"The sattva is pure and strong always. It is like the sun. It may seem obscured by clouds and dust, but only from the point of view of the perceiver. Deal with the causes of obscuration, not with the sun."
"Be aware of them ( Tamas and Rajas) in operation, watch their expressions in your thoughts, words and deeds, and gradually their grip on you will lessen and the clear light of sattva will emerge. It is neither difficult, nor a protracted process; earnestness is the only condition of success."
At times I feel I'm befooling myself with empty words and shallow actions. It seems my contemplation is the meditation of a crane. I am trying to run away from myself but there aren't much avenues left. I have had some blessed experiences but there was severe resistance to them from something primitive within me. I know I am effulgent with bliss for I have experienced it but there is also something gross and dark in me; a pygmy lost in his insignificance. Yet the pygmy obstructs the sun by turning away from it and looking only at its petty shadow. Tamas seems strong and hard to conquer and though it is dissolved the moment effulgence shines, it creeps its ugly way with tenacity and gradually obscures the light again.
If my life is full of contradictions and debacles, its just a shadow of human waking existence in general which has nothing great to recommend itself. However the essence behind the mundane is all too beautiful. Its the obstructions that have to be understood and to understand them is to be free from them, once and forever.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Monday, March 10, 2008
The Essence
What is the essence of everything? What underlies everything? It is that which is beyond all manifestations and yet without which no manifestation can ever be possible. That which can never be enjoyed but makes all joy possible, which can never be experienced but makes all experience possible, which can never be recognized as existing but makes all existence possible. But how is such an essence of any use to me and you? How does it matter what lies at the core if it can never be grasped? The answer is- it can never be grasped but is what you would be when you let go of every illusion that you have grasped. The essence is what you have always been without being aware of it. The essence is what makes you love yourself, it is love itself. The essence makes life possible, it is life itself. It is all that is blessed, beautiful, joyous and awesome. It is the supreme flowering of infinite bliss while being always your intimate essence. It is what you are here and now, shorn of all delusions which merely appear to be and which derive their very appearance form the primal essence.Here I want to discuss the concept of void. Some thinkers hold that the universe along with you, me and everything that appears to exist is in reality void or without any essence. In other words nothing really exists. Everything merely appears to be. It can be argued that appearance is as good as existence if it is all there is. Or in other words, non-being has meaning only when distinguished against being. To say that everything is an illusion would give absolute reality to all illusion. After all, illusion is only that which doesn’t really exist but merely appears to be. Indeed if all that is taken to be real derives merely from sensory perception, even this is not true. Senses can merely perceive what appears to be and never what is. Senses don’t perceive atoms or radio waves yet they exist. A standard book on psychology has this to say on illusions. “An illusion is not a trick or a misperception; it is a perception. We call it an illusion simply because it does not agree with our other perceptions.” The essence of everything can never be void. Nothing can ever emerge from nothingness. The essence can be beyond being and not-being. It can transcend void. It can be infinitely subtle and infinitely akin to void but it is impossible that it be void. Indeed the closer the essence would get to void, the more subtle and potent it would become but it would never become the void. It would become infinitely akin to void and in its very approaching void would it become potent to manifest absolutely anything. Absolute void would be absolute bliss, absolute power and absolute existence because its capacity to manifest would be infinite as it would have transcended the last subtle barrier.
