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SHAKTI THE GREAT POWER
. . . suffer mechanisms of the brain and nervous
system and then into the sources of phenomena of mind and of
attention, the mechanics of attention, that mechanism or
source of phenomenal appearances is a great power. It is
energy. It is called Shakti in Hindu traditions, Maya, one
of the binding powers of creation, phenomenal creation.
It is a dimension of the ultimate transcendental or
divine being in which we adhere and in which we are
ultimately and perfectly identical, to which we are
perfectly identical but we are related to that with which we
are ultimately identified and in which we adhere on the
basis of an already presumed limitation of being. And
therefore we do not persist, live, or exist on the basis of
identification with the divine or transcendental
condition.
We may seek it. We may be moved toward it or be totally
disassociated from it and utterly unaware of it and
disinterested in it. We’re not emotionally conditioned,
disposed toward interest in it or realization of it and this
is the typical case with manifest beings on all planes. The
situation of beings in this world is typical of beings in
all worlds.
We are typically presuming a limited condition of being
based on identification with attention in our current state
of embodiment and that embodied attention is surrounded by a
massive psychic form and individuated state of energy. And
each of us is living out that conditioning in this current
gross plane of embodiment.
We have the opportunity in the subtler range of our
existence to explore higher and transcendental conditions of
existence or higher conditions of existence and the
transcendental or ultimate condition of all existence.
In the present moment it is directly to our consciousness
and we are disassociated from that awareness through the
habit mechanism of attention. Likewise, in sleep, in dreams,
and reveries, in near death, in death in our life of
aspiration, creativity and so forth, in all kinds of moments
we are thrown out of circumstance to which we are intending
to find ourselves habitually and have the opportunity to
view or see or sense or intuit that which is ultimate divine
transcendental or even just high, higher in the scale, a
phenomenal possibility.
But the state of our attention which is a mechanical
gesture of consciousness within the frame of possibilities
manifests energies, determines our experience, determines
our state of mind, our presumption, our ability to
investigate and so forth. If an individual entered into the
near death stage or the actual death stage, in a moment of
spiritual maturity, in other words, through real practice,
self-transcending practice become responsible for the
mechanism of attention, then whatever other kinds of
secondary phenomena might occur in this near death or death
experience, the primary phenomena or phenomenon would be
directly obvious.
The mind is not merely personal but there’s a personal
kind of psych that’s adhering in a universal infinite kind
of mind or psychic energy. Frequently people do not report a
direct awareness of the mechanism under the basis of which
phenomena are arising. They rather describe secondary
visions occurring in those fields but if attention were free
to simply see the mechanism, the universal mechanism in
which these phenomena are arising, what would be seen and
there are other kinds of perception, there is sound and so
forth, those energies sense other kinds of perception.
What would be seen is a kind of mandala of light, light
energy, made of concentric circles and at first there’s a
kind of dark field and that dark field may show signs of
patterning in it and a golden yellow lightening flash which
is a very kind of geometric composition of a dark space in
which the geometry, the lines, are made up of a bluish
yellow or silvery gold kind of appearance of light and then
a golden yellow field will appear and in going further, in
the middle of that golden yellow circle or field, there is a
brilliant blue field and between the golden yellow field and
the brilliant blue field is a kind of aura around the
central blue field that is dark, a kind of indigo light and
if the vision continues even further, at the very center of
this blue field, there is a white brightness.
Maybe visualize it as a star, a clearly defined star with
five points or maybe just a brilliant whiteness flashing out
of the center of the blue. When people talk about seeing
down a tunnel when they are entering into this near death or
after death state, generally the tunnel is this indigo field
that surrounds the blue.
As you enter into the blue you seem to pass down a long
tunnel that’s made of this indigo field into the blue field
and then you will see into the blue itself and if you do not
become involved in the blue field in and of itself, you will
see beyond its possible visionary phenomena or apparitions
and the blue field itself will seem like a tunnel that moves
on into the distance and even may occur slightly to the
right so that this white brightness seems to be directly
ahead of you but just slightly around a curve.
It even looks like the light is shiny against the left
wall. There’s a kind of curve to it. In the Tibetan Book of
the Dead it is said that after death a person will
immediately enter into the clear white light and it is this
white brilliance the primary light from which all colored
light is, comes prismatically.
