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Every Realm Must Be
Transcended
The seven stages of life are not
stages beginning with birth and simply ending at death.
Death is a process relative to the gross physical body,
which is ours at birth and in the first stage of life. Thus,
death may occur at any time after birth, even long before
the seven stages of life are matured. If death occurs before
the responsibility of Sacrifice in the seventh stage, there
is a temporary interval of experience in subtler dimensions
than the gross physical, but then it is necessary for a new
physical birth to occur, and the continuation of the cycle
of seven stages. If the individual matures to the point of
stable capacity for ascent beyond the gross physical (in the
fifth stage of life), then it may not be necessary to be
reborn into the gross physical realm, but the bodily being
is awakened to born experience in subtler realms. Even so,
such realms must themselves eventually be transcended,
yielding the subtle bodily being to the prior Infinite in
Whole Body Enlightenment and Divine Translation. The human
being enjoys the structural capacity to Realize all seven
stages in a single brief incarnation, whereas birth into
subtler realms implies levels of consolation that require
great periods of time or experience in order to be
transcended. Just so, the failure to become fully
responsible while alive implies countless future lifetimes
in the gross world struggling toward happiness.
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The Liberation of the
Soul
The individual self or “soul” (or
the Conscious Life-Light of the nervous system and the
entire extended body) Radiates or Expands from a fixed
position in the region of the heart, in association with the
upper middle section of the central nerve of the spinal
column. The qualities of the soul, in its bondage to the
body-mind, are expressed as the entire nervous system and
body-mind. Just so, the soul in itself, prior to the
body-mind, is the epitome of the nervous system. It is a
“seed” or “spark” of Radiance, an atom of Original Light,
located in the region of the nervous system associated with
the heart core.
The soul is the witnessing
consciousness of the body-mind, prior to the “I” of self,
reference. It is eternally independent of the body-mind, and
yet it shares the characteristics or tendencies of the
body-mind by virtue of proximity and false identification
with the body-mind.
Self-Realization, in the form in
which it is Awakened in the Way of Re-cognition, is the
Intuition of the independence or prior Freedom of the soul,
the conscious, self-contained Life-Light that Radiates in
the heart of the psycho-physical being. In the case of such
Self-Realization, the soul Intuits that it is temporarily
but not necessarily associated with the body-mind, and that
it is not identical to the body-mind. Therefore, the Free
soul, intuiting its Identity with the Transcendental Self,
determines to abide in its own prior, exclusive State of
inherent Bliss and Unqualified Consciousness.
In the Way of Radical Intuition, the
Self-Realized soul, already Awakened to the exclusive
Intuition of the true Self, Awakens beyond its
self-confinement and Realizes its Identity with the Great
Soul, the Divine Person, the Transcendental Nature and
Condition of the soul in all of its states. This occurs when
the soul Realizes that its Condition is not the one of
either exclusive independence from or identification with
the experiential body-mind.
Rather, the Condition of the soul,
or the essential and eternal Self, is the one of
Transcendence of the body-mind, all experience, and all
possible conditions in manifestation, past or future. Thus,
the Disposition of the soul is no longer that of the
indulgence of phenomena, nor that of the exclusion of
phenomena, but the one of Transcendence of phenomena. It is
the Disposition of Transcendental Inherence, Ecstasy, or
Absorption in the Paradox of God, no matter what arises, and
even if nothing arises. The Unqualified Self is, by virtue
of this Disposition, Expanded or Translated into the Domain
or Condition of the Infinite, Transcendental, or Divine Self
and Person. Such is Freedom, Happiness, and Bliss, wherein
the “eyes” of the soul remain eternally opened to Infinity,
rather than eternally closed, or inverted toward the
inwardness of self-containment.
The embodied soul, Awake to its
Identity with the Infinitely Expanded Self, the Self without
recoil, Conscious in Its Prior and Ecstatic Transcendence of
all phenomena, high and low, mental and physical, is,
Paradoxically, both in Eternal Relationship with God and
Eternally Identical to God, Who is the Absolute,
All-Pervading, All-Inclusive, and also Transcendental,
Eternal Person, unknowable by mind and untouchable by any
body. In the Way of Radical Intuition, the soul, as
Unqualified Self, literally Expands to Infinity. The
Radiance of the Self is freely expressed via the central
line of the nervous system and the spine. The Spiral Current
between the heart and the crown Enlightens the brain. The
Free Self, or the Liberated Heart, freely Illuminates the
entire bodily being. The Awakened Heart is the Sun of the
body. As It Expands in Divine Awakening, or Transcendental
Absorption, the body becomes Full. But that Radiance
continues to Expand beyond the bodily limits, Dissolving the
cognition of limits. Such is the Process whereby Divine
Translation occurs.