Sound And Light
Can it be that consciousness is a type of vibration having light as its essence? Can this sound and light be perceived in the state of deep concentration? Deep meditation and mystic texts suggest as much. In Hindu mysticism, OM is exalted as the highest symbol of the supreme absolute. The essence of OM is sound and light. The Gospel of John in the New Testament similarly mentions the Word (audible vibration) as existing prior to the world and identifies it with God. What does this convey?I am no expert on psychology but I understand every experience has a neural repercussion. Neural transmission is electrical in nature. Cerebral activity that makes consciousness in waking existence possible is also associated with a particular brain wave pattern. Similarly dreaming and dreamless sleep too have neural and brain-wave associations. Can experiences transcending the biological body be associated with commonly unperceived ‘waves of consciousness’ that dissolve what is understood as perceptible matter in waking state into something altogether different?Dispassion is the sharpest weapon in mysticism. Freedom form the constrained is gained through deep aversion for it. Why is it so? Why do all mystic texts exhort the seeker to shed desire? Sunlight illuminates and doesn’t know what darkness is. The essence is ever pure and blessed. Every blemish is a mistaken appearance which is annihilated forever when the essence is known. What obstructs the essence? Desire does. Desire tries to grasp a manifestation which cannot be grasped. All grasping is an illusion and it produces the illusion of suffering after a while if not immediately. Manifestations are inherent in the natural effulgence of essence. However by itself the essence neither causes manifestations nor is it dependent on or limited by its effulgence.Is their a way out of the net cast by unruly desires? One way is to desire the highest, the greatest and the most perfect that can be conceived of and to make this supreme desire too great to be sidelined by petty urges. Desire supreme infinite bliss, at once eternal and all-encompassing. Desire to be God. Don’t be satisfied with anything less. Intensity of one master passion would subdue all inferior desires. Soon it would be realized that the individuated can never encompass the unlimited. Eternal bliss can never be enjoyed by any body limited by time. Even the universe is transient. The only way out is to transcend the body and all other sheaths that imprison and suffocate pure bliss of uncontaminated being. But wouldn’t annihilation of the body end consciousness? This is the primary question. Is consciousness a manifestation of matter or is matter manifested in consciousness? The unequivocal answer of all mysticism is that matter is a gross manifestation of an essence beyond anything material, beyond energy and beyond consciousness and even bliss.
States Of Consciousness
Three states of individuated human existence viz. waking, dreaming and dreamless sleep are well understood. The memory of previous events registered in waking existence is commonly understood as ‘my life’ in a nostalgic mood. However memory is fallible and distorted. To romanticize the past is common. Yet, on probing further, what constitutes an experience? Is it a subjective interpretation of neural activity associated with sensory stimuli? Or is neural activity merely a repercussion of extra-neural consciousness. Genes can as well be caused by consciousness and an interface between its subtle and gross manifestations rather than causing consciousness. It’s logical for the subtle to be the cause of the gross rather than the other way around. If waking existence is life, how are dreams and the deepest dreamless sleep classified? Dreams are often echoes of the waking existence but may not necessarily be so. And dreamless sleep ordinarily lies beyond cognition. To wake in the deepest dreamless sleep is the beginning of self-discovery. The empirical pseudo-self derived from sensory perceptions colored by memories and anticipation is a mere shadow of the essence.It is well understood that matter and energy can be transformed into one-another but can never be destroyed. Matter is gross energy while energy is subtle matter. Where does consciousness originate? Is it a kind of subtle energy? Or is it altogether different?
Holes in the net
“ The final stage of meditation is reached when the sense of identity goes beyond the 'I-am-so-and-so', beyond 'so-l-am', beyond 'I-am-the-witness-only', beyond 'there-is', beyond all ideas into the impersonally personal pure being. But you must be energetic when you take to meditation. It is definitely not a part-time occupation. Limit your interests and activities to what is needed for you and your dependents' barest needs. Save all your energies and time for breaking the wall your mind had built around you. Believe me, you will not regret.”This is a quote from “I am that”, a series of talks between Nisargadatta Maharaj and seekers. The enquiry into “I” as the root of all experience, as the very seed of life is the method elucidated in these conversations as I understand them. The truth of being cannot be logically denied. Whatever my state of being may be, it derives from and presupposes my being. And while the state is transient, the being is transcendental. To be free of all existential discord, the root of individuated existence must be scrutinized. What the result of the inquiry would be depends on earnestness of effort. However before delving into ‘an experience of that which experiences’, it must be understood that every mystical trance or vision, however beautiful and blissful, necessarily ends as it is within time. The essence can never be known through its manifestations, however pleasing they may be per se.Individuated human existence is insipid and devoid of any lasting joy. Momentary joys are many but they appear only against a background of dullness, or worse suffering. The joy of deep sleep is against the background of the monotony of waking existence. The pleasure of sex lasts but a moment and usually causes much pain and perversion. Attachment to somebody from the opposite sex seldom leads to lasting love and is frequently corroded by jealousy and possessive instinct. And what is lasting in a life that lasts but a moment? Even relatively innocent human relations that enrich are transient episodes in the drama of life. Youth lives in fear of old age or in an ignorant shell which gives way to despair when broken. Being a health ‘freak’ is itself a symptom of psychological unrest and instability. Wealth is no surety for happiness and is a tyrant if its end is not clearly defined. Power is either severely restricted or if mighty for a time, soon ends in assassination or worse, disgrace or subsequent anonymity. Even if shorn of hyperbole and calamities, the garment of happiness woven by wealth and power as fabric is rent apart by time.
