***
Chapter 7 – Part IV
The
Liabilities of Man – The
Ultimate Practice – The Ultimate
Practice Continues Even in Sleep and
Dreams – The
Necessary Mechanism of
Self-Transcendence – The
Method of the Nervous System – The
Mechanism Whereby We May Be Literally Translated into the
Divine – Beyond the
World of Man – The
Spiral Current – True
Self-Realization Is Transcendental Worship of the Divine
Person – Love Outshines
the Body-Mind – Freedom and
Enlightenment – Rules of
Behavior in the Seventh Stage of Life – Passivity
and Ecstasy – Perfection
***
The Liabilities of
Man
The liability in the first stage of
life is attachment to an experiential state of
undifferentiated physical unity with the elemental dimension
of the world. It is the tendency toward dependence on what
is finite. It is the tendency toward unconsciousness, or a
dependent, vague, and sleeplike awareness of
experience.
The liability in the second stage of
life is attachment to independent or unreal emotional
states, based in an experiential state of undifferentiated
unity with the etheric, pranic, or material energy dimension
of the world. It is the tendency toward an emotional
expansion without a stable physical base and without a clear
and fully responsible consciousness. It is the tendency
toward subconscious or dreamlike states of
awareness.
The liability in the third stage of
life is attachment to abstract and independent mental
states, based in an experiential state of undifferentiated
unity with the verbal and lower mental dimension . of the
world and the body-mind. It is the tendency toward a mental
consciousness and a willful manipulation of merely physical
or elemental conditions, without intuitive and feeling
submission to the Transcendental Consciousness and Radiant
Current of Life. It is the tendency toward superficial or
merely objective awareness, or attachment to the waking
state as if it were without a psyche.
The liability in the fourth stage of
life is the tendency toward dualistic and dogmatic or fixed
symbolic interpretations of the Ultimate Condition and
Destiny of the world and of human experience. It is the
tendency toward vagrant psychism and illusory beliefs,
founded in an experiential state of undifferentiated unity
with the psychic root of the body-mind and the subtle
dimension of the world.
The liability in the fifth stage of
life is the tendency toward belief in a fixed psychic
identity, or an eternal egoic or independent and personal
consciousness. It is the tendency toward belief in eternally
extended but finite and personal experience, founded in an
experiential state of undifferentiated unity with the causal
root of the world, or the manifest gesture of attention at
the heart of the body-mind.
The liability in the sixth stage of
life is the tendency toward the belief that the Radiant
Transcendental Consciousness is an Absolute but Exclusive
and Undifferentiated Consciousness, which may be Realized
only through the literal suppression or cessation of
experience, particularly mental or psychic experience. It is
the tendency toward the strategic exclusion of experience,
and it is founded on an intuitive penetration of the root of
attention, resulting in a temporary suspension of ordinary
psycho-physical awareness. It is a tendency founded in a
partial or conditional and incomplete intuition of the
Radiant Transcendental Consciousness.
In the seventh stage of life, all
the liabilities of Man are transcended through radical
Intuition of the Radiant Transcendental Consciousness, the
Free Condition of the world and the body-mind.
The Ultimate
Practice
The Process in the Ultimate Stage of
Practice, or the Way of Radical Intuition, is the one of
natural re-cognition of all independent or personal states,
or all moments of experience, as only modification of the
Transcendental Ignorance (or Unqualified Consciousness) and
All-Pervading Radiance (or Unqualified Love) of the Absolute
Divine Reality, Person, and Self. Therefore, the Process in
every moment is simply one of release of self into
Contemplation and Intuitive Identification with the
Divine.
It is not a matter of going within
and away, or up and away, or of excluding phenomena, or of
annihilating self, or of trying to persist as the self.
Rather, it is a matter of nonexclusive or “open-eyed”
re-cognition of all that arises, so that Only God is obvious
and only Love is one’s Condition. It is a matter of the
re-cognition of phenomena and the independent self, not of
excluding phenomena and annihilating oneself. It is a matter
of Ecstasy rather than inversion.