That’s what the curve is you. It’s this sign of the
crystalline kind of prism that is manifest existence and it
breaks up the whiteness into colors just as a rainbow has
the read and yellowish colors at the outside and then the
blue and so forth more toward the center. The mandala has
the golden yellow outer field and there are reddish pinkish
colors and so forth that may even be seen at its periphery
but it moves toward blue and then at the most distance and
central point is this light brightness.
But in death attention moves directly into the white
brightness and that white brightness is not merely objective
to attention. But if its state is truly realized, is
realized to be the native radiance of a transcendental
being, of the transcendental self, the divine self
condition, but only if it is realized as such, that
attention will enter into that domain of whiteness and stay
there and that is the state of liberation that is the
entrance into the transcendental and divine domain.
But we are controlled by the mechanics of attention. We
are already identified with lesser states by virtue of the
habit of attention. So as it is said in the Tibetan Book of
the Dead, if there is no ability to remain in the white
brightness, the cool white light, immediately other kinds of
apparitions will appear.
The Tibetan Book of the Dead describes a sequence of the
developing of apparitions at the end of which there is a
re-embodiment in the gross plane and what they describe as
this return from the white brightness, the clear white light
to embodiment is in fact a process that is nearly inevitable
in all cases because until attention is free in its source,
it cannot remain in the transcendental condition.
We’re brought into that condition at death but we do not
remain there and cannot remain there in spite of our belief
in it, our mental desire to stay there and so forth, none of
that has any ultimate force unless we have done the sodna or
real practice whereby we become responsible for attention,
the habit energy of attention and realize its source
condition so that we can abide in it.
That is a sitta you see. That is a realization. It
requires profound clarity, devotion, commitment, practice so
it’s very unusual for any living being to pass from this
world or any other world into the divine domain and remain
in that condition.
The experiences induced in near death and death are among
the kinds of circumstances in which experiences of this
mandala of origination can be generated and all kinds of
other experiences in which I have indicated or circumstances
in which a temporary perception of this origin may be
experienced.
It is there to be glimpsed always and it would be useful
for any human individual and all of humanity as a cultural
order to enter into the investigation of this source of
patterning, source of experience and learn about its
mechanism and so forth, learn that it is there for one thing
and learn about it.
But this is not sufficient. Through one kind of science
or another, investigations will in the future be made into
these mechanisms and investigations have already been made
on the basis of one kind of a science or another, most
typically the ancient sciences of yoga and mysticism and so
forth, spirituality. But such science, such investigations,
such as learning, is not sufficient. Wisdom must be added to
it and a spiritual way of life must be added to this
acquired knowledge because the mechanism of attention is a
mechanical structure binding on consciousness and what you
know in the plane of the mind is not sufficient to enable
you to transcend the mechanisms of attention.
Many people based on a religious or spiritual point of
view have some level of presumption about such mechanisms
about the after death process and so forth but they don’t
have any ability to enter into a higher destiny or to enter
into the transcendental condition of perfect freedom or
liberation and eternal existence in the divine domain.
So it is more than science that humanity needs, or a
human being needs; in addition, some knowledge of a higher
esoteric kind, knowledge about the circumstance of our
existence. In addition to that, humanity needs wisdom, the
wisdom of transcendental teaching, the wisdom of the dharma,
the wisdom of practice by having this talk, talked about
these near death experiences and these reports like all
other kinds of reports come from various other sources, from
mystics, from yogis, psychics, people who have the ability
to disassociate from the body for one reason or another.
These reports represent a kind of knowledge, a kind of
experiencially-based knowledge that is useful for humanity
to acquire to begin to integrate with the presumptions that
we have about the nature of things but there is nothing
inherently consoling about these reports. They don’t mean
that when you die you simply go to a heavenly world and live
in happiness forever. They don’t mean that at all anymore
than to be born into this world just to be happy for the
rest of your life and then go on to some other happy place.
The law is attention.
Attention is a mechanical process, a mechanical super
imposition on consciousness itself. It’s determining a
disposition toward a certain kind of experience and then
once you start having that experience, you begin to super
impose even on that a sense of identification with your
present state clinging to it. You begin to develop desires
for fulfillment, even desires for release that wind up being
fruitless and so forth.
There is useful knowledge in the uncommon reports of
human beings. There’s useful knowledge in your individual
experience of uncommon states gotten if you want another
kind of circumstance. But in addition to useful knowledge,
what you need is to understand your condition of existence
and the mechanics of your own attention and become devoted
to a practice of life that will enable you to become
responsible for attention so that while alive in the midst
of uncommon states and after death you will have the ability
to locate attention in its source.
