Explosion of Bliss!

Memory is not experience. It doesn’t have the flavour of what it seeks to recollect. Yet, some pointers are so significant that even a vague remnant of their flame in a hidden crevice of the dark shadows of our past can still enlighten the alive present. In the winter of 06, I spent a few extremely significant weeks in solitary meditation. I did it in my own bedroom. Telling mother to keep some food for me in the fridge but to never ask me to come for any of the meals and having extracted the promise that nobody would ever come into my room or disturb me in any manner, I went deeper and still deeper into the layers of my being. My room had an attached bath and I had the least need to venture out. I came out only once, around 2 every night, to have a meagre cold meal. I drank quite a lot of water with honey and some milk. Besides that, I just stayed in the room, concentrating neither on mantra, nor on breath and following no meditation. I just let myself go deeper and still deeper in the space of free awareness, without any hope or fear, and with no formulation, either secular or spiritual. There was no communication of any sort with anybody in those weeks.
Since I never met any other, the need of the self to emerge was diminished. As external language became redundant, thoughts, which is just internal language, too subsided and gradually became almost indiscernible. The expanding field of pure awareness, which I often experience as a vibration, sometimes as a current like sensation and at others as an audible ‘air’ became increasingly intense. There were times when a great engulfing vibrating density was experienced in the entire room and when one’s fingertip touched it, a sensation very close to an electric shock was experienced, though it wasn’t unduly unpleasant. At other times, a great expansion was experienced…an expansion so great that awareness encompassed an immense vastness…a sky within which great planetary bodies were experienced and a sun like star. These massive heavenly bodies were experienced in the space of vastly expanded awareness, without any experience of the human dimension…without a mind with its thoughts and without a body with its terrible limitations. The sense of ‘I’ in these spaces of vastness emerged only from time to time and its leitmotif was always a great and always fresh wonder.
It was in this phase that I had my only full-blown and clearly experienced NDE (near death experience). I had become quite used to the immense expansions in awareness and there was no need of the articulation of consciousness in the human dimension as a person. Indeed ‘I’ was experienced only as an emergent sense of wonder which came only from time to time in those vast spaces. That evening, the same wondrous vastness was experienced. As was my habit in those days, I was lying down on the bed with my head perpendicular to the rest of my body at the medulla point. The immense expansion was experienced in that state. Gradually I went into a deep state of extremely profound sleep or extraordinarily subtle awareness…a kind of ‘shunyata’ or ‘creative void’…sleep is quite the wrong word to use for it. It was dark before I lost consciousness of the external world so I am not sure for how long was I in that state. However, when awareness returned, it was into a most strange state. The first thing I noticed, to my intense discomfort, was an absolute inability to breathe, even after trying really hard. It was a really unpleasant choking sensation…like being under water…I was absolutely unable to breathe. My body was…well…absolutely absent. There was no sensation of any kind of the body. Absolutely none! However, an intense oceanic sword or river like sharpely pointed mass of pure vibrational consciousness was penetrating a minute point at the nape of my neck, possibly the medulla point. It was entering with serpentine motion, and it was intense and massive…pure vibration of awareness…and it added to the discomfort. Not only was I completely suffocated, but a great sword was entering the nape of my neck! However I did realize that strangely I wasn’t dying or losing consciousness despite the absence of breath. I also became more aware of the great river of awareness entering my neck. I felt death was very close. Strangely there was no memory of any kind of ever having been a human…no image of my body or that of parents or any friend…not even a single flashback of any kind. There was a fear but no memory. Soon an ever-widening spiral movement of awareness was experienced and the expansion was me! Even the consciousness of the nape of the neck vanished in the great rising spiral. In that rising spiral, light and darkness had strangely blended together…At what seemed the apex, the presence of the Beas mystics was experienced. I somehow knew I would lose consciousness and just before the blast, I prayed that my Guru must come to my rescue.
The experience this far was anything but pleasant and soothing. Indeed I had never been more afraid in my entire life, though I consider myself pretty brave but I was really scared and felt I would most certainly die. However the climax was so extraordinarily exhilarating that I would gladly go through a million repetitions of the ordeal. While it was still dark, awareness came with a tremendous explosion…my brain was flooded with a veritable ocean of pure ecstasy. Every neuron was dancing with a joy that was infinite love and the profoundest bliss. Waves of supernal ecstasy were continuously exploding in my head. It was most sacred, infinitely intimate and more joyous than a trillion times trillion orgasms happening together!!! That joy stayed with me for hours and its memory still nourishes me even in the most taxing times.

