Series on The Seven Stages of Life
Seven Stages of Life
Beezone Video Series
The
fifth stage of human life is the stage of mysticism, or
evolutionary adaptation to the higher brain and mind.
In the fifth stage of life this
harmonizing trend is continued, as well as the ecstatic
gesture toward Union, but the plane of self-awareness
ascends, to become dominantly subtle (or psychic) rather
than gross (or merely physical), and the Realization of
Union involves experiences of ascended attention that
eventually go beyond physical references and, at last, even
beyond mental references.
The Bodily Sacrifice of Attention,
p. 29-30 – 1981
In the context of the fifth stage of
life, this process is continued, but the plane of
conditional “self”-awareness ascends, to become dominatly
subtle (or psychic), rather than gross (or merely physical)
– and the Realization of conditional union iwht the
(all-and-All-Pervading and all-and-All-Transcending) Divine
Source (or Source-Condition) involves the ascent of
attention, that eventually goes beyond the physical
references, and (at last) even beyond mental
references.
The Seventh Stage Revelation, p. 60
– Pneumaton – 2011
In the fifth stage of life we tend
to become disoriented from our ultimate purpose and become
devoted to the potential objects and experiences associated
with ascent. But we are only experiencing a stage of
development, a stage of evolution, a stage of transcendence.
The process associated with the Kundalini Shakti is cosmic
Spirituality in its fully developed (fifth stage) Yogic
form.
KANYA SUPRITHI: Sri Gurudev, I was quite astounded when I
had the experience of fifth stage conditional nirvikalpa
samadhi. I had not expected anything of that sort of
experience, at all. I had just been practicing at maturity
in level three, basically the holding of attention at the
Ajna Door.
SRI DA AVABHASA: That is the
practice at level four. The “holding” at the Ajna Door is an
ascending practice. Perhaps it was happening
spontaneously
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
Enlightenment of the Whole Body
The Fifth Stage Error Of Clinging To
subtle phenomena and states Of conditional Ascended
Absorption As If they Are The Truth Is Likewise To Be
Transcended By The Observation That This Clinging and This
conditional Ascent (If It Occurs) Are Part Of The Evidence
Of self-Contraction, and That They Are Only passing moments
In The Process Of (Eventually, Ultimate, and Inherently
Perfect) self-Transcendence.
The Dawn Horse Testament –
Chapter
20
The subtle path, exemplified by
traditions such as shabd yoga (or nada yoga),1 bypasses all
involvement with gross or lower energy manipulation,
including the kundaliniI, and begins with concentration on
the life-current as internal sound and light at the door of
the subtle dimension behind the brows (ajna chakra2), thus
controlling and absorbing the mind. Since the Goal of such
approaches is escape to cognition above the gross level,
their methods need not magically improve the karmas below,
and so they merely step aside from yogic attention to the
gross aspect of the Play. But the traditions of the subtle
path, like the kundaliniI and other examples of the gross
path, pursue the Goal by entering the subtle realms. The
real business of both paths begins at the ajna center
(between and behind the brows), evoking the vision of
bindu,3 or nil chakra (“blue pearl”), or other versions of
the door of manifest light, the epitome of the subtle mind,
and awakening a visionary confrontation with the subtle form
of the Guru in that same light, who then appears to lead the
individual or soul (subtle being) on to the display of
subtle energy above the lower-reflecting activity of the
mind. This is the adventure of the super-conscious (higher
mind) Play in the subtle dimension.
What I describe as the Yoga of this
Way in the context of the fifth stage of life is very
different from how its structured in the traditions for
their purposes. But fundamentally, generally speaking, I’m
Calling devotees to bypass the ascending Yoga, and the
pursuit of the phenomena of the dream state, or the subtle.
And also, I Call you to bypass the mere sleep meditation of
relaxing objects, and enter into the Deep. It is like sleep.
Its just attention resting there. You must go through it,
yes, but bypass it as a purpose, a strategy, as something
you want to enlarge upon or indulge in or declare to be
Enlightenment, or enough for you.
Shaktipat is experientially associated with the Awakening of
the Life-Current in the spinal line. Aspirants in the Hindu
traditions of the fifth stage are thus devoted to a process
of strategically raising the Current to dissociate from
existence in this world. Such an orientation, common to the
conventions of Hinduism, is not really part of a tradition
that acknowledges the Divine Spirit fully. It views the
individual self as a spiritual being behind the body-mind
and separable from it. It conceives of God as the Being that
Pervades the world and is separate from it, ultimately to be
Located elsewhere. Thus, the conventional orientation to
Spirit-Baptism or the Shaktipat of the traditions is
generally ego-based and dissociative.