In this manner, we are Expanded into
Infinity and Translated out of all tendencies and destinies
of the experiential self. We are Dissolved and Vanished into
the Absolute Person, beyond all knowledge and all imagery
and all perception and all conditional relations.
Therefore, there are two phases to
the Way of Radical Intuition. The first phase-which I have
in the past identified with the traditional term “Sahaj
Samadhi” is the phase of simple re-cognition of all arising
conditions, directly intuiting them to be only unnecessary
modifications of the All-Pervading Ignorance-Radiance, or
the Unqualified Consciousness and Radiant Energy or Love
that is the Divine Self.
The second or Perfect phase of this
Ultimate stage of practice is Ecstasy, Translation, or
Radical Intuition of the Transcendental, All-Pervading, and
All-Inclusive Divine Person. This phase-which I have in the
past identified with the traditional term “Bhava Samadhi”-
occurs spontaneously, by Grace, at first in moments and then
more and more stably, through penetration of the
self-reflex, or the knot of recoil at the heart.
The Ultimate Practice Continues Even in Sleep and
Dreams
Even when the soul in the heart
Awakens, and the very Heart is Realized, prior to all
experience, transcending all experience, the arising of
experience persists. This is because the present body-mind
is the result of previous association and activity in the
Realm of Nature. Psycho-physical experience does not come to
an end until it has exhausted its essential motion.
Therefore, the devotee in the seventh stage of life, or the
Way of Radical Intuition, simply persists in the Natural
State, or Whole Body Enlightenment, in which all arising
conditions are instantly re-cognized as unnecessary
modifications. He does so until the phenomenal body-mind, or
phenomenal experience, in the form of this or any kind of
future birth, Dissolves beyond all noticing.
The devotee persists in this
Process, Abiding as the Heart, Re-cognizing all phenomena as
modifications of the Heart. He does so even in the apparent
states of waking, dreaming, and sleeping. Therefore, he is
never truly in any condition of experience, but he is always
identical to Unqualified Radiant Consciousness, which is
Love, or Boundless Bliss, wherein all phenomena come and
go.
The Ultimate Event of Divine
Translation is simply the very Condition of the Heart. Such
Translation is true of the devotee when there is no longer
any loss or even diminution of Radiant Consciousness as a
result of association with objects in the waking, dreaming,
and sleeping states of experience. Therefore, in the
Ultimate Event, there is no longer any waking, dreaming, or
sleeping, and all noticing of the phenomena of
differentiated experience is Dissolved in the Infinite
Radiance of Consciousness.
The Necessary Mechanism of
Self-Transcendence
The Process of the Way of Divine
Ignorance, which I have thoroughly outlined in The
Enlightenment of the Whole Body, involves and depends upon a
radical transformation of the disposition and subtle
physical characteristics of the human nervous system. All of
this is a matter of the transformation of living or
biophysical mechanisms that have a past history and a native
structure, as well as an ultimate Destiny.
Therefore, the Process of this Way
involves abandonment of, or purification from, conditions
and tendencies that are habitual, negative, and subhuman.
And it also involves intentional adaptation to right and
higher structural conditions of psycho-physical existence.
It takes time for one’s commitment to mature, so that the
Process can truly begin. And once it has begun, it takes
time for the superphysics of the nervous system to mature
and to stabilize. But the nervous system of the body-mind
that is thus purified and adapted to Life is ultimately
Translated into Life beyond our present limits in time and
space.
The Method of the Nervous
System
The nervous system is our
connection, or “Mediator,” to the Ocean of Radiant
Consciousness, or the Divine and Absolute Personality of the
Real.
The epitome of the nervous system is
the heart, or the Root of Life-Feeling.
The heart is the monitor of our
present relationship to the All-Pervading
Identity.
We must enter whole bodily, or as a
Disposition of the total nervous system, into unobstructed
and intuitive Feeling-Sacrifice, or Love-Communion with the
Radiant Divine. This is made possible through “hearing” the
Teaching of Divine Ignorance and “seeing” the Spiritual
Master, the Incarnation of Radiance.