Yogis or Mystics in the fifth stage
of life direct the differentiated attention and Radiant Life
of the soul inward and upward. The Life-Current and
attention are focused in the brain core, and from that
position (the station of the conscious mind) the subtle or
higher mental phenomena are viewed, in the general direction
of the crown of the body. (This is the reverse of the mental
tendency of ordinary men and women in the subhuman stages of
adaptation, who chronically direct the differentiated
attention and Radiant Life of the soul outward and downward,
from the position of the brain core, but toward the lower
vital organs and outlets.) In the ascending yogic manner,
the atomic soul, still deluded by identification with
psycho-physical phenomena, attempts to shoot upwards from
its latent or bound and fixed position in the center of the
body and the world. Thus, it seeks to pass upwards, toward
the crown of the body, and, ultimately, to exit, via the
“brahmarandhra,” associated either with the notch or hole in
the top and slightly to the rear of the skull, or else with
the fontanelle, the larger surface of the skull, analogous
to the corona radiata of the brain. The soul thus released
enters the “Sky of Mind,” the Cosmic Blue. (In fact, the
brahmarandhra, which is the same as the sahasrar, cannot be
penetrated by the acts of attention. The “Sky of Mind” is
simply the subtle mind in the realms of experience contacted
via the brain core, or ajna chakra. Only the dissolution of
attention in the heart permits the Life-Current to pass
beyond the limits of the body-mind via the brahmarandhra and
the body-mind as a whole. Therefore, Divine Translation may
only occur in the seventh stage of life.)
Mystical or yogic liberation of the
soul from the body is not Perfect Liberation of the soul. It
is simply the projection of the soul, via the subtle,
upward, mental and supermental mechanisms of attention, into
the scheme of cosmic experience that is subtler than the
realm of Earth. (Just as conventional exploitation of gross
experience, below the heart, is simply projection of the
soul into the scheme of cosmic experience that is native to
the realm of Earth.) But Liberation in Truth is a matter of
total release of all conditions of the soul, both subtle and
gross (above and below) and causal (or proximate to the
heart and soul).
Therefore, the Way of Divine
Ignorance proceeds beyond the fifth stage of life, to the
sixth stage, wherein the soul, conventionally expressed as
forms of experience in the realms above and below the heart,
is released of all forms of attention, or self-modification,
and it is reestablished in its own prior and Unqualified
State. It is a matter of intuitive penetration of the Root
of conditional self-consciousness, or the conventional “ego”
of the psycho-physical personality, epitomized at the
heart.
But such is also only a partial or
temporary phase in the ultimate Liberation and Translation
of the limited or atomic soul into the Great and Universal
Soul. Therefore, in the seventh stage of life, and in the
mature phase of the Way of Radical Intuition, the Divine
Destiny Absorbs the Self, the Pure White Light of the soul
in its Transcendence of both Heaven (or the Blue Effulgence
of Mind) and Earth (or the Golden or Reddish Yellow
Light-Energy of the Realm of Physical Elements).
The Free soul, or Unqualified Self,
is Perfectly Liberated only in its Expansion and Translation
beyond the presumed limits of cosmic experience, or the
subjective psycho-physical modifications of contracted
Consciousness. Therefore, such Expansion and Translation
does not occur through exclusive Ascent into the Sky of
Mind, nor through exclusive Descent into the Earth of
Physical Existence. Neither is it Realized through exclusive
inversion of the soul into its own Root, the Core of static
Consciousness. Rather, it is a matter of Ecstatic
Absorption, beyond separated self-limits, beyond mental
limits and bodily limits. It is a matter of Surrender or
Sacrifice of the heart, the soul, prior to the conditions or
modifications that are encountered above and below.
Therefore, in that Sacrifice, the Self Radiates as Love, to
Infinity, in all directions, Absorbed in the Revelation of
the Absolute Personality of God, Who is in Transcendental
Relationship to all manifest souls, and the Absolute Self of
God, Who is the Transcendental Identity of all souls in
their Transcendence of the Realm of Nature.
The atomic soul, or Free Self, is
eternally Unmoved, in fixed Association with the Infinite or
Universal Divine Soul, within which every atomic or manifest
soul appears. Liberation of the soul is Self-Realization, or
release from the necessity of psycho-physical phenomena. But
such Liberation is Ultimately a matter of the Perfect
Sacrifice of the soul, which is Love, Radiant to Infinity,
or Transcendental Absorption in the Condition of the Divine
Person.
Therefore, it is not a matter of
Ascent or Descent-whether of the soul, or its internal
attention, or its Life-Force. Rather, it is, first of all, a
matter of the Self-Realization of the soul, prior to all
attention to phenomena that appear in conditional
association with It. Then, it is a matter of the Sacrifice
of the exclusive disposition of that Self-through
”open-eyed” Transcendence of Heaven and Earth and all other
conditional Realms, high and low.