Birthday
Message from Jesus and Me
The fourth, fifth, and sixth stage
traditions in their conventional forms propose various
samadhis as the ultimate goal. Thus, in the fourth stage
conventions, savikalpa samadhi is proposed as the goal, or
absorption via the higher mind in the Divine Form, which is
conceived to be over against oneself and yet a Reality in
which the self can be ecstatically absorbed. In the fifth
stage, forms of savikalpa samadhi are also proposed by some
schools of yoga, but the ultimate goal of the fifth stage is
nirvikalpa samadhi, the transcendence of mind and body via
the ascent of attention. And in the sixth stage the goal
proposed is jnana samadhi, or absorption in and
identification with the self-Essence.
There Is Likely To Be A Spontaneous
(or Otherwise Freely Intentional) Increase In The Amount Of
daily Meditation As Well As The Frequency Of The Incidents
Of The Ascending Attitude In The Context Of daily life
(Although Descending Spirit-Conductivity In The Frontal Line
Should Not Be Neglected, Since The Amount or Degree Of
Spirit-Energy Available For Ascent Depends On The Amount or
Degree Of Spirit-Energy Rightly Conducted In The Frontal
Pattern Of Descent). And The Natural (or conditional)
Culmination Of Practice Of The Way Of The Heart In The
Context Of The Fifth Stage Of Life Is Fifth Stage
conditional Nirvikalpa Samadhi.
(Fifth) Stage Are Total (and Deep)
bodily Equanimity (In The Spirit-Current), Easy Steadiness
Of The Spirit-Current and attention At The Ajna Door, and
Deep Meditation (Even With The Spirit-Current and
Feeling-attention Yielded, Up and Back, Up and Back, Far
Above The Ajna Door and the Total brain, To the upper rear
of the top of the head, or Even Above The Total General
Surface Of the head). Therefore, The Significant phenomenal
Signs At This Stage Are Those Associated With The Immediate
Transcendence Of gross bodily Awareness (and conceptual
mental activity) and Progressive (or, Perhaps, Immediate)
Transcendence Of subtle mental (or psychic, and, Most
Basically, perceptual) Awareness.
The Fifth Stage Of Life In The Way
Of The Heart, subtle perceptions Tend To arise In A Deeper
(or Even dreamlike) State Of Meditation (Either Minimally Or
Not At All Associated With gross bodily Awareness), and,
Also, the subtle phenomena that are thus perceived Are More
Often In The Higher (or More Ascended) Range Of
Possibilities (Possibly Including Experiences Of “Cosmic
Consciousness”).
In The Way Of The Heart, The Secret
Of Passing Through and Beyond The (“Advanced” Fourth Stage,
and Then The Fifth Stage) Ascent Of attention Is
Feeling-Contemplation Of My Spiritual Presence Itself , Not
Distraction By (conditional and Natural) experiential
energies in the body-mind, and Not Distraction By
psycho-physical experiences of any kind. Natural (or
psycho-physical) energy, or Even Objective Cosmic Energy,
Ascending In the body-mind, Makes (or, Otherwise, limits)
the conditional (or experiential) phenomena (or All The
Distracting Illusions) Of The Fifth Stage Of Life (and Of
The “Advanced” Form Of The Fourth Stage Of Life). Natural
(or psycho-physical) energy, or Even Objective Cosmic
Energy, Is Not Truth. Conditional experience (However
Sublime) Is Not Perfect God-Realization. Therefore, How Will
You Transcend The Binding and Deluding Power Of Ascending
phenomena? By Feeling-Contemplation Of Me ! Feel (and
Thereby Contemplate) My Spiritual Presence (Itself), and,
Thus and Thereby, Renounce all conditional phenomena. Be
Free Of The Distracting Power Of conditional Existence. Find
My Spiritual Presence (Itself). Follow My Spiritual Presence
(Itself) To The “Place” Where I Always Already Stand, For I
Am Always Already Beyond the conditional self and all
conditional worlds.
