The realm of the deepest Yogic attainemt is 'earned' by living a moral life, by selfless work (free of charge), by dealing with/healing psycho-emotional traumas & developmental needs and taking up some kind of spiritual practice. . .(and) at some point, the impulse to submit one's will to the Divine Will, and then invoking the Holy Spirit/the Shekinah Glory/the Goddess Kundalini/ Christ/ Kwan Yin, etcetera, *for its 'Support'* arises spontaneously.
Developmental (evolutionary) stages can't be skipped - and what I share is definitely not everyone's cup of tea, because it is written from the: 'Immortal being (fully ascended Soul) became a vehicle of Consciousness/Divine Transcendent Source-Condition of everything that's arising' , perspective.
The life-mind preoccupied with other matters is not ready for this type of spiritual life - and it is perfectly fine with me, from the: 'been there, done that', perspective. I don't wish to convince anyone what I share is true. I don't wish to instruct others what to do/practice, because at this stage the Divine Grace is in 'charge'. I say, 'find out for yourself and lets compare notes'.
My intent in bearing witness to what happens on the Path without a map is to 'show' (unpack decades worth of Yogic science data confirmed by those who are qualified) what needs to happen before one becomes 'ready' for the descent *via the Crown chakra* of (divine) Peace, the descent of Force or Power, the descent of Ananda. . .which one feels in every fiber of one's being as Bliss unchanging, and with spiritualized consciousness sees *via open Third Eye on the subtle and very subtle levels* its Influence in a form of an aura-field of Light around head/body 24/7, and the kind of Peace and Bliss that passes human comprehension (final Samadi).
Many years ago (already premanently established 1994) I named the Golden Light aura and next-to-skin a narrow band of Blue Light (seemless) 'Heavenly Robe'. . .and thought one day I will discover in some esoteric book these Lights' significance. Years passed before I saw Aurobindo's statements on what the various Lights (including 'diamond white', and 'silver ray'), represent. And, if anyone wonders what it 'felt' like to have 'by fluke' discovered these (uncreated) Lights, I say 'as normal or as natural as eating breakfast.' . . . And when I read that Aurobindo said that the, "Blue is Krishna's special and significant colour, the colour of his aura when he manifests - that is why he is called Nila Krishna. + Krishna is not the supramental Light. The descent of Krishna would mean the descent of the overmind Godhead preparing, though not itself actually, the desent of supermind and Ananda. Krishna is Anandamaya; he supports the evolution through the overmind leading towards Ananda", I thought, 'this makes perfect sense'. Again, 'nothing special, just something that makes sense'.
Anyone whose Karma placed on same 'status', would have the same reaction. In other words, anyone who realizes 'I was born with unbroken continuity of awareness', would know we 'earned this' by sumbmitting our lower nature to the Lord of Ananda in previous incarnations.
World's great wisdom traditions have differnt names for this Light Body, and today I am happy to quote from article penned by John White, titled: Enlightenment and the Body of Light, descriptions for 'Light Body' in different wisdom traditions.
"Some of the names given to the body of light are as follows:
* In the Judeo-Christian tradition, it is called "the resurrection body" and "the glorified body." The prophet Isaiah said, "The dead shall live, their bodies shal rise" (isa, 26:19). St, Paul called it "the celestial body" or "spiritual body".
* In Sufism it is called "the most sacred body" (wujud al-aquadas) and "supercelestial body" (jism asli haqiqi).
* In Taoism, it is called "the diamond body," and those who have attained it are called "the immortals" and "the cloudwalkers"."
* In Tibetan Buddhism it is called "the light body." * In Tantrism and some schools of yoga, it is called "the vajra body," "the adamantine body,: and "the divine body."
* In Kriya yoga it is called "the body of bliss."
* In Vedanta it is called "the superconductive body."
* In Gnosticisim and Neoplatism, it is called "the radiant body."
* In the alchemical tradition, the Emerald Tablet calls it "the Glory of the Whole Universe" and "the golden body." The alchemist Paracelsus called it "the astral body."
* In the Hermetic Corpus, it is called "the immortal body" (soma athanaton).
* In some mystery schools, it is called "the solar body."
* In Rosicrucianism, it is called "the diamond body of the temple of God."
* In Old Persia it was called "the indwelling divine potential" (fravashi or fravarti).