Awaken to this Intuition of our
Destiny! While alive, we must mature by stages of adaptation
and self-transcendence, and thus enter into the Ecstatic
Performance of God-Love, the Disposition of the seventh
stage of life, wherein the Free Self Transcends all possible
experiences, or modifications of Itself. Then, until death,
or until Translation beyond all noticing, we must engage in
Transcendental Absorption, or the Love-Sacrifice of the
Heart, the Unqualified Self or Free soul, into the Divine
Person, Who is the Universal Self or Soul, and Whose
Body-Mind Includes all worlds and beings, Pervades all
worlds and beings, and Transcends all worlds and beings.
When the Heart is thus Broken in Love, Absorbed in the
Paradoxes of Transcendence, the Self passes beyond Man and
the Cosmic World of temporary conditions, and into the
Eternal Domain of the “Me” of God. So be it.
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The Process of
Liberation, Founded in Transcendental Awakening, or Whole
Body Enlightenment
The present body in which you are
appearing is not made
for its own sake-in order to be
fulfilled. It is the effect of unnecessary causes, and it
can never be fulfilled, since it necessarily comes to an
end. It can only be sacrificed and transcended. Sacrifice
and self-transcendence are the Way of Truth.
What is the cause of embodiment? It
is the mind. The mind is the subtle or inner subjective
personality, made of all of the acquired tendencies of
attention, or urges toward experiences of all kinds. These
tendencies and urges are the results of the proximity of the
soul, or the Eternal Core of the body-mind, and the Realm of
Nature, or Change.
Through casual association with
subtle states, the soul becomes distracted, and
differentiates itself from its Eternal Condition. Such
differentiation is the act of attention itself.
Differentiated and differentiating attention is the
fundamental structure of mind. Once it arises, the soul is
projected into an Infinite Spiral of causes and effects,
leading high and low within the structures of
possibility.
Therefore, the subjective being
acquires tendencies of attention through irresponsible
experience. And that process is without beginning or end. It
is an Eternal Bewilderment, a Prison of Fascination and
Doubt.
We are Free only if we become
responsibly established in Remembrance, Communion, and
Reawakening in relation to the Divine and Eternal Reality,
the very Condition of the embodied soul and all experiential
phenomena. It is a matter of Transcendental Awakening to the
Truth, and of self-transcending Love-Communion with the
Divine Person, the true Self, Radiant, All-Pervading, and
Eternally Free of all limitations.
Once we are Awakened, or Enlightened
in our disposition, and thereby entered into Love-Communion
with the Divine Person, then we begin to grow again and to
mature in love and self-transcendence. And, in that Process,
the subjective urges dissolve in the heart. Attention
gradually and suddenly surrenders into its heart-root, and
the causes of our mysterious and self-possessed embodiment
become clear.
Therefore, the devotee becomes a
Perfect Sacrifice at last. He is not motivated to abandon
the World. Rather, he is Absorbed in the Divine. This
Absorption establishes him in a natural disposition of
self-transcendence, or freedom from experiential urges. In
this manner, the conventional motive of self-fulfillment and
exploitation of born existence dissolves in Wisdom, or the
native mood of transcendence of the motive of experiential
attention and self-differentiation.
In this Way, the mind dissolves in
Bliss, thus relieving the body of its necessity. The motives
that caused the present embodiment, and which would cause
future embodiments, are yielded, with the gesture of
attention itself, into the motiveless Heart, the Eternal
Domain or Radiant Condition of God.
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Only the Awakened Soul Is
Free of the Mind and All Desires for
Experience
The mind pervades the living body.
The mind, or the psyche, prior to thought, is the cause of
embodiment. The mind is independent of the living body, and
survives its death.
But the mind and the living body are
both Pervaded by the Radiance of the soul, the same Radiance
that is All-Pervading. Both mind and body are only
modifications of the Radiant Life of the World.
The mind is the link between the
soul and its embodiment. The mind is attention, moving
within the structures of possibility, via the Current of
Life that Pervades the living body, flowing in the spinal
line. The mind appears to control the body, but it is simply
that attention can move up and down within the levels of the
Bodily Current of Life. Therefore, ultimately, Life controls
both the body and the mind. Eternal Life is senior to the
body-mind. When body and mind are submitted to Life, all
desires and motions are Transcended in Bliss.
The mind cannot be defeated. It can
only be Transcended. All efforts to control the mind fail to
Dissolve its motion. The mind is motion. It is the motion of
attention. The mind is always subject to its objects. It may
move up or down within the spectrum of the body-mind, or
within the structures of possibility, but it is forever
associated with the objects of desire-the distractions that
are the causes or motives of attention.