The subtle ego Is Characterized By
subtle, psychic, and mystical “self-Possession” (or subtle,
psychic, and mystical self-Absorption).
Because The Ajna Knot Is Such A
limiting Obstruction, The Opening Of The Ajna Knot Is The
Always Immediate Purpose Of Practice In The Context Of The
Fifth Stage Of Life In The Way Of The Heart.
The Truly Significant Process
Developed During The Fifth Stage Of Life In The Way Of The
Heart Is Steady and Centralized Upward Relaxation (Of the
Total body-mind) and Heart-Free Feeling-Submission Of
attention (and the Total body-mind) Into The (By Grace
Revealed) Spirit-Current, At and Above The Ajna Door. And
This Process Is (Thus) To Be Most Deeply Entered, So That
The Ajna Knot May Be Directly Penetrated (or Opened), and So
That The Transitional Sign Of Fifth Stage conditional
Nirvikalpa Samadhi (or Even Spontaneous and Stable
Identification With The Witness-Position Of Consciousness)
May Appear (or Awaken) As Quickly and Easily As
Possible.
The Fully Ascended Event Of Fifth
Stage conditional Nirvikalpa Samadhi Occurs Via A
Spontaneous and Sudden Ascent Of attention Beyond All
Awareness Of body, mind, and conditional relations of all
kinds. It Is Ascent Into and Mergence (To The Degree Of
Effective Unity) With The Objective Source-Light (or
Spirit-Matrix) Above the head, Above the Total body, Above
the perceptual and conceptual mind, and Above all the
conditional worlds Within The Cosmic Mandala. As The Ascent
Progresses, A Most Subtle Point (or Bindu) or Knot Is
Penetrated, Beyond Which There Is Only Love-Bliss. And To an
outside observer, the individual In Fifth Stage conditional
Nirvikalpa Samadhi May Even Appear To Be dead, or Certainly
In A Remarkable State Of Suspension (In Which Even breath
and heartbeat May Be Temporarily Suspended, or Else Reduced
To A Nearly Undetectable Rate Of activity).
Fifth Stage conditional Nirvikalpa
Samadhi Is The Achievement Of Ecstasy (or The State Of
Standing “Outside”, or Spiritually Beyond, the body-mind),
but It Is Only A Temporary, conditional, and Cosmic Ecstasy
(and Not Inherently Perfect Spiritual, Transcendental, and
Divine Enstasy, or The Native Condition Of Standing
Unconditionally As The Spiritual and Transcendental Divine
Itself).
The Ascended Event Of Fifth Stage
conditional Nirvikalpa Samadhi Is Not merely an “out-of-body
experience”, Because, In Fifth Stage conditional Nirvikalpa
Samadhi, attention Stands “Outside” (or Above) the
perceptual and conceptual mind As Well As the body. The
Ascended Event Of Fifth Stage conditional Nirvikalpa Samadhi
Is The Most Complete (or Extreme) Achievement Of The
conditional Ascent Of attention (the conditional essence of
the ordinary, or perceptual and conceptual, mind) To A State
Of Union With The Undifferentiated Oneness Of The Utterly
Ascended Matrix-Condition, Infinitely Above The
psycho-physical Context Of the conditional body-mind.
Therefore, Fifth Stage conditional Nirvikalpa Samadhi Is The
conditional Achievement Of The conditional Transcendence Of
the body-mind, With A Simultaneously Permitted Glimpse Of
The Ascended Source-Reality, or Ascended Matrix-Condition,
Utterly Above (and Only Thus Beyond) conception, perception,
and phenomenal (or psycho-physical) self-Awareness, but It
Is Nonetheless An Event That Is Naturally Dependent Upon the
body-mind-self (and The Experience Is Soon Lost In The
Inevitable Return, or Descent, Of The Spiritual Life-Current
and attention To The Various Dualisms Of the body-mind-self
and the Natural states of the body-mind-self).
Dawn Horse Testament –
Chapter
42
The true fifth stage mystical (or
esoteric Spiritual) Process is, principally, associated with
the progressive inner perceptual (and, thus, subtle mental)
un-“Veiling” of the total internally perceptible
pattern (or abstractly “experienced” structure) of
the individual body-mind-“self” (or
body-brain-“self”).*
I am simply trying to focus you on
the essence of what you must consider in the transition to
the fifth stage of life. You are all involved in the
neuroses of the first three stages of life, the transition
to the fourth stage of life, and the transition beyond that
to the fifth. The essence of bondage in the first three
stages is sex, or self pleasuring in the body
The middle station of the heart is
associated with what is often known as the heart “chakra”
(or “wheel”), a center of energy in the subtle dimension.