* In the Mithraic liturgy it was called "the perfect body" (soma teilion).
* In the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, it is called "the divine body, : composed of supramental substance.
* In the philosophy of Teilhard de Chardin, it is called "the ultrahuman."
Further, John White writes: "The traditions speak of the process in different ways. Is the immortal body created or released, attained or manifested? Is it preexistent within the individual and the gross matter body simply "burnd" away? Or is the gross matter of the body altered through a process not yet recognized by physical science, which changes atoms of flesh into something unnamed on the Periodic Table Elemnts? Is there more than one route to the final, perfected form of the human body-mind? Is it necessary to actually die biologically, or is there an alternate path to the light body that bypasses physical death?
These are provocative questions which remain to be explored. However this state is achieved, the perfected individual is then capable of operating within ordinary space-time through that altered vehicle of consciousness which is immortal. That vehicle of consciousness is no longer carbon-based as is biological flesh. Rather, it is composed of a finer, more ethereal form of energy substance unknown to conventional physics, but long known to metaphysics and higher mysticism. That condition is, for the individual, the most exalted stage of higher human development; for humanity in general, it is the final stage of evolution."
So there we have it. Good questions. . .which one who attains the 'Immortal Soul' status, can answer in detail.
I tried to find John White on the internet and failed. I made several attempts to contact other (authors) scholars who study world's wisdom traditions and failed. I know already, even if I did find/made contact, they wouldn't be able with the mind's intellect accept my Depth data's 'results'. I know this would happen, because I have engadged scholars who studied 'wisdom traditions' in Facebook Group, who ended up blocking me. . .These guys (several men who blocked me) in their podcast bubbles with like-minds say things like: 'it will be thousands of years before we know the ultimate Truth.'
How dare I, a female, and a big nobody who doesn't shower them with praises, dares to bother the big shots! how dare I waste their time?
I am grateful for Sri Aurobindo, who knew that the Guardians of Light, know our moral duty is to obey the inner call of our vocation, no matter what! We crave not 'recognition' from anyone. . .and, instead, enjoy supporting like-minded 'Light Guardians'.
Will end this riff on something Aurobindo said with regard to, 'Trust the Divine Will and its Support'. . .without which our life would be unbearable:
"It is only divine love which can bear the burden I have to bear, that all have to bear who have sacrificed everything else to the aim of uplifting earth of its darkness towards the Divine. The Galileo-like 'I don't care' would not carry me one step; it would certainly not be divine. It is quite another thing that enables me to walk unweeping and unlamenting towards the goal." + "One cannot be said to be in the full Yogic condition - for the purpose of this Yoga - if one cannot take up with willingness any work given to one as an offering to the Divine."
Thursday, December 29, 2022
Saturday, September 10, 2022
Legacy of Eternal Value
The final Samadhi state - the result of permanent state of union of the Soul with the Supreme Beloved's Essence - can't be reached by thought clawing at the Golden Chalice of Sweet Nectar, because its Essence is not created on earth plane. Mind guided by spontaneous actions of the Will of the Beloved /Suppreme Divine/ Supermind, realizes that the actual state of Liberation is Nirvana and Full Enlightenment. In other words, Mind which attains the Stage of Coronation into Omniscience in all its aspects, bears witness to the fact that the Divine Grace guides the process of inner transformation - which in some cases can lead to the (permanent) state of God realization. . .The domain where thought dissolves can be accessed by anyone, anywhere, by one whose Karmic destiny becomes 'ripe' for it.
When Sri Aurobindo was asked what he thought about a topic that overreaches the five senses, he replied: "What you call thinking, I never do, I see, or I don't see. That is all". Precisely so. This is why, when the One Who Stands in The Center of the Holy Fire, asserts that God realized Soul remains eternally with the fathomless Depth and Mystery of the Divine Beloved - not as concept, but actually - we mean it literally. . .
This process of ascension to ever-higher domains of supramental Reality is guided by an Intelligence which is beyond the intellect's grasp. At this stage-point One realizes that: "The saint, the sage, the seer, the inspired man of action, the creator--these are the summits of being. Beyond him is the supramental being, the spiritual superman".
- Sri Aurobindo's words, which I second with a resounding YES!