Therefore, the Way of Divine
Ignorance is the Way of the Transcendence of the body-mind
and all possibilities, high and low. Its Essential Process
is not the one of the suppression of mind (or desire, or
attention), nor of the exploitation of mind (in relation
either to subtle or gross objects). Its Essential Process is
the one of natural Transcendence, which is Realized through
Awakening to the Disposition of the soul in its native
Freedom, or Perfect Surrender to the Eternal Condition of
the Radiant Self.
When the soul is Awake, in
Love-Communion with the Living God, there is natural
Transcendence of the body-mind and all desires, all motives
of attention. The mind is not resisted, nor is it exploited.
It is simply re-cognized, or known again in Truth, in every
moment of its arising.
Therefore, the Free soul does not
struggle with the psycho-physical powers of Nature. The Free
soul simply Abides in Love-Communion with the Living God,
and in that Disposition there is no force of implication, or
desire, in any condition that arises. Objects come and go,
high and low, but the mind is no longer created by the soul.
Attention does not spring up. The soul simply Abides in its
Eternal Condition, prior to attention, or mind. Thus, when
there is the exhaustion of those objects or states that are
now set in motion, as a result of previous mental or psychic
causes, there are no further subjective causes to produce
experience. Then embodiment ceases.
First the mind must die. Attention
must be Dissolved in the Heart. Only then does embodiment
cease. It is not a matter of strategically separating the
inner soul, or the mind, from the body, by means of the
efforts of attention. Rather, since the subjective part is
senior and causal in relation to all desire and all action,
it is only when the independent self Dissolves in the Heart
that the acts of attention cease to bind. Only then is mind
Transcended and Dissolved. Only then is there the Destiny of
Freedom, Bliss, and Love.
The soul in the heart is linked to
the living body by the mind, associated with the brain. When
the Eternal Disposition of the Free soul is Awake, then self
is not differentiated, attention is not generated, and
experiential embodiment is not created. Therefore, Awaken.
Commune with the Living God under all conditions, via every
function, every relationship, and every kind of action. In
this manner Transcend desire, the movements of attention,
the urges of the mind, the causes of experience and
embodiment in the various dimensions of possibility. Be the
Sacrifice of the body-mind through constant Love-Communion
with the Living God. And always only serve that One, in the
form of all relationships, as long as any conditions
arise.
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The Soul Is Not Free in Heaven
or on Earth
In reaction to the stressful
mortality of human experience, we begin to desire and seek
an alternative state, a change of form, and place, and
circumstance. Everyone does this, by one method or another,
until Enlightenment.
Some do it by exploitation of the
possibilities of the gross physical body-through food, sex,
control of others, acquisition of goods, and so forth.
Others do it by exploitation of the ordinary psyche and
mind-through the consolations of abstract thought, and
belief in future lifetimes in glamorous worlds
beyond.
But others actually strive to attain
the experience of an alternative, expanded, and glamorized
state, even while the present lifetime persists. Such are
psychics, mystics, and yogis-individuals who exploit the
possibility of fully conscious experience independent of the
limitations of the gross physical body.
Indeed, this method for solving the
dilemma of mortality is universally associated with
religious and spiritual Ecstasy. However, this technique is
simply a conventional and ultimately futile strategy of the
un-Enlightened self, the covered soul.
The body-mind is an illusory
modification or covering of the native Radiance of the soul.
When viewed from the point of view of the body-mind, the
soul has its locus in the heart, or the “causal” root of the
manifest being. But the soul is ultimately One with the
Living God, and, from the point of view of the Free soul, or
the true Heart, the body-mind itself arises within the soul,
as a superficial, unnecessary, and infinitesimal disturbance
or modification of Itself.
The soul Radiates from the heart,
and it appears in a single form, which is the
psycho-physical entity, or body-mind. But that form is
actually a dynamic composite of two dimensions of manifest
existence. The inner, subjective dimension is the subtle
part. It is the psyche, or mind, high and low. The outer,
formal dimension is the gross part. It is the living
body.
The subtle or mental being includes
everything that is the psyche, and it excludes everything
that is merely a matter of thinking and sensing, which
depend on the gross physical body and brain. This “inner
man” is the astral personality, which continues to migrate
in the planes of experience after the death of the gross
physical body. For this reason, the astral personality is
popularly conceived to be the soul-since it survives bodily
death.
However, the soul is not merely
subtler than the gross body. It transcends the gross body.
Indeed, it transcends the entire experiential being, or
body-mind. The soul exists Prior to experience. It does not
migrate. It Abides Eternally in Love-Communion with the
Living Divine, the Radiant Person, the true Self.
We must understand the motives and
strategies we create or inherit in the conventional world of
human experience and suffering. Therefore, we must Abide in
the Disposition of the Free soul, Transcending all
experiential phenomena, and yet neither excluding nor
clinging to any kind of experience. In Love-Communion with
the Living Divine, the Disposition of the Free soul is
always Awake. Thus, the Free soul is utterly and always
already Free of self-possessed reaction to the World. The
Free soul is inherently Free of the motivated strategies of
escape from the limitations of the World by exploitation of
either the gross and outward or the subtle and inward parts
of Man.