At first we enter into sacrificial
relationship to the Radiant Divine, through Love, releasing
all contractions of the nervous system and all contracted
programs of personal, relational, and higher psycho-physical
experience.
Ultimately, we are a Perfect
Sacrifice, when we transcend the personal limits of the
contracted or self-monitoring nervous system, and Realize
Perfect Identification with the Absolute Personality of the
Real. Then only the Paradox of Infinite Existence and
Ecstatic Divine Play is Obvious. Then there is Only
God.
The Mechanism Whereby We May Be
Literally Translated into the Divine
The body-mind is pervaded and
organized by a Current of Radiance whose poles are the crown
and toe (or, more properly, the crown and the base of the
spine). This Current becomes the field of devotional
responsibility late in the Way of Relational Enquiry, and it
is fully traced, from base to crown, in the Way of
Re-cognition. However, the Divine Presence into which the
devotee enters in ecstatic or self-released Communion in the
Way of Divine Communion is also and itself the All-Pervading
Condition or Transcendental Source of the Bodily Current of
Radiance.
In the terminal phase of the Way of
Re-cognition, the Epitome or Armature of the Bodily Current
of Radiance is Realized. First the Root of the heart (on the
right of the chest) is found, and the Bodily Current is
found to pass not merely from base to crown, but to continue
from there to a Center on the right side of the heart and to
a Consciousness that is prior to all mental (or psychic) and
bodily objects or conditions. Such is transcendental
Self-Knowledge of the body-mind. But then the “eyes open,”
the exclusive inwardness of the Root of the heart and the
Bodily Current is transcended, and the native Bliss of Whole
Body Enlightenment is awakened.
In the Way of Radical Intuition, the
native Bliss of Whole Body Enlightenment is expressed as a
process of tacit re-cognition of all presently arising
conditions, subjective and objective, high and low, as
unnecessary and nonbinding modifications of the prior
Condition of the whole and entire body-mind. Unqualified
Ignorance-Radiance, or Absolute Intensity, is natively
intuited to be the very Condition of the body-mind and all
arising conditions, which are only stepped-down intensities
of the Absolute.
The mechanism that becomes prominent
in the process of re-cognition in the Way of Radical
Intuition is the regenerated Current that Radiates in all
directions from the heart. That Current predominantly
ascends or originates from the heart-root and passes to the
crown. That regenerated Current arises as an S-curve or
spiral, extending to include and Illuminate the entire heart
(right, middle, and left) and all states of ordinary
consciousness (waking, dreaming, and sleeping). The spiral
curves through the entire heart and then circles upwards,
until it passes back through the knot of the throat, and
then curves or spirals upwards from the rear base of the
brain to include and Illuminate the entire brain and
mind.
The Spiral Current of the heart is
the Epitome of the Bodily Current of Radiance. In the Way of
Radical Intuition there are two stages or phases of
Realization: Whole Body Enlightenment and Divine
Translation. Whole Body Enlightenment is the native and
Illumined Realization of the Condition of the body-mind.
Such Enlightenment is Realized when the Spiral Current of
the heart is regenerated to the crown, from which it has
always illuminated and enlivened the whole and entire
body-mind, via the Bodily Current of Radiance. Divine
Translation occurs whenever the Bodily Current of Radiance
is itself, with all its mental and physical extensions,
re-cognized and radically released into the regenerated
Spiral Current of the heart. In that case, the Spiral
Current of the heart ceases to support or manifest the
independent and stepped-down body-mind, and the body-mind
limitations dissolve in radical intuition of
Ignorance-Radiance, or Ecstatic Bliss, the true or Divine
Self, the Absolute Condition of the Spiral Current of the
heart.
In the Event of Divine Translation,
the Spiral Current of the heart is not strategically engaged
in any Process that would specifically generate Energy in
the body-mind. Such is a yogic process of the Bodily Current
of Radiance, and phenomena of psycho-physical Transformation
and Illumination by Energy belong to the fifth stage of
life. Rather, in the Event of Divine Translation, the Bodily
Current of Radiance is Sacrificed into the Spiral Current of
the heart, and thus into the Transcendental Heart or Self.
