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Dual Non-Dualism: Part Four
"Invasion of the Body Snatchers"
by Peter Holleran
In the original film, The Invasion of the Body-Snatchers (1956), Miles and Becky are hiding out in his office, taking stimulants to try and ward off sleep, for fear of being turned into the pod-people. They are discovered, and share a few words with their adversaries:
Pod Person: “It’s not so bad, Miles; suddenly while you're asleep, they'll take over your mind, your memories; when you wake up there'll be no more worry, no more pain.”
Miles: ”You mean there’s no love, no feelings?”
Pod Person: “You talk of love, what good is love? It doesn’t last, it never did.”
Miles: “I don't want any part of it.”
Pod Person: ”You’re forgetting something, Miles.”
Miles: ” What’s that?”
Pod Person: ”You have no choice!!”
In the spiritual arena, we are faced with a similar dilemma. Except that we have a choice. We can either choose to become liberated, free from the limits of the body, wherein the soul first conceived its bondage, or we can embrace the appparrentlydescended bodily life and integrate it with the purity of the soul. We can 'emerge' as the awakened embodied soul, fully present within the totality of life, yet simultaneously at one with the I AM. We can negate neither the body or the soul. This topic is the subject of this paper.
"The challenge of enlightenment is not simply to glimpse the awakened conditioned, nor even to continually experience it. It is to be and express it as your self in the way you move in the world." - Adyashanti (1)
"In actuality, enlightenment is freedom from the "I" notion, not the embodied being. The embodied being is actually limitless consciousness with an in-correct understanding of its nature...What is self knowledge with reference to the ego? It is the knowledge that the embodied being is me but I am not the embodied being.This is tantamount to ego death because it shifts the ego from the center of consciousness to the periphery where it belongs, not that consciousness has a periphery. Self knowledge is the best of both worlds, not that there are two worlds, as it allows you to live freely as embodied consciousness, without suffering the results of actions." - James Swartz (2)
“It is not only awareness of the mind and body which creates a conscious human being, but participation in them too! Spiritual realisation takes us not merely to liberation from the psychological dimension. The final goal is the transcendental state where the depth of I am and the presence of the physical, mental and emotional bodies are experienced as one unified organism.” - anadi (3)
"The physical body is not an isolated phase of the creative scheme, but is in and one with the Universal Energy. To violate this fundamental unity is to isolate yourself in a hypnotic state where you seem to be a separate being, and therefore you cut yourself off, devitalize yourself and ultimately destroy your ability to further manifest in this plane. To deny the relationship of the visible with the invisible is to push yourself right out of your body and into the invisible." - Baird T. Spalding (4)
“The old Oriental idea is to be lost in the Infinite. The new Occidental ideal is to be in tune with the Infinite...The teaching is thus both an inheritance from the past and a precursor of the future.” - Paul Brunton
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These are interesting times. Never in human history have spiritual teachings been so instantly available, nor so widely dispersed. Coinciding with this, there seems to be an evolution or emergence of new forms, new ways of conceiving and perceiving enlightenment or awakening. The most obvious example is the rejection of the traditional disregard for the body. The ancients wrote of the precious opportunity the man body afforded the seeker, but often simply as a means to see it as a limitation and an illusion to overcome, and at the very best, as a vehicle for the soul to come to experience the world and, through reflection, come to self-cognition and then transcend out of here as quickly as possible. Thus, from time immemorial techniques and methods and arguments have been devised to try to reconcile the odd paradox of the body. On one hand, it is a blessing, but on the other hand it is a curse. My master, Kirpal Singh, would occasionally say - but with a smile on his face and a chuckle - “You have to make the best use of the man-body, and that is - to get out of it!” Even at the height of my immersion in mystical endeavor a still small voice inside said, “that’s crazy!” And, coincidentally while being exposed to statements like this, I began to notice a continuing and, at the time, shocking process of extroversion and descent beginning to occur inside me. After several years of fairly successful inversion, I began to feel, “drained.” Not just tired, but drained like a bathtub with the plug pulled. I literally felt like I a glove being turned inside out. It’s kind of hard to explain. But it relates to what I would like to, hopefully briefly, discuss, to conclude this four part series of articles.
Way back when, there was a model of the soul that compared it to an inverted tree, whose roots were above (in the heavens) and whose branches were below (in the earth). This ancient cosmological map infiltrated most mystical paths, including the Upanishads. Man felt exposed, alone, and afraid, and he bought into the idea of escaping hell down here for the heavens up there, even if it was considered within the architecture of the human body. Kundalini is an example. This school, with roots in the kalachakric teachings from Central Asia, taught one needed to awaken and ascend via the serpent power from the muladhara chakra at the base of the spine to the sahasrar at the crown of the head. Some schools taught this was supreme enlightenment, others that it was just a first step for going even higher, world upon world to the supposed summit where the Godhead was.
Other Vedic texts taught that God resided in the cave of the heart, the size of a thumb, but, when realised to be found as infinite and all-pervading. Even if this was achieved, however, texts like the Bhagavad-Gita and various Tibetan Buddhist sutras still advised the seeker at the time of death to concentrate his attention and life-force at the point between the eyebrows and upwards to the crown, with the mind resting calmly in the heart, believing that only in this way could one avoid losing ones enlightenment and attain kaivalya or liberation after death.
Two things were missing in these views. One was an understanding of the divine shakti, which is not primarily an energetic movement within the human body, such as the kundalini, and, two, the existence of a true soul that is not at fundamental war with bodily existence. The times were not right to receive such a message, humanity wasn’t evolved enough emotionally, intellectually, culturally, and spiritually.
Beginning in the last one hundred years, but especially the past thirty or so, such understanding has begun to seep into our spiritual dialogue and world-view. Much talk goes on about 'embodiment,' and 'awakening' to the truth here and now. Sophisticated models have been offered to explain this greater view. Yet, it will be argued, very few, even while espousing a non-dual type of position, actually articulate precisely what is happening. A few examples may help us.
In the quote of Adyashanti above, he makes the important point that spiritual awakening is not as important as actually living that awakening. In his talks he has spoken of an 'embodiment' process that occurs after one is already awake. He sometimes infers that it can be quite a rough process. Saniel Bonder, founder of the "Waking Down in Mutuality" school, in a similar context calls such a period a 'wake-down shake-down.' Paul Brunton long ago wrote that the Overself (man’s essential soul), at the opportune time, and generally after a man had already gone through substantial maturation and purification, would completely 'overshadow' the ego-personality of the ripe soul and also make a 'mystical union with his own body.' This was a major announcement, but it was coincident with statements since made by others. [For those unfamiliar with PB's unique terminology (Mind, World-Mind, World-Idea, Overself), referred to in ths paper, please click here for a precise explanation].
Adi Da (aka Da Free John), for all of his outrageous behavior as a teacher, made some of the first radical pronouncements about the non-dual nature of consciousness, as well as of the divine shakti. He taught, like certain Taoists, that in the internal circuitry of the human body, there is a circle of energy, call it kundalini, chi or whatever, that is perpetually ascending and descending in a circle, up the spine and down the front of the body. This circuit is secondary to the awakening process in consciousness, although not entirely unrelated. It is not necessary to ascend the spinal ladder or activate the kundalini in order to mature spiritually. But what is of unique importance is that he spoke of the divine shakti or spirit-force as being inherently quite different and senior to this internal circuitry within the individual system. He said that this true spirit-force descends or comes from beyond or outside the individual energy system and overwhelms it; it comes, as it were, from outside of the individual, transforming him in a greater, more fundamental way. In other words, it comes from God, and 'outshines' the individual. It is thus Divine, not yogic or mystical.
In Russian mysticism, and in stories of Christ, it is said that the Holy Spirit descends like a dove. St. Seraphim of Sarov and other Russian Christian mystics wrote of the experiences of the descent or baptism of spirit-force and of the heart. According to St. Seraphim, one should gather the mind into the heart, which will then be warmed by the grace of the Lord
"when the Spirit of God descends to man and overshadows him with the fullness of His outpouring." (5 )
The Prophet Baha ‘ullah reported such an experience while he was in prison:
"During the days I lay in the prison of Tihran, though the galling weight of the chains and the stench-filled air allowed me but little sleep, still in those infrequent moments of slumber I felt as if something flowed from the crown of my head over my breast, even as a mighty torrent that precipitateth itself upon the earth from the summit of a lofty mountain. Every limb of my body would, as a result, be set afire. At such moments my tongue recited what no man could bear to hear." (6)
What Adi Da spoke of, however, was of something of more expanded scope, for the experiences of these mystics was still primarily of importance to the inner, 'frontal' personality, and not its radical transcendance from without. He even mentioned that for the individual person to cross the divide between the true sahasrar and the beyond, the mind needed to lie 'formless within the heart,' other wise one would be 'locked within forever by the magic of his own dilemma.' In other words, no separate person, as such, can enter the beyond; there must be an actual ego-death for consciousness to enter the deeper dimensions of reality in truth and not in illusion. This thought has since been echoed by others. In Sant Mat it has always been taught that the ego dies at each plane quit by the soul, although on that path actual conscious awakening to pure subjectivity is not usually attained until the end of the path, not the beginning, which is the ever-increasing message of newer teachers today.
Ramama Maharshi experienced a 'great power take him over' when he had his famous death experience at the age of sixteen. He later transmitted what was called the hridaya shakti, or “power of the heart”. He explained that there was a terminal bend of the sushumna nadi at the ajna or sahasrar that went downward into the heart, bodily felt as two digits to the right of the midline yet upon actual realisation in itself formless and bodiless. He said that on awakening from sleep, the light of the heart travelled upwards to the sahasrar and from there downwards, enlivening the centers below. His process of sadhana and transmission was for the current to retrace its way consciously from the head to the heart, where the 'I'-thought would die. Then, which he later discovered, there was a regeneration of this descending pathway called the 'amrita nadi', which was very the structure of sahaj. Even so, his transmission, not kundalini or any form of ascending energy, was a current that pulled one inwards towards the deep heart center. So, while this was much different than the traditional shaktipat system of the more mystical gurus, it still acted to turn one away from the body, which Ramana at one time likened to a 'disease.' So, as much as he advanced the cause of a truly non-dual path, sadhana and realisation, he was still somewhat negatively oriented in some respects.
Sri Aurobindo argued that the final frontier lay in the descent of the supramental into the very cells of the body in order to live a life divine while on this very earth. He held that even the rishis of old did not discover this hidden "vedic fire". He in fact claimed to unlock secrets of the vedas that only now have become accessible to the world. Aurobindo was not naive. He did not believe in matter separate from consciousness. That is, he was not a strict realist. Nevertheless, he gave a thorough critique of the advaita of Sankara in his book, The Life Divine. He also said, moreover, that he had experienced the "silence of nirvana in brahman long before he had any knowledge of the overhead planes." Still, his emphasis still lay somewhat on the impersonal, and they are still arguing in Auroville over what he exactly taught, and how to achieve what he envisioned as the goal.
What Aurobindo appears to have been right about was that not all truth is found in the scriptures. This is counter to the claims of advaita vedanta, which holds that the means to realize ultimate reality, which they call the Self, is found in scripture and is an infallible guide. Anandamayee Ma affirmed that while what has been written in the sacred scriptures is all true, it is only part of the Truth. Buddha confessed that what he taught was only the smallest part of the truth that he had realized. Swami Vivekananda said:
"Do you think the scriptures contain all the secrets of spiritual practice? These are handed down secretly through a succession of Gurus and disciples." (6a)
Many other teachers have said and are saying the same thing, namely, that both truth is alive in the hands of a realized teacher, and that there is reasonable evidence for a progressive revelation of truth as man evolves through time, and that the forms it takes are changing as man understands more about himself culturally, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. Something is emerging and we cannot go back exclusively to the old ways.