(Genuine) Guardians of Deep Mysteries - who bear witness to the Legacy of Eternal Value - have a moral duty to obey the inner call of our vocation, because what we Know is TRUE. We Know it is TRUE, because during the Initiatory Act, one sees with the eye of Spirit/God the Descent of Divine Light and feels in every fiber its Infuence. Example (from the Yogic science empirical evidence category) of what an Initiatory Act and its Infuence might entail. One (out of countless others) took place in the 90's (when alone in bed).
Brief description: (something I shared already long time ago) I sensed someone standing behind me and turned to see. . .and beheld a beautiful Woman tenderly gazing at me. I knew She was "ignored", and asked "What's your name?" . . ."Kwan Yin, do you like me?". . ."Oh yes" (telepathic communication). . .next instant I saw Her/She Who Hears Cries of the World walk over to the foot of the bed. . .the room was filled-to-brim with swirling White Light and my super-subtle body undulations floated within a stream of unimaginable Bliss-intensity. . .I heard myself moan a little. . .Saying Thank You (afterwards) sealed this Grace-bestowed 'deal'.
Communal affirmation of those who are adequate is important to me: Plotinus affirmed: "You can only apprehand the Infinite by a faculty that is superior to reason." & "In this state of absorbed contemplation, there is no longer any question of holding an object in view; the vision is such that seeing and seen are one; object and act of vision have become identical."
One who I named my 'primary spiritual peer', Sri Aurobindo, would recognize precisely what this type of Initiation signifies, because he had same-similar encouters with the Divine Essence-Power.
I decided to include an excerpt from (recently read) Savitri - Canto Four the Vision and the Boon (and instantly recognized what he was bearing witness to since same 'happend'many times to me), to show that at the apex-point of one's Soul's evolution Grace-bestowed Initiations are Real (but we don't expect anyone to believe us, we say, 'find out for yourself') :
"Then suddenly there rose a sacred stir.
Amid the lifeless silence of the Void
In a solitude and an immensity
A sound came quivering like a loved footfall
Heard in the listening spaces of the soul:
A touch perturbed his fibers with delight.
An Influence had approached the mortal range,
A boundless Heart was near his longing heart,
A mystic Form enveloped his earthly shape (*exactly so)
All at her contact broke from silenc' seal;
Spirit and body thrilled identified,
Linked in the grasp of an unspoken joy;
Mind, members, life were merged in ecstasy.
Intoxicated as with nectarous rain
His nature's passioning stretches flowed to her,
Flashing with lightnings, mad with luminous wine.
All was a limitless sea that heaved to the moon.
A divinising stream possessed his veins,
Each nerve became a burning thread of joy:
Tissue and flesh partook beatitude.
Alight, the dun unplumbed subconscient caves
Thrilled with the prescience of her longed-for thread
And filled with flickering crests and praying tongues.
Even lost in slumber, mute, inanimate
His very body answered to her power.
The One he worshipped was within him now:
Flame-pure, ethereal-tressed, a mighty Face
Appeared and lips moved by immortal words.
In conclusion, will say that the Anointed One is beyond defeat . . .because the: "Absolute Truth is not an object of analytical discourse or great discriminating wisdom. It is realized through the blessing of the Guru and fortunate Karmic potential. Like this mistaken ideas of discriminating wisdom are clarified." - Kyabje Bokar Rinpoche.
Again, in Sri Aurobindo's words from The Life Divine, p. 293, reminder that:
"Everyone whose psychic being calls him to the spiritual path has a capacity for that path and can arrive at the goal if or as soon as he develops a single-pointed will towards that alone." & "The solution is certainly Divine Grace - it comes of itself intervening suddenly or with an increacing force when all is ready." & "Experiences one's own or others' if one comes to know them, should not be talked about or made a matter of gossip. It is only if there can be some benefit or profit to to other and even then if they are experiences of the past that one can speak of them." And, in Gopi Krishna's words in what sense sharing spiritual experiences are vaild: "All the great mystics who have written on the subject have given their own symptoms openly and plainly. That is the tradition. And from their descriptions, one can compare one's own condition."
When Sri Aurobindo was asked what he thought about a topic that overreaches the five senses, he replied: "What you call thinking, I never do, I see, or I don't see. That is all". Precisely so. This is why, when the One Who Stands in The Center of the Holy Fire, asserts that God realized Soul remains eternally with the fathomless Depth and Mystery of the Divine Beloved - not as concept, but actually - we mean it literally. . .
