Embodiment

There is an aspect of enlightenment that may get missed in a focus on milestones. As I touched on in What is Consciousness?, the stages of development are stages like puberty. They are markers of transition, not the fully lived state.

Some people, after an initial awakening, begin teaching. This may be due to the desire to share the experience, some false concept that equates awakening to teacher, or simply to support others. One has to be careful not to be premature about it. Or to fall into the trap of “my” being the teacher and thus knowing the “truth.” A fully embodied awakening is well past Self Realization.

Many of the awake quietly go on about their lives, sharing only with those close to them. But they radiate the peace and happiness they embody, too subtly for most to notice.

As the development becomes more advanced, we may be increasingly circumspect about sharing. But there comes a time when openness becomes key, where sharing is what unites. Where we’re willing to be seen, heard and felt. Where it is in speaking of it that Unity is lived and Brahman becomes embodied, here.

This points back to the old idea that the teacher gains more than the student. But this does not necessarily take the form of “teacher” or guru. Perhaps just open sharing and support, showing up where needed. Perhaps just going where invited, much as Eckhart Tolle began.

Those reading this blog know that circumstances have been drawing me out. This is a better marker than any personal goal or agenda. Such steps may appear for ostensibly other reasons but as usual, That is coordinating the show. A teacher friend pointed out the subtle but key significance in being called to live it in community. The  benefits of it continue to surprise.
Davidya

The Middle Way

Spiritual experiences are an interesting animal. Some of them are way outside our usual experience of the world. They can also be accompanied by both purification and feelings of peace, connection, and so forth. When people have experiences of other “dimensions” or “realities”, they sometimes take them to be the “real truth” and are prone to get attached to them. I know a fellow, for example, who had a profound experience a decade ago and is convinced this is enlightenment – he just needs to get it back. This points to a fundamental error in understanding: enlightenment is not about experiences, it’s about being. Experiences may result but they are not the shift.

Because of the tangling potential of experiences, some teachings suggest you ignore all experiences. They suggest all of that is just Maya, illusion, phenomena. Ignore everything but Self. It is only pure transcendent being that is important.

My approach is more highest first. Yes, do go for silent being. But I see experiences like thoughts. It’s not the experiences that are the issue, it’s our attachment to them that cause us trouble.

If we can take a “light” approach and enjoy what comes up but avoid trying to hold onto anything, focusing on liberation, then we are more likely to enjoy the ride.

There’s another difference the approach makes. The subtle feelings and refined perception of the God Consciousness (GC) phase post-waking are at first often subtle and delicate. If we discount what comes up, they will fade away. I’ve seen this happen with friends. This explains why few people who discount experiences tend to describe refined perception, God and related sorts of things. They simply don’t culture them.

That’s perfectly fine. Exploring the structure of creation, subtle beings, past lives and all that can certainly be distracting and it’s not for everybody. It gives you more things to let go of too.

But it’s good to be aware we’re making such a choice. If we instead allow experiences that come up to simply be there and dwell on them lightly, sometimes, they flower into broader, deeper experiences. New aspects of life and expression unfold. Give a Deva your attention and they’ll show you their magic. (laughs)

What we experience varies widely by person but broadly there is two types with GC. One is finer and finer values of feeling, the awakening of divine love, bliss, compassion, and so forth. The other is finer values of the 5 senses, perception of more refined values of the world and our body/mind, and related energetic abilities such as the siddhis. Also in there is the 6th (claircognizance) and 7th (connection) “senses”.

There is an old Indian saying – capture the fort and all the diamond mines and gold mines will be yours. The fort in this case is the source, silent being. The mines are all the unearthed benefits of awakening. What you ask of awakeness and awakeness asks of you will vary by person. But personally, I prefer the rich unfolding of GC followed by a unification. Someone is far more likely to describe silence as fullness than emptiness with this path.
Davidya

Layers and Gates

Our energy system is a complex and many-layered thing. The specific combinations of open, developed, and blocked channels are unique to each person. This also means each of us experience it differently. What we’re willing to experience, how we best experience sensorially, and what is relatively clear all effect our experience.