Continuing , while it teaches an essentially gnostic view, in the 'gradual' path of Sant Mat, through the grace of a Master who is imbedded in the Word, creative logos, shabda-brahman or sound current that is said to emanate and uphold all of the worlds, created and Uncreated, and emanating from the heart of Absolute God, the aspirant concentrates on that luminous sound or sonorous light and ascends mystically plane by plane, dying at each stage, until, led by and merged into the Radiant or "Sambhogakaya" form of the Master, he reaches the Great Beyond or the Godhead, wherein he merges in stages. Although felt within the body-mind, the current actually comes from above and beyond:
"The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is everyone that is born of the Spirit." - John 3:8
However, upon returning from such a lofty station, the process of the current is, in a sense, reversed. Now the realised adept is saturated at all levels with this divine current and distributes the Word, shabd or naam to his disciples. He can "come and go" between Earth and the great Beyond [the uncreated dimensions] in the blink of an eye, as it were, bypassing all of the planes in between, if he so wishes. For, unlike the disciple, he is no longer bound by time and space. He is a human, cosmic, transcendent, and fully multi-dimensional being. He has been dipped into and become an amrit (divine nectar) and his very body over time becomes transmuted. This is true of the greatest of these masters, of whom there have been very few. That is my understanding. Bear with me; I know that this kind of teaching is considered 'old-fashioned' these days. Two examples will suffice to illustrate the mystery of bodily transformation in this school. Sant Kirpal Singh, upon the death of his guru, Sawan Singh, had the following to say. Keep in mind, this was after he had been accessing the highest regions within for thirty years, and also after, as a young man, having an activated kundalini energy coursing through his body before eventually abandoning that for the higher practice of shabd bhakti:
”I beseeched, ‘Hazur! The peace and security that I have in sitting at thy feet here cannot be had in higher planes!'...Hazur’s forehead was shining resplendently. He opened his mercy-showering lovely eyes intoxicated by God’s divine love and cast a glance at my humble self - both eyes gleaming with a radiance like a lion’s eyes. I bowed my head in solemn and silent adoration and said, ‘It is all Hazurs’s own benignity.' Hazur steadily kept gazing for three or four minutes into my eyes, and I, in silent wonderment, experienced an indescribable delight which infused a beverage-like intoxication down to the remotest corners of my entire body - such as was never before experienced in my whole life.” (7)
The second example is from Babuji Maharaj, guru from the Agra lineage of Sant Mat, who made the following statement, somewhat unique in the tradition:
“It is usual that the awakened Saint or Gurumukh (beloved disciple of the Guru)
must go through a period of great physical depression and weakness. This is
because the entire constitution of the body has to be transformed in order
that it may be in harmony with the spirit in its awakened condition and be fitted
to perform the work before it. This period of depression may continue over a
number of years, but it is usually followed by a high degree of bodily health.”
“This physical change is absolutely essential for making appreciable spiritual
progress. The capacity of the body to undergo it constitutes the limit of
usefulness of the body. There have been exceptional jivas (souls) endowed
with bodies capable of enduring in one life the whole requisite transformation
without breaking. But in (such) cases the immediate physical effect of the
transformation was a low and depleted bodily condition which continued for
quite a number of years. After the changes have been effected, complete
physical vigour usually comes back, though with a body very different in its
constitution. One of its acquired characteristics is its softness and freshness
like that of a babe.” (8)
Sant Rajinder Singh further tells us in mystic language about the communion of the lover and the Beloved:
"It is a meeting that enraptures the soul, filling it with exquisite intoxication that permeates every part of our being...It is being permeated from head to toe with divine love." (9)
So in Sant Mat the body is transformed by the awakening of the soul and divine power. It becomes more alive, not less, as the process matures. Still, it is recognised that the soul’s true home is not here, but in the Beyond, although unity is still experienced, ultimately even into the very pores of ones body.
Sri Nisargadatta inspired many future teachers with his teaching of realising the 'Absolute State beyond consciousness.' This goes much deeper than most teachings on non-duality, which limit themselves to awakening the state of 'presence-awareness,' in that the Absolute State represents the deepest dimensions of being in the unmanifest dimension where consciousness mysteriously and at the cost of ones ego-death meets its absence and yet remains conscious. There is really no such thing as 'beyond consciousness.' While it is true, that consciousness is the source or light of all creation, and without it there would be nothing, consciousness is not the source of itself. It abides on being, the place of its own absence. The absolute state Maharaj talked about was where consciousness actually becomes aware of its absence while remaining present as consciousness. What Maharaj meant regarding the absolute state was that it was beyond 'awareness' as usually known. But consciousness is always existing, or else it could not recognise its absence in the so-called absolute state!
Yet Maharaj spoke somewhat in the traditional negative way regarding the body and personality, as if they were the enemy, saying it "isn't necessary that it live long," and admitted to looking forward to “going home.” (10) The "yearning to "go home" part is fine, it is the desire of the soul. Yet it is presented within a somewhat negative, or world-negating, point of view. This is only natural for one who gravitated to the unmanifest, absolute state, but it doesn't express the full reality of the soul, which, paradoxically, while at home in the beyond, is in unity with the universal I AM or God, and the source of the experience of oneness in the created realms. It is also paradoxically capable of negating itself, and traditionally has done so, and it has even been recommended it do so. As anadi states:
"It is only the non-lineal logic that can comprehend what is happening in this process of awakening, where one can transcends individuality but still remains oneself. The soul cannot be negated. One can pretend that one does not see her, but one cannot escape from one's own soul." (11)
He further states:
"Traditions of non-dualism in particular offer an impersonal interpretation of reality that tends to negate not only our ego-identity, but also our individual soul. In their desire to express the truth of universality, they overlook the significance of our sacred individuality...Enlightenment is perceived as no more than the removal of the false self, when in fact, experiential clarity reveals that it cannot exist without the individual, who must not only transcend his own ignorance, but whose presence is necessary to actually experience the state of truth."
"We may wonder why extraordinarily deep teachings of non-duality founded by seers of the highest order have repudiated the existence of a personal essence. It is not that the conclusions of these masters sprang from incomplete realizations, but rather that their perceptions of reality were conditioned to express their experiences in a purely impersonal way. The traditions we are referring to were created in times when humanity was not yet ripe enough to embrace the consciousness of the soul."
"Traditions of the past were not designed to reveal the subtle dimension of the soul; their objective was the strict realization of impersonal peace and freedom. Their teachings were not incorrect, only incomplete - and not in their time, but from the present perspective of the expanded potential of human consciousness. Even though enlightenment is a timeless realization pointing to the changeless principle of absolute reality, insight into that reality eternally evolves as the subject of illumination becomes increasingly whole." 12)
In short, he says, "one does not have to disappear in order to merge."
"We cannot transcend separation by negating our individuality, or through simplistic identification with the objective reality [i.e., "I am the world"]. These, the two most common misconceptions about oneness, actually lead us away from the reality of unity, for they presume that we must somehow disappear in order to merge. Losing ones sense of self is not an experience of oneness, but the imbalanced condition of a split-mind that is not grounded in the reality of I am...We do not need to eradicate our individuality, but to awaken its true subjectivity and surrender it to the whole." (13)
Un sum, the soul in essence is of the nature of impersonal subjectivity, but it is a distinct individuality within the the universal impersonal subjectivity or I AM.
Of course, this is what PB had always said. The soul is individual, but not personal. One can go all the way up to the intellectual Principle and the One, in Plotinus' terms, but must return and be soul, at least until the soul is finished with this human dimension, which is a complex affair and destiny.
Nisargadatta, however, did say, on some occasions, 'go home, marry the girl next door, take up your father's business, and live an ordinary life.' So he intuitively understood there was more to the ultimate reality than even the absolute state. He spoke of looking out and seeing 'I am love,' while looking in, and seeing 'I am nothing,' so he intuited the dimension of the heart, the divine dimension, which inseparably and indissolvably rests upon the absolute (the two together constituting the complete reality), although he didn't speak of the heart like Ramana Maharshi did, as an actual portal to the beyond. For him, the portal to the absolute state was the consciousness aspect of the individual I am, or the state of presence-awareness, which he spoke of going beyond while not actually fully elaborating how this was to be done. But, as anadi points out, the personal I am, a reflection of the universal I AM, is composed of three aspects: awareness (consciousness), being, and heart. It is more rich than just 'consciousness.' For anadi, the union of awareness, being and heart is the true gateway to the beyond or unmanifested, the trancendental state where consciousness, intelligence, and love are known In their original state, and the soul is met and known through the eternal light of I AM, its 'divine parent.' In his teaching, the realisation of non-duality is not the goal, but the base upon which to realise one's soul.
Reality, what might be called the 'ultimate' - as opposed to the absolute, or the ground of consciousness and all existence - is 'everything': world, body, ego, soul, awareness, being, the heart, the absolute state, liberation, self, no-self, soul, and God. Yet from our personal side, this side of the 'beyond,' the gateless gate,' we can appear to experience these various dimensions separately. Reality is true transcendence, negating nothing.
Many talk of non-duality, where the world and the self are realised as not-two or a unity. Yet the vision of enlightenment still often subtly implies a dualism between spirit and matter, at least, energetically, a gap whereby one can seemingly live a life as a witness or disinterested observer watching the events of life, or, at its best, actively engaging in worldly affairs from the vision of awakened mind, but not as an ‘awakened body’. Swartz talks about the "death of the 'I' notion," "the knowledge that the embodied being is me but I am not the embodied being,” and , to “live freely as embodied consciousness, without suffering the results of actions.” While standard Vedanta, this might still seem to harbor a subtle disregard for the body. The world is seen as images in mind or consciousness, in ithe worst case as merely dreamlike and equally valueless value, and at best to be engaged in an active yet more or less dispassionate manner, while waiting for the body to drop. Swartz, however, is active and teaches, experienced nirvikalpa samadhi and other yogic phenomena prior to his awakening, and is compassionate, yet in his autobiography he speaks of having realised the 'Self,’ after which he was just “waiting for his coronary." Perhaps this was only a form of humor, or maybe I just don’t get it, but this seems different than the awakened awareness, being, and heart that anadi speaks of. That is, it doesn’t sound like completion for the soul. Of course it doesn't, for vedanta doesn't recognise the soul; nor do the non-dualists, for whom the rest of this paper may not be their cup of tea, for it presents a different view. I am not saying it is right, but is is different.
[The teachings of anadi are discussed at length on this website within three articles prior to this one, beginning with Dual Non-Dualism.
PB called his most fundamental philosophical view 'mentalism,' an understanding that nothing is ever experienced outside of consciousness, and therefore IS consciousness, and a view which when pursued to its end leads to non-duality, or the understanding and perception that the world and the soul or Overself both arise within the same World-Mind, whose World-Idea is projected through each soul which it then experiences as a world through an appropriate body to do so. As mentioned above, he also spoke of an 'influx of the solar force' into the body-mind of the individual. This is not incompatible with mentalism but rather a dynamic aspect of it. PB himself also said that his teachings were not the last word on the subject, and that others would come after him to complete what he had started:
”Not one but several minds will be needed to labor at the metaphysical foundation of the twentieth century structure of philosophy. I can claim the merit only of being among the earliest of these pioneers. There are others yet to appear who will unquestionably do better and more valuable work.” (14)
And of course, reality cannot be fully expressed. Still, the sages try as best they can. I am not suggesting that PB was wrong; it is chiefly the languaging that is in process of adaptation to better fit our evolutionary progression. I am currently of the inclination to believe that combining the wisdom of PB, the sacred tradition of the Sants, and the fresh vision of one such as anadi may be one of the best creative efforts of synthesis available to us today. And I think if PB were still alive and had seen the fruits of many minds over the last thirty years he would agree. J. Robert Oppenheimer, from another perspective, said:
"The history of science is rich in the example of the fruitfulness of bringing two sets of techniques, two sets of ideas, developed in separate contexts for the pursuit of new truth, into touch with one another." (15)
Which leaves us were we are now. It is proposed that while non-dual teachings have solved one problem - that of a split mind and vision of a 'world out there' radically opposed to the inner state of the person, there is still something missing on an energetic level. The idealists will object, but it has been suggested that there is a fundamental 'spirit-matter split' - not on a metaphysical basis, perhaps, but on a real, energetic level, that has yet to be overcome, or even understood or believed to exist. Let me try to simplify this. With the concept of the overshadowing of the personality by the Overself or soul, and its mystical union with the seeker’s body, PB gave us a step forward in envisioning a new understanding of enlightenment. But this idea of a powerful outside transformative intervention or descent of the divine is still different from the idea of a radical fushion of the soul and the personality, in which the soul comes forth from within. This can only be known experientially, not intellectually, as the weight of tradition is powerfully focussed in another direction. It is assumed, chiefly by advaita, that with the realisation of sahaj or non-duality such a split, wholly illusory, is eliminated through insight. But a new teaching, beyond idealism or ‘realism’, is beginning to be heard.