Thus, the Spiral Current of the heart becomes the Vehicle of
Divine Translation.
And what is Divine Translation? Its
Secret is the Self, the Heart, wherein both the Spiral
Current of the heart and the Bodily Current of Radiance
appear. The Heart is the Secret of the Current that Pervades
the body-mind and the World. Therefore, Divine Translation
is a matter of the release of all identification with the
inward self or independent soul. It is a matter of
Identification with the Radiant Divine Self, in which all
arising conditions are seen as unnecessary
modifications.
The Enlightenment of the Whole Body
is not truly a matter of the Radiation of Energy in the
body, thus Transforming the body-mind in extraordinary ways.
Rather, the Enlightenment of the Whole Body is the
Liberation of the Self from its identification with the
point of view of the body-mind, the experiential self, or
“I. ” The Fullness of Life or Light in the body-mind that
may accompany that Event is only a secondary and ordinary
expression of the body-mind in the Realm of Nature.
Beyond the World of Man
In the Way of Radical Intuition, all
conditions of attention, all experiential states of the
body-mind are re-cognized and dissolved in the Heart, or
Transcendental Divine Ignorance. In that Process, the Spiral
of Universal Radiance also strikes to the crown and pervades
the entire body-mind, while remaining Awake in the Self,
rather than in the separated individuality of the covered
soul. Such is bodily Enlightenment, and the whole and entire
body-mind is Transfigured in that Bliss.
Divine Translation is the result of
the radical and natural transcendence of bodily (or
physical) and mental (or psychic) conditions. The Radiance
of the Awakened heart Spirals to the crown, and
simultaneously pervades the entire body-mind. But in every
moment of re-cognition at the heart, the conditions of the
body-mind dissolve in the Radiant Bliss of God. Therefore,
effectively, there is neither form nor psyche in the
Radiance of the true Heart, or the Divine Self. The crown
has no locus or limit, and there are no extremities, no
extensions of the Radiance at the crown. The Current of
Radiance has the conventional appearance of extension along
the spinal line, from toe to crown. But, in Truth, the body
is dissolved, the mind is dissolved. The whole body is
dissolved from toe to crown, leaving only the Radiance of
the Heart. But there is nothing above or below the Heart.
The crown has no place. There is no place above the Heart.
There are no places extending from the Heart. There is only
the Heart, prior to all forms. There is only Radiance. There
is only God. Therefore, the Enlightenment of the Whole Body
is the Translation of the Whole Body into the Heart Itself,
the Domain of God, beyond the World of Man.
The Spiral
Current
Amrita Nadi,” or the Spiral Current
of the heart, appears to ascend from the right side of the
chest (or the heart), then to envelop the total heart, and
to ascend upwards along the outer curve of the body, from
the center of the chest, passing back through the throat and
up, along the line of the head, from the lower rear of the
skull to the notch at the upper rear of the skull, and to
the upper surface of the crown. Thus, it appears to pass
from the heart to the crown via the bodily organs below the
crown and above the heart.
But, in Truth, the Current passes
from the Transcendental Heart (in which the body-mind arises
at Infinity) directly to the heart of the body, and
simultaneously to the body-mind as a whole. The Radiance of
the Heart enters and pervades the body-mind via the heart.
But the body-mind is simply the heart itself, expressed as
the spectrum of functions. The Current in the heart is
duplicated as the extended body-mind, with its upper
terminal at the crown and its lower terminal at the bodily
base (the organs in the region of the perineum). Thus, the
heart is not merely in the middle of the body. The heart is
the body. The heart is the body-mind as a whole, and the
heart in the middle of the body is the epitome of the entire
body-mind. The Spiral Current of the heart is expressed as
the Bodily Life-Current, with its primary terminal above and
its secondary or dependent terminal below. And the Bodily
Current passes from the brain core to the nervous system,
and thus to the entire functional body-mind. The manner in
which all of this occurs is a Mystery and a
Paradox.