The middle station of the heart is linked with the ascending
fourth stage of life, and the fifth stage of life, in the
spinal line.
The fifth stage schools regard
certain subtle internal objects (such as sound or light), or
the various yogic states of trance-absorption in such
objects, to be the Way and the Truth.
The Anatomy of the Third
Eye
In the fifth stage of life, the
sensorium, or the brain core, wherein the senses and all
mind forms originate and are controlled, is inspected and
transcended. The traditional descriptions and conceptions of
the ascent to the brain core tend not only to be
metaphorically religious and cosmological, but they tend
also to be related to the primary organ or function of
sight. Thus, the mysticism of the fifth stage of life is
most often communicated in terms of vision, visions, lights,
and the Ultimate Light above all lights. Likewise, the
position of contemplation in this stage is most commonly
referred to as the “third eye,” or the pineal gland.
However, all of this represents a simplistic and exclusive
or cultic point of view.
Truly, the higher phase of mystical
ascent, or the fifth stage of life, is a matter of
concentration of attention in the brain, or the roots of all
the sensory and mental functions of the body-mind. Thus, the
mechanisms of the brain core, including the cerebellum, the
fourth ventricle, the cerebral aqueduct (which is the
“narrow gate” of religion and the “brahmarandhra” or “hole
of Brahman” of yogis), the brain stem (beginning at the
medulla), the corpus quadrigemina, and the diencephalon
(including the pituitary body, the hypothalamus, the
thalamus, and the pineal body, as well as the third
ventricle), are all part of the field of ascended mystical
experience in the fifth stage of life.
Certain parts of the brain core are
indeed associated with the internal mechanism of vision.
Thus, an important aspect of practice in the fifth stage is
inspection of the various levels of the phenomena of vision
in the brain core. These areas of inspection of internal
vision are especially associated with the mechanisms of the
optic chiasma, the pineal body, and the visual cortex at the
upper rear of the brain.
However, other dimensions of
mystical ascent are equally as important as those of vision.
Indeed, in the literature of mysticism, the second most
prominent mystical phenomenon is that of internal sound or
audition. The “Word” is in the same primal position as the
“Light.” Thus, another important aspect of practice in the
fifth stage is inspection of the various levels of audition
in the brain core. The primary areas of inspection of
internal audition are in an ascending line, beginning at the
medulla (or the “Mouth of God”), and extending into the
auditory area of the brain, in the temporal lobe.
Although the internal senses of
vision and audition are the primary mystical functions, the
mysticism of the fifth stage of life also includes
inspection of the internal mechanisms of the senses of taste
and smell and touch. Thus, mystical ascent is associated
with a total heavenly or supersensual experience, even of a
dreamlike or psychedelic variety. But in the Way of Divine
Ignorance the significance of practice in the fifth stage of
life is not supersensual experience itself or belief in an
ascended cosmology wherein the soul journeys to God. Rather,
practice in this Way is engaged for the sake of direct
inspection of mystical phenomena, re-cognition of them as
merely conditions of one’s own body-mind, and thus the
transcendence of mysticism itself.
The mystical tour of our esoteric
anatomy may be summarized as contemplation of the
Life-Current via the roots of the senses and the brain-mind
in the brain core. The route of that tour of inspection
begins at the junction of the medulla, the cerebellum, and
the fourth ventricle of the brain-even though concentration
is simply directed into the basic brain core, immediately
above and between the eyes and ears. The progress of
inspection is upwards from the medulla, the pons, and the
midbrain, in association with the cerebral aqueduct. From
thence the circuit may appear to go up and then down and up
again, as the course moves forward to the region of the
pituitary body, then up and back to the thalamus (which is
divided into two parts). Then the course may appear to go
further back and somewhat down toward the pineal body,
before continuing up and back to the visual
cortex.