What we are also talking about is the difference between something coming from 'outside' - not to be understood neccesarily in a spatial sense, although it may at first be felt that way - and an inner dynamic or transmutation, whereby the soul, as it were, 'flashes forward' and comes out of hiding, perhaps for the first time in human history. anadi calls this awakening to the 'me', which in its ultimate aspect is the soul. Bonder calls it 'the second birth.' This is quite different from the 'twice-born' or 'second birth' of the saints where one sheds the physical coil, passes through the zero-point of the sahasrar and enters the first subtle region. This former birth is not mystical, although a form of death does occur in either instance. The difference is that in the gradual progression of mystical deaths through the various stages, the connection with the I Am or essential subjectivity is not generally established until far along in the process.
anadi speaks of 'pure suffering,' which is the suffering of the enlightened human being. This is not the usual suffering of discomfort or having ones egoic ambitions or dreams denied. It is existential suffering the soul agrees to upon taking incarnation, just by being here. It is why even a totally integrated enlightened being can cry because of his separation from God. To the logical mind it makes no sense, but it is just the way it is. Bonder calls this the 'core wound.' This 'wound' is not the result of inner traumas suffered in childhood or at birth. It, too, is existential. And it is not actually healed, but can become conscious. This is, in fact, what births the soul in this dimension. Yet, in a real sense, this domain is not the soul’s true home. Her true home is in prior unity with the beloved. That is why, despite vedanta, for the sensitive she still suffers.
In this vision of the enlightenment process, you, me, the precious soul actually awakens in and as the human organism, rather than just presiding as its overseer. This seems to be new. It is more than U.G. Krishnamurti’s famous psycho-biological transformation that apparently catapulted him into the absolute state, the proximate cause which appears to have been some form of unconventional kundalini awakening, although his example was perhaps some kind of preliminary manifestation of part of it.
This ensouled embodiment is not a rejection of the need for awakening to pure consciousness; indeed, that is its prerequisite. anadi, however, in my opinion, has taken the traditions a step further by arguing that for all their greatness regarding the impersonal absolute, they for the most part, not all, have missed the very heart of it all, the (personal, intimate) soul, which lies beyond commonly accepted non-dualism. PB in fact was the first one to begin speaking in these terms. anadi teaches that a stage after awakening to the personal I am, what he calls the subjective 'inner state,' that is, to awakened awareness, expansion into being, and the enlightenment of the heart, is the transparent awakening of me. The me which all along has been guiding our awakening and evolution, recognises itself in its purity as the soul. When the state of presence and the heart is awakened, the meeting with the soul can take place. This is because the conscious ground for her emergence has been created. It becomes complete when the soul recognises and also merges with the absolute state. All souls, he says, however, are not destined for such an extreme stage - nor is it necessary. What is necessary and inevitable is for the soul to recognise its own existence in the 'heart of the creator,' the universal I AM. This requires intelligence and grace. The intelligence of the soul working through the human ego must guide the ego to finally step down. What this amounts to is the inner crucifixion PB wrote about, and which all traditions speak of. It is the complete surrender of both ego, the will to be, and consciousness, the desire to know. What results, of course, is the not-knowing and non-being of ones absence in the divine presence, ones ancient soul-identity realised.
Some sages emphasize heart, some emphasize being, but all have awakened the state of presence, without which the deeper awakenings cannot be stablised. That is the value of the human incarnation, for only as a human being can one make a self-referral in the mind (ego) and from there develop a steady center of awareness that eventually becomes the state of presense-awareness, or the subjectivity of consciousness. This state in itself is not eternal per se, but allows the eternal dimensions to become realised. Nisargadatta spoke mostly of developing this state of presence or consciousness, by meditating on the sense of I Am, or the feeling of ones existence or 'I'-hood, until one went beyond this into presence. This to him was 'beyond conscious', in the sense that it was beyond separative ego-consciousness or awareness. It was beyond any form of self-referrence. Beyond even this was what he hinted at as the absolute state, in which consciousness meets its own absence while remaining conscious. This is a much deeper state, what anadi calls the 'Diamond Mountain,' a Zen term.
Ramana seemed to flow between the heart and the absolute. In one moment he would cry upon hearing a devotional story, or when a little bird crashed into a wall of the ashram and died. On the other hand, when told of the horrors happening in Ethiopia, he seemed to retreat into the silence of being in the beyond, saying that all those people were only appearing in the 'Self.' This was upsetting to his listeners. The sixteenth Karmapa was at a party in a big city when he excused himself and went out onto a balcony. Gazing down at the crowds in the streets he began to cry. When asked why he was weeping, he said it was because of the millions of people who would not find the dharma in their lifetime. Yet he was the embodiment of 'emptiness,' as likewise was H.H. the Dalai Lama, who once cried upon hearing of a fellow monk who had become embroiled in a sex scandal.
After the I am is awakened and the soul is born [the real answer to the question, 'who am I?'], there is a potential further stage, says anadi, where there is a gradual deepening merger or fushion of the soul with the personality or me. This is not a mechanical process or result, and it is more than just awakening from the mind to the non-dual state of sahaj, or non-dual consciousness. That, in fact, is its basis. It is a dynamic transition for it allows for active creativity in thinking, feeling, and action, rather than the traditional image of one as merely an impersonal observer of the world revolving, as it were, upon a great wheel. This process is often difficult, but, then, so is life. What it really means is the purification of the 'me' to better express the soul as a window onto the universal I AM. The soul would still prefer to hang out in the inner state of rest, due to the subconscious impulses that have remained unpurified even through its awakening. There is still work to do, but work which only grace can successfully achieve.
The soul, says anadi, is very fascinating in that it is neither created nor uncreated, but is nevertheless eternal. For the confirmed non-dualist, who in binary fashion sees only the phenomenal (the created, images and/or things) and the noumenal (the uncreated, consciousness), this seems contradictory and illogical. What anadi means is that, one, the soul is not created, as it is not of the manifested dimension and is in fact, as consciousness, the source of all creation (for PB, through its indissolvable connection to the World-Mind), and, two, it is neither uncreated, in that it is not the same as the absolute state, the primal unmanifest dimension. From the side of reality, the soul can be said to be created, but from the side of manifestation, it is uncreated. Linear logic of non-duality has no room for this possibility. In general, it lacks an appreciation for the soul. PB championed the notion of soul or Overself, but he didn’t speak in detail of a deepening merger of that with the body (although he hinted at it), inasmuch as he held pretty much to the notion that consciousness or awareness was all, and that everything was arising in consciousness, much like newer non-dual teachers. He differed, importantly, however, in distinguishing the soul from the ‘one Self’, and in maintaining that soul was an eternal existent, of the nature of consciousness, that could know or experience its higher principles, which he called World-Mind and Mind. He said that these were essentially equivalent to what Plotinus meant by the Intellectual Principle and the One. In so doing PB was, I feel, leaning beyond consciousness alone as the ultimate Principle. Even for him, the soul was consciousness, being, and intelligence, a 'point' in Mind, the source and ground of all. Thus, he was a true pioneer moving us in a forward direction.
Yet the idea of wholeness or radical transcendance of this dimension through embracing the totality, as opposed to the idea of liberation, personal or impersonal, was not yet ready to be announced or explored. Adi Da was the first to speak of it, saying that after awakening to the condition of sahaj (which itself required passing through fundamental human maturity, then the witness position at the heart, then to 'open-eyed' awakening), there was a further process of transformation, transfiguration, and 'translation' out of this dimension to the 'divine domain.' This was not to be understood in a mystical sense. Mysticism pertains to the personal domain, the ‘inner’ structures of the human body-mind. The higher evolution into the divine occurs after the separate self as such is transcended. However, what Adi Da proclaimed, while a promising innovation, has perhaps been called into doubt by his flagrant moral lapses. On a human level he was far from perfect. But now we have anadi who speaks definitively of such a thing, which he says is the ultimate destiny of the enlightened soul. It is not negation, but transcendence in God - without elimination of the 'me' - once the soul reaches her 'completion’ - which itself is different for each soul. This is a new doctrine, that could not have been introduced before as humanity was far too provincial in its outlook, and far too bound to the concept of personal salvation.
Where is God, the ultimate I am, the totality of the divine and the absolute? Where, also, does the 'divine shakti', as opposed to the kundalini, come from? It cannot be understood in a spatial sense; the best word is 'beyond,' or 'the Now.' Thus, besides 'Who am I,' and 'What am I,' the questions 'Where am I?,' and 'When am I?' are also important to contemplate. They lead to the same end. And once one has passed into the beyond, it is never far away. For must of us this can only be understood beforehand through the creative imagination. Our minds reel after even conceiving the non-duality of the state of 'presence-awareness.'
Different frequencies of transmission or guidance for humankind needed to be activated before such a possibility was discovered or revealed. Which is one reason the notion of 'emergence' is beginning to enter the lexicon more and more along with evolution. Evolution implies a process in time, and emergence connotes an occurence in the now, and also a more discrete transmission, a speeding up of the spiritual process and understanding.
Those schooled in the teachings of advaita or Buddhism will balk at the idea of a 'spirit-matter split.' It is just an illusion they say. Yet while it may be hard to describe, and may not exist according to the philosophers, there is an experiential dimension where it is felt as very real. More and more people are noticing a sense of 'dropping into their bodies,' their souls 'coming forward,' in a new way that defies categorisation according to traditional models of enlightenment. Maybe it is just the pendulem swinging from idealism to realism, neither of which is the complete truth, being but conceptual viewpoints. Or maybe not. In most cases, such shifts are not motivated. That is, one is not trying hard to become 'embodied.' Adyashanti himself cautioned against this, saying that his earlier teaching on embodiment was becoming corrupted as something that one can 'do.' It is simply happening in one manner or another, for one reason or another, in one context or another. It transcends, while fulfilling, the 'integral' vision that is becoming quite popular today. Yet integrating many different things is not the same as awakening to the soul. One might say it is the post-or-para-enlightenment process of becoming human, the holy fool, 'enlightened duality,' or 'dual non-dualism', within the wholeness of the 'totality.' Some have called it 'Onlyness,' others 'Everythingness.' It is personal while at the same time lived within the universal. Deep witholding and unconscious patterning is being undone, sometimes radically and quickly. The result is being experienced as non-dual in a way that is different than the unity traditionally experienced upon awakening to sahaj samadhi. For in that classic realisation, there often remains a practical sense of distance between the body and the Self. Ramana spent sixteen years in the caves after his death experience before he was comfortable and integrated in ordinary life, yet he still considered the body to be nothing more than a corpse, and therefore his teaching was, from this new perspecrtive, incomplete.
So, where does all of this leave us?
In my own case, I understood and 'saw’ the numinous, mysterious ‘no-self-yet-entirely-self self' (!), subtle and ordinary yet ineffable neither time nor timeless vision of - I can’t even say what it is. We all have our moment. Yet over the years, and much deeper as Pluto transits my first house, I find deep inner witholding being seered and forced to let go whether I wish to or not into a crazy sense of merging with the body in an unexpected and unpetitioned way, consciously at least. I accept it as destiny. Others have enjoyed the fruits of such a process much more than I have at this point. And I do not know where it is leading, but guidance in the form of books literally falling off the shelves one after another offering confirmation of the process continues to amaze me. I am not afraid to use the word 'me,' which it is ridiculous to deny.
I wonder, how many readers are feeling a similar thing happening in their case?
Obviously, this must not be misunderstood. There is much more to the soul than embodiment. The body, even when seen from the non-relative divine perspective, is impermanent. But concentrating too much on impermanence, like, for instance, some Vipassana practitioners do, can easily prevent one from finding his I Am and the soul, since these are a priorly considered as impermanent. The Vipasanna practice is one form of initial practice, to separate the observer from the observed, and to get some distance from immersion in subconscious thinking and perception. The lack of this discipline is one problem with J. Krishnamurti's teachings, which encouraged keeping the mind 'open' and making no efforts to control it, for fear of making it dull. "Don't put the brakes on," he said. The problem is that without some initial effort of bringing the mind back to its center, one can easily remain stuck in the subconscious. 'Keeping the mind open' is a more advanced practice, not for the average beginner. Yet, once some centering has developed, the nature of the observer must also awaken, otherwise one may be stuck in an extended ego-conscious state of 'observing the mind,' which conceivably could go on, without the intervention of grace, for an indefinite period of time. Attention must awaken to itself. This is the fruit, for instance, of the more direct 'awareness watching awareness' method. The subject must be realised. Yet even this, the state of presence, pure consciousness, is only a first stage of enlightenment. There is a divine love affair yet to be realised. In a similar vein Baird Spalding writes:
“You can work until you have released yourself sufficiently to get a glimpse of the horizon’s ‘grander view.’ Here again you cease to struggle, your mental vision is cleared, but your body is still encased in the shell. Realize, that the newborn chick, when its head is free from its shell, must still go on with the struggle. It must be entirely free from its old shell or environment, before it can grow into the new, which it sensed and perceived as soon as it had broken a hole through the shell once encasing the egg from which it grew.” (16)
What we have been trying to say is that, while one remains incarnated, there is a possibility of a realisation of a total multidimensional self within the universal I AM, in a way that does more than avoid negating the body as well as the soul, but fuses them in a more complete way than tradition has previously allowed. anadi states:
“There is a process of dissolution into the absolute state, and there is a possibility of dissolution into the unity of the absolute and the heart. In this way the experience is different, the dissolution is more complete and holistic. As you can see, the dissolution varies depending in the level of surrender and the kind of dimension we dissolve into.”