During Nancy Shipley Rubin’s recent workshop, I was reminded of several points around this. For example, the idea of the 3 Am-egos or 3 layers of ego I’ve talked about prior. This matches Adyashanti’s “head, heart, and gut” model and the corresponding chakras. But in another way, it is the grip of the 3rd chakra, expressing itself and being released in 3 layers of expression. This illustrates how intertwined it all is. When we say this chakra is for this and that for that and the mental body is this and the emotional body that, these are  generalizations. The less physical we go, the less specific and the more intertwined.

Another example is the open or closed status of the 2nd I spoke of on the previous article. Shifting in the 2nd changes the balance of all the chakras, especially those closest. Thus, a simple shift on a deeper level can affect most areas of life.

During the workshop, Nancy talked of the chakras in a fascinating way. She described how the 2nd (Vitality), 4th (heart, Creation), and 6th (forehead, Inspiration) are alternated with 2 permission (allow) gates – the 3rd gate of safety and the 5th gate of truth. If we don’t feel safe or if we don’t feel truth, the energy will not move smoothly between the centres. The gates are also known as the male centres while the first set are the female.

Interestingly, this may suggest partly why some people experience much less of the God consciousness phase in the descent before unity. They feel safe enough to release the grip of the 3rd and unify. But they do not accept the idea of angels or God and thus don’t open the truth gate on the way down.

Similarly, Kundalini Vidya talks of the 3 caps in the root, heart and just above the throat chakras that block the kundalini rising until the aspirant is ready. Further, there is a major energy knot typically found just above the third where the grip mentioned above is typically felt.

There are multiple layers to all this. There is the first rising to awakening that Nancy is describing. Shakti rises to meet Shiva in the crown. Then there is the descent of the divine to the root that matches the stages of enlightenment, as in the am-ego’s mentioned above. This becomes embodied when the descent is complete. Finally, Shakti is said to rise again and settle in a chakra based on the abilities needed by the individual, especially if they have a mission. She may even return to the root to open more abilities. A rare few clear the psyche completely and go to Omega, a final return to the crown. (the descent should not be confused with descending energies being used to clear and open petals and secondary centres. The descent I refer to is primary.)

It’s a rich aspect of ourselves to get to know. Our energy (prana, chi, qi) is that aspect of spirit that moves to create our body, mind, and the world around us. If we want to understand causes, this is where you’ll find answers, just as the quantum physicists explore the way the world works via energy measurement.

Davidya

The Power of the Telling

Well, I have finally completed reading the Yog Vasistha. In the telling, the sage Vasishtha sits with Rama in the royal court and explains to him the nature of reality. All of the many present are enlightened. Due to the request of the sage Baradwaja, Brahma grants Valmiki’s telling of the story the same power.

As I note in the first article on the book (3 years ago!) the story is told by one sage to another about a royal sages conversation with Valmiki who in turn tells the story of the discourse itself. So it’s a story about a story about the story. And the story is told with the use of stories. 

To paraphrase a late page, an intelligent conscious man appears to be insentient when he sleeps; even so does the infinite consciousness appear to be insentient objects. The infinite consciousness later becomes sentient objects, just as the sleeping man begins to dream. This continues until liberation and the realization that the world is a long dream of the divine.

Sweet Dreams!
Davidya

The Vastness of Creation

There are a number of things one may experience on the path of life that may be well outside of our understanding and expectations. In a curious way, that’s one of the things that verifies the experience; that it’s so far outside anything we might imagine. But it can still be very useful to read of others similar experiences. It acts as a verification, may point out details you’d not noticed, and helps speed integration.

That’s one of the motivators for this blog. Many years ago, I found myself in an unknown wilderness much as is described below. While such experiences come with their own knowledge, when they’re rather outside our existing understanding, it’s like getting a new map with no relation to the old one.  Gradually, the pieces came together but it would have been easier had there been some reference points. Thus, such posts as this. I gather up some of the harder to find references to the nature and structure of reality to support people who may be on a similar path.