The heart appears to be in the
center of the body, below the crown and above the bodily
base. But when the heart is Awakened it is Realized to be in
Transcendental relationship to the body-mind. The bodily
heart is at the center, with the brain above. But the
Transcendental Heart is at Infinity, and the entire
body-mind arises simultaneously, as a modification of It.
Therefore, the Spiral Current is a paradoxical Realization
that has correspondences with both the conditions of the
manifest heart and the Condition of the Heart at
Infinity.
True Self-Realization Is
Transcendental Worship of the Divine Person
In the seventh stage of life, the
“eyes” of the soul are open. That is, all efforts to exclude
the physical and mental objects of attention have been
transcended. The process of the arising of attention is no
longer excluded at the heart (as it is in the sixth stage of
life, or exclusive Self-Realization). Rather, the entire
process of the arising of attention-including the objects of
attention and attention itself-is naturally transcended in
the Awakened Ecstasy of the Heart, the soul in its inherence
in God.
Thus, in the seventh stage of life,
neither attention nor the objects of attention are
suppressed or excluded. But neither are they obsessively
sought or reinforced. Rather, in the Condition of natural
transcendence of the process of experience, whatever arises
is simply re-cognized to be only a present and unnecessary
modification of the Eternal Radiance of the Divine
Person.
In that case, the soul naturally
abides as the Divine Self, inhering in the Radiant Divine.
The attention arising in every moment of experience is
re-cognized to be only modification of the Self, the
Consciousness that is the Transcendental Condition of the
Free soul in God. Thus, in every moment, the soul abides in
natural Identification with the Unqualified Self of God-or
Perfect Divine Ignorance and, even though the acts of
attention arise, no acts of attention have any binding
power.
Just so, in every moment, the soul,
inhering in the Divine Person as the very Self of God,
re-cognizes all arising objects of attention to be only
present and unnecessary modifications of the Eternal
Radiance or Blissful Glory of God. Thus, in every moment,
even though objects of attention arise, they have no binding
power.
In the seventh stage of life, only
God is found. Every condition, every object, every person or
being, every experience, every act of attention is
re-cognized in the Living God. There is only God. The soul
does not abide in itself or its experiential coverings. It
is Awakened beyond itself into the Ecstasy of its Divine
Condition. The true Self is not merely the ground of
inwardness. As such it would be the ultimate separation from
God. Rather, the Self is simply the Consciousness in which
attention is re-cognized. To re-cognize attention in every
moment is to be Dissolved in Divine Consciousness, the Self
of God. And to re-cognize attention in the seventh stage of
life is not to suppress attention, but to transcend the
illusion of separated consciousness. Thus, to re-cognize
attention with “open eyes” is to abide as the Self, to
inhere in the Divine Consciousness.
Just so, to Realize the Self is to
Awaken as the Self. That is, it is to Awaken in God with
full Consciousness. To fully Realize the Self is not to
abide in one’s own root of inwardness. It is to abide or
inhere in the Divine. It is Transcendental Worship, not
subjective exclusiveness.
One who abides in the Self of God in
the seventh stage of life is Awake to God under all
conditions. He inheres in God through Self-Realization (the
moment to moment re-cognition of attention) and, as the
Self, inheres in God as Infinite Radiant Bliss. The Self is
Awake to the Radiance of God. All objects, all arising
conditions are found to be a transparent Play on the Radiant
Immensity of the Divine Person. Thus, in the seventh stage
of life, the soul inheres in God as the Self, and the Self
inheres in God through re-cognition of everything in
God.
Therefore, in the seventh stage of
life, the soul is Awake as Love, or Ecstatic Worship of the
Transcendental and All-Pervading Divine Person. All
inwardness is transcended. All obsession with experiences,
objects, and others is transcended. There is constant
re-cognition of all arising conditions of experience, but
all the while there is natural abiding in the Ecstatic Love
of God through radical intuition of the Condition of
everything.