The soul cannot and does not ascend
above the physical, nor does it truly survive the death of
the physical body. The soul is not truly born. It is only
deluded by association with the differentiated phenomena of
manifest experience, which arise and change and disappear
within the All-Pervading Current of Radiance, or Universal
Life. Therefore, until the soul Awakens to its true
Condition, which is Ecstatic Inherence in the Living and
Eternal Divine, it suffers and seeks within the dynamic or
two-sided Realm of manifest experience.
The usual man or woman, not yet
Awakened to the Disposition of the Free soul, exploits the
possibilities of experience and belief that pertain to the
gross physical dimension of the living body and its
relations. The uncommon or extraordinary man or woman,
likewise unconscious of the Free Disposition of the soul,
exploits the possibilities of experience that may be
attained through ascent of attention, into the subtler
dimensions of the psyche, which may be contacted via
concentration in the Bodily Life-Current above the
brows.
But the soul cannot rise. The soul
is simply Awake in Eternal Bliss. Only attention, or the
mind, can rise. If attention can be distracted from the
regions of the gross physical body and its functions and
environments, then it may be directed into the regions of
the subtle mind, or the astral body and its environments.
But the subtle astral body and its experiences are simply an
alternative dimension of complex experience. The Disposition
of the Free soul does not reign in the subtle worlds.
Rather, only the disposition of the mind pertains there. The
subtle realms are transitory planes of desire and experience
and birth and change and death. They are not Eternal
Experience. They are only distractions that delude the soul
and prevent its Ecstatic Awakening in the Self of
Love.
Therefore, conventional mystical
practices, strategies of yogic ascent, out-of-body travels,
magical and prayerful schemes of fulfillment, and the like
are no more to be associated with Enlightenment and
God-Communion than are the forms of experience gotten by
exploiting the gross physical body. The Truth is not
Realized by the ascent of attention into the subtle
dimension of psyche, or mind. Nor is It Realized by the
descent of attention into the gross dimension of the present
body. The Truth is Realized only in Awakening to the native
and Eternal Disposition of the Free soul, which is Ecstatic
Love-Communion with All-Pervading Radiance and
Transcendental Consciousness (or Ignorance), the Person and
Condition of the Living God.
In this Awakening, and in this
Communion, the conditions of the experiential body-mind are
naturally Transcended. There is no need for any strategy of
fulfillment or escape of the Free soul. The Free soul is
always already Free, or in Transcendental relationship to
the phenomena of experience. Therefore, the true devotee
simply Abides in Love-Communion with the Living God, in the
Company and according to the Instructions of the Spiritual
Master. He does not embrace the strategic methods of worldly
consolation and fulfillment, nor of otherworldly
contemplation and fulfillment. He simply allows all actions
to develop on the basis of Love-Communion with the Divine,
and he engages all such actions naturally and spontaneously,
as forms of present Love-Communion with the Living
God.
Such devotees simply Abide in the
Eternal Disposition of the soul, while the conventions of
the body-mind arise and pass in a natural order. In this
manner, the internal motives toward experience gradually
dissolve and become obsolete, and no new motives are created
by distraction and reaction in the play of experience. Thus,
the “inner man” eventually dies, just as the gross body
dies. The subjective being is not exploited as a means of
ascent into subtler conditions of experience. It is released
of all reactive and motivating stresses that are based on
unconsciousness of the Disposition of the Free
soul.
The true devotee does not strive
toward Heaven. Nor does he reinforce his tendency toward
Earth and the lower dimensions of elemental experience. From
his Awakened point of view, the present lifetime is only a
temporary Purgatory, wherein the soul is Translated into its
Free and Eternal Destiny. But, through Love-
Communion with the Divine Person,
even this Purgatory becomes a Field of Love, wherein the
Awakened soul Shines. The Liberated inner being Radiates
beyond the confining heart, where mind and body meet, and It
Stands Present in the Form of God.
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How the Free Soul Escapes in
God
The Free soul does not Expand by
becoming larger itself, but by surrender into the Great
Soul, which is already Infinite. That is, the soul does not
increase itself, but it loses itself. It is an atomic Event,
a fusion of the atom and the Whole in an Infinite Brightness
of Exploded Bliss. Does the soul escape through the
fontanelle, or the “brahmarandhra,” even in this case? Does
the atom in the heart climb to the crown and Dissolve into
Space?
The polarization of the body and of
the self-limiting energy encasing the soul does indeed
become a profound gesture, toe to crown, bottom to top. As
such, the primary circuit appears to be that between the
heart and the crown. But attention and self-contraction
constantly dissolve in Brightness, or Bliss. And body and
mind and all specific forces that surround and define the
soul by experience dissolve also in that Process. In the
Event of Translation, there is no mind or form to be
reckoned.