This process of ascension to ever-higher domains of supramental Reality is guided by an Intelligence which is beyond the intellect's grasp. At this stage-point One realizes that: "The saint, the sage, the seer, the inspired man of action, the creator--these are the summits of being. Beyond him is the supramental being, the spiritual superman".
- Sri Aurobindo's words, which I second with a resounding YES!
(Genuine) Guardians of Deep Mysteries - who bear witness to the Legacy of Eternal Value - have a moral duty to obey the inner call of our vocation, because what we Know is TRUE. We Know it is TRUE, because during the Initiatory Act, one sees with the eye of Spirit/God the Descent of Divine Light and feels in every fiber its Infuence. Example (from the Yogic science empirical evidence category) of what an Initiatory Act and its Infuence might entail. One (out of countless others) took place in the 90's (when alone in bed).
Brief description: (something I shared already long time ago) I sensed someone standing behind me and turned to see. . .and beheld a beautiful Woman tenderly gazing at me. I knew She was "ignored", and asked "What's your name?" . . ."Kwan Yin, do you like me?". . ."Oh yes" (telepathic communication). . .next instant I saw Her/She Who Hears Cries of the World walk over to the foot of the bed. . .the room was filled-to-brim with swirling White Light and my super-subtle body undulations floated within a stream of unimaginable Bliss-intensity. . .I heard myself moan a little. . .Saying Thank You (afterwards) sealed this Grace-bestowed 'deal'.
Communal affirmation of those who are adequate is important to me: Plotinus affirmed: "You can only apprehand the Infinite by a faculty that is superior to reason." & "In this state of absorbed contemplation, there is no longer any question of holding an object in view; the vision is such that seeing and seen are one; object and act of vision have become identical."
One who I named my 'primary spiritual peer', Sri Aurobindo, would recognize precisely what this type of Initiation signifies, because he had same-similar encouters with the Divine Essence-Power.
I decided to include an excerpt from (recently read) Savitri - Canto Four the Vision and the Boon (and instantly recognized what he was bearing witness to since same 'happend'many times to me), to show that at the apex-point of one's Soul's evolution Grace-bestowed Initiations are Real (but we don't expect anyone to believe us, we say, 'find out for yourself') :
"Then suddenly there rose a sacred stir.
Amid the lifeless silence of the Void
In a solitude and an immensity
A sound came quivering like a loved footfall
Heard in the listening spaces of the soul:
A touch perturbed his fibers with delight.
An Influence had approached the mortal range,
A boundless Heart was near his longing heart,
A mystic Form enveloped his earthly shape (*exactly so)
All at her contact broke from silenc' seal;
Spirit and body thrilled identified,
Linked in the grasp of an unspoken joy;
Mind, members, life were merged in ecstasy.
Intoxicated as with nectarous rain
His nature's passioning stretches flowed to her,
Flashing with lightnings, mad with luminous wine.
All was a limitless sea that heaved to the moon.
A divinising stream possessed his veins,
Each nerve became a burning thread of joy:
Tissue and flesh partook beatitude.
Alight, the dun unplumbed subconscient caves
Thrilled with the prescience of her longed-for thread
And filled with flickering crests and praying tongues.
Even lost in slumber, mute, inanimate
His very body answered to her power.
The One he worshipped was within him now:
Flame-pure, ethereal-tressed, a mighty Face
Appeared and lips moved by immortal words.
In conclusion, will say that the Anointed One is beyond defeat . . .because the: "Absolute Truth is not an object of analytical discourse or great discriminating wisdom. It is realized through the blessing of the Guru and fortunate Karmic potential. Like this mistaken ideas of discriminating wisdom are clarified." - Kyabje Bokar Rinpoche.
Again, in Sri Aurobindo's words from The Life Divine, p. 293, reminder that:
"Everyone whose psychic being calls him to the spiritual path has a capacity for that path and can arrive at the goal if or as soon as he develops a single-pointed will towards that alone." & "The solution is certainly Divine Grace - it comes of itself intervening suddenly or with an increacing force when all is ready." & "Experiences one's own or others' if one comes to know them, should not be talked about or made a matter of gossip. It is only if there can be some benefit or profit to to other and even then if they are experiences of the past that one can speak of them." And, in Gopi Krishna's words in what sense sharing spiritual experiences are vaild: "All the great mystics who have written on the subject have given their own symptoms openly and plainly. That is the tradition. And from their descriptions, one can compare one's own condition."