The entire brain core, and not
merely the pineal body, is the true ajna chakra, the
mystical third eye, or the “seat of the soul” (as presumed
by the ancients). And by surrendering into the Life-Current
via the roots of the senses in the brain core we may
tran-scend all limiting associations with the phenomena of
body and mind, and so regain our intuitive identification
with the Radiant Life-Current or Transcendental
Consciousness Itself. However, this Ultimate Event may not
be Realized through upward concentration of attention in the
brain core. First there must be the dissolution of attention
in the Transcendental Consciousness, via penetration of the
bodily root of self-consciousness in the region of the
heart. Such is the Realization in the sixth stage of life.
Then the Transcendental Consciousness resumes its Identity
with the Radiant Life-Current, prior to all confusion by the
phenomena of psycho-physical experience. The mind, or
attention, is Translated into the Transcendental
Consciousness, and the body is Translated into the Radiant
Current of Life. Such is the Realization in the seventh
stage of life.
When the Transcendental
Consciousness and the Radiant Life-Current are Realized to
be One and Free, the anatomical corre-spondences to that
Realization are found in the heart and the upper brain. The
anatomical reference of the Intuition of the Tran-scendental
Consciousness is in the region of the heart, on the right
side. And the anatomical reference of the Realization of the
Radi-ant Life-Current, prior to the body-mind, is the crown
of the brain, or the upper region of the corpus callosum,
the upper ex-tremities of the lateral ventricles, and the
corona radiata (the true sahasrar or, metaphorically, the
Highest Heaven of God).
Between the heart on the right and
the corona radiata above, the Current of Life is felt to
stand like a pillar (or a “lingam”). Its Circuit appears
like an S-curve, moving up and forward from the right side
of the heart, including the total heart in the process, and
then passing back and up through the base of the throat to
the fourth ventricle, then up into the brain core and the
third ventricle, and thence to the lateral ventricles and
the corona radiata, or the Infinite Radiance of
Bliss.
The Current of Life between the
heart and the crown is Full of Transcendental Radiance, or
Infinite Love. And by its Power the whole body becomes
Radiant. In the seventh stage of life, or the Way of Radical
Intuition, the Process is one of tacit surrender of the
body-mind into the Living Radiance of the Transcendental
Consciousness. Thus, even the body becomes a Sacrifice in
that Bright Bliss. The body is at last given up in the
joyful Freedom of Transcendental Love.
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.
Enlightenment
of the Whole Body
The gradual path of enlightenment is
a way of moving through the levels of phenomena, through the
chain of Creation, ultimately to Realize the Divine
Condition, but, in general, not in this lifetime. It is a
matter of progressing by stages, first transcending this
gross birth of the ‘covered” soul, and then moving on to
transcend the subtle births of the soul. This roundabout
path, this “Great Way of Return,” involves first of all
hearing the argument about our ultimate Destiny, and then
taking up a life of renunciation. Through strategic
renunciation, attention is turned away from the gross realm
of possibility into the Life-Current of the body-mind, and
then attention is moved, via that Current, along the spinal
line toward the internal brain centers and into the subtle
conditions of the mind. This is the path of mystics or
yogis. There are many versions of this approach to
Enlightenment, but they are all essentially a matter of
placing the attention in the internal Life-Current of the
body-mind, moving it upwards, bypassing the lower or gross
bodily phenomena, and fixing attention in the various
regions of the brain core (That is, attention is maintained
at the position of the brain core, which is also named the
“third eye and the “ajna chakra” It is the position of the
higher or subtle mind. And from this position the various
“lokas” or realms of subtle experience or subtle mind may be
viewed or otherwise visited and known).
The Sudden and Gradual
The experiencing (and the
dramatizing) of egoic fear, sorrow, and anger (which are the
primary emotions of self-contraction) are to be actively
Transcended by the Responsively Devotional (Me-Invoking,
Me-Feeling, and Out-Toward-Me and Up-Toward-Me Turned)
Feeling-Exercise of no-contraction at, respectively, the top
of the head, the ajna door, and the root of the
throat.
The Fifth Stage Of Life Is Based On
Previous Acknowledgement and Realization Of God, Truth, or
Reality Via Heart-Communion With Me, and Via The By Grace
Revealed Spirit-Presence. And The Fifth Stage Of Life Is,
Like Every Other Stage, Associated With a Unique organ Of
Adaptation and Growth. Therefore, In The Fifth Stage Of
Life, Growth Is Associated With Evolutionary
self-Transcendence Through Adaptation To The Brain Core, or
Ascent Via The Ajna Door.