Tantra
Tantra means interwoven. Its the interwoven fabric of cosmic life of which individuated existence is but a strand. However every strand is necessary for the wholeness of the fabric. Every strand is complete as a part of the whole and to realise its unity with the whole is to abide in tantra. A tantrik renounces all individuated craving and aligns himself with cosmic will. Thus his desire corresponds with whatever nature has to offer at the given moment. If rain is about to come, he desires it a moment before. Similarly he feels an urge to make love just before the actual opportunity arises. Thus he abides in the bliss of being.
Neti Neti
Not this, Not that.
I am not anything conceivable, perceptible or imaginable.
I am not the senses, body, mind, intellect or ego.
I am not of any age, sex or gender.
I am not the waking,dreaming or sleeping states.
I am neither the experience, nor the one who experiences.
I am neither primal consciousness nor its potentiality.
I am not existence or its seed.
I am neither bliss nor the enjoyer.
Such aphorisms of Indian mysticism enthrall me.
I am not anything conceivable, perceptible or imaginable.
I am not the senses, body, mind, intellect or ego.
I am not of any age, sex or gender.
I am not the waking,dreaming or sleeping states.
I am neither the experience, nor the one who experiences.
I am neither primal consciousness nor its potentiality.
I am not existence or its seed.
I am neither bliss nor the enjoyer.
Such aphorisms of Indian mysticism enthrall me.
Nisarga
"All changes in consciousness are due to the 'I-am-the-body' idea. Divested of this idea the mind becomes steady. There is pure being, free of experiencing anything in particular. But to realise it you must do what your teacher tells you. Mere listening, even memorizing, is not enough. If you do not struggle hard to apply every word of it in your daily life, don't complain that you made no progress. All real progress is irreversible. Ups and downs merely show that the teaching has not been taken to heart and translated into action fully."
"Immobility and silence are not inactive. The flower fills the space with perfume, the candle -- with light. They do nothing yet they change everything by their mere presence. You can photograph the candle, but not its light. You can know the man, his name and appearance, but not his influence. His very presence is action."
"Absolutely none. Leave your mind alone, that is all. Don't go along with it. After all, there is no such thing as mind apart from thoughts which come and go obeying their own laws, not yours. They dominate you only because you are interested in them. It is exactly as Christ said 'Resist not evil'. By resisting evil you merely strengthen it."
"In love there is not the one even, how can there be two? Love is the refusal to separate, to make distinctions. Before you can think of unity, you must first create duality. When you truly love, you do not say: 'I love you'; where there is mention, there is duality."
"In every event the entire universe is reflected. The ultimate cause is untraceable. The very idea of causation is only a way of thinking and speaking. We cannot imagine, uncaused emergence. This, however, does not prove the existence of causation."
"You need not get at it, for you are it. It will get at you, if you give it a chance. Let go your attachment to the unreal and the real will swiftly and smoothly step into its own. Stop imagining yourself being or doing this or that and the realisation that you are the source and heart of all will dawn upon you. With this will come great love which is not choice or predilection, nor attachment, but a power which makes all things love-worthy and lovable."
These are the blessed words of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, a great master of non-duality who taught concentration on the sense of 'I Am' without identification with any experience as the shortest route to realization.
"Immobility and silence are not inactive. The flower fills the space with perfume, the candle -- with light. They do nothing yet they change everything by their mere presence. You can photograph the candle, but not its light. You can know the man, his name and appearance, but not his influence. His very presence is action."
"Absolutely none. Leave your mind alone, that is all. Don't go along with it. After all, there is no such thing as mind apart from thoughts which come and go obeying their own laws, not yours. They dominate you only because you are interested in them. It is exactly as Christ said 'Resist not evil'. By resisting evil you merely strengthen it."
"In love there is not the one even, how can there be two? Love is the refusal to separate, to make distinctions. Before you can think of unity, you must first create duality. When you truly love, you do not say: 'I love you'; where there is mention, there is duality."