Monday, July 18, 2022
Bridging the Gap
Edit-expnaded 2023-12-31
We don't want to minimize some of the real differences between world's mystical traditions, we want to show they share certain deep structure similarities which are very much 'sustained by the evidence' grounded in the universal nature of their insights.
Jorge Ferrer is certainly not the only 'public figure' who asserts: 'The esotericist claim that mystics of all ages and places converge about metaphysical matters is a dogma that cannot be sustained by the evidence'.
Is this assertion really true? It is very much true to folks who hold this viewpoint. Does this mean, theirs is the last word? . .
Thousands of years of cross-cultural support from contemplative saints *those of us who Know Better* have the last word. Dharma Protectors know better, because the Correction introduces itself to the awakened awareness of one's eternal self-Soul (Soul? - not same as the 'evoving soul' and its preoccupations with status, success and power). The word-framing of what the Will of the Infinite 'allows' the Mystic/Seer/Siddha to See/Feel/Know, (beyond ordinary nonduality) may be different, but the contemplative conclusions have the same universal 'Flavor', no matter the wisdom tradition.
Few examples:
"I have reached the inner vision and through Thy Spirit in me I have heard Thy Wondrous secret, through Thy mystic insight Thy has caused a spring of knowledge to well up within me, a fountain of power, pouring forth living waters, a flood of love and embracing wisdom, like the splendour of eternal light." - quote attributed to the author of Dead Sea Scrolls.
"And it came to pass in the eleven hundred and forty-first year of the incarnation of Jesus Christ, Son of God, when I was forty two years and seven months old, that the heavens opened and a blinding light of exceptional brilliance flowed through my entire brain. And it so kindled my whole heart and breast like a flame, not burning but warming. . .and suddenly I understood the meaning of the expositions of the books, that is to say of the psalter, the evangelist, and other catholic books of the Old and New Testament." - Hildegard of Bingen
"The expansion of consciousness leading to entry into transcendental regions of surpassing glory, bliss and knoowledge is a phenomenon so important that there is no other project comparable to it in the whole dominion of modern science. Whatever spiritual discipline or method of Yoga is followed, in every case of successful termination the result should be the same. This fact is amply demonstrated by the altruisitc lives led and the sublime experiences undergone by the mystics and seers of all ages and climes.
Ignorance of this fact denotes a pathetic ignorance of the spiritual literature of the world. The Rishis of the Upanishads, the founders of all faiths as also all great mystics, belonging to every country and culture, have been the co-sharers of one stupendous experience of which the basic ingredients are the same." - Gopi Krishna, Yoga Of Its Future
Reminder: "We do not found ourselves on faith alone, but on agreat ground of knowledge which we have been developing and testing all our lives. I think I can say that I have been testing day and night for years upon years more scrupulously than any scientist his theory and his method on the physical plane." & Excerpt from: The Integral Yoga: "The distinction between the Transendental, the Cosmic, the Individual Divine is not my invention, nor is it native to India or Asia - it is, on the contrary, a recognised European teaching current in the esoteric tradition of the Catholic church where it is the authorised explanation of the Trinity - Father, Son and the Holy Ghost - and it is very well known to European mystic experience. In essence it exists in all spiritual disciplines that recognise the omnipresence of the Divine - in Indian Vedantic experience and in Mahomedans even speak of not two or three but many levels of the Divine until one reaches the Supreme." + "Shankara's realisation of pure Consciousness and Being is only the first step and not the goal."- Sri Aurobindo
And in Ken Wilber's words from: A Brief History of Everything p.192:
"The basic reality of this subtle experience of interior illumination is not simply or arbitrarily constructed by culture, because these experiences occur cross-culturally, and further, in many cases the cultural background officially denies or prohibits these experiences, and yet they still happen all the time anyway." & Quote from: The Marriage of Sense and Soul - Integrating Science and Religion: "...the deep science of the interior domains, disclosed by direct evidence and data, evoked by repeatable injunctions, and open to confirmation or rejction by a community of the adequate--those deep sciences are the core of the great wisdom traditions and the core of the Great Chain, and those deep sciences of the spiritual interiors are precisely the genuine knowledge that religion, holding its head high, can bring to the integrative table."