In the next story of the Yog Vasistha, The World within the Rock, Vasistha describes an experience. While coming out of 100 years of samadhi in a secluded place in distant space, he hears a sigh. Being in a far-off spot, he’s curious why he would hear such a thing and goes within to investigate.

I merged in the infinite consciousness. I saw reflected in the consciousness the image of countless universes. I was able to go anywhere* and to see everything. I saw countless creations though they did not know of one another’s existence. Some were coming into being, others were perishing, all of them had different shielding atmospheres** (from 5 to 36). There were different elements in each, they were inhabited by different types of beings in different stages of evolution with different natures and cultures, some had other universes within them, in some there were creatures you would not believe possible to exist, in some there was apparent natural order and in others there was utter disorder, in some there was no light and hence no time-sense. All of these are but fruits of the one indivisible infinite consciousness.

Whether one regards these universes as creations of the supreme Creator or as false notions, it is certain that they are in fact the infinite consciousness, non-different and not independent of it.

The diversity arouses his curiosity and he roams the magnitude of creation. Then he remembers it is delusion and ends the experience. I realized one could spend lifetimes looking and never see it all and thus realized continuing was just a distraction. Learn the key things, then get back to living life.

Vasistha clearly takes the position that all experiences are false illusions and delusion. I agree that there is importance in understanding creation is the “dream of God” or Lila/play, but I prefer Shankara’s approach. He describes how Maya or illusion evolves, depending on which guna is dominant. If Tamas or inertia is dominant, it has the effect of a covering. If Rajas or energy is dominant, it has the quality of illusion, how Maya is usually understood. But if Sattva or purity is dominant, it is like a ladder of knowledge. Still Maya, but one we can learn from and follow home.

I take the position that it’s not so much that the world is delusion but what we think the world is is a delusion. As he says, all experiences are nothing but notions or intentions within the one indivisible infinite consciousness. If we experience that the world is nothing but the play of consciousness within itself, then we have overcome the delusion.

I’ve written about this similarly on past lives. It’s not advisable to get caught up in a big story about ones past. But understanding one’s past can help clear the present.

We live in a vastness of existence that is beyond comprehension. A world that is diverse beyond imagining. Yet each of us is an integral and inseparable part of that wholeness. We are infinite consciousness alone.
Davidya

* he later describes being in a space-body, a body made of the space element rather than a physical body. This allows him to move within consciousness. This is not the same as an astral body. That’s much more gross and limited. It’s also a much messier place to travel in.
** as something outside the universe would hardly need an atmosphere, I suspect a mistranslation, probably more about layers of creation structured in the cosmic air element. (I don’t have the Sanskrit)

Shankara’s 3 laws

Shankara’s 3 laws:
1st law: Brahman is real
2nd law: the world is not real (the half truth)
3rd law: Brahman is the world

Thus, the world is real, but not the real we started out thinking it was. Not the real of separate objects but rather as an appearance of the one wholeness. A dance of the divine.

Ramana Maharishi put it this way:
1. self is real
2. the world is not real
3. self is the world
He emphasized that Shankara “did not stop at the second statement but went on to the third”.

In another forum, it was observed that precisely because the world isn’t real proves it is Self.

Put another way, we could say the world in itself does not exist but it’s true nature as Brahman does. Or, it’s real, but only as Brahman, not as separate objects.

We might use the analogy of a movie theater. (stretching a bit) We can be completely drawn into a good show and it can seem very real when we are. Yet what seems like real life is the illusory movement of different tints on celluloid in a series of still sections. (or more recently a data stream) Yet the film and the tints exist. The projector and its light exists. The projector operator exists. And the screen exists. It’s all one thing, a movie theater. The theater is real, only the appearance of the movie in it is illusion. When we see what’s going on behind the images, we see whats real. But the movie continues. Sort of like that. Then we can still enjoy the movie but not be caught by it.

Some will describe Brahman as pure Being or existence. Others will observe that more deeply, it neither exists not doesn’t exist. It is beyond even being. This is where we get into confusing definitions of “real” and “exist”. We may even observe experiences where something is real but not existent or exists but is not real. They become subtly different values.

One cannot resolve these paradoxes with the mind alone. It must be experienced. That will make it real to us.