Thus, in the seventh stage of life,
the arising of attention and experience is not at all
prevented. The soul Awakens from its exile in the world and
its seclusion in the heart. There is only Ecstasy, or
Perfect God-Love. Attention has been Transformed, so that it
is simply the Radiance of the Self, rather than the binding
gesture of an independent consciousness. Thus, the Self
becomes Radiant via natural attention, and God is Worshipped
or Perfectly Realized via every moment of the natural
re-cognition of all phenomena. In this manner, the ordinary
process of experience is Transfigured, or made into a
Process of Ecstasy, self-transcendence, or the Sacrifice of
everything into the Blissful and Eternal Domain of
God.
This Process in the seventh stage of
life is expressed in two phases. The first is the phase of
growth toward maturity in the Ecstasy of this Realization. I
have, in the past, used the traditional term “Sahaj Samadhi”
to characterize the devotee in this phase. It is “open-eyed”
Self-Realization. It is that phase of the ultimate stage of
life in which the soul first Awakens as the Self in the
midst of the conditions of experience. Thus, in this phase,
there is simple re-cognition of all arising phenomena as
only modification of the Radiance of the Self.
In this phase, the devotee is
relatively “cool” in the face of the phenomena of
experience, high or low. He re-cognizes what arises, and
abides in the Prior Transcendental Consciousness, the Self,
or Divine Ignorance. During this phase he may carry on all
of his ordinary and natural human activities in the same
fashion as in the earlier stages of practice. He appears to
be Full, and Tranquil, responsible for all of the ordinary
conditions of life, and active in a natural manner, even
with enthusiasm for the pleasurable conditions of this
world. But he re-cognizes all conditions to be unnecessary
modifications of the Radiant Self.
This phase of Awakening continues
for a time, until the conditions of experience begin to
become profoundly transparent. Thus, as time goes on, the
devotee not only re-cognizes or “sees through” all
conditions of experience, but he becomes more and more
Ecstatically Absorbed in the Divine, in Whom all conditions
are arising.
Therefore, as the devotee matures in
the seventh stage, he is drawn more and more profoundly into
the Ecstasy of God-Realization. He is Transfigured in the
Mood of Divine Inherence. The Self finds only God. In the
past, I have used the traditional term “Bhava Samadhi” to
characterize the devotee in this Perfect phase of
God-Realization. Just as “Sahaj Samadhi” indicates a
“natural” state, “Bhava Samadhi” indicates the “Mood of
Ecstasy,” or Perfect self-transcendence in
God-Consciousness. The more profoundly the devotee in the
seventh stage re-cognizes the phenomena of experience, the
less he is “natural” or “cool,” and the more he is Ecstatic,
Absorbed in the “Heat” of Divine Radiance. Thus, as the
devotee matures, the characteristics of Divine Absorption
become more frequent and more profound. The devotee becomes
literally Transfigured and Transformed, bodily and mentally
(that is, psychically).
The mechanism whereby the signs of
such Ecstatic self-transcendence appear is the structural
medium of the body-mind, wherein the brain is dominant, or
primary, and the extended body and nervous system are
secondary and dependent. Thus, in the Ecstasy of
God-Realization the Current of the body-mind is epitomized
as a Spiral of Radiant Force between the heart and the
crown. (In the past I have used the traditional term “Amrita
Nadi” to identify this Spiral Current.) That Spiral
originates in the Awakened heart, prior to the binding
limitations of self-consciousness. It ascends spontaneously
when the “eyes open,” and neither attention nor the objects
of attention are either suppressed or felt to be necessary.
That Spiral is the Current of Love, or Divine
Radiance.
In the first phase of the seventh
stage of life (“Sahaj Samadhi,” or Whole Body
Enlightenment), the Spiral Current simply meets with the
Bodily Current at the crown, and thus Radiates in the entire
body-mind via the brain and nervous system. However, as the
Process matures, the phenomena of the body-mind become more
and more transparent in the Ecstasy of God-Realization. As
this Ecstasy intensifies, the attention (or Radiance of the
Self) in the extended Bodily Current begins to dissolve. And
the Bodily Current appears more and more to recede into the
crown, via the “sahasrar” (the mechanism of the corona
radiata). When this occurs, the devotee is Translated into
Ecstasy prior to the body-mind.