When the Knower, Knowledge and the Known merge in Unity, there is no other desire than to: "bring down a higher spiritual light and power of a character which will make a radical change in the earth-consciousness", Sri Aurobindo's quote.
Sri Yukteswar's book titled, The Holy Science, "purpose is to show as clearly as possible that there is an essential unity in all religions; that there is no difference in the truths inculcated by the various faiths; that there is but one method by which the world, both external and internal, has evolved; and that there is but one God admitted by all scriptures."
Will add that, the Eastern mystical traditions' gods and goddesses are personifications of one's Soul Intelligences.
The Divine Will demands of us to obey the inner call of our Vocation in service to the Divine without playing the 'saviour complex' card. Reciepients of Grace are aware that 'Divine Capacities' (Divine Siddhis) are working on us, or through us in ways that are outside of our control. . .We are humanity's servants and don't wish to be seen in 'special' way. Our Testimonies/Divine Revelations are 'special'. Those of us destined to bridge the gap between humanity and Divinity share spiritual experiences to show what we 'became' and what we 'know', is Grace-given.
These communications are useful in a very specific sense:
Gopi Krishna reminds us:
"All the great mystics who have written on the subject have given their own symptoms openly and plainly. That is the tradition. And from their descriptions, one can compare one's own condition". Quote from: The Real Nature Of Mystical Experience
Inspirational note. . .
What gives us fuel, what lights our Lamp (Soul) on the spiritual journey?
Is it in the asking that one's work and creativity
fulfills the Divine Plan in some way?
Surrender to Her Desire, follow its lead.
Allow its devouring Fire burn to ashes karmic imprints.
The closer She gets to True Gnosis, the clearer the 'prognosis'.
And when the transformation is complete, and Desire has become not
The object of knowing, but a way of knowing. . .
Pulsing conscious Luminosity floats within Nirvana's stream-light
of perfectly braided Bliss vibrations. . .
Drinking from Truth-fountain Divine Revelations.
We don't want to minimize some of the real differences between world's mystical traditions, we want to show they share certain deep structure similarities which are very much 'sustained by the evidence' grounded in the universal nature of their insights.
Jorge Ferrer is certainly not the only 'public figure' who asserts: 'The esotericist claim that mystics of all ages and places converge about metaphysical matters is a dogma that cannot be sustained by the evidence'.
Is this assertion really true? It is very much true to folks who hold this viewpoint. Does this mean, theirs is the last word? . .
Thousands of years of cross-cultural support from contemplative saints *those of us who Know Better* have the last word. Dharma Protectors know better, because the Correction introduces itself to the awakened awareness of one's eternal self-Soul (Soul? - not same as the 'evoving soul' and its preoccupations with status, success and power). The word-framing of what the Will of the Infinite 'allows' the Mystic/Seer/Siddha to See/Feel/Know, (beyond ordinary nonduality) may be different, but the contemplative conclusions have the same universal 'Flavor', no matter the wisdom tradition.
Few examples:
"I have reached the inner vision and through Thy Spirit in me I have heard Thy Wondrous secret, through Thy mystic insight Thy has caused a spring of knowledge to well up within me, a fountain of power, pouring forth living waters, a flood of love and embracing wisdom, like the splendour of eternal light." - quote attributed to the author of Dead Sea Scrolls.
"And it came to pass in the eleven hundred and forty-first year of the incarnation of Jesus Christ, Son of God, when I was forty two years and seven months old, that the heavens opened and a blinding light of exceptional brilliance flowed through my entire brain. And it so kindled my whole heart and breast like a flame, not burning but warming. . .and suddenly I understood the meaning of the expositions of the books, that is to say of the psalter, the evangelist, and other catholic books of the Old and New Testament." - Hildegard of Bingen
"The expansion of consciousness leading to entry into transcendental regions of surpassing glory, bliss and knoowledge is a phenomenon so important that there is no other project comparable to it in the whole dominion of modern science. Whatever spiritual discipline or method of Yoga is followed, in every case of successful termination the result should be the same. This fact is amply demonstrated by the altruisitc lives led and the sublime experiences undergone by the mystics and seers of all ages and climes.