Some will describe Brahman as synonymous with emptiness but that is not fully valid. We could also use the word fullness as Brahman contains all bliss and the world. Thus it’s better to use terms like wholeness or totality as it is inclusive of both. And that’s another word – inclusive. As I discussed over on Neo-Advaita, non-duality means total inclusivity. Any statement of illusion means other, which is duality. It’s a step short of the third law.

On the subject of illusion, I’ll also remind about Shankaras take on the 3 values of Maya – as a covering, as an illusion, and as the play of God. The world is not always seen as a total illusion. We all know this from our own experience.

If we don’t recognize Maya as the Lila or play, we won’t yet come to recognize the 3rd law. It arises later in the Unity process. Without that, we don’t know totality. We don’t have the perspective of Vedanta. With that, we begin to see the truth of being.
Davidya

Knowledge and Devotion

Love says, “I am everything.”
Wisdom says, “I am nothing.”
Between these two my life flows.
– Nisargadatta

“Jnana and bhakti, knowledge and devotion, understanding and surrender, inseeing and outpouring, mind and heart, cannot be divided or opposed; because they are the same.”
– David Carse, Perfect Brilliant Stillness

OOOPs

From Vasistha’s Yoga (translated by Swami Venkatesananda)

IV:39  Valmiki is speaking:
“..if he is not enabled fully to understand the truth, his mind will not find rest. As long as the mind is swayed by thoughts of pleasure and happiness, so long it is unable to comprehend the truth. If the mind is pure, then it instantly comprehends the truth. Hence, it is declared that he who declares ‘All this is Brahman’ to one who is ignorant or half-awakened, goes to hell. Hence, a wise teacher should encourage his students first to be established in self-control and tranquility. Then the student should be properly examined before the knowledge of the truth is imparted to him.”

I suspect this is more directed at people who preach one truth and no process, but it’s a worthwhile point. It can also be noted that it was spoken in a different age, before Vyasa had to gather the primary vocal traditions and write them down lest they be lost in the dark cycle of time. It’s not like we have an enlightened sage easily available in every area. Yet.
Davidya

One Being

Recently in another discussion forum, someone raised the question of the 2 selves. The unchanging inner Self and the changing personal self. This is a classic experience around Self Realization. The witness Self observing the thought, emotions and activities of the person.

Someone else raised the point that they were not separate selves, a unity perspective. What gets clumsy about these sorts of discussions is that for some people, they experience life one way or the other. What is true for one person is not for another. For yet others, they experience only a personal self, so this 2 or one discussion is automatically seen as a matter of intellectual debate. Which perspective is true? Essentially, they both are.

Sometimes, people will say that this idea of separate selves is just that – an idea. But I find it useful to explore this a little more deeply. If it’s just an idea, Self Realization would end all separation. It also doesn’t explain how the idea of separation arose.

What I’ve found is that when consciousness drops enough, we lose our sense of connection to the whole. The sense of being separate from wholeness arises. This creates a gripping or core fear in the gut that for most is deeply sub-conscious. We identify with our separate selves out of fear. Something we can hold on to. This fear drives emotions that energize the separation. Our life-drama or pain body. And the mind in turn makes a story of it, an idea of being separate. The story is fed by the emotions.

Awakening is in essence a healing of this in reverse. Self Realization occurs when the idea of separation ends. Some value of emotional healing and heart awakening takes place that heals the drama. (often some is needed before awakening as well) And then the core grip of fear becomes conscious and can be released. What Loch Kelly calls the BBQ. This ends the core identity of separation. Then there is no longer 2 selves, no longer an “inside” and “outside”. Just one wholeness.

Self can then descend further and “absorb” the body and environment, etc. All values of separation end. We are one being, whole.
Davidya

Awakening the Body

We tend to think of enlightenment as an abstract future promise. A place where the transcendent peace we’ve experienced becomes an ongoing reality. Where we find an inner freedom.

This place is known as Moksha or liberation. Self realization. Cosmic Consciousness.