"In every event the entire universe is reflected. The ultimate cause is untraceable. The very idea of causation is only a way of thinking and speaking. We cannot imagine, uncaused emergence. This, however, does not prove the existence of causation."
"You need not get at it, for you are it. It will get at you, if you give it a chance. Let go your attachment to the unreal and the real will swiftly and smoothly step into its own. Stop imagining yourself being or doing this or that and the realisation that you are the source and heart of all will dawn upon you. With this will come great love which is not choice or predilection, nor attachment, but a power which makes all things love-worthy and lovable."
These are the blessed words of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, a great master of non-duality who taught concentration on the sense of 'I Am' without identification with any experience as the shortest route to realization.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Forest Of Words
Shankara compares the plethora of scriptures to a ‘trap of words which is akin to a forest in which the hapless mind wanders’. To mistake mere scriptural knowledge to realization is a grave error. Reading is of almost no use except if it results in an earnest inquiry which leads to clear insight. Usually reading mystic philosophy is intellectual entertainment at best and a major impediment at worst. It is ironical that I am writing this since whoever reads me would be committing the very error I am warning against! Not that what I write springs from any real knowledge. It is like a movie that criticizes cinema. Many of the greatest mystics like Ramakrishna were illiterate. They wanted only the inner language of bliss. If my history is correct, Nanak asked his tutor to teach him that knowledge which would liberate rather than mundane subjects that would bind. My own experiences are limited but the spark they have ignited in me would one day burn all ignorance like a mountain of hay. At one time reading may have helped me but it’s a major impediment now. Discussing mysticism and writing about it are also ego-driven delusions. I wish I could concentrate on solitary meditation but it seems I have a few bridges to cross.
Crumbling Bedrock
All the cheaters of the world are nothing when compared to them who cheat on themselves. Yesterday I impersonated as a customer to glean information from a long-established competitor of the concern I work for. It caused me significant ethical distress and I lost the inner peace so essential to meditate. It also made me acutely aware of the colossus contradictions inherent in me. While professing to realize the blessed unity beyond apparent divisions, I have never developed the ethical bedrock on which the edifice of sustained meditation has to be assiduously built. My past is marred by blatant lies, delusions, lust and jealousy. By being dishonest to myself I have obstructed my inner effulgence to shine in its magnificent splendor. However, I feel introspection rather than self-condemnation is the way out. I must find out what makes me immoral and remove the obstructions.
Friday, March 7, 2008
Path of the mystic- II
“ The final stage of meditation is reached when the sense of identity goes beyond the 'I-am-so-and-so', beyond 'so-l-am', beyond 'I-am-the-witness-only', beyond 'there-is', beyond all ideas into the impersonally personal pure being. But you must be energetic when you take to meditation. It is definitely not a part-time occupation. Limit your interests and activities to what is needed for you and your dependents' barest needs. Save all your energies and time for breaking the wall your mind had built around you. Believe me, you will not regret.”
This is a quote from “I am that”, a series of talks between Nisargadatta Maharaj and seekers. The enquiry into “I” as the root of all experience, as the very seed of life is the method elucidated in these conversations as I understand them. The truth of being cannot be logically denied. Whatever my state of being may be, it derives from and presupposes my being. And while the state is transient, the being is transcendental. To be free of all existential discord, the root of individuated existence must be scrutinized. What the result of the inquiry would be depends on earnestness of effort. However before delving into ‘an experience of that which experiences’, it must be understood that every mystical trance or vision, however beautiful and blissful, necessarily ends as it is within time. The essence can never be known through its manifestations, however pleasing they may be per se.
Individuated human existence is insipid and devoid of any lasting joy. Momentary joys are many but they appear only against a background of dullness, or worse suffering. The joy of deep sleep is against the background of the monotony of waking existence. The pleasure of sex lasts but a moment and usually causes much pain and perversion. Attachment to somebody from the opposite sex seldom leads to lasting love and is frequently corroded by jealousy and possessive instinct. And what is lasting in a life that lasts but a moment? Even relatively innocent human relations that enrich are transient episodes in the drama of life. Youth lives in fear of old age or in an ignorant shell which gives way to despair when broken. Being a health ‘freak’ is itself a symptom of psychological unrest and instability. Wealth is no surety for happiness and is a tyrant if its end is not clearly defined. Power is either severely restricted or if mighty for a time, soon ends in assassination or worse, disgrace or subsequent anonymity. Even if shorn of hyperbole and calamities, the garment of happiness woven by wealth and power as fabric is rent apart by time.