You will have the ability to locate your existence in the
transcendental domain, in the divine domain, the true heaven
of existence, the very divine state. If you do not practice
in a manner that enables you to be responsible for attention
and responsible for the relocation of attention beyond its
present tendencies or circumstances other than that, you
will always tend to return to the states that are determined
by the mechanical tendencies of your attention.
So, yes, at death there is a movement into the clear
light. There may be temporary experiences of that a number
of times while you are alive as well, but you will not have
the ability to remain in that condition or even to realize
what that condition is other than to perceive this clear
brilliance, this sense of freedom temporarily. You will
automatically in spite of any secondary desires you may have
to remain there, you will automatically drop back from that
position of the clear white light into the planes back from
that point through the blue and the yellow into the gross
condition again.
This is absolutely inevitable and there aren’t any two
ways about it. There isn’t any vicarious means for escaping
that inevitability. There’s no mere belief in Jesus or God
or any superior power that is sufficient to move you into
the transcendental condition. There is no knowing about the
mechanism of that transition, no knowing about the
mechanisms theorizing of experience that is sufficient to
enable you to move beyond these limitations into the
transcendental condition.
The only thing sufficient is the actual practice of the
transcendence of attention wherein its limiting tendencies
are overcome and it achieves the freedom to locate itself in
the transcendental domain. Now people can learn a little bit
at a time and perhaps move through the stages of life that
I’ve described and eventually enter into, the sitta or
capability or disposition of the seventh stage of life and
then into the transcendental condition.
But to presume that you’re going to move by such a route
is going to place a huge obstacle before you because first
of all, moving through that process is not something you can
do in a very short period of time and many lifetimes and
experiences that are very powerful will intervene in the
meantime to prevent you from fulfilling that aspiration. You
will not have the ability to cut through it.
You will immediately be distracted by secondary
apparitions in the plane of the universal mandala and they
will seem to you so wonderful or so awesome, or so
terrifying, that you will become subject to your own egoic
emotional tones, fear, sorrow, anger, attachments, lust, and
so forth.
And so to casually presume that you will begin with a
little bit of life improvement and positive aspiration and
belief and so forth and hopefully awaken to the capacity for
liberation into the transcendental domain is simply a weak
proposition. It’s an excuse not to practice. If you truly
understand this matter you will realize that you have no
option but to deal directly with this mechanism of
attention.
Therefore the way itself is most direct. It is not the
way of the stages moving attention into subtler and subtler
dimensions of objective existence. It is the direct way of
returning attention direct to its source, directly. If this
way is taken up, then the way of the stages is bypassed. In
order to take it up however, it is necessary to be prepared
to do this direct practice itself by restoring equanimity to
the body mind and freeing attention from the binding
concerns of the body mind.
This is a much simpler proposition and the practices
associated with the culture of our way are a culture of
preparation wherein the body mind is restored to equanimity
and attention is free of its binding association with the
body mind. This practice is described in its essential
outline in The Liberator, Aetherius. The preliminary
practices, the preparatory disciplines are described in the
literature in general in the heading of The Way of Faith and
The Way of Insight and the various disciplines, functional
disciplines, nervous discipline and so forth.
But you all must remember that that culture of
preparation is just that. There’s a culture of preparation
in which the body mind is restored to equanimity and
attention is set free. That culture of preparation is not an
end in itself you are supposed to be struggling with and
spending the rest of your life performing. It should be
something that you enter into based on clear understanding,
real hearing of the teaching argument, real self-knowledge
in the midst of that consideration.
Now that preparatory discipline and the second stage of
the perfect practice is a way that bypasses the limiting
concerns and practice orientations of the first five stages
of life. And even the second stage of the perfect practice
bypasses the limited aspect of the orientation of the sixth
stage of life. It is not merely a practice of Otma
meditation or meditation on one’s self as consciousness
separate from phenomena.
It is a matter of devotion of attention to its source
directly not merely collapsing attention on itself but
turning attention to its source to the consciousness, the
being, the living force in which the presumption of egoity
or self as limited attention, as limited being functioning
as attention is transcended.
Attention that has not realized that its source condition
is not free, is bound to certain habit energies, habits of
association, tendencies, and those limiting tendencies will
be reflected in superimposed limits in the form of mind and
tendency in general.
And they will cause experiences to appear in one or
another fashion in the great mandala and we are presently in
that great mandala of infinite energy. At this very moment
you are by virtue of the mechanism of attention seeing that
mandala in the form of this room as a solid gross objective
condition.