Yogis and mystics in the fifth stage
of life focus attention in the brain core and turn attention
upward into the subtle realms of phenomena, or the higher
destiny of mind, while remaining in the disposition of mind,
or separated attention itself. But the devotee in the
seventh stage of life, who is Free at the heart, is
altogether lifted out of the conditional Life-Current of the
body-mind. Thus, in the seventh stage of life, the Bodily
Current is transcended in the Spiral Current of the heart.
The Self becomes extended as Transfigured “Attention,” via
the Spiral Current, between the heart and the crown. All
bodily and all mental or psychic phenomena are transcended
in the Mood or Ecstasy that is Awakened in this manner.
Thus, the devotee is at last Translated out of the states of
experiential awareness of the body-mind, and Absorbed in the
Ecstasy of God-Realization, through the Disposition of the
Radiant Heart of God. (Such is “Bhava Samadhi,” or Divine
Translation, the Mood of Transfigured Ecstasy.)
The devotee who has begun to enter
more and more into the Ecstasy of this second or mature
phase of the seventh stage of life (or the Way of Radical
Intuition) demonstrates signs of the transcendence of the
pleasure. of experience, both physical and psychic. He is
God-Possessed, and both his outer and inner life are
transparent. Thus, as the devotee stabilizes and matures in
this Ecstasy, he shows less and less interest in the
ordinary conditions of life and action. He abides more and
more simply and Perfectly in the Mood of God-Realization, or
inherence in the Divine Domain. Such a one is simply Free,
and his life is only a Demonstration of Divine Bliss.
Eventually, his body-mind falls away and he is utterly
Dissolved in God, Translated into the Divine Domain and
Destiny, beyond the worlds of desire and mind and
conventional experience. Unless it is the Will of God to use
such a one as an Agent of Grace in the worlds of embodiment,
he passes into the Eternal Bliss of the Divine Person
forever.
Love Outshines the Body-Mind
Yogis and mystical saints ascend
above body consciousness a the psyche, the mind, the thread
of attention, and the evolutionary tree of the nervous
system. They attain the ajna chakra, the brain core, with
its view of the Sky of Mind above. They reside in the aura
that is somewhat brighter than flesh. They live in a body of
brightened form, moving in a mind of colorful desires. Their
method is attention.
But the devotee of the Living God
becomes the sacrifice of body and mind. He transcends the
mystical method of attention, or mind, and yields instead to
the Way of the sacrifice of attention in feeling-intuition
of the Divine Person, Who is Eternally Radiant
Consciousness, or Transcendental Love. Even the psyche is
transcended in the Disposition of Love, or Ecstasy, and even
high-minded contemplation is Outshined, along with the dim
body of elements and the brighter body of astral
light.
Such a one Dissolves in that
Consciousness which is the crown of the heart and that
Radiance which is the crown of the head. He is Translated.
He does not go up or down, in or out. He simply Dissolves,
prior to attention, in the Radiant Bliss wherein body and
mind cease to be defined, and Joy replaces every edge of
perception.
Freedom and Enlightenment
Then the devotee has become
Transfigured in the seventh stage of life, he is free of all
conventional obligations of body and mind, and he abides
only in God. Since he is free of all obligations, he can do
what he likes, endure whatever arises, and yet remain free.
But since he abides only in God, rather than in the
modifications of the body-mind, his actions are always
God-made, Full of Life, pure, graceful, benign, and
auspicious, even when his actions are difficult for others
to understand. Such is the paradox of whole bodily
Enlightenment.