Ignorance of this fact denotes a pathetic ignorance of the spiritual literature of the world. The Rishis of the Upanishads, the founders of all faiths as also all great mystics, belonging to every country and culture, have been the co-sharers of one stupendous experience of which the basic ingredients are the same." - Gopi Krishna, Yoga Of Its Future
Reminder: "We do not found ourselves on faith alone, but on agreat ground of knowledge which we have been developing and testing all our lives. I think I can say that I have been testing day and night for years upon years more scrupulously than any scientist his theory and his method on the physical plane." & Excerpt from: The Integral Yoga: "The distinction between the Transendental, the Cosmic, the Individual Divine is not my invention, nor is it native to India or Asia - it is, on the contrary, a recognised European teaching current in the esoteric tradition of the Catholic church where it is the authorised explanation of the Trinity - Father, Son and the Holy Ghost - and it is very well known to European mystic experience. In essence it exists in all spiritual disciplines that recognise the omnipresence of the Divine - in Indian Vedantic experience and in Mahomedans even speak of not two or three but many levels of the Divine until one reaches the Supreme." + "Shankara's realisation of pure Consciousness and Being is only the first step and not the goal."- Sri Aurobindo
And in Ken Wilber's words from: A Brief History of Everything p.192:
"The basic reality of this subtle experience of interior illumination is not simply or arbitrarily constructed by culture, because these experiences occur cross-culturally, and further, in many cases the cultural background officially denies or prohibits these experiences, and yet they still happen all the time anyway." & Quote from: The Marriage of Sense and Soul - Integrating Science and Religion: "...the deep science of the interior domains, disclosed by direct evidence and data, evoked by repeatable injunctions, and open to confirmation or rejction by a community of the adequate--those deep sciences are the core of the great wisdom traditions and the core of the Great Chain, and those deep sciences of the spiritual interiors are precisely the genuine knowledge that religion, holding its head high, can bring to the integrative table."
When the Knower, Knowledge and the Known merge in Unity, there is no other desire than to: "bring down a higher spiritual light and power of a character which will make a radical change in the earth-consciousness", Sri Aurobindo's quote.
Sri Yukteswar's book titled, The Holy Science, "purpose is to show as clearly as possible that there is an essential unity in all religions; that there is no difference in the truths inculcated by the various faiths; that there is but one method by which the world, both external and internal, has evolved; and that there is but one God admitted by all scriptures."
Will add that, the Eastern mystical traditions' gods and goddesses are personifications of one's Soul Intelligences.
The Divine Will demands of us to obey the inner call of our Vocation in service to the Divine without playing the 'saviour complex' card. Reciepients of Grace are aware that 'Divine Capacities' (Divine Siddhis) are working on us, or through us in ways that are outside of our control. . .We are humanity's servants and don't wish to be seen in 'special' way. Our Testimonies/Divine Revelations are 'special'. Those of us destined to bridge the gap between humanity and Divinity share spiritual experiences to show what we 'became' and what we 'know', is Grace-given.
These communications are useful in a very specific sense:
Gopi Krishna reminds us:
"All the great mystics who have written on the subject have given their own symptoms openly and plainly. That is the tradition. And from their descriptions, one can compare one's own condition". Quote from: The Real Nature Of Mystical Experience
Inspirational note. . .
What gives us fuel, what lights our Lamp (Soul) on the spiritual journey?
Is it in the asking that one's work and creativity
fulfills the Divine Plan in some way?
Surrender to Her Desire, follow its lead.
Allow its devouring Fire burn to ashes karmic imprints.
The closer She gets to True Gnosis, the clearer the 'prognosis'.
And when the transformation is complete, and Desire has become not
The object of knowing, but a way of knowing. . .
Pulsing conscious Luminosity floats within Nirvana's stream-light
of perfectly braided Bliss vibrations. . .
Drinking from Truth-fountain Divine Revelations.
Saturday, July 9, 2022
Integrating Science & Religion
"Nobody is integrating the sciences and spiritual knowledge with Wilber's scope and integrative power", asserts Michael Murphy - and I agree.