For These Reasons, Meditative
Practice Of The Way Of The Heart In The Context Of The Fifth
Stage Of Life Is Primarily A Process Of Converting,
Positively Changing, Releasing, Merging, and Effectively
Transcending the mind, Through Devotional Ascent Via The
Spirit-Current, Directed From The Middle Region Of The
Heart. In That Process, the mind-self Reaches Toward and
Yields To its Root-Source Above, Passing Through Levels Of
subtle mind and its relations, and the mind Merges In The
Inherently Formless Matrix Above, and attention Stands Free
Of body and mind.
In The Way Of The Heart, The Fifth
Stage Process Tends Toward The Temporary and Transitional
Realization Of Ascended, or Fifth Stage, conditional
Nirvikalpa Samadhi. The conventional Path Of Ascent Via The
Mechanics Of the brain-mind Is Itself A Traditional Effort
or Search, Founded On Uninspected egoity, In Which Fifth
Stage conditional Nirvikalpa Samadhi Is The Ultimate Goal.
In The Way Of The Heart, Ascent Toward Fifth Stage
conditional Nirvikalpa Samadhi Is A Temporary or
Transitional Process, Founded In The Devotional or
self-Transcending Disposition Of The Awakened
Heart.
Even Before The Possible Realization
Of Fifth Stage conditional Nirvikalpa Samadhi In The Way Of
The Heart, Many Forms Of Savikalpa Samadhi May Be Realized.
Such Experiences Are Realizations Of mental Unity With the
subtler planes of mind. The Fifth Stage Of Life Is Not
Passed Through and Beyond Until The Levels Of Savikalpa
Samadhi and Also Utterly Ascended conditional Nirvikalpa
Samadhi Are Transcended Through Persistence In The
self-Surrendering, self-Forgetting, and Really
self-Transcending Gesture Of Real Practice. Therefore,
Passage To The Sixth Stage Of Life Requires Transcendence Of
The Fifth Stage Error, Which Is The Tendency To Seek or Hold
On To the Ascended or subtle states of mind, and “Visions”
Of An Ultimate Mind, and The Temporary Happiness Of psychic
Dissolution In The Infinitely Ascended Matrix Of mind
itself.
The Dawn Horse Testament –
Chapter
16
In the fifth stage of life, or the
middle phase of the Way of Re-cognition, the purified,
harmonious, and positively transformed gross body-mind,
including the autonomic nervous system, is entirely released
to the central nervous system. The central nervous system is
made to dwell in direct Communion with the Radiant
Transcendental Consciousness, but attention in the central
nervous system is exercised to withdraw the Life-Current
from its fixed association with the autonomic nervous system
and the gross body-mind. As a result, the gross dimension of
the body-mind becomes a matter of free association rather
than fixed or obsessive and irresponsible association, and
the center of Communion with the Transcendental Reality
becomes the brain core, the higher subconscious psyche or
mind, and even the superconscious psyche or mind. In the
extreme upward withdrawal of the Life-Current experienced at
this stage, the central nervous system is abstracted or
disassociated from the autonomic nervous system, thus
permitting a state of intense contemplative absorption in
the Radiant Transcendental Consciousness. However, this
state (or “nirvikalpa samadhi”) is merely a temporary
condition, dependent on the higher physiology and higher
psychic disposition of the human body-mind.
Thus, in the final development of
the fifth stage of life, it is realized that the central
nervous system, the superconscious mind, and the higher
subconscious mind are only transitory and mediating
mechanisms or forces. To project attention into the
extremities of the central nervous system, and even to enter
into the “light body” that surrounds and pervades the
central nervous system and the entire extended body-mind, is
not to be free in God but only to be relatively free of the
grosser play of experience. The felt separation from God
remains even in that case, and the mind retains the illusion
of independent or egoic existence.
Enlightenment
of the Whole Body
The fifth stage of life is the stage
of higher esotericism. It does not begin until attention is
stabilized at the brain core by the inverted or ascending
force of the Life-Current. Thus, the devotee must not only
have transcended the anatomical movement of attention via
the senses and toward outward bodily experience, but he must
also have transcended the movement of attention into the
Life-Current in relation to the lower body. Attention must
be capable of abiding easily at the brain core. Speaking in
traditional yogic language, the attention must rest above
the Life-centers of the anus-perineum, sex organs, navel,
heart, and throat, and it must be stabilized at the “sixth
chakra,” the “ajna chakra” or “third eye,” above and behind
the brows.