In any case, even though the soul’s
Original or Primal Position is at the heart, the body and
mind do not truly surround or stand outside the heart. The
parts of the body-mind do not, truly understood, lie below
and above the soul, as they do below and above the physical
heart. Rather, the body-mind is identical to or one with the
soul-a modification or superficial appearance of the soul.
The Free soul is the Condition of the body-mind. The
body-mind, or “I,” is not the Condition of the soul, the
Self.
Therefore, truly, the body-mind
arises within the soul, the atom, which is prior to space,
time, size, shape, and all relations.
The soul is expressed as the
body-mind. The soul is manifest or Radiant as the nervous
system and the Current of the body-mind. The tendency of
attention to ascend or descend within the Current of Life
and within the structure of the body-mind is a process of
apparent motion within the soul itself, in its
superficiality and self-possession. Therefore, in the
Ultimate Liberation or Translation of the atomic soul into
the Great Soul (or of the “Atman” into the “Paramatman”),
the soul does not rise in the body. How can it rise above
itself by going to the crown if the entire body, including
the crown, is already within itself and identical to
itself?
Therefore, the Translation of the
soul may coincide with outer or apparent phenomena that
represent extraordinary bodily and mental changes-so that
the body appears Full of Bliss, Life, and Light, and the
attention seems to press upwards to the crown, and the body
may even vanish, all of a sudden. But, truly, the soul does
not move. The Event should not be regarded as a spatial
event, such as a movement from the heart to the crown.
Rather, it is an Event that Transcends space-time and the
physics of phenomenal existence. It is the Event of the
soul’s Transcendence of the illusions of space-time, and the
illusion that it is interior or subjective to space-time and
the body-mind. The Liberated soul does not ride, and all
noticing is lost in the Swoon of Celebration.
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The Original
Brightness
The soul, the atomic Conscious
Life-Light that Radiates from the heart region of the body,
pervades the entire body and enlivens it. Actually, the soul
is eternal and unchanging, by virtue of its eternal
inherence in the Universal Soul and Life-Radiance of God.
Therefore, the soul is only temporarily, and without
ultimate necessity, associated with particular
psycho-physical states-the result of tendencies acquired
through past associations with conditional states, or states
of experience that are less than Perfect Contemplation of
the Divine Condition.
For this reason, the soul, which is
Pure Consciousness and Eternal Life, identifies with the
“I,” the self-reference of the psycho-physical being. And
the embodied or self-limited existence of the soul thus
becomes a struggle of experience, and possible growth, by
virtue of fixed and automatic association with the born
body-mind.
The structure of the manifest,
mortal, and always changing body-mind is demonstrated as a
range of functional possibility extended between two
extremes-the higher brain and the lower body. This range
between extremes or polar opposites corresponds to the
subtler energy structure that envelops the soul in its
association with the phenomenal realms. Thus, both the soul
in its subtle energy field and the extended or Radiated
body-mind that expresses the soul and its energy field are
structured in a bipolar form, with subtler processes
apparent above, and grosser processes apparent
below.
The Light of God and the Light of
the soul are One. It is Perfect Radiance, or White
Brightness. All manifest forms are parts of a universe or
total spectrum of modifications or solidification’s of the
range of possibility inherent in Original Light, or
Radiance. Thus, the soul in its casing of spectral energies
is expressed as a range of colors, from red and golden
yellow at its lowest point or pole to violet and blue at its
highest point or pole. The highest point is polarized
positive and the lowest point is polarized
negative.
Just so, the body-mind itself is a
programmed extension of the spectrum of the soul in its
association with phenomenal possibilities. The lower
functional order, toward red, or below the heart, is the
realm of the gross and negative pole of experience. And the
higher functional order, toward blue and violet, or above
the heart, is the realm of the subtle and positive pole of
experience.
Therefore, whenever we are active
and learning or indulging self in the phenomena of the
extended body-mind, we are actually meditating on the
spectral energy field that surrounds the soul in the
heart.
Ordinary individuals, adapted only
in the subhuman range below the heart, are in fixed
association with the lower vibratory spectrum of the soul in
manifestation. And more extraordinary individuals, who are
adapted in the higher human range above the heart, are in
fixed association with the higher vibratory spectrum of the
soul in manifestation. Therefore, all beings who are
attached to the ranges of possible experience that extend
below and above the heart are simply deluded by the
self-meditative field of energy that surrounds and envelops
the soul in the Universal Play of conditional
experience.
Salvation, Liberation, and
Translation into the Eternal Domain of God is a matter of
intuitive “disillusionment,” or penetration of the
self-limiting field of associations by which the atomic soul
is acquiring the automatic destinies of conditional
experience. Thus, first of all, it is a matter of Awakening
from the pattern of psycho-physical extension, or automatic
association with phenomena above, below, and outside the
heart and soul.