Rules of Behavior in the Seventh Stage of
Life
The strict maintenance of
conservative or regenerative dietary, sexual, and other
personal disciplines is necessary for growth in the first
six stages of life, once commitment to the self-transcending
Way of God-Communion truly begins. This is because the
essence of practice in the developing stages is literal and
even intentional submission of the body-mind to the Current
of Life, rather than to mere experience, or sensual and
mental or psychic objects in themselves. However, in the
seventh stage of life, such disciplines are no longer
necessary-since all processes of the body-mind have ceased
to limit or bind the Radiant Heart. Even so, those
disciplines have by then become natural, ordinary, and
appropriate to the body-mind itself, which is under the Law
of Nature. Thus, in the seventh stage of life, the
conventional disciplines of the lower functions continue as
a general rule-not because they are necessary, but simply
because they are natural, ordinary, appropriate, and
inevitable. However, the non-necessity of conventions of
behavior in the seventh stage also accounts for the
sometimes bizarre, unconcerned, unconventional, and even
apparently worldly behavior of perfectly Enlightened
individuals, particularly in their instructive Play with
others.
The rule of practice is indeed the
conversion and restraint of the tendencies of the body-mind.
But the essence of Enlightenment is self-transcendence, or
humorous freedom from the conditions of the body-mind.
Therefore, even in the seventh stage of life, some
individuals have taken occasional exception to the rule
through humorously unconventional behavior. Mere
self-indulgence is, of course, not the principle behind such
behavior. Divine Humor, or Freedom, is the principle, which
at times Communicates Itself through the unconventional or
paradoxical behavior of Enlightened beings. In general,
however, the individual in the seventh stage appears quite
austere, pure, and Life-positive in his daily behavior,
although he is under none of the restraints of Nature, and
his actions are quite spontaneous and Full of Love.
Passivity and
Ecstasy
The preference for quietistic
inwardness, or passive contemplation, strategically
excluding active contact with the processes of experience,
is utterly transcended in the ultimate Practice of the Way
of Radical Intuition. There is natural “re-cognition,”
rather than exclusion, of all experiences of body, mind, and
self, and there is intuitive abiding in Fullness of Life,
Faith (or Radiant Consciousness of and in the Absolute
Person), and Love. It is a matter of Transcendental Ecstasy,
in which the phenomena of the body-mind are transcended in a
natively Enlightened Bliss-Fullness. The daily arena of
money, food, and sex is naturally controlled. The Bodily
Current of Life is naturally polarized toward the crown.
Thought and self-awareness naturally dissolve at the heart.
And the whole body-mind, Enlightened by the natural or
Transcendental Disposition of the true Heart, is Dissolved
in spontaneous “Remembrance,” or Transcendental Absorption
in the Absolute Personality, the Divine Self, prior to all
thought and imagery of the mind. Therefore, that Personality
or Self becomes the Destiny as well as the present
Occupation of the Devotee. No matter what the Perfect
Devotee appears to do, he is nonetheless Absorbed in God.
Therefore, experience no longer binds or disturbs him. And
all that he appears to be gradually Dissolves in God.
Perfection
Divine Translation, or “Bhava
Samadhi,” is Transcendental Absorption in God-Love, or
Ecstatic Intuition of the Absolute Divine Personality, the
true Self. It is the Perfect Stage of human existence, in
which all limitations are transcended. It is not
annihilation, but Ecstasy. It is not self-preservation, but
Ecstasy. It is Paradox, beyond explanation. In that Ecstasy,
all desires naturally dissolve, since the self-orientation
(or the orientation to the experiential soul) is utterly
released. It is not that experience or even individual
existence comes to an end. Rather, it is that experience and
individual existence, in whatever form they arise in any
moment, are instantly re-cognized, so that only the Divine
is obvious, even while everything goes on as usual. Such
Divine Communion is Perfect. There is only God, the Divine
Person, Transcendental and yet Inclusive of all phenomena.
And, even so, there is all of the Ecstatic multiplication of
selves and worlds within the Infinite Person of God. This is
the Truth. This is the Perfect Truth. We are forever only
Ecstatic in Communion with and within the Infinitely Radiant
Divine Person.
***
p. 534
stay tuned more to come
Enlightenment of the Whole Body
