conditions and with a profound opening. Then we’re opening ourselves to grace. I explored a similar process in 5 Step Prayer. Again – just be careful of your conditions and let it go.

“So never underestimate the power of prayer and its ability to open us to grace.”
Amen!
Davidya

Grace is

We spoke about the Moment of Grace in Self Realization. In Ch.11 of Falling into Grace, Adyashanti explores grace more broadly.

“Sometimes grace is soft and beautiful. It appears as insight. It comes as a sudden understanding, or maybe just the blossoming of our hearts, the breaking open of our emotional bodies so that we can feel more deeply and connect with what is and with each other in a deeper way. Grace can also be quite fierce. There are times in life that are very, very trying. At the time, grace might be hard to recognize, but as we think back to these powerful times in our lives, we can start to see the greater gift that was received.”

“…grace is simply that which opens our hearts, that which has the capacity to come in and open our perceptions about life.”

He then goes on to describe a moment when he became completely frustrated after 4 years of ardent meditation without apparent progress. He felt exhausted and defeated and crushed. But in that utter defeat, there was a letting go. And then that moment of grace showed up.

“…right in the middle of that moment, my heart just began to flower. It was like a golden love was being poured right into my being. It was as if I could hear everything, and it was just singing with this love.”

Adya heard a voice telling him this is how he shall love. “I remember thinking, ‘I have no idea how to do that! How could I possibly love like this?’ This immensity of unconditioned love was just washing over me in waves, and I couldn’t possibly even consider how I could love in that same way, and yet, somehow I knew it was possible.”

“As time went on, I realized that I didn’t have to struggle so hard, I didn’t have to fight with life or with myself in order to open to grace. But it took many, many defeats before I could open willingly and surrender to the grace that is always there.”

As readers of this blog know, I recommend an effortless meditation. Partly, this is because it gives us the experience of inner being and is thus less likely to create such a frustration. We’re more inclined to have soft grace. However, we each tend to still have places of resistance or attachment that can bring us to such a point. If we’re unwilling to let go, circumstances can arise that may push the issue. Then we experience fierce grace.

“Grace is all around us, if we only have the eyes to see it. The good moments are grace, the difficult moments are grace, the confusing moments are grace. When we can begin to open enough to realize that there is grace in every situation, in each person we meet, no matter how easy or difficult we perceive them to be, our hearts will flower and we’ll be able to express the peace and the love that each of us has within us.”

As he reminds us by the book’s title, “We let go into grace. It’s something we fall into, like when we fall into the arms of another, or we put our head on the pillow to go to sleep.”

Soft or fierce, grace is a profound assistance on our journey. However we see it coming to us; by God, by guru, by karma, or the mystery, it is in letting go that we allow divinity to move through us. Thus grace arrives, just how it is.
Davidya

Beyond Duality, Part 2

In Part 1, we explored how we must let go even of liberation, of Heaven, to reach reality. Now, we might well ask, why the attachment to Heaven if we’ve learned to let go before? It is in the nature of the world itself. Here Adyashanti explores “The Great Heartbreak.“

“It only requires a willingness to stop. The more we stop and the more we let go, the more our consciousness naturally opens.”

“The deeper we see into the reality of things, the more our heart opens to include everything, because if we’re really feeling into our deepest reality and truth, the heart isn’t something that would want to escape from what is here and now; rather, our hearts are already embracing everything. We can allow our hearts to be big enough to be broken.”

“My teacher called this world ‘the great heartbreak.’ When we really begin to wake up to our true nature, we become more conscious of the suffering around us. We feel the people and the events of our lives more profoundly, not less profoundly. We become more present here and now. What we see is that, even though our vision may have been expanded, even though we may have woken up not just to reality, but AS reality, still we can’t control anyone. Everything and everyone has their own life to live, and we can’t just wipe away their suffering because our hearts are open. Although we would love to have everyone wake up and be happy, part of the heartbreak is accepting this moment, this world, just as it is.”

“There is nobility and beauty even when human beings are suffering. Our hearts do not want them to suffer; we want to save them, but the heartbreak is that we can’t do that. The quality of our love, the openness of our heart, still does have a profound effect on the world and others in it.”

“But don’t ever think that your presence here – your physical, material, individual presence – doesn’t have a great impact on everyone around you, because it does. You can’t ultimately control what’s around you, but you do have a great impact. This is the gift we have to give to each other: this gift of oneness, of union, of a true open heart that comes out when our mind opens.”

“If you want to see what you truly are, open the window, and everything you see is in fact the expression of your own reality, Can you embrace all of it?”

Beautiful.
Davidya

< Part 1

Beyond Duality, Part 1

In The Endless Path, I came back to the theme that there is more than just the awakening discussed in Moment of Grace & Virgin Birth. Adyashanti also comes back to this theme in Ch.10 of Falling into Grace, discussing another important angle on this. I’ve talked of how the ignorance of more can be a barrier to it. Here, he speaks of how an unwillingness can also be.

“In many forms of spirituality, the kingdom of Heaven, or freedom, or nirvana, is an escape from the world of duality…from the turmoil of human existence.”

“To realize that dimension of what we actually are [Self Realization], this deeper sense of ourselves, is extraordinarily liberating and incredibly freeing. And yet, that’s not the end of our spiritual awakening. In the end, we’ll have to let go even of that – not push it away, though, any more than we’d push away the human experience. Both the world of form and the formless nothingness are on the wheel of duality, but what lies beyond? Do we have the courage to let go of both Heaven and Hell, to let go of our attachment to not only this life on earth and our humanness, but also to let go of our attachment to the spiritual? Can we actually let go of the spiritual goodies, the great peace and freedom of nothingness, the great stillness of being pure spirit? Can we find a way to not grasp onto these, also?”

This process has profound effects on many areas of life. We may have to relearn how to be in the world.

“Many people discover that they want to stay in the formless dimension, but they keep being pulled back here, to earth, by their jobs and their families and their children and the necessities of acting and being here. Then they seek and they seek for ways to be here without really being here. I meet a lot of people who’ve heard this saying of Jesus, ‘I’m in the world, but not of it,’ and they’ll say, ‘Oh, that’s what I want! I want to be in the world but not of it!’ But really what they mean is ‘I want to be barely in the world, but what I really want to be is to be lost in that formless dimension of pure consciousness.’ That becomes very problematic. For one, it’s actually impossible. In the world of duality, there’s always coming and going, there’s always life and death, there’s always this moment and that moment, so we can’t actually hold onto anything in the end.”

“…ultimately, the whole of spirituality is a process of surrender, of letting go, to such an extent that, even when you get the greatest spiritual revelation, eventually you’ll have to let that go too.”

“…very few people know how not to get attached to heaven.”

The lesson of this process is “The world is illusion. Brahman alone is real. The world is Brahman.” It’s the last phrase we’re discussing here. Not just finding reality but living it. Until we’re living it, we’ve not actually found it.

“This is really a mature spiritual vision, not a vision that enables us to escape from the world, but one that liberates us enough to participate in it, to exist day to day from a fierce and open heart, from a willingness to fully meet and experience each and every moment. When our consciousness is rooted in this ultimate mystery, in this dazzling dark, in the ultimate Godhead, then we’re no longer confined to Heaven or Hell. We’re no longer limited to being spirit or matter. In fact, finally we don’t see any difference between the two.”

> Part 2