The Process of such
“disillusionment” involves a series of stages of adaptation,
or growth into inspection, insight, and responsibility
relative to the full spectrum of psycho-physical
experience-or the whole and entire body-mind. This is the
occupation of devotees in the first five stages of life. (In
the Way of Divine Ignorance, these stages correspond to the
original preparations and subsequent practice in the first
three stages of the total Way-that is, the Way of Divine
Communion, the Way of Relational Enquiry, and the Way of
Re-cognition.)
In the sixth stage of life, the
illusions of experience above and below, or by extension
into the associative energy field of the soul, are dissolved
in intuitive Realization of the soul in its prior or
disassociated Condition. Thus, in the sixth stage of life,
the extended attention of the psycho-physical being is
re-cognized or undermined in Self-Realization, or intuitive
Awakening of the heart, or soul, in its prior, Unqualified
State-which is pure Consciousness, or Unobstructed Bliss.
(This stage of life corresponds to the third and ultimate
phase of the Way of Re-cognition.)
However, the soul that is inverted
or enclosed within itself may be free of association with
the spectrum of phenomena, high and low, but it is yet
deluded by its own exclusiveness-or the avoidance of
relational association in order to Abide in Bliss.
Therefore, ultimately, the “eyes” of the atomic soul are
opened to God, or the Universal Soul. In that Process the
soul Awakens, prior to all phenomena, to the Transcendental
Bliss of the Divine Person or All-Soul, the true
Self.
Just as the spectrum of experiential
phenomena is unnecessary and essentially individuated or
separated from the atomic soul, the atomic soul itself is
individuated or separated from the All-Soul. Therefore, the
soul must Awaken to responsibility for the spectrum of its
own experience, and it ultimately does this by Transcending
both experiential phenomena and its own isolation, through
Sacrifice, or Love-Communion with the Absolute Person or
Universal Soul of God.
Just as the spectral colors that
surround the soul in its associative play are actually a
display of the parts of its own or native White Light, the
Divine Soul is Original White Light. All phenomena are thus
a Play of the Original Light, or Unqualified Bliss, of God.
And all souls, or all living beings (human or otherwise),
are points or atoms of the Original Light or Radiant Bright
Consciousness of God.
Therefore, in the seventh stage of
life, and in the maturity of the Way of Divine Ignorance,
the Awakened Self, or Free soul, yields both its
independence from God and its dependence on phenomena. The
Free soul Transcends all phenomena (while neither including
nor excluding any condition) and is Translated into the
Bliss of the Original Person and Domain, Radiant as Love,
prior to all knowledge, all experience, and all
qualifications of Eternal Brightness.
May all beings be Liberated from the
struggle with experience and come to rest in Love, through
Blissful Communion with the Radiant Brightness of the
Eternal One.
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Nature, the Self, and
God
There is the Infinite Realm of
Nature, or Energy in Motion, called Prakriti, Maha Shakti,
and the Mother Power. There is the Free soul, called the
Atman, or the Self, and which is associated with the display
of all possible phenomena in the Realm of Nature. The soul
tends, by mere association or experience, to become deluded
and attached to experiential phenomena, and thus to view the
Mother Realm of psycho-physical events as necessary and
native to itself. The deluded soul thus considers the
Infinite Realm of Nature to be its Condition, and also
imagines the psycho-physical form, or body-mind, to be its
necessary and essential form.
But the Ultimate Reality, or the
Condition of the Infinite Realm of Nature and of every
individual soul, is the Transcendental Divine Person, the
Maha Purusha, Whose Self or Great Soul is the Identity of
every atomic soul, and Whose Body-Mind both includes and
transcends the Infinite Realm of Nature, or the Mother
Power.
The Divine Person is the Eternal
Master, in Eternal Embrace with the Mother Power, the
Vehicle of souls in manifestation – His Servant or Consort,
His own Body-Mind. And every soul, likewise, must resort
only to the Mastery-Unity, Singleness, and Onliness of the
Divine Person-or else the Mother Power is Maya, the Widow,
the Woman without a Husband, the Power of Illusion and
Suffering, whereby souls forget the Self, or the Purity of
Conscious Identity with God.
When the soul is Awakened to its
Free Condition, Self-Realized, it tends at first to dwell in
itself, avoiding the Display of the Mother Power, or the
Play of experience. But such a motive is self-defeating,
since it does not display the native Freedom or natural
Transcendence that characterizes the true Self. Therefore,
the Awakening of the soul in Truth, or in Perfect Sacrifice
to the Divine Person, involves both Self-Realization and
open-eyed Transcendence of the Infinite Realm of Nature, or
Change. The Self-Realized soul, thus Awakened, makes no
fundamental effort either to include and retain or to
exclude and prevent any condition of experience. The Free
soul is Transfigured in Ecstatic Love, Absorbed in the
Infinite and Transcendental Person of God. Such a Devotee is
Free, Awake, Identical to Bliss, Unmoved, Absorbed, and
Suddenly Vanished in the One Whose Mystery is Everywhere
Revealed.