Mystic Holi

This Holi, a most wondrous spectacle opened which left me with an ineffable poetry of feeling and a joy of thought. I had decided not to celebrate Holi this time because of my increasing preoccupation with pollution and my desire to avoid synthetic colors. However, being in a Delhi University hostel, I didn't have much choice. In the morning, as I came out of my room, my hostel buddies were ready with the gulal. I didn't protest much and let them rub it on my cheeks though i was apprehensive of its effect on my skin and hair. i especially wanted to avoid any gulal on my hair for after coming to Delhi, I have developed a morbid obsession with protecting my hair form premature greying, something I have noticed is distressingly common in this city. I thought this was due to water pollution and have ended up using purified water for my hair. However as the spirit of holi got the better of me, I was open to one day of polluting gulal and wet colors. The next half an hour or so was fun with victims being made to lie supine and sprinkled with water-hoses. As I was enjoying the colors and the joyous mob, some of my nasty friends repeatedly persuaded me to drink thandai( a traditional North Indian drink made of milk, water, almonds and spices) and assured me it did not contain 'bhaang'(hemp). I was not really taken in by their protestation but I carried the unfounded notion that 'bhaang' would taste bitter like liqour. When I tasted the 'thandai', it was sweet and delicious. I thought it couldn't be bhaang and drank it with gusto. Indeed, after a while I even took a second helping even after I had grave doubts about it being just 'thandaii' by then. I reasoned if it is bhaang and I have already had one glass, why not enjoy a full experience of losing control. Yet, I wanted to be aware as long as possible and to witness the intoxication so as to transcend it. For a while, I enjoyed the mingling of color and bodies, but soon retired to my room. It was the end of holi form my part but my friends had different ideas. Some of them banged open my door and sprayed me with aerosol, which i particularly dislike and which seemed toxic going by the smell. i asked them to stop it but they were too merry to listen. After they had left, I bolted the door and went in the verandah for fresh air. As, I was standing there, leaning against the wall and gazing at the badminton court immediately below, a most wondrous thing happened. Not only did I lose awareness of time and self, but everything became thick with life. It is very difficult to explain but let me make a sincere effort. As I was standing in the verandah, everything became thick with awareness, everything became an ocean of awareness - a dense coscsiousness. There was no Aman, no badminton court and no sunlight or sky, except as barely perceptible modifications of a beautiful intelligence, an all pervading consciousness. I was emerging out of and again merging into a unity; when in the unity, there was no 'I', and the emergent 'I' was very profound and yet frail because it was, as if newly born. When aware of 'I', I was astounded at the wonder of the all pervading awareness in which I was only a point of consciousness. The physical world around me, the sunlight, the badminton courts, the shouts of the holi mob, seemed unreal, a play of images and shadows. reality seemed a wondrous unity of awareness, a thickness of consciousness. An ocean of awareness was I, and everything was awareness. Everything was oceanic, a wavelike sea of concsious vibrations. In this coean of reality, my body was a pattern of conscious light, a pattern ogf vibration with a distinct frequency which made it appear as distinct form the surrounding physcial reality. I was not aware of physical movement, but of a kind of light or a pattern of energy drifting across a denser light as I came inside my room.