Three states of individuated human existence viz. waking, dreaming and dreamless sleep are well understood. The memory of previous events registered in waking existence is commonly understood as ‘my life’ in a nostalgic mood. However memory is fallible and distorted. To romanticize the past is common. Yet, on probing further, what constitutes an experience? Is it a subjective interpretation of neural activity associated with sensory stimuli? Or is neural activity merely a repercussion of extra-neural consciousness. Genes can as well be caused by consciousness and an interface between its subtle and gross manifestations rather than causing consciousness. It’s logical for the subtle to be the cause of the gross rather than the other way around. If waking existence is life, how are dreams and the deepest dreamless sleep classified? Dreams are often echoes of the waking existence but may not necessarily be so. And dreamless sleep ordinarily lies beyond cognition. To wake in the deepest dreamless sleep is the beginning of self-discovery. The empirical pseudo-self derived from sensory perceptions colored by memories and anticipation is a mere shadow of the essence.
It is well understood that matter and energy can be transformed into one-another but can never be destroyed. Matter is gross energy while energy is subtle matter. Where does consciousness originate? Is it a kind of subtle energy? Or is it altogether different? Can it be that consciousness is a type of vibration having light as its essence? Can this sound and light be perceived in the state of deep concentration? Deep meditation and mystic texts suggest as much. In Hindu mysticism, OM is exalted as the highest symbol of the supreme absolute. The essence of OM is sound and light. The Gospel of John in the New Testament similarly mentions the Word (audible vibration) as existing prior to the world and identifies it with God. What does this convey?
I am no expert on psychology but I understand every experience has a neural repercussion. Neural transmission is electrical in nature. Cerebral activity that makes consciousness in waking existence possible is also associated with a particular brain wave pattern. Similarly dreaming and dreamless sleep too have neural and brain-wave associations. Can experiences transcending the biological body be associated with commonly unperceived ‘waves of consciousness’ that dissolve what is understood as perceptible matter in waking state into something altogether different?
Dispassion is the sharpest weapon in mysticism. Freedom form the constrained is gained through deep aversion for it. Why is it so? Why do all mystic texts exhort the seeker to shed desire? Sunlight illuminates and doesn’t know what darkness is. The essence is ever pure and blessed. Every blemish is a mistaken appearance which is annihilated forever when the essence is known. What obstructs the essence? Desire does. Desire tries to grasp a manifestation which cannot be grasped. All grasping is an illusion and it produces the illusion of suffering after a while if not immediately. Manifestations are inherent in the natural effulgence of essence. However by itself the essence neither causes manifestations nor is it dependent on or limited by its effulgence.
Is their a way out of the net cast by unruly desires? One way is to desire the highest, the greatest and the most perfect that can be conceived of and to make this supreme desire too great to be sidelined by petty urges. Desire supreme infinite bliss, at once eternal and all-encompassing. Desire to be God. Don’t be satisfied with anything less. Intensity of one master passion would subdue all inferior desires. Soon it would be realized that the individuated can never encompass the unlimited. Eternal bliss can never be enjoyed by any body limited by time. Even the universe is transient. The only way out is to transcend the body and all other sheaths that imprison and suffocate pure bliss of uncontaminated being. But wouldn’t annihilation of the body end consciousness? This is the primary question. Is consciousness a manifestation of matter or is matter manifested in consciousness? The unequivocal answer of all mysticism is that matter is a gross manifestation of an essence beyond anything material, beyond energy and beyond consciousness and even bliss.
What is the essence of everything? What underlies everything? It is that which is beyond all manifestations and yet without which no manifestation can ever be possible. That which can never be enjoyed but makes all joy possible, which can never be experienced but makes all experience possible, which can never be recognized as existing but makes all existence possible. But how is such an essence of any use to me and you? How does it matter what lies at the core if it can never be grasped? The answer is- it can never be grasped but is what you would be when you let go of every illusion that you have grasped. The essence is what you have always been without being aware of it. The essence is what makes you love yourself, it is love itself. The essence makes life possible, it is life itself. It is all that is blessed, beautiful, joyous and awesome. It is the supreme flowering of infinite bliss while being always your intimate essence. It is what you are here and now, shorn of all delusions which merely appear to be and which derive their very appearance form the primal essence.