While there is dissolution, the soul paradoxically remains present. PB agrees:
"He enters into a state which is certainly not a disappearance of the ego, but rather a kind of divine fellowship of the ego with its source....He loses his ego in the calm serenity of the Overself, yet at the same time it is, mysteriously, still with him....It [the Overself] is a kind of impersonal being but it is not utterly devoid of all individuality....The dictionary defines individuality as separate and distinct existence. Both the ego and the Overself have such an existence. But whereas the ego has this and nothing more, the Overself has this consciousness within the universal existence. That is why we have called it the higher individuality....He as he was vanishes, not into complete annihilation and certainly not into the heaven of a perpetuated ego, but into a higher kind of life shrouded in mystery....The actual experience alone can settle this argument. This is what I found: The ego vanished; the everyday "I" which the world knew and which knew the world was no longer there. But a new and diviner individuality appeared in its place, a consciousness which could say "I AM" and which I recognized to have been my real self all along. It was not lost, merged, or dissolved: it was fully and vividly conscious that it was a point in the universal Mind and so was not apart from that Mind itself. " (17)
anadi continues:
“The understanding that the soul is the child of the beloved cannot be explained. It is simply reality. This is the mystical and religious experience one has when getting in touch with this purity and utmost sensitivity in the heart. For the first time one knows who one truly is. The child of the beloved.” (18)
All right. One final quote before we transition back to our original discussion: the importance of not negating the me or the body, on any level (personal, psychic, or transcendental) in order to awaken to the soul:
“It is important to understand that the term of no-mind can refer to many areas of the I Am. In the case of Zen, for example, they try to base their vision of the enlightened state on the attitude of non-conceptualisation. It is called suchness. The ideal is not to fabricate any concepts but to see reality from the place of not thinking [or no ‘point of view’; anadi recognises that the state of presence is there with or without thoughts, and cites Dzogchen as an example of a tradition that acknowledges this]. But the I Am is much more rich. What about the vertical evolution into being? What about the heart? The difference between the no-mind in awareness and the no-mind in the absolute state is enormous. [which is why Sri Nisargadatta stressed the important need for sadhana] Therefore, we have to use more precise conceptual tools in order to reflect the reality of the inner state." [Note: he uses the term 'inner state', to refer to the inherently subjective and not objective nature of awakening; in comparison, many mystical states, while 'inner' in relation to the body, are 'objective' from the perspective of the soul; as PB said, 'the Overself's without is our within.'] ” (19)
The most important thing, however, is not awareness, or the state realised, but the complete human individual who is actually living them. He states:
“It is not only awareness of the mind and body which creates a conscious human being, but participation in them too! Spiritual realisation takes us not merely to liberation from the psychological dimension. The final goal is the transcendental state where the depth of I Am and the presence of the physical, mental and emotional bodies are experienced as one unified organism of me. Here, one is not observing anything, what remains is the natural awakened human being. The addiction to the attitude of observation and disidentification from natural feelings and desires keeps one glued to the mind and closes the heart deeply!” (20)
In order to do so successfully, one needs to purify the me, to heal her wounds to a sufficient degree. How is this done?
“How can the psyche be re-aligned with the soul? In truth higher technology is needed, which is grace or the intervention of higher intelligence. It has been an experience of many enlightened beings that even after self-realisation, the psyche has not changed, but remains as it used to be. Of course, a new level of freedom has been added which is the very presence of the inner state. For that reason, the idea of disidentification from the mind has been so strong in some traditions. Because he is unable to change the mind, one negates it as “not me” and chooses to abide in the safety of the inner state. If the soul, however, wishes to be truly whole, certain work with the psyche must take place.” (21)
He explains that therapy or New Age healing techniques, without the awareness of the I Am, are not strong enough to be effective in removing ones essential human sorrow and suffering. I can personally absolutely testify that this is the truth. Author Alex Hailey said that one should always start a book by telling a story, rather than lecturing or just reporting information. Well, in this case I am inserting the story not at the beginning but near the end. Here I bare my soul. This could be considered a sequel to The Death of a Dream and a Gift of Truth, a tale of my early life and end of round one at the feet of the Guru, which would be useful but not essential reading to get the drift of what will be recounted here. This, like that one, is only one story, no more or less important than any other, and it is not meant to suggest that anything that I went through in terms of experience is necessary for anyone else (heaven forbid!), or in any way necessary in the process of awakening - whether or not one believes there is such a thing as a ‘process.’ But, I feel it useful, and feedback has told me so, and I otherwise feel compelled to tell it, if only to remind myself of how blessed I have been. It does have relevence to the themes discussed so far in this paper.
"To speak of one's emotions without fear or moral ambition, to come out from under the shadow of other men's minds, to forget their needs, to be utterly oneself, that is all the muses care for." - Yeats
To briefly recap, I had a subtle shift, or, if you like, an awakening experience in 1973, at the feet of Sant Kirpal Singh, which I won't exactly describe as an experience of 'no-self', since 'nothing' had changed, my self was enigmatically still there, just the sense of ownership was seriously nicked, and the sense was present that whatever Is had always been the case. I didn’t become the universe, or disappear, or feel high, or have a mystical experience, no, it was much simpler. I wasn’t the Void, nor did I experience a void, I was simply...nothing. Not a BIG nothing, just an ordinary nothing. Truth was, I neither knew who or what I was nor who or what I was not. It was a mystery, and has remained so. I spoke of it as if a 'spoke' had been removed from my inner being. It was subtler than subtle. So subtle that it couldn't be taken away. This is as close as I can come to describing what has become a fairly common ‘event’ for an increasing number of people.
In spite of this, as time passed, however, I was perplexed as to why I still felt very bad, even extremely bad, on an emotional and bodily level. After some years of trying to simply remain aware of my state, which wasn’t really a state. and finding that that didn’t change very much, I went into therapy for several months on two occasions, in 1977 and 1984 - primal-type therapy as I had resonated with the books on that type of process (Moon in Scorpio, square Pluto in the eighth house, probably explained the attraction). However, I was still quite 'shut-down' and the results were disappointing and also mixed. While I processed a certain depth of personal pain, at some point I found myself losing contact with what I call the true liberating principle. That is to say, I identified with the personality that had been wounded instead of the state of unknowing mystery I had been initiated into, and progress was slow. Very interestingly, on the other hand, at certain times I would also spontaneously 'wake up' out of the therapy, and find no-one there psychologically speaking and nothing to work on! Of course, the therapists accused me of resisting, but there really was no point in continuing.
Soooooo...fast forward thirty years: other teachers, two careers, “a wife, two kids - the whole catastrophe!” (Zorba) - just kidding. The two and a half decades after that shift were a time of incarnating and becoming a basic human being, struggling to adapt a neurotic and inverted by tendency body-mind back into ordinary life on a new basis. There were many moments of doubt, and even bouts of rage at my guru(s) for (to my own mind) telling me lies or leading me astray. Maybe three or four times in such a desperate state I tore down my bookcases and ripped up precious spiritual books, smashed murtis and photos, only to buy them back one at a time later when I regained composure and my faith returned. But I felt no remorse at engaging in such primitive behavior. Being a good boy or devotee was no longer a psychological option. Ramana Maharshi said, "Hate or love, it is all the same; the thought of Him will take you there." There is also a Sufi proverb that says, "You can meditate for fifteen years and get one inch closer to God; or you can be really angry and be with Him instantly." Further confirmation of this is found in the Srimad Bhagavata, where a verse says that "intense devotion can not bring one to His feet as quickly as hate".
"The principle villains in the myths of Rama and Krishna were actually great devotees. They were told that before taking birth that if they would consent to being the primary antagonists of the Divine incarnations, they would attain liberation in only one life at the hands of their Lord whereas if they served him as devotees it would take several lifetimes."
For instance, Ravana was given this choice and became the great enemy of the Avatara Rama in the epic the Ramayana:
"A great ascetic and yogi, his hatred of Rama became so intense that his mind never left the thought of Him for even a moment. Thus Ravana ultimately became totally absorbed in Rama and was liberated when he was finally killed by him in battle." (22)
In the apocryphal gospels Judas is depicted not as a betrayer of Jesus but as a close devotee who had a task to perform. These are just examples of a principle; I had no such grandious role to play. In modern language this might be summed up as the Gospel of Thomas states, "if you don't bring up what is within you, it will destroy you." Anyway, there were episodes like this during long years of searching for understanding, and there were more to come.
After much suffering and some amusement as well, however, I felt I was finally emerging from the woods into what I call basic sanity. I still considered myself a spiritual practitioner, for lack of better words, although I had no formal practice, other than random contemplation and study, and just being a normal person, albeit with an enigmatic 'hole in my head' (as explained in the above-mentioned article). Unfortunately, I also had another hole, one in the heart, that needed work on.
While experiencing an increasing sense of well-being, in fact the best of my life, and my original awakening never entirely submerged, Pluto crossed my Ascendant while Saturn was opposing my Mercury and a couple other significant transits including Uranus were simultaneously going on. I call this the intervention of Grace. This time around (for those who have read my original biography) I felt totally crushed which developed into melancholy; my ultra-running “second-life career” [I was running 100k’s, back and forth across the Grand Canyon, up Mt. Whitney and Pike’s Peak, across Mt. Washington and the Presidential Range, through Yosemite, etc., from the age of forty-nine to fifty-six] gradually ground to a halt, in stages, and I re-entered a dark night of the soul I gone through for many years before but felt I had come out the other side of. It started gradually one day after completing a long run. I was training for the Western States 100-miler, a major event that spans the mountains and canyons from Squaw Valley to Auburn, California, a total of 18,000 feet of elevation change from the snow to the heat, an all day and all-night deal. My condition was super and I felt good. So I stretched things a bit and in practice ran a 25 mile, five hour back and forth route that I had created from my house over two ridges to the top of our local "Arunachala", the sacred Mt. Tamalpais. I felt in such good shape that I did it four times in one week! At the end of the last run, however, I developed a hyperventilation syndrome that lasted for two days. Concerned, my wife drove me to a local emergency clinic, my first visit to an MD in thirty years. He found nothing, which is what I expected, but prescribed trazadone as he concluded I was depressed. Not knowing exactly what to do I followed his instructions. After a few days I dropped the trazadone, but lay low for a month before resuming running, thinking maybe I overdid it. The non-runners out there may not be able to relate to why anyone would even want to do such a thing as ultra-running, and I never planned on it. It started after first hiking on our local mountain, falling in love with it, getting an inheritance which allowed me to spend more time outdoors than at my office, then seeing "old" guys running on the mountain and thinking, "hey, maybe I can do that."
So at age forty-eight, for the first time since I was seventeen I started running. I set a goal to train for a year and enter our local 100-year old famous race called the Dipsea. This is a strenuous peddle-to-the-metal seven-miler over two mountains from Mill Valley to Stinson Beach, with about 1400 runners on each other's heels and full of dangerous, hair-raising full-speed descents. That worked out well, and I was then challenged to enter the "Double-Dipsea," which is fourteen miles out and back over the same grueling route. That led in a couple of years to taking the plunge and doing the "Quadruple Dipsea", 28 miles and 8800 feet of ups and downs, at which point my wife questioned my sanity. But I was deep into the local running culture by that time, and, to my delight, found that the longer distances appealed to me. It seems that when I get into something, I end up going all the way. In this case, it felt joyful and satisfied a deep soul urge, not just a search for an endorphin rush or ego gratification. Being in nature, gliding along like a gazelle, was inspiring and spiritually satisfying. The next challenge was a 50k, then the monstrous Miwok 100k (62 miles) over seven major hills, through the beautiful Marin headlands, over Mt. Tam, and beyond, and back! That's a twelve hour run. Believe it or not, it was my favorite. I knew a man in his mid-seventies still doing hundred-milers, so it no longer seemed "impossible."