And you are bewildered wondering what this is all about
trying to survive, trying to feel happy. Also deeply under
that, you are all wanting to be released. You want to be
free. You want simply to be happy. You don’t quite know how
to go about that so you are seeking fulfillment in the plane
that is commonly or eventually available to your attention.
The way of actual release or liberation is the way that I
have considered with you and it is the way of becoming
responsible for attention, observing the mechanism of
attention, becoming completely responsible for it, freeing
it up from binding association with its present conditions
so that it can enter into its condition, not merely enter
into subtler states of objective nature.
The views communicated in the lesser stages of life are
about the uses of attention based on unenlightenment so in
The Mystical Yogas of the Fifth Stage of Life the goal is
enlightenment and the method is to devote attention to the
subtle objects in nature or in the subtle lights in the
mandala of the cosmos. And there is no possibility by those
means to enter into the white field that’s at the root of
this mandala because attention is already identified with a
position that is less than that great white field.
It is already habituated to a position that is in the
periphery of the white source of lights so it is not
possible even by purifying the associations of attention to
move it into the origin. At most you see you can through
monastic means and so forth, self-denial, disassociation of
attention meditatively from gross perception and so
forth.
At most you can move it into a subtler plane of existence
but you will not be able to move attention into its ultimate
source condition by objective means by moving into the
objective realm of the cosmos. It is not sufficient
therefore to rise up by mystical means into subtle
perception. You must realize first of all the source
condition of attention itself.
Having realized that, then, you will be able to recognize
phenomenal existence from the position of the radiant being.
Whatever arises will be recognizable. In the seventh stage
of life therefore this is the sodna that is going on
naturally. It is not the effort of the ego. It is the
natural process that develops as the sitti or spontaneous
capacity of enlightenment.
In the seventh stage of life therefore, the being is
awakened from its egoic position, its limited state of
confinement, to a certain kind of objectified existence to a
sense of self as a limited being. Consciousness is
inherently radiant as the transcendental being, the
transcendental self-radiance of the divine being in the
seventh stage of life. In its open-eyed regard of phenomena
the apparent individual in the seventh stage of life is
transfigured by his or her own radiance, the radiance of the
self, not a male or female or egoic identity of any kind.
So in this book Easy Death I want to communicate through
these talks that I’ve given recently and things that I’ve
written before and so forth about a new model of existence
that is based on real experience, transcendental wisdom and
realization, a model of existence that is not commonly
presumed in this world and it is not universally agreed upon
even by esoteric cultures because they are not all founded
on the pure disposition of the seventh stage of life but I
want to communicate about this model or actual structure.
I want to point out how uncommon experiences such as near
death experiences relate to a perception of that structure
but represent a limited perception of it and I want to point
out that the way in life in death, the way forever, is this
way of the transcendence of the mechanical process of
attention so that attention is free to realize its source
and having realized that source, it is able to recognize, or
the consciousness is able to recognize, the stages of
attention that are arising.
When the sittie or power of recognition is effective,
then there is the capacity to transcend all worlds and to
dwell natively without effort naturally in the
transcendental or divine domain. The realization which I
communicate is not merely a matter of feeling disassociated
from the limiting power of events and feeling sort of
relaxed into a sort of deep consciousness or a consciousness
that feels inherently separated from phenomena.
That kind of self-realization characterizes the point of
view of some teachers in the sixth stage of life. The
realization of which I speak is a matter of translation into
the divine domain. That divine domain is witnessed
objectively by individuals under all kinds of conditions. At
death for instance it is a common experience. It is also an
experience of yogis, mystics in the fifth state of life, but
apart from individuals who enjoy the capacity of recognition
in the seventh stage of life based on prior enlightenment,
there are no beings who have the capacity to dwell in, to
permanently adhere, in the divine domain.
All beings are living in exile from the divine domain by
virtue of the mechanical limitations of attention and our
best motive, the movement that is most useful to us is that
subtle and in many cases barely acknowledged motivation
toward release. We opt for the conventional’s model of
consciousness, the socialized personality and so forth and
therefore are tending to deny ourselves the use of this
basic motivation toward release.
People are not devoted to release commonly. They are
devoted to fulfillment. Their engagement of a fruitless
search for fulfillment is not based on enlightenment nor is
it based on any highly developed knowledge of the nature of
cosmic existence. Therefore, as a curious matter of fact,
unhappiness is our best tool, our most precious possession
short of enlightenment, short of happiness itself and we
must not deny ourselves access to this sensation of our own
unhappiness.