Here I want to discuss the concept of void. Some thinkers hold that the universe along with you, me and everything that appears to exist is in reality void or without any essence. In other words nothing really exists. Everything merely appears to be. It can be argued that appearance is as good as existence if it is all there is. Or in other words, non-being has meaning only when distinguished against being. To say that everything is an illusion would give absolute reality to all illusion. After all, illusion is only that which doesn’t really exist but merely appears to be. Indeed if all that is taken to be real derives merely from sensory perception, even this is not true. Senses can merely perceive what appears to be and never what is. Senses don’t perceive atoms or radio waves yet they exist. A standard book on psychology has this to say on illusions. “An illusion is not a trick or a misperception; it is a perception. We call it an illusion simply because it does not agree with our other perceptions.” The essence of everything can never be void. Nothing can ever emerge from nothingness. The essence can be beyond being and not-being. It can transcend void. It can be infinitely subtle and infinitely akin to void but it is impossible that it be void. Indeed the closer the essence would get to void, the more subtle and potent it would become but it would never become the void. It would become infinitely akin to void and in its very approaching void would it become potent to manifest absolutely anything. Absolute void would be absolute bliss, absolute power and absolute existence because its capacity to manifest would be infinite as it would have transcended the last subtle barrier.
This is a quote from “I am that”, a series of talks between Nisargadatta Maharaj and seekers. The enquiry into “I” as the root of all experience, as the very seed of life is the method elucidated in these conversations as I understand them. The truth of being cannot be logically denied. Whatever my state of being may be, it derives from and presupposes my being. And while the state is transient, the being is transcendental. To be free of all existential discord, the root of individuated existence must be scrutinized. What the result of the inquiry would be depends on earnestness of effort. However before delving into ‘an experience of that which experiences’, it must be understood that every mystical trance or vision, however beautiful and blissful, necessarily ends as it is within time. The essence can never be known through its manifestations, however pleasing they may be per se.
Individuated human existence is insipid and devoid of any lasting joy. Momentary joys are many but they appear only against a background of dullness, or worse suffering. The joy of deep sleep is against the background of the monotony of waking existence. The pleasure of sex lasts but a moment and usually causes much pain and perversion. Attachment to somebody from the opposite sex seldom leads to lasting love and is frequently corroded by jealousy and possessive instinct. And what is lasting in a life that lasts but a moment? Even relatively innocent human relations that enrich are transient episodes in the drama of life. Youth lives in fear of old age or in an ignorant shell which gives way to despair when broken. Being a health ‘freak’ is itself a symptom of psychological unrest and instability. Wealth is no surety for happiness and is a tyrant if its end is not clearly defined. Power is either severely restricted or if mighty for a time, soon ends in assassination or worse, disgrace or subsequent anonymity. Even if shorn of hyperbole and calamities, the garment of happiness woven by wealth and power as fabric is rent apart by time.
Three states of individuated human existence viz. waking, dreaming and dreamless sleep are well understood. The memory of previous events registered in waking existence is commonly understood as ‘my life’ in a nostalgic mood. However memory is fallible and distorted. To romanticize the past is common. Yet, on probing further, what constitutes an experience? Is it a subjective interpretation of neural activity associated with sensory stimuli? Or is neural activity merely a repercussion of extra-neural consciousness. Genes can as well be caused by consciousness and an interface between its subtle and gross manifestations rather than causing consciousness. It’s logical for the subtle to be the cause of the gross rather than the other way around. If waking existence is life, how are dreams and the deepest dreamless sleep classified? Dreams are often echoes of the waking existence but may not necessarily be so. And dreamless sleep ordinarily lies beyond cognition. To wake in the deepest dreamless sleep is the beginning of self-discovery. The empirical pseudo-self derived from sensory perceptions colored by memories and anticipation is a mere shadow of the essence.