Many teachers speak of this apparent goal. But only some teachers and traditions speak of the more complete unfoldment of reality. Where Being is discovered as the driver of all life and then becomes found in everything. The inner world and outer world are joined in wholeness.

What’s important to grok is that we’re talking about human development here. The highest states of consciousness are not static goals to be achieved. They are doorways to infinite potential.

Reality is so vast that the refinement of perception of the mechanics of Being can go on ad infinitum. Plus, the values of everything joining in oneness takes place is a progression of astonishing proportions. God Consciousness and Unity are not endings. They are beginnings.

For some time now, it has been rare that such things are explored in any detail. But now, there is a growing number of people stepping into those once rarefied states of being. This is not just an awakening but the awakening of everything.

We’re not speaking of some abstract, transcendent value. We’re talking about concrete awakening of the physical world. 6am has arrived everywhere. I’ve spoken prior of how happiness becomes solid, like concrete. More real than physical objects.

What follows that is the awakening of the physical body.

I’ve mentioned Adyashanti’s description of how Self moves forward with awakening and absorbs the head, heart, and gut. With the gut, the core identity that divides inside and outside falls away and unity dawns.

But Self does not stop there. It moves forward and absorbs our emotional body. That’s when happiness becomes solid and we really discover our cosmic form.

To understand, lets review some of the prior themes around time and past lives. While an individual process will vary, this illustrates how the perception can evolve.

In The Past, I spoke of how we gradually become aware of events in our deep past. Eventually we see our history as a flow of lives to the present moment. As part of the unity process, all of our lives then collapse into the now. We realize they are all happening concurrently. Time is only now.

As I continued in another post, all lives of all people are found to be one life. We are the one consciousness of all beings. With simple attention, we can flip through to any life. Time and space are only here and now.

Then, all lives are seen as aspects of the one life, in one cosmic body. One being is living through all aspects of the one as us together. We are all formed in the image of the One.

Curiously, the human is found to exist before the universe is made for them to experience in.

It’s important to note here that we’re not describing a series of different things. This is one thing which our perception is progressively unfolding. Self now moves forward to absorb the root chakra.

The cosmic body is then seen in relation to the divine aliveness. Then it is recognized they are one and the same. The cosmic body dissolves into divine aliveness.

This has the interesting effect of bringing the aliveness right to the surface of the world of experience. You may have heard some sages talk of the divine being right on the surface. No longer static, we see the fundamental liveliness of being at one with all expression. Life infuses all experience.

This tends to happen in stages. First, the physical body awakens to its aliveness. The sense of touch is radically altered again as you are no longer feeling objects, you are touching the aliveness directly. This is described as being quite delicious, like touching bliss or touching the divine mother.

Notably, this carries a quality of intensity that does not evidently pass. Unlike experiences like rapture that we adapt and get used to, the liveliness stays intense.

The internal surfaces of the body are next to awaken. The physical heart, for example, becomes awake to it’s aliveness and to the aliveness of the blood flowing through it. The devata who are responsible for it awaken as well. It’s like waves of awakening, thousands of aspects becoming awake to their fundamental common aliveness.

Next, just as the unfolding unity progressed earlier, the aliveness moves out into the environment, our history, memory, and so forth. We begin awakening the world. Our co-created expression.

Enough people do this and you can imagine how everyones experience will change.

Of course, we’re talking of how it is experienced. The world is already awake. It is only that now we discover the truth of this directly. This is why the sages tell us that Self realization is not a complete perception of reality.

As the aliveness deepens, the infinite value at every point of the aliveness becomes seen. The Brahman value of the awakeness. This begins structuring the awareness of what has been called the Absolute Body, that which “causes” and infuses the Cosmic body. In Sanskrit, the name is Narayana, the “original” person or resting place for all living beings. He is cited as the first of the long tradition of Vedantic teachers.

It’s quite apparent how different this is from what can be the dry nothingness (or no-self) of early Self realization. There is no emptiness when everything vibrates with intense aliveness that completely infuses the deep silence. This is beyond even the profound sense of fullness that precedes it.

As an aside, this is the deeper value of techniques like meditation. They help prepare the ground for after awakening.

Who turned on the lights? (laughs)
Davidya