The practices in the fifth stage of
life involve the highest forms of mystical ascent into the
experiential realm of the brain core, the “heaven” of
religion and the outer cosmic limit of esoteric mysticism.
In the Way of Divine Ignorance, the fifth stage of life is
engaged during the second phase of the Way of Re-cognition.
And the practices at this level have correspondences with
raja yoga, shabd yoga (or nada yoga), laya yoga, and the
higher dimensions of hatha yoga and kundalini
yoga.
The phenomena of the fifth stage of
life are traditionally described to worldly or exoteric
devotees and even to initiates in the fourth stage of life
in terms of a hierarchy of cosmological schemes,ascending
toward the Absolute Deity. The ultimate goal is described as
the union or Eternal Embrace of God and the soul (which
remains intact, but in a highly ratified or purified state).
However, the phenomena of the fifth stage must be
re-cognized as they truly are. They are the phenomena
displayed to the internalized sense-functions when attention
is firmly directed into the Life-Current in the brain
core.
In the esoteric practices of the
fourth stage of life, attention is yielded from the outer
play of the bodily senses and into the Life-Current, which
is felt to be internal to the entire physical or elemental
body, toe to crown, particularly along the spinal line, from
the perineum to the cerebellum. But in the esoteric
practices of the fifth stage of life, the sense functions
are internalized to the degree that the physical body is
essentially transcended, and the controlling mechanisms of
the gross body and the senses are contacted at the brain
core.
Thus, just as the extended physical
body is the plane of practice, or submission to the
Life-Current, in the fourth stage of life, the brain core,
or the root of the bodily senses, is the plane of practice,
or submission to the Life-Current, in the fifth stage of
life. But what is inspected and experienced at this stage is
not any cosmological scheme of heavens above, but the
subtler functions of the human brain-mind itself. And in the
Way of Divine Ignorance, these internal brain mechanisms are
gradually transcended, yielding the further Revelation of
the Life-Current Itself, which transcends all of the
structures of self and of Man.
The
Enlightenment of the Whole Body
ADI DA SAMRAJ: Well, if you notice
in The Dawn Horse Testament, particularly, elsewhere as
well, I do describe the stages and the process in terms of
such things-particularly fundamental organs or centers
associated with each stage, and also including then the
first three stages of life in their natural development. In
the fifth stage, for instance, the brain core, the Ajna door
to the crown and so on.
If Practice Of The Way Of The Heart
Really Advances Into The Fifth Stage (and The “Advanced”
Fourth Stage) Process and Practice Of Ascent, Let attention
Collect In The Brain Core Via The By Me Given Conscious
Process and The By Me Given Exercises Of Conductivity, and
(Thus, and By Means Of Liberating Grace) Release all bodily,
sensory (or perceptual), and conceptual activities. Let all
those activities rise or pass on their own. Whatever arises
or passes, Abide In The Asana Of Upward attention In The
Spirit-Current. Eventually, The Knot In The Brain Core Will
Relax, and The Spirit-Current (or attention In The
Spirit-Current) May Even Pass Above and Beyond The Ajna
Door. And This Greater Ascent Will Tend To Continue To The
Degree Of Utterly Ecstatic Immersion In The Ascended
Spirit-Radiance (In Fifth Stage conditional Nirvikalpa
Samadhi), Excluding all objects. After That (or Even As An
Alternative To That), If Even all limitations and limited
Realizations In The Circle Of the body-mind Are Effectively
Transcended, The Spirit-Current Will (By Grace) Find Its
Heart-Root, On The Right Side
Dawn Horse Testament –
Chapter
36
ADI
DA: People everywhere are profoundly resistive to
the matter of actual spiritual practice. Individuals are
inclined to continue in the third stage of life and not to
go through the crisis of a transition beyond it. Various
movements throughout the world talk about high matters, but
they are talking to people who are involved in the first
three stages of life about something that is realized only
by going beyond the first three stages….You must go
through the inevitable and natural crisis of the transition
to the fourth stage of life, and that is a profound matter.
If it were not profound, most difficult, and something that
people in general are not prepared for, human beings all
over the world would have entered the fourth stage of life
by now..This crisis of transition is the most profound and
unwelcome change that confronts humanity. That change has
been unwelcome now for thousands of
years.
(1985)
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Seven Stages of Life
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