It is well understood that matter and energy can be transformed into one-another but can never be destroyed. Matter is gross energy while energy is subtle matter. Where does consciousness originate? Is it a kind of subtle energy? Or is it altogether different? Can it be that consciousness is a type of vibration having light as its essence? Can this sound and light be perceived in the state of deep concentration? Deep meditation and mystic texts suggest as much. In Hindu mysticism, OM is exalted as the highest symbol of the supreme absolute. The essence of OM is sound and light. The Gospel of John in the New Testament similarly mentions the Word (audible vibration) as existing prior to the world and identifies it with God. What does this convey?
I am no expert on psychology but I understand every experience has a neural repercussion. Neural transmission is electrical in nature. Cerebral activity that makes consciousness in waking existence possible is also associated with a particular brain wave pattern. Similarly dreaming and dreamless sleep too have neural and brain-wave associations. Can experiences transcending the biological body be associated with commonly unperceived ‘waves of consciousness’ that dissolve what is understood as perceptible matter in waking state into something altogether different?
Dispassion is the sharpest weapon in mysticism. Freedom form the constrained is gained through deep aversion for it. Why is it so? Why do all mystic texts exhort the seeker to shed desire? Sunlight illuminates and doesn’t know what darkness is. The essence is ever pure and blessed. Every blemish is a mistaken appearance which is annihilated forever when the essence is known. What obstructs the essence? Desire does. Desire tries to grasp a manifestation which cannot be grasped. All grasping is an illusion and it produces the illusion of suffering after a while if not immediately. Manifestations are inherent in the natural effulgence of essence. However by itself the essence neither causes manifestations nor is it dependent on or limited by its effulgence.
Is their a way out of the net cast by unruly desires? One way is to desire the highest, the greatest and the most perfect that can be conceived of and to make this supreme desire too great to be sidelined by petty urges. Desire supreme infinite bliss, at once eternal and all-encompassing. Desire to be God. Don’t be satisfied with anything less. Intensity of one master passion would subdue all inferior desires. Soon it would be realized that the individuated can never encompass the unlimited. Eternal bliss can never be enjoyed by any body limited by time. Even the universe is transient. The only way out is to transcend the body and all other sheaths that imprison and suffocate pure bliss of uncontaminated being. But wouldn’t annihilation of the body end consciousness? This is the primary question. Is consciousness a manifestation of matter or is matter manifested in consciousness? The unequivocal answer of all mysticism is that matter is a gross manifestation of an essence beyond anything material, beyond energy and beyond consciousness and even bliss.
What is the essence of everything? What underlies everything? It is that which is beyond all manifestations and yet without which no manifestation can ever be possible. That which can never be enjoyed but makes all joy possible, which can never be experienced but makes all experience possible, which can never be recognized as existing but makes all existence possible. But how is such an essence of any use to me and you? How does it matter what lies at the core if it can never be grasped? The answer is- it can never be grasped but is what you would be when you let go of every illusion that you have grasped. The essence is what you have always been without being aware of it. The essence is what makes you love yourself, it is love itself. The essence makes life possible, it is life itself. It is all that is blessed, beautiful, joyous and awesome. It is the supreme flowering of infinite bliss while being always your intimate essence. It is what you are here and now, shorn of all delusions which merely appear to be and which derive their very appearance form the primal essence.
Here I want to discuss the concept of void. Some thinkers hold that the universe along with you, me and everything that appears to exist is in reality void or without any essence. In other words nothing really exists. Everything merely appears to be. It can be argued that appearance is as good as existence if it is all there is. Or in other words, non-being has meaning only when distinguished against being. To say that everything is an illusion would give absolute reality to all illusion. After all, illusion is only that which doesn’t really exist but merely appears to be. Indeed if all that is taken to be real derives merely from sensory perception, even this is not true. Senses can merely perceive what appears to be and never what is. Senses don’t perceive atoms or radio waves yet they exist. A standard book on psychology has this to say on illusions. “An illusion is not a trick or a misperception; it is a perception. We call it an illusion simply because it does not agree with our other perceptions.” The essence of everything can never be void. Nothing can ever emerge from nothingness. The essence can be beyond being and not-being. It can transcend void. It can be infinitely subtle and infinitely akin to void but it is impossible that it be void. Indeed the closer the essence would get to void, the more subtle and potent it would become but it would never become the void. It would become infinitely akin to void and in its very approaching void would it become potent to manifest absolutely anything. Absolute void would be absolute bliss, absolute power and absolute existence because its capacity to manifest would be infinite as it would have transcended the last subtle barrier.
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