My twin beloveds

I have two beloveds, and I keep on switching between them; or more accurately, they keep on playing with my being. I cannot exist, but in the lap of one of them, and being kissed by one means being away from the other, for they like not each other’s company. Indeed, they share only a mutual hatred and shrink away from each another’s sight. Or probably, they are jealous. Or, I may not know the mystic pathway where they dally in a common laughter. I love both of them; though express it to only one at a time. They are exact opposites, yet have their own charms. One is vibrant and playful, yet fleeting and full of caprice; the other dark and forbidding from exterior and illuminating and effulgent in her inner essence. One is vivacious and thrives in company; the other somber and aloof and loves solitude. One is jovial and ever-new; the other philosophical and ancient. One is the best for plays of passion; the other good for a nice rest after lots of hard work. In the origin of my ecstasy, I kiss the first and I sleep in the long black tresses of the second in its culmination. I cannot exist without them and I love both of them. You may accuse me of promiscuousness but they aren’t loyal to me either. Both have numerous other love-interests, one in her hot kisses and the other in her all encompassing embraces. Yet, when with me, they are absolutely mine.
They are my eternal beloveds, the twin mysteries - ‘Life’ and ‘Death’.



This has been inspired by Mayank's post :-
http://totallybaked.blogspot.com/2006/02/she-flirts-with-me-everyday.html

Shower Of Bliss

Awareness existed but I was nowhere. Pure consciousness had risen with all delusions swept away. I had this beatific experience two years back. It all began in 2004. I was then in Chandigarh and madly in love. Once while reclining in a coach, I suddenly felt a surge of ineffable, almost unbearable bliss rising up my body and a delicious feeling flooded my being. Consciousness was subtle and profound and beautiful. I felt like God. I thought it was love.Spiritual ecstasy is impossible to elucidate. Those who experience it know it. It is the profoundest consciousness of the highest bliss, the greatest happiness that exists, the supreme flowering of being. It begins with loss of body consciousness and expansion of consciousness beyond, way beyond the trap of individuality.

The Dream Of Passion

Humans search for the elusive entity beyond the mundane concrete reality. To exist and not to transcend reality is to die by slowly merging into an endless void. The seed must be buried if the flower is to bloom even if spring has too short a run. But only the infinite can sate the human soul and it requires the sacrifice of individuality, the final illusion that binds consciousness in the mortal coil. To love is to lose the binding ego and have a glimpse of the vastness of eternity where neither right nor wrong exist and meaning is transcended as a mental construct. Mere physical attraction can pave the way for a deeply transcedental experience which is beyond the ordinary. This is my story - incomplete, fragmented but authentic.When I first had a glimpse of it, I was in a bus and it was night. A current of bliss seemed to rise through my body and consciousness became unbearably soft and delicious. Existence was a thin layer beyond which an ocean of bliss beckoned. The doors were opening. But it was some time before I realised it. As a child I was afraid of dying. I remember lying on the bed awake at night, aged hardly six, thinking of my impending death or that of my father. I was in perfect health but had become conscious of my mortality and death seemed profoundly disconcerting. I asked my father how real death was and if there was an escape. Thus began my journey into myself, the journey to find that which transcends mortality, that which lies beyond gross physical existence.

Tamas

"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.

Mystic experiences

Till the end of 2005 I had a solid empirical approach to life with my views similar to those expressed by mainstream science. However since then experience has made me wiser. Now its impossible to ignore the experiences I and certain other people have had which cannot be easily understood. I know of more than a dozen people who have experienced inner vibration and effulgence. When concentration becomes profound and interiorized an audible vibration manifests which leads to effulgence when deeply concentrated upon. As the effulgence becomes profound, body consciousness is lost. The point between the two eyebrows and at times certain points at the top of the skull become deeply sensitive to blissful sensations. Many mystical traditions like 'Surat shabad yoga' and Paramahansa Yogananda's 'kriya yoga' elucidate such experiences. However there are major points of disagreement in these mystic traditions. While traditions generally clubbed under 'surat-shabd yoga' and 'santmat' consider ' living Guru' as sine qua non without which the seeker may be waylaid and may even end up in a worse psychological state due to his unguided meditation, SRF/YSS based on the teachings of Paramahansa yogananda who is no longer physicaly alive, stress the need of the right meditation as described in their printed lessons rather than a living Guru.