Anyway, after getting back into top shape since the bout with hyperventilation and, perhaps, depletion of neurotransmitters (I was pretty methodical and careful with my training, ate well, got good rest, but was a bit lax on taking the necessary anti-oxidants and supplements that my body required in order to do what it was doing), slowly breathing problems came back and became more insistent, making me back down from the running at times, accompanied by a slow descent into a full-blown depression. Simultaneously, deep buried feelings I had been trying to get to for years, then finally ignored when my efforts at coaxing them to the surface ended in failure, started to erupt of themselves. So, while still running, though at lesser and lesser levels, I went back into therapy, this time with a spiritual lady with a good feel for esoteric processes and the power of presence. Before revealing that graceful ‘initiation,’ I need to point out that the running didn’t come to an instant and complete stop. I got back to a relatively high level of ability several times (like running a successful 100k) before quitting for good. In fact, during the initial year of therapy, there were two parallel processes going on. One, deep, buried feelings coming up, and, two, a renewal after many years of a variety of what I would call non-mystical spiritual experiences occurred, both during running and in my normal daily life. The latter happened especially for a time after I had placed a portrait of Ramana Maharshi on my nightstand.
On one routine solitary mid-week run on the Dipsea trail, I experienced extreme and unusual fatigue about two miles into a long climb up the portion of the course called ‘Hogsback.’ It seemed oppressive and I gradually ground to a halt. My inner being felt rudderless and listless. As continued running became literally impossible, I began almost absent-mindedly trimming some branches that were overhanging the trail. Gradually I felt myself becoming motionless, almost like a dead man. In fact, I felt like I was dying in a way, empty inside. In an instant, a renewed shift occurred, much like the original one years before but this time inclusive of my whole body such that inner knots were released and I spontaneously began to run back to Mill Valley which I reached in record time, seemingly effortlessly and in a sense of wonder. The thought came to me of a quotation from Talks with Ramana, “finally, one becomes helpless, in spite of the sadhanas; the Self reveals itself.” This revelation or recognition lasted for the better part of the day, then became more ordinary and less energetic once again.
Over the next month or so, on numerous occasions I felt both a numinous ‘knowingness’ in the mind or consciousness, as well as the core of the heart begin to expand to the point of lovingly embracing or engulfing me, tears of joy would come to my face with a smile I couldn’t wipe off; this was experienced not just as something that was miraculously happening to me, but more directly as myself. This went on whether walking into the bank, sitting at the dinner table, or just sitting in my car. I could neither do anything to bring it on nor could I stop it from happening. Indeed, one of its primary characteristics, and why I classify it as ‘non-mystical,’ was because it felt like an awakening of and as myself. It was an intuitive recognition, not phenomenal or objective in any significant way. And it was not new, only a deeper feeling of what I had always known to be the case. I felt like I was coming home, and was home, at the same time.
On another occasion, I felt a different aspect of this process. Upon reaching the top of Mt. Tamalpais after a base to summit run, I became overwhelmed with the fear of death, felt myself sinking into what I felt was the void, and I hid myself behind the lookout tower from the people gathered there. The fear eventually passed, it seems I was not ready to let go into it. Other times, more commonly, I would simply be realigned with the original simplicity of the sense of being nothing, but, as before, in an ordinary way and with no better means of describing it. I felt like I was finally getting ‘out of the woods’ this time, and that something great was dawning in my being. But, as I said, this was only half of what was starting to happen - the brighter half. These experiences eventually faded, like all experences do. For while it had been real, in that I intuited it as Me, not just an experience, in truth, at a subtle level I still really did experience it as something happening to ‘me.’ Other times on the mountain, feeling down, I would start to cry, calling out to her, “you are my real home now,” as she was a truly holy place. Swami Vivekananda had hiked there in the 1890’s, Chogyam Trungpa had called Mt. Tam ‘the most spiritual place in earth,’ and many saints and sages, native American holy men, and ordinary buddhas had walked her slopes for centuries.
What was to follow, in my present understanding, was meant to help to undermine this illusion of a distance between myself and its experiences, and draw my sense of self into a more fundamental basis in reality. Perhaps these experiences were preparatory for the descent into darkness in the psycholgical dimension that was to follow and take center stage for several more years. For, while these experiences weren’t mystical, like experiences I had pursued as a youth, I still clung to them as an alternative to the realities of my daily life. Now I will talk of what went on in ‘therapy.’ I put therapy in quotes because this process became rather unconventional, yet, in retrospect, was just what I needed. Like everything else, however, I truly don’t understand anything of what happened - or ‘didn’t happen’ - or is happening or ‘not happening’ now.
My therapist was wise, not speaking much unless invited to, but just accepted my self and all of its story, both spoken and unspoken. My projections onto her were near-perfect. She embodied my inner Goddess, almost becoming a Quan Yin for me, at least for a time. I knew it, and that was the existentially painful part. I told her so, and she was fine with that. There were no formal rules between us, except those of the natural integrity of the heart. One result was that I began to cry my heart out, for a few years, something I had never been able to do before, having been just too blocked. Here the tears were from inner pain and wounding, but also from a deepened yearning of the soul. I would leave her office, and late at night would feel an immense, cosmic loneliness that overwhelmed any personal attraction I may have naturally felt for her. Yet there was more, a subtle, but visceral alchemical process that was quite personal. It was quite unexpected, uncomfortable, but worth revealing as I have gone so far already and have much more to tell. At first, my feelings related to wanting to be home, to go home, both the home of my parents and childhood, to see my earliest, most innocent and precious friends, and also return to an imagined pre-natal home somewhere in heaven. I also found myself longing to be with this lady, in whom I only saw the divine and not the human; I knew it was not reality and nothing could or would ever happen, but my subconscious did not know. In some sense, I was in over my head, which was a good thing. In fact, it was perfect at the time. Part of this was no doubt due to the spiritual ambience of the therapy room. Tibetan thankas and other wall hangings and statues decorated the room, what I called the 'sanctuary,' and helped me to relax from the burdens of the inner and outside world. These art objects, however, included one thanka prominently situated that portrayed a very obvious classic tantric pose. That in itself created extra heat to the situation, and began to do a number on my subconscious anima projection. While I initially had superficial romantic feelings for her, however, they were never of a sexual nature. In my mind, besides the fact that I was loyal to my wife, and loved her, and had also gradually become relatively free at last of the lust I had in my early teenage and young adult years, a sexual relationship just didn't feel right. The images just literally wouldn't form in the mind, despite its mechanical attempts to do so. Plus, I didn’t want another wife; what I was unconsciously looking for was rather a ‘mid-wife.’
Yet in the therapeutic setting (not talk therapy, but open ended feeling sessions that lasted up to two hours, sometimes with only a few words spoken, and sometimes with direct but unplanned silent gazing), after a comfortable friendship and trust had been established over about a year or two, subliminal images began arising unasked for and unexpectedly from my depths, that literally made my skin crawl. It is difficult to describe - no, not difficult, but more like embarrassing. I hope the reader may grant me some compassion for the honesty of my disclosure. All of this happened quite spontaneously and was unmotivated. Feeling as if my own life force was waning, I became overtaken by urges that I at first tried to repress, but then simply allowed to co-exist with my allowable sense of reality. What I am trying to say was that I felt myself wanting to drink up life, in particular, projected as her life, her very life juices. I craved to suck up and drink life, in particular as represented by her vaginal 'juice'. I felt an almost irresistable pull in that direction. My super-ego wanted to pull back, but deep in my soul I was propelled to surrender to the (entirely subjective) experience, as if some part of me wanted to reclaim myself. This was not something I had any previous inclination or particular desire for, and I truly felt I was perhaps going crazy. But this urge or need began to develop much further. I had no 'distance' from my experiencing. Any yogic or 'philosophic' means to do so had vanished long ago. This new reality was entirely subliminal and intensely visceral. In my inner being I found myself wanting to suck, drink, soak in 'life-juice', and to crawl into her vagina and up through her cervix into her womb, where I saw myself as finally contented, at peace, and at home! I tried to reject any regressive, Freudian or uroboric interpretations of any kind, but it was difficult not to 'feel dirty.' But, I intuitively rejected that, knowing I had not done anything wrong, nor would I. It was simply happening. This I confessed to an elderly astrologer friend of mine whose only response was, 'that's beautiful.'
On an inner, subconscious level, my soul knew what this was about. Of course I confessed everything to this mysterious lady who simply accepted my reality with no judgement. My heart was actually dying to tell her what I was feeling, and I did, totally. It was a mother thing, perhaps a divine mother thing. I also felt like I wanted her to 'birth' me, and then grow up together just loving each other, which I also told her. This was all unfolding in my mind over the course of about a week. Eventually, the power of the projection began to fade and she assumed human proportions. But not before a strange thing occurred to me one night. I awoke in the early morning hours in a state of emotional aggitation and also with a big erection! This was actually most unusual as I had pretty much lost all lingering interest in sex for the sake of release during my years of running as well as generally as I grew older. However, there were no sexual feelings with this. At that moment I was in psychophysical turmoil, wanting out of my skin. Instead of enacting a tendency, refined over the years, of trying to ignore the situation and just go back to sleep, I spontaneously and without any sexual intent simply placed my hand on my penis. In that instant, still half asleep between dreams and waking, the effect was amazing and immediate. It felt like someone had sunk a huge hypodermic needle of heroin into my heart. My helpless pain and anxiety immediately drained away and I slept like a baby for the rest of the might. I believe this was a subtle form of alchemy that 'connected' my heart with my genitals and did away with the last vestiges of animal propensity in that area. Anyway, it felt like it was over.
I remembered Ramakrishna responding to one of his young monks who had asked him to take away lust from his heart, and the sage said, "if I did so your life would feel insipid." Paramahansa Yogananda said a similar thing, telling a disciple that "if he suddenly found himself without desire that he would feel like he had lost his best friend." Yet in my case it seemed like a natural process, for which I was essentially happy to be free from. It had been a burden for too long, perhaps too many lifetimes.
I saw adds on the TV for Viagra, full of diabolical and subtle programming geared to get old men to grasp at lost youth and waste their remaining life powers, warning them to call their doctors for "erections lasting for more than four hours," and seeing them react automatically saying, "FOUR hours, give me some of that stuff!" It made me laugh and yet feel sad at the same time, sad for the depths our culture had fallen to.
I had been in the habit of journalling my thought and feelings as they arose as grist for the mill of our therapy sessions, and on two occasions after taking ambien I fell asleep at the computer late at night and forgot to shut it down. As fate would have it, my wife came upon my writings, full of all the grisliest details, and when I came home that day she cried like a baby and said, "you are supposed to love ME!!" I tried my best to convince her that it was only my stuff coming up and that I still loved her, but it took a while for her to forgive and trust me. Somethings it is just too hard to be honest about. Especially when it is the simple reality or unreality that ones spouse cannot realistically be all in all for ones needs, especially in the psycho-spiritual domain. It is a beautiful thing to have a 'soul-mate' that complements you 'perfectly' - so-called - but not necessarily optimal for working out ones karma. Some things must simply be lived through. My wife was perfect for me. The hidden hand of fate or destiny knows best, and one is blessed if he can see it working in his or her life. I have been blessed.
Again, though, a point was inevitably reached where I found myself re-identifying with the psyche to a degree that left me feeling rudderless, especially when tears no longer keep me company, and I sensed that this round of therapy was coming to a close. I had more existential human issues to face. They said "the revolution will not be televised," just so, the "evolution will not be therapized." Once again, there were also enigmatic days when I found myself awakened, with no problems, and therapy pointless. So I stopped.
But, Pluto will not let you get off so easy. Five years had gone by. I kept falling into the depths of fear, despair, and pain, despite my faith and continued awakened state, and bought into the advise of friends and therapists who suggested I try various drugs, namely anti-depressants, tranquilisers, and sleeping pills (as I had developed extreme insomnia as well). The drug-taking had started out slow and benign, first a little Valium and Ambien courtesy of my local dentist, but grew and grew to an insidious point, and before I knew it I was addicted. Things only got worse. My most distressing symptom was a psychosomatic breathing problem distinct from the hyperventilation episode that made me feel completely undermined at the core, a helpless, void-like sense of dissociation from both breath and body. I tried homeopathy, chiropractic, and nutrition, along with the increasing intake of drugs, none of which 'worked', except for the tranquilisers. I had by now stopped running, my greatest passion. My writing avocation, previously electrified by a transit of Uranus over my natal Mercury after being dormant for a decade, dried up as I confronted inner demons and a growing monkey on my back. This also was a big blow to my self-image as a natural healer (I'm a chiropractor by trade). I was falling apart and I knew it. I had my chart done by a few trustworthy astrologers and fellow travellers. Tim Smith of Wisdom's Goldenrod Center said that Pluto was always a friend to those who are on the path - even if it is at the cost of ones sanity! That was not exactly a consoling thought, but I knew it was accurate. I remembered my old college buddy Gary Borgida who turned schizophrenic while on the spiritual path, and a man who committed suicide while I was at Sawan ashram in 1973, and got scared. How could this be happening?, I would ask and ponder deeply.