We are always trying to cure it. We use ordinary means.
The adventures you can have in this world, the pleasures in
this world, food, sex, money, relations, family, reputation,
work, knowledge, experience. We seek for these things to
achieve fulfillment and the motive behind our search for
fulfillment is released from our motive to release, release
from our unhappiness, release from our disease, release from
our doubt.
But that disease, that doubt and unhappiness is permanent
in us until we realize actual happiness, transcendental
existence. It never leaves us prior to that time even if we
exist in some high subtle world.
That disease is still there. It still distresses the
being. It is still the cause of an unenlightened attention,
an unenlightened presumption about personal existence and
leads therefore to all kinds of misjudgment and stressful
effort that binds the being further and not only prevents it
from going beyond its present condition but even may cause
it to fall back into lesser conditions.
It is possible to be born into subtle worlds and then to
come back to a world like this one, not enlightened in order
to teach but just like everybody else unenlightened, even
forgotten higher conditions.
This is why I recommend to people as a general discipline
at the point of death whatever they have done all their life
that the best discipline at the point of death in the midst
of the death process is to relax and release all hold on the
body and the mind and states of attention and so forth and
transcend fear through surrender and ultimately a visual
representation of a mandala will appear and when it does,
keep your attention to the center of it.
Don’t be satisfied with lesser representations of the
mandala, just a golden light, or just a bluish light or any
other bigger kind of light. Keep holding to the center until
the entire mandala appears and keep holding onto the center
until you move into the white field.
Even though this will not be sufficient for movement into
the white field permanently, it will be a pure fine gesture
that generally will serve your transition so it’s positive
in that sense. In any case, attention will tend to gravitate
back from the white field into lesser planes and visions and
so forth and other individuals will be seen, helpful people
will come around and you’ll move into another condition
quite naturally.
It happens in every case. On the other hand, the
transition is not all pleasure. There are all kinds of
uncomfortable apparitions and apparently hellish kinds of
circumstances. The circumstances that arise will justify
fear and sorrow and anger, desires of all kinds and you will
tend to locate there for a time and the secret is to keep
surrendering and holding to the center and not fixing on
these visions. Recognize them as mind.
Possibilities are being determined by your own habit of
attention. Relax that habit of attention. The more you do of
this the more you will release the quality that is tending
to arise and you will minimize the distresses that may be
associated with the transition.
In any case, sooner or later there will be a fixed
condition, relatively fixed condition that will arise in
spite of all that based on the limits of your ability to
release and transcend the mechanism of attention and in that
condition, whatever you may or may not remember about the
way of surrendering itself or transcendence itself, you will
be embodied, fixed, related and so forth and that’s
precisely what’s happened to you here.
Now if you can achieve a state of spiritual maturity and
responsibility, then there will not be the lapse, the utter
lapse of responsibility and general intuition of the
awakened condition. You will have those arms whatever the
condition that arises after death.
Likewise, you will have those arms during this lifetime
if you will consider the way and take it up and your
experience will more and more authenticate the way you
verify it, justify it and so forth.
The experiences associated with spiritual practice are
not however significant in and of themselves. They are
general objectified states of attention or mind forms,
states of energy. We must recognize them, release them, move
beyond them.
The great sittie is the capacity for free attention with
the most useful ability and it is what we develop on the
basis of our primal motive toward release which is in us
fearful, unhappy, wanting basically to be released.
That unpleasant mood which is our best advantage in the
embodied condition becomes the capacity for free attention,
the most useful ability and it is what we develop on the
basis of our release, that which is within us unhappy,
fearful, wanting basically to be released.
That unpleasant mood which is our best advantage in the
embodied condition becomes the capacity of free attention
when we really exploit it, devote ourselves to that motive.
So it ceases to be merely this unpleasant disease when we
acknowledge it and make it the mover of our life.
We transcend the seeking of our bewilderment and so forth
and we become associated with real practice and feel
responsibility and that motive toward release becomes the
simple movement or capacity for free attention.
That’s why the unpleasant mood or mode toward release,
this primal motive in its neurotic form is so valuable to us
because once we really use it we reclaim it from its
diseased state, its neurotic condition and it becomes simply
free attention on that which is inherently free, inherently
released, and therefore inherently satisfies the move toward
release.
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