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The Living God and the “Void” of
Self-Realization
There appears to be an irreducible
conflict or disagreement between Buddhism and the other
great traditions of India. The Buddhists teach that the soul
is not a permanent entity, whereas the other traditions
generally teach that the soul is immortal or
eternal.
Actually, this conflict is a matter
of language, or the mental paradoxes that lead toward the
Ultimate Intuition, beyond or prior to separated
self-consciousness. Both views are correct, since each view
considers the soul in terms of only one of its two aspects –
either bound or Free.
The Buddhist view considers the soul
in its born association with phenomena-“covered,” or
separate from the Absolute. Souls in the play of
manifestation are constantly changing. They appear and
disappear. Therefore, they are not permanent, since they are
mutable. Only the prior Reality, or Nirvanic Bliss, is
eternal or Free.
But what the Buddhists regard as the
unchanging Absolute, or the Free Nirvanic Condition, is
itself the soul. It is the soul Awake, prior to its
coverings, or its binding and separative associations with
the Realm of Nature. It is the Self.
The traditions other than Buddhism
teach that the soul is eternal or immortal, because they
presume the soul as Self, prior to Nature, or the endless
and beginningless cycle of birth and death, wherein souls
are effectively mortal. Indeed, it is the apparent
separateness and mortality of the soul that all traditions,
including Buddhism, seek to transcend through intuition and
the practices of transformation.
The more significant disagreement
between Buddhism and many of the other traditions is in the
matter of the description of the Ultimate Condition of
Transcendence. The Buddhists seem only to consider the Realm
of Nature and the appearance of souls. And they teach a Way
of’Transcendence of the soul-illusion and the
Nature-illusion. That is, they teach the Way in which we may
Transcend change. Apparently, such is also the essence of
the teaching in certain other traditions-as in the case of
the monistic school of Advaita
Vedanta.12
But in Reality there is more than
changing Nature and changing souls. And there is a greater
Realization than the self-contained Nirvanic Transcendence
that characterizes exclusive SelfRealization. The Great
Bliss, the Most Excellent Nirvana, the Ultimate
Transcendence, is in the Awakening to the Paradox that is
prior to the Void in which Nature and the “covered” soul are
philosophically transcended.
That Paradox is the Divine Person,
the Eternal and Living God, Who indeed Transcends the Play
of changes and every separate soul. That One also Includes
and Pervades the Play of changes, the Motion of Nature. And
that same One is the Identity or Self that every soul
Realizes to be its true Condition.
Therefore, Ultimate Liberation is
the Awakening of the soul to its Eternal Condition-which
neither excludes nor includes the Play of Nature and the
apparent independence of souls, but which always already
Transcends all changes. Such Liberation is Nirvana without
strategic exclusion of Nature, and without annihilation of
the Free soul. And it is God-Realization without Theistic
Fantasies, and without the mechanical view of souls that are
inherently, or in their eternal Disposition, separate from
the Self of God. If it is Truth that is Glorified in a
religious or spiritual tradition, this View must somehow be
expressed therein.
The Ultimate Condition is a Paradox,
ultimately requiring either paradoxical language or Blissful
Silence. Truly, the soul Awakened in God finds that it is
One with God and yet still existing in a Play of
experiential and Transcendental relationship with God. How
can there be any reasonableness to either rational speech or
irrational speech? Only the Language of Ecstasy will
do.
Therefore, I have at times said
there is no such thing as a beingbecause Self-Realization is
the Realization of undifferentiated Transcendence. And I
have also said there is only God, to Whom all souls are
Ecstatically and Eternally related, and to the Domain of
Whom all souls are Destined to return. All of this is Truth.
Can you see why even right Instruction is Paradox?
Reasonable and irrational descriptions, without paradoxes,
and without the ultimate Paradox of eternal Unity and
eternal Relationship, are necessary only for those who are
self-possessed and who refuse to practice the Way. Now that
you have listened to me, you must practice. To do otherwise,
even though you have been given this Revelation, is to
resume the tired effort of repetition, the dullness and the
vagaries of the usual man.
12. The most radical
school of the later philosophical traditions of Hinduism,
“Advaita” means “non-duality”; “Vedanta” is the end (“anta”)
or culmination of the Vedas, which are the most ancient
Scriptures of the Hindus. The school of Advaita Vedanta was
founded by the famous sage Sri Shankara around A.D. 800. The
essential point of view of this school is that there is only
one Reality, ot tw. All multiplicity is an illusion or
superimposition on the one Reality, which is identical to
the fundamental Consciousness of all beings.
Enlightenment
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