It took a few years, but finally I hit rock-bottom and, with serious doubts and trepidations, but basically humbled and submitted to guidance, however against the grain, I let myself be led by the hand by 'professionals' who had my 'best interest' at heart. After burning through three or four psychiatrists and every drug they could think of, I succumbed to accepting a week of (barbaric) ECT treatments (electro-convulsive therapy - totally surreal, I can still ’smell’ the hospital from time to time wafting through my brain) which were stopped as the doctor confessed that it was “turning me into a vegetative state.” So much for his confidence and moral support. Actually, on one level at the time I found that observation amusing, partly a result of my cryptic sense of humor and partly due to a still present confidence in the Real Dimension. The only effect from this extreme measure, however, was that I couldn’t remember much of anything for a month. In this day of passwords, PIN numbers, and access codes that was a real hassle.
That fall I flew to Chicago to see the successor in the lineage of Kirpal Singh, Sant Rajinder Singh, to try and get some spiritual support, which I had done a few times previously. But it was, on the surface level at any rate (which is not the best way to judge such matters), a fruitless endeavor. There was to be no turning back. I returned home with the kind and consoling words, “you’re going to be O.K.” They helped, as I could feel they were coming from a deep soul, but I continued to go downhill, despite the help of spiritual friends, and contemplated suicide a couple of times. Because of a lack of attentiveness, perhaps due to the drugs, I had four fender-benders in one month, and my wife and step-son took away my car keys without my permission. For the next month I had to be driven to any appointments I had, and also had to walk a mile to and from my office, rain or shine, in order to keep seeing patients. Normally, that would have been a good excuse to get a little exercise, but I was in an almost constant state of exhaustion. Not being able to drive was a major inconvenience and also a big blow to my self-image as a man. After several aborted drive-bys (I had an emergency car key stored in a secret place letting me sneak out of the house) I worked up the 'courage' to enter a store and buy a gun - but thankfully never picked it up. Instead, before the ten-day mandatory waiting period was over I made the fortunate mistake of confiding my plans to a chiropractor friend, who called my psychiatrist (drug pusher) and the jig was up.
Finally, under protest, I flew alone to an expensive holistic residential treatment center in the Arizona desert called Sierra Tucson for thirty days that put a $50,000 dent into my retirement fund to try and get straightened out. My wife and family basically had given me an ultimatum. I cried bitterly for hours while waiting alone at the airport and for most of the flight. Twice the flight attendants called me to the back of the plane and asked me if I was fit to fly, as this was the first of two stops. I eventually broke-down and popped a seroquel to calm myself. When I arrived at the intake office of Sierra Tucson I felt normal; however, the next morning I woke up in pain and yelling in agony. I basically was extremely uncomfortable in the body. Unfortunately, the facility’s ‘natural methods’ for detox included an initial aggressive approach to giving out medication, which reached huge proportions by anyone’s standards, but still was less and less effective. I can’t begin to tell you how much stuff I was taking just to try and get some sleep - I am sure it would kill me or a horse if that much were taken today. Yet then my condition was such that it barely made a dent. Whereas at home ten mg of seroquel would give me a day’s peace and a night’s rest, there even two hundred mg, with 15mg zyprexa, and 20mg klonopin wouldn’t knock me out! That mixed with a few over-the-counter relaxants made a hefty cocktail. For a time, in the morning they put me on 10mg of dexedrine to get myself going, at the same time I wold take serequel or konopjn three times a day to calm down! I felt like I was heading toward the Valley of the Dolls and would end up like Judy Garland (bless her soul). I thought frequently of my Guru and felt ashamed, but also yearned to be again at his feet. My life passed in front of my eyes in a blur. "How did it come to this?," I would ask, before collapsing into tears. More than that, weird groans and desperate cries issued forth from my bodily depths like a tormented animal in pain.
Shortly after arriving at Sierra Tucson, I was given zyprexa one night for sleep. Within an hour my heart rate went up to 170 and wouldn't come down through medication. The paramedics came and gave me an EKG en route to the ER, which confirmed Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome which had been diagnosed a few months before at home but which I hadn't thought was important. This time the doctor explained what it meant. Essentially, there is an extra electrical pathway from the sino-atrial node to the ventricles, and if the electrical impulses go down that way one can get tachycardia and die. So, the next day I went down to Tucson Medical Center and had a procedure known as an oblation where they threaded a needle through my femoral artery up to the heart and cauterized the piece of tissue that was the cause of the problem. While waiting for my ride I was moaning and weeping in the lobby of my lodge, and the nurses said if I didn't calm down [i.e., shut up] they would send for an ambulance to transfer me downtown. Knowing that would set me back an extra grand as my insurance was only a catastrophic plan forced me to suppress the emotion. I felt my life was over. During the procedure there was no pain, I wasn't unconscious, and was back the same night. Yet a sense of my mortality was growing. Only a few years before I was running like the wind through the mountains in a second youth; now, I was getting a heart operation like an old man!
Despite the drugs, powerful unconscious energies were upswelling, keeping me awake. The body-mind, I later concluded, with an inherently strong constitution was struggling against the mind’s attempts to numb it out. It wasn’t until the last week of my stay that I actually slept more than two hours a night (which can really make one raw), and I attribute that to a sleep apnea machine, purchased after another couple of nights in a hospital for a sleep study. One thing after the other kept the castle of my ego crumbling. I thought I had given up, that I had had enough, but I guess I hadn't, not quite yet. Anthony Damiani was once asked, “Can you surrender without knowing it?” He replied, “Don’t worry, it will be the most agonising thing you’ve ever gone through.” Anthony was right.
Throughout my stay my blood pressure became a cardiologist's nightmare. Whether it was because of the extremes of internal vigilence due to the eruption of unconscious content, or both that and the wide variety and quantity of pharmaceuticals injested, on any one day (or morning or afternoon) it would range from 160/105 to 120/80 (normal). My pulse rate (which, as a runner, had stabilised at about 50, but as a non-runner was 70-75), would swing from 50 one morning, to 105 the next, and even vary that much in the same day, even without my conscious awareness of it. So they put me on high blood pressure medication, which didn't eradicate the wild swings, but brought it down maybe ten per cent. Later I learned that that's about what you can expect from each BP med. Which is why they often keep increasing the dosage, or prescribe multiple medications. I had been a near-vegetarian for forty years, I thought, this shouldn't have been happening! It was humiliating, heck, my mother was on blood pressure medication - I wasn't that old! or was I?
In restrospect, I conclude that the extremes of heart rate and blood pressure were due to the same causes as the insomnia: my body's inherent resiliency and attempts at restoring the system to normalcy. I later read:
"The heartbeat in young, healthy people is highly irregular. But heart beating patterns tend to become very regular and predictable as people get older or as their hearts become diseased. The greater the HRV [heart rate variability], the more complex the heart's beating patterns are and the healthier the heart is." (23)
During my stay I had frequent melt-downs and had to have the evening-weekends counsellors come to my room on numerous occasions to talk me out of a deep hole. I would hit my head against the wall because of the pain I was in. An expensive water bottle given to me at the start of my stay had to be replaced a few times at my own expense because I would inevitably break them out of frustration against the wooden beams of the lodge. Many nights I would go out alone to the far reaches of an open field encircled by a walking track and yell into the high desert, begging to God, Master, Jesus, Mom and Dad, the universe, for help, I felt so alone. The kind of alone that people can't help you with.
The daily routine at Sierra Tucson consisted of light exercise (optional), a two-hour group therapy session, CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) and DBT (dialectical behavioral therapy), psycho-drama, outdoor activites, weekly one-on-one therapy sessions, free time in the pool or weight-room, twelve-step groups (optional, but heavily weighted for those who were there for alcoholism, child abuse, and eating disorders, and the twelve-step culture permeated the entire environment), meditation (optional), a host of modalities such as somatic experiencing, somatic release, massage, accupuncture, EMDR (elective), and 'homework', consisting of, for the mood disorder group I was in, writing three grief letters, constructing a life 'timeline', and filling out a large packet of introspective questions including a daunting fifteen page one called 'is my life manageable?' Most put these assignments off until the last minute as they seemed quite overwhelming when first received. On the last day of my stay I finally read my “is my life manageable?” essay to the group and, according to the therapist, was the first one ever to receive a standing ovation. It was gritty, street-talking, heart-bareing, and also reflective of a re-awakening to what I call 'basic sanity,' or which some refer to as 'sound mind,' which is essentially when the inner becomes as the outer. It was the return of a recognition in consciousness that my ‘case’ was basically unreal. Or, one might say, when there is no more hope, one stops trying - trying to get better, to be somebody with a problem. I am not saying it happened in a snap, for I had really gone far down the road to ruin. But there was light at the end of the tunnel. As Shakespeare wrote, "Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, Which we ascribe to Heaven." Yet, that had a part in it, too.
During week three of one's stay they had what was called 'family week'. This was to be a turn-around for me. Although I was fearful anticipating it, my wife and two grown stepsons flew out for four highly structured days of activities. On day one we didn't see each other, as they had their own classes and groups, getting familiar with the therapeutic model and language of the place. Day two was the big one, affectionately called 'levelling.' Here, in group, the patient sits in a chair opposite each family member who, in turn, eye to eye, gets to read some prepared observations and comments about things that had bothered them about you. I was deeply moved when each of my stepsons, now in their early thirties, were in tears as they told me how devastated they would be if anything happened to me. My wife tried hard to hold it together but couldn't as she told me with emotion I had never seen in her before how much she had missed me the past five years and wanted me back. During this the patient was not allowed to give any feedback. On the second day, the roles were reversed. They were each in the 'hot seat' while I read my feelings about things they did or ways they behaved around me. This was much less intense than day two. At this point, my feelings seem petty compared to what they had revealed. I had little to say, other than that I was proud of them and that I loved them. Day three was a wrap-up, with some role-playing and boundary setting. After lunch, the four of us were sitting outside when finally it was time to go. My eldest step-son (a fire-chief captain) said good-bye and sweetly placed a kiss on the top of my head.
All of these years, no matter how I tried to give my step children things I never had, like taking them on nice vacations, ski trips, golfing, mountain climbing, teaching them to drive and buying them cars, etc., I never could shake the feeling off being the 'bad step-dad', because, lacking the genetic tie and natural love connection, as kids do they were always pushing my buttons and it was hard not to react, and not always in a nice way. But to hear their confessions made me realise how much of an impact I had made on their lives, and I was affected deeply. I guess I wasn't so bad after all. I knew it before intellectually, but not emotionally. I had blamed myself for taking them away from their father, flying them across the country from Louisiana to California, even though I married my wife after she had gotten a divorce. However, after being in the natural beauty of the Golden State, they came to call their previous home 'Lousy-ana' !
Looking back, it was a period of difficult, although ultimately rewarding, 'householder sadhana.'
Eventually, through a loving environment, a good therapist, serious inner work, surrender, and, basically, the 'grace of God', I began, despite the drugs, to notice a growing certitude of my self (the deep 'me'), that slowly started coming out of a terminal nose-dive into the snake-pit. After returning home there were a few very difficult months, but my sense of ‘self’ as opposed to ego defenses came back and creativity amped up beyond what I never expected to see again. Saturn had moved on, Pluto sextiled my Mercury and the writing took a new and deeper direction. With each exercise in drafting a new article that comes magically from somewhere within and without, almost like automatic writing, I feel my frontal cortex regrowing after the indirect 'trepanning' from the ECT. And the soul gets affirmation, too. I am back at work, effective and efficient, and relative harmony reigns at home once again.
Even so, with all this, as Papaji often said, “nothing ever happened.” (LOL). Reminds me of a famous story about Krishna explaining the power of illusion that goes like this:
"The Sage Narada once asked Sri Krishna to describe maya. Sri Krishna said, 'Very well, but first you must go and bring me a little water to drink.' Narada went to a nearby village to get the water, and there he met a young woman to whom he was instantly attracted. They were married, had several children, and were very happy. Then came a terrible flood and all the houses were washed away. Narada was struggling in the water to hold on to his wife and children, but they were pulled away from his arms one after another. He was trying to stay afloat himself when he heard Sri Krishna's voice calling, 'Oh, Narada - where is my water?' Then Narada understood what maya is." (23a)
According to the bhakti saints of India, maya is the creative aspect of God as the Divine Mother. We should never get too egotistical about maya, thinking, 'maya has no power over me.' We must always remember that if maya is not gracious, we forget God. One stupid mistake - even though there are no mistakes - gotta say that to remain politically correct - can lead one down an endless labyrinthine chain of confounding karmic events. Great beings have fallen due to the bewitching wiles of maya. Technically, I had not forgotten God, never doubted it really, but perhaps I was relying too much on myself, which was essentially the same thing?
An image of the disappearance of the sense of ‘dilemma’ comes to mind in the movie “City of Joy” with Patrick Swazy, where he plays a doctor in the slums of Calcutta who befriends a man harrassed by Indian mobsters. The final scene has the camera raising up from the action on the street, the city lights gradually receding to but a point on the planet, as if the whole drama was insignificant and ‘never happened.’ That’s how this whole saga seems to me.
So that’s my story on the limits of “awareness” in keeping one free from descending into pain and despair!
It is also a story of the power of grace to hold one in its arms while tempering one like a sword thrust again and again into the fire only be made stronger in the end. For the thin human reed can only take so much strain before it breaks. “There but for the grace of God go I.” Those words mean more to me now. People I know still do not yet have total faith in my process, but I sense it is real and enduring. After all, it's been going on my whole life and is not separate from me anyway. Yet there is a deeper trust that wasn’t there before. What did Anthony enjoy quoting from Taoist sage Wang Yang-Ming? “One will die a hundred deaths and undergo a hundred sufferings.” That's what my enlightened friend told me about Kirpal Singh when I was in India, that "he had died many times." Baba Sawan Singh used to say,
”When a true saint takes one under his wing he is anxious to compress twenty lifetimes into one, and if we expect to compress twenty lives into one, we must pay for it.”
Without knowing it, I had basically asked for both barrels back in 1973 when I had surrendered in a heap at the feet of the Master, without exactly knowing that I was doing it, or what I had in fact 'volunteered' for. But grace takes you at your word. It knows better than you do whether or not you really mean it. I consider the whole sequence of events karmic purification, for lack of a better explanation. The beauty of it is that I have never known exactly what is going on. If I did it would no doubt have spoiled it. It has actually been a bargain, however.
In another sense, what I realised was that the meaning of what had 'happened', outside of time, in 1973 was, as Jesus expressed on the cross, 'it is finished.' That is, I could finally rest in the assurance that all is well and that I am complete, perfect, and 'finished' always and already, no matter what may appear to suggest otherwise. This takes a leap of faith and does not imply there is not more to endure or that this is somehow 'the end.' The 'finish' and the 'end' are not the same.
Since getting back from Arizona in March of 2011, I have engaged in a strengthened natural regime. I am almost off all drugs. My psychiatrist back home, when I asked him, "how long will I have to take the zoloft?", said, "well, at your age one can expect to take it for the rest of your life." Mentally I said, "you're crazy! That's no way to live!" I began a taper and noticed no difference whatsoever. No running yet - that life seems over - but lots of immune, brain, mood, and cardiovascular boosting nutriceuticals, including flax oil, fish oil, 5000 I.U. Vitamin D3, Resveratrol, 5-HTP, PS (phosphatidylserine), L-Tyrosine, vitamin E (especially gamma-todopherol, the primary brain cell anti-oxidant), Chlorella, Spirulina, Wheat Grass, Rainbow Light multi-vitamin-minerals, Red Rice Yeast, CoQ10, 200SX Nat. Mur. homeopathic, and Vitamin C 2000 mg. The fish oils and 5-HTP are also as effective long term as any anti-depressant, and without side effects. For the vegetarians out there, you can take flax oil, supplemented with a vegetarian source of DHA made from algae. I was pretty conscious of all of this before, but it still couldn't stop the 'primal tide' from occuring. [By the way, anyone out there on statin drugs for cholesterol, keep in mind you can get the same results with fish oil, red rice yeast, and CoQ10 - they even come in one pill from Nordic Naturals. If you are on statins, moreover, if your doctor hasn't told you you need to take CoQ10, he is guilty of malpractice, in my opinion; statins destroy CoQ10, which can lead to heart damage and is an essential nutrient for all cellular metabolism. And then there are the unpredictable side effects: rhabdomyalisis (muscle breakdown and weakness), jaw necrosis (bone death), tumors, and a whole host of things that Mandy Patinkin descending a spiral staircase glowingly warns you about on TV!]
To harmonize the etheric and subtle bodies I had acupuncture treatments three times a week for a month, then two, now one, from a nationally recognised master of the art. I was never very sensitive to the needles before, but something had changed inside and I can now really feel the flow of the meridians. At my first visit I had him check my blood pressure, which was an astonishing 105/50! I quit the BP medication, and things stayed the same. So, what do they know? When I left Sierra Tucson they had wanted to up my dosage. Now BP is stable at 117/75. By the way, my accupuncturist has been at it forty years, worked on Chogyam Trungpa and knew the Karmapa, and we share a lot of stories. I get regular chiropractic, too - after all, for me it's free due to professional courtesy! I walk, stretch, jog a little, and, while I am still serious (Capricorn rising, Saturn in Virgo exactly trine the Ascendant and opposite Mercury), I cut myself some slack as well (Sun, Mercury, Mars, and Venus in Pisces - I'm basically an easy guy).
Swami Ranganathananda, translator of the Vivekachudamani of Sankara, says that the brain is the seat of buddhi, discriminative intelligence, in the body, and I suspect that the frontal and prefrontal cortex was an evolutionary development to allow fuller expression of that critical faculty in human development. So it pays to keep it in shape. Anthony once said, "why do you think they went to all that trouble to give you all of those brains if they weren't meant to be used? They'll be enough, believe me, if you use them." All levels need attention, we are living beings, after all. To say that it is all 'consciousness' may or may not be philosophically correct, but it isn't always too practical. Anyway, thanks for listening. I hope this story is useful for someone. As the reader will see below, not all advaitists disbelieve in the telling of 'stories'. It can be good for you. They aren't happening to 'no-one,' they happen to you. You may not know who 'you' are, but that's who they happen to!!
Big breath......aahhhh......Okay....To continue, anadi says that at some point one realises that he must begin to call upon the divine:
“Both, the negation of personality, where one chooses to rest in the inner state, and psychological work without the essential presence of I Am, are incomplete. The psyche must be re-aligned with the pure me [soul]. This is a complex process, for the mind and emotional body are not conscious and have been crystallised throughout many lifetimes and numberless experiences. Even from this lifetime we carry so many wounds, blocked energies and unconscious negative patterns, that we can hardly conceive of healing all of them. For this reason, higher technology is needed, an intervention of grace.”
Much purification of the psyche (mentally, emotionally, and morally) needs to occur before true awakening, as PB emphasized, but afterwards there is the possibility and strength for going much deeper and 'knitting' the personality even closer to the soul. That is what anadi is addressing:
"Even in the case of masters who had a sudden awakening...the evolution didn't stop. The gradual process of maturation was present before their awakening and certainly after. There are different stages of enlightenment. Not everyone who reaches enlightenment is in the ultimate state. Therefore, it is more true to say that there is evolution, there is a gradual process through which one reaches deeper and deeper the depth of the I AM."
This is what Adyashanti referred to as progressive revelations of "stillness within stillness."
"In Advaita Vedanta, when they speak about the Self, we might assume that it refers to one area of experience, to one reality which is common to all awakened beings. In this way one either recognises the Self or one does not, and there is nothing in-between. But, in reality, the Self is multidimensional and is not always revealed fully to the awakened being...One can experience some aspects of the ultimate or one can be fully awakened, merging with the wholeness. The level of Self-realisation reflects our own expansion an growth into "who I am." Awakening to the Self does not mean that suddenly one remembers what one has forgotten. [Indeed, anadi says that we are born in this realm of forgetfulness, and must strive to 'remember our future', our destiny, not our past, for we have never actually been born as a soul before. Woah.] It is the whole expansion of energy and consciousness; one becomes wider and wider, reaching deeper and deeper the heart of reality...The growth, the expansion into the inner states (24) and understanding should always accompany each other. If there is no understanding, the experience of the I Am is dull and without depth. We grow in understanding and in sensitivity; we meet the eternal with our own intelligence and our own heart."
After the realisation of the soul, then, which itself generally depends on the mature and stable awakening of the three centres of the I Am: awareness, being, and heart [which can be considered to be the meaning behind the description 'Sat-Chit-Ananda,' and not merely three aspects of 'consciousness,' as is traditionally maintained, which is more one-dimensional thinking], one can further call on the creator to bring one deeper into wholeness. For the soul does not truly know herself except within unity with the I AM:
“Soon one discovers how helpless one is in the attempt to bring about the radical and full transformation of the way the psyche operates. It is at this stage that one needs to invite consciously the help of the divine. Only the one who created us can finally transform us. In Rumi’s words: “whoever brought me here will have to take me home.”
“The healing and transformation of me does not happen through awareness. One can witness the mind for a hundred years and it will remain the same! transformation takes place through the Heart. The heart has transforming power, the power of grace.”
“Certain teachings assume that observing the mind or witnessing the mind is sufficient to transform it. Behind this concept is an incomplete psychological understanding of who we really are. Observing gives you a certain space of freedom and distance. We may assume that the observed (the psychological self) is not me, therefore, it has no longer any impact on our well-being. But, unfortunately, the situation is a bit more complex. The observed in the mind is also me. That’s why those who exercise observing of the mind, in truth, at all times need to use strong will in order to remain disidentified! Because the observed and the observer are both me, that’s why, more holistic understanding and inner work is required...This that changes the mind is a combination of understanding, the centre of awareness, presence of the heart, and a certain cleansing of the subconscious mind...Why is the heart so important in the transforming process? Because the soul is in the heart and the soul is linked with the power of grace directly. Here, you express clearly the intention of changing youself and ask deeply for help from the divine...it is beyond human capacity to cleanse the mind, which has been crystallised from the infinite past. But grace does it. It is not necessarily a sudden event, it is a process, it is evolution.” 25)
And further:
"How does the [subconscious] mind become cleansed? Because of its unknown nature, purification is often believed to be a function of grace. This is true provided we take grace to be an organic process intrinsic to evolution rather than a miraculous event. Purification occurs naturally, in accordance with our evolutionary timing, karma, destiny, and blueprint. Grace is eternally present in the heart of the soul, and progressively manifests as we mature to the point of transformation. So while our cooperation is the most crucial condition for purification, it does not in itself result in complete purification. Rather, it is a preparation for higher energies and consciousness to enter our being. What supports our cleansing the most is having an open heart that can bridge our human psyche with the plane of the soul and serve as a portal to the grace of the divine...When all other relative means prove insufficient, we find our deepest power in the strength of our intention...The force of universal intelligence, which is based on the wisdom and grace of the creator, naturally responds to the sincerity of our intention to seek purity and freedom, and manifests the necessary assistance." (26)
Adyashanti seems to have come to this essential point of view:
“To me there's the witness that's often talked about in spirituality, the witness that is transcendent of and inherently different from the object which it witnesses. This kind of witness is, at least in part, a creation of mind. To witness in this independent way is not really the movement of our true nature. In relation to this whole idea of embodiment and the unwinding of one's own conditioning, this distant witness has very little effect on the most powerful elements of our conditioned self. Witnessing certain parts of our own conditioning from the outside is enough for relatively minor or not so deeply entrenched parts of separateness to melt away. Yet that simply doesn't work for the deep, really core remaining pieces. There needs to be a deeper death into what is - a yielding to being awake. Otherwise we're using our own awakeness to distance ourselves, rather than yielding - to what it really means to be fully awake. What it means to be fully awake is to be not only fully conscious but to be fully feeling, to be fully experiencing.” (27)
Jeff Foster also is in humble agreement:
"The Advaita concept “THERE IS NOBODY HERE WHO SUFFERS! THERE IS NO SUFFERING!” doesn’t even begin to capture the richness of human experience and the possible beauty in suffering. Although in an ultimate sense it might be true, nobody lives in ‘an ultimate sense’ – and if they think they do, I wonder what sort of denial is going on. When suffering is understood and therefore loved, there is no need to deny it in this way – all human experience is embraced in this seeing…and that’s really the end of seeking, now, now and now. The end of seeking, right at the heart of this human experience. No need for any talk of the ‘impersonal’ – the appearance of the personal contains all the grace that’s needed. All Advaita/Nondual concepts dissolve into the clarity of life itself. That’s true freedom, I feel." (28)
And right here he finally honestly says something I have been trying to express for years. Thanks, Jeff.
What these teachers are coming to, in my opinion, is that if one thinks he can merely observe the mind, see the body as just a 'thought,' or analyze it into its Buddhist skandhas, he had better hope that he has 'the karmic load of a gnat,' as Adya once quipped. For in a practical sense 'the body has a mind of its own.' Many advaitic followers often appears to be in the position of Chester A. Riley [so endearingly portrayed on the television show “The Life of Riley” by William Bendix] who said, “my mind is made up - don’t confuse me with the facts!” Without grace, support from the esoteric dimensions, either directly through the higher power or a master, and true prayer from the bleeding heart, one is likely to be disappointed at his lack of real change. First there is rain, then flowers, then fruit. If there is no rain, then...? If one isn't there yet he needs to work - and beg - for it. What else can one do? Anandamayee Ma said, "By this (crying) all will be achieved."
Ramana said that one must stabilise the awakened state by "scorching the vasanas,” or latent tendencies of egoity, “in the heart.” Yet, how many are actually capable of this? Who can eradicate his own karmas? Ramana had a realisation of the depths of the heart - in the beyond - the 'other dimension'. For him 'scorching the vasanas,' or 'reining in the wandering or extroverted mind,' had a much deeper significance than the limited mental efforts of the average seeker attempting the same. Wherefore the need for even awakened souls to appeal to a higher power for help. This is not a concession to ignorance, but the natural urge of the human spirit.
Brunton explains why such a process must necessarily take time:
"The depth to be penetrated from the surface to the deepest layers of the human psyche is too great to be reached quickly without acute sacrifice and intense anguish. " (29)
And what does the "deepest layers of the human psyche" mean? Simply, the deepest levels of the human heart, which is where one finds the soul, and the soul meets the beloved. It's not a place, yet, then again, it IS.
And what is considered 'negative extroversion' for the beginner, who must build a fence around his spiritual efforts to prevent him from straying from his centre, becomes fearless, 'boundless extroversion' for the awakened embodied soul.
Once again, why does one choose to petition the higher power for such cleansing, even after one has awakened? The answer that anadi gives is that it is for the soul’s true completion, as well as to be of greater service to others. anadi echoes here much the same thought as PB, that there are two parallel processes going on, the soul’s awakening, and the ego’s mental and emotional development and perfection, or perhaps better said, its re-alignment with the native purity of the soul. First, PB wrote:
"How can man fully express himself unless he fully develops himself? The spiritual evolution which requires him to abandon the ego runs parallel to the mental evolution which requires him to perfect it...The ego is a part of the divine order of existence. It must emerge, grow, enslave, and finally be enslaved..." (30)
And:
"One is both in the body and in the Overself. There is..no contradiction between the two." (31)
This fundamental and irreduceable paradox is the reason for the parallel - and ultimately singular or holistic - development.
anadi states:
“The evolution of me, the evolution of the psyche, and the evolution into the I AM, are not the same but parallel. In our journey into wholeness, we are not only awakening the [individual] I Am, but purifying our me, too..When the soul wishes to purify the me, she naturally attracts the power of grace who enters and does the final work...For that reason, it is so important to pray for help to the other dimension.”
“There are two ways. The soul has a choice either to completely negate the personality, the me, or to accept it as a part of her multidimensional wholeness. In the first case, one, being rooted in the I Am, denies the reality of me. This approach is popular on the Advaita path, for example. In the second case, the soul takes the resonsibility for her me. In order to transform me, one has to become responsible for it! You need to take responsibility for your me. You need to acknowledge that all feelings, responses, desires and fears which you experience are part of You...Both [approaches are] valid, but from the perspective of a complete human being, the second is more holistic. That is the difference between liberation and transcendance. In order to become liberated, it is enough to reach the inner state and to negate me. But transcendance takes place when the presence of the inner state embraces the wholeness of me. Here, one truly transcends.”
He further explains how this error began:
"A long time ago, in India, a concept was created that one is not a doer, that one is purely a witness. This concept is coming from the awakening to the centre of consciousness. When the state of presence is awakened, the mind becomes witnessed from behind and moves to the periphery. the movement of thoughts is no longer in the centre. In the centre is this non-dual awareness which is, so to speak, witnessing the mind. This concept, however, is not completely correct. This concept implies that one identifies oneself fully with the state of presence and refuses to see the self-conscious movement of intelligence as being an integral part of me. In this way we perceive the mind and its intelligence as something just happening on the screen of consciousness, and not being me. However, much more accurate is to say that they both constitute the reality of me. You are the witness and you are the intuitive intelligence as well...and, in truth, it is only because you are this intelligence that you can discover the state of presence and are able to relate to it...The traditional teachings, which have been created a few thousand years ago, did not discover how the inner state [I Am] and the movement of intelligence relate to each other. That's why, the psychology which has been proposed by them is unable to explain fully the inner processes and the process of awakening...Who is the one recognising the state of presence? Who is the one who is appreciating the state of presence? Who is the one who is observing the state of presence? It is YOU as the intelligence, without this intelligence you would be dead...it is important....Who we are in the mind, is composed of two centres. One is the static centre of the state of presence which does not change; Second, is the dynamic centre of our intelligence. This dynamic centre is always in movement, and it relates to both: to the state of presence and to the gross level of spontaneous thinking coming from the subconscious mind. This intuitive intelligence is very important for it allows us to grow and to understand the process of awakening."
"There are certain schools which negate the mind, which speak about "no-mind" and try to cut off any kind of inquiry into the nature of truth. These schools are too extreme. Of course, the essence of spiritual discipline is the state prior to thought, deeper than the mind, but it does not mean that the mind is to be negated. It is to be embraced, included as an inherent part of who we are and this mind has to grow. Intelligence is a combination of intellect and heart, sensitivity and comprehension."
"Next important question: who is truly the one who has arrived at our meeting? Who is enduring pain in the knees in order to bring more peace into the mind? Who wishes to be happy? Who is longing to escape from sorrow and human sadness? This is not the same question as "who is observing the mind?" The observer is not the essence of you. the observer is merely our centre in the mind, in consciousness. Your true identity is the soul which, by the design of the human body, is located in the middle of the chest...What is the soul? It is the unique, individual flavour of me which is experienced in the heart. The soul is using the mind, she is using awareness and is resting in being, but herself is dwelling in the heart. The purpose of the awakening of the heart is not merely to generate feelings of compassion and love, but essentially to recognise the light of our soul."
"Generally speaking, there is enlightenment to the Self, and there is enlightenment to the soul. The Self represents the unity of pure awareness and being [Sri Nisargadatta might be an example of this; he spoke chiefly about consciousness and the absolute state]. The soul represents the essence of me in the heart [this would be more like Ramakrishna, or Ramana, who embodied the aspects of being and the heart]. They are not the same, although they complement each other....The soul, which is in the heart, is like a child. If you look at yourself deeply, you are just a child. You are not a child of your physical parents but of the divine, of the universal mother. This feeling of child-like quality in the heart has been lost; we have become too adult, too gross in the way we experience our heart. But this child is still there and has not changed! It is always pure and always innocent...It has certain desires, longings and fears. These feelings are real and need to be acknowledged for they come from the soul, not from the mind."
As Ramana said:
"Unless one becomes a six-month old baby, there is no hope for one in the realm of Self-knowledge."
And here, in my opinion, are the clinchers:
"As you can see, in our vision of enlightenment we do not negate the soul and we do not negate human nature. We don't negate certain essential vulnerability in our heart which, in truth,is pure sensitivity. We do not negate the presence of desires and, above all, the desire to be happy and fulfilled in all areas, not just spiritual."
"There are two sides of evolution. One is the side of ignorance, the darkness of forgetfulness. here, we are trying to get out of the mud of unconsciousness and negativity. The other side of evolution is already within the awakening. One is already a part of the wholeness, but the evolution continues. There are more secrets. It is not only about getting out of suffering as the Buddhists imagine. Here expansion takes place within the already present happiness."
“If one wishes to awaken the soul, the me must be accepted. If one wishes to negate me completely, the soul cannot become awakened. It is through me that the soul recognises its own light. Otherwise, she simply dissolves into the I AM. In the first approach, only this into what we dissolve is recognised. The one who dissolves is not seen. Traditionally, the question “who is experiencing the I AM?” was designed to negate the me. The expected conclusion was that there is nobody experiencing anything. There is nobody in terms of a specific entity, or a solid ego. However, when we use more subtle tools, sensitive tools in this inquiry, we will find that there is someone there, and this someone is our soul.” (32)
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1. Adyashanti, The Impact of Awakening, reference misplaced
2. James Schwartz, How To Attain Enlightenment (Boulder, Colorado: First Sentient Publications, Inc, 2009), p. 26
3. Aziz Kristof (Anadi), Transmission of Awakening (Delhi, India: Motilal Banarsidass, 1999), p. 302
4. Baird T. Spalding, Life and Teaching of the Masters of the Far East , Vol. IV (Marina Del Rey, California: De Vorss & Co., 1948 (1976), p. 187
5. Franklin Jones, The Spiritual Instructions of Saint Seraphim of Sarov: A Siddha or Master-Yogi of the Eastern Christian Tradition (Los Angeles, CA: The Dawn Horse Press, 1973), p. 54
6. Baha’ u’llah, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf (Wilmette, Illinois: Bahai Publishing Trust, 1953), p. 22
6a. Swami Vivekananda, Meditation and Its Methods (Hollywood, California: Vedanta press, 1976), p. 74
7. Kirpal Singh, A Brief Life Sketch of Hazur Baba Sawan Singh; also quoted in Portrait of Perfection (Bowling Green, Virginia: Sawan Kirpal Publications, 1981), p. 44-45
8. Babuji Maharaj , Notes of Discourses, Radha Soami Satsang, Agra, 1947), p. 80, 117
9. Sat Sandesh, "Eternal Marriage" (Naperville, Illinois: SK Publications, March 2011), p. 10-11
10. "As he gets older, he grows more and more happy and peaceful. After all, he is going home. Like a traveler nearing his destination and collecting his luggage, he leaves the train without regret. The reel of destiny is coming to its end—the mind is happy. The mist of bodily existence is lifting—the burden of the body is growing less from day to day." (from I AM THAT)
11. Kristof, op. cit., p. 222
12. anadi, book of enlightenment (www,anaditeaching.com, 2011), p. 26-27
13. Ibid, p. 226-227
15. Rick Hanson with Richard Mendius, Buddha's Brain (Oakland, California: New Harbinger Publications, Inc., 2009), p. 9
16. Baird T. Spalding, op. cit., Vol. III, p. 184
17. Paul Brunton, The Notebooks of Paul Brunton (Burdett, New York: Larson Publications, 1988), Vol. 14, 6.265, 27; 3.401, 394; Vol. 16, Part 1, 2.194; Part 2, 2.142 2.142
18. Kristof, op. cit., p. 288-289, 294
19. Ibid, p. 302
20. Ibid
21. Ibid, p. 65
22. Ram Alexander, Death Must Die: A Western Woman's Life-Long Spiritual Quest in India with Shree Anandamayee Ma (Varanasi, India: Indica Books, 2006 (2002), p. 199, 424
23. Stephen Harrod Buhner, The Secret Teachings of Plants: The Intelligence of the Heart in the Direct Perception of Nature (Rochester, Vermont: Bear & Company, 2004), p. 105
23a. Awami Lokeswarananda, The Way To God As Taught By Sri Ramakrishna (Calcutta, India: The Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, 1992), p. 78
24. [Note: the term 'Inner' here does not mean mystical, which is still 'outer' or objective; it refers to the inherently subjective realisations; as PB once said, "the Overself's without is our within."]
25. Kristof, op. cit., p. 66-67, 154, 184, 274-276
26. anadi, op. cit., p. 186, 184
27. Adyashanti, “Love Returning to Itself”, The Sacred Mirror: Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy, ed John J. Prenderegast, Peter Fenner, Sheila Krystal (St. Paul, Minnesota: Paragon House, 2003), p. 64, 62
28. "A Short Note About Suffering” by Jeff Foster (www.lifewithoutacentre.com)
29. Paul Brunton, op. cit., Vol. 9, 1.277
30. Ibid, Vol. 6, 1.158, 1.165
31. Ibid, Vol. 6, 8:1.127
32. Kristof, op. cit., p. 297-298, 115, 157-158, 220, 148-149, 124
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