Because this topic is important, this post will include excerpts from: The Marriage Of Sense And Soul - Integrating Science And Religion. I enjoy promoting the work of brilliant minds, and it is my sincere wish that the subtlety of meaning couched within Ken Wilber's words resonate with you:
"We have seen that philosophers of science are in wide agreement that empirical science depends for its operation upon subjective and intersubjective strucures that allow objective knowledge to emerge and stablize in the first place. Put bluntly, knowledge of sensory exteriors depends upon nonsensory interiors, interiors that are just as real and just as important as the exteriors themselves. You don't get a message on the telephone, claim the message is real but the telephone is illusory. To discredit one is to discredit the other." If sensory-oriented science is not equipped to investigate these interior domains, it nontheless cannot deny their existence without denying its own operations. It can no longer claim that the xteriors alone are real. And that, very simpply, completely undercuts what we call objection number 1 (the belief that interior domains have no reality of their own). Precisely because empirical science is forced to acknowlledge interiors, it cannot dismiss Spirit merely on the basis that Spirit is interior. The first major objection falls.
Thus, if science wishes to continue to deny Spirit, it is forced to retreat to objection number 2 and attempt to deny, not all interiors, but only certain types of interiors, because, it is claimed, these other and "disreputable" interiors--such as spiritual experience--cannot be verified. They are at best private modes of knowing; at worst, hallucinations
The notion that there exists a single, straightford "scientific method" has long been discredited. It is almost unanimously acknowledged that there is no algorithm (not set method) for generating theories from data; the very notion was part of the myth of the given. Nonetheless, most philosophers--and certainly most working scientists--have a clear enough idea of what "doing science" actually means; enough, anyway, to differentiate scientific knowledge from poetry, faith, dogma, superstition, and nonverifiable proclamations. The scientific method might be slippery, but it still manages to get a lot of work done. . .
On the one hand, "empirical" has meant experiencial in the broadest sense. To say that we have some sort of direct experiential evidence, data, or confirmation. To be an "empiricist" in this borad sense simply means to demand evidence for assertions, and noot merely to rely on dogma, faiith, or nonveribiable conjectures.
I have a great deal of sympathy for that position. In fact, using "empirical" in the broad sense of "demand for experiencial evidence," I count myself a staunch empiricist. For the fact is, there is sensory experience, mantal experience, and spiritual experience--and empiricism in the very broadest sense means that we always resort to experience to ground our assertions about any of those domains (sensoory, mental, spiritual).
Here are what I believe are three of the essential aspects of scientific inquiry--what I will also call the "three starnds of all valid knowing.
1. Instrumental injunction. This is an actual practice, an exemplar, a paradigm, an experiment, an ordinance. It is always of the form "if you want to know this, do this."
2. Direct apprehension. This is an immediate experience of the domain brough forth by the injunction; that is, a direct experience or apprehension of data (even if the data is mediated, at the moment of experience it is immediately apprehended). William James pointed out that one of the meanings of "data" is direct and immediate experience, and science ancors all of its concrete assertions in such data.
3. Communal confirmation (or rejection). This is checking of the results--the data, the evidence--with others who have adequately completed the injunctive and apprehensive starnds.
These three strands, then, will be our guide through the delicate world of the deep interiors, the within of the Kosmos, the data of the Divine, where they will help us, as they do with the exteriors, to separate the dependable from the bogus."
Because this topic is important, this post will include excerpts from: The Marriage Of Sense And Soul - Integrating Science And Religion. I enjoy promoting the work of brilliant minds, and it is my sincere wish that the subtlety of meaning couched within Ken Wilber's words resonate with you:
"We have seen that philosophers of science are in wide agreement that empirical science depends for its operation upon subjective and intersubjective strucures that allow objective knowledge to emerge and stablize in the first place. Put bluntly, knowledge of sensory exteriors depends upon nonsensory interiors, interiors that are just as real and just as important as the exteriors themselves. You don't get a message on the telephone, claim the message is real but the telephone is illusory. To discredit one is to discredit the other." If sensory-oriented science is not equipped to investigate these interior domains, it nontheless cannot deny their existence without denying its own operations. It can no longer claim that the xteriors alone are real. And that, very simpply, completely undercuts what we call objection number 1 (the belief that interior domains have no reality of their own). Precisely because empirical science is forced to acknowlledge interiors, it cannot dismiss Spirit merely on the basis that Spirit is interior. The first major objection falls.
Thus, if science wishes to continue to deny Spirit, it is forced to retreat to objection number 2 and attempt to deny, not all interiors, but only certain types of interiors, because, it is claimed, these other and "disreputable" interiors--such as spiritual experience--cannot be verified. They are at best private modes of knowing; at worst, hallucinations
The notion that there exists a single, straightford "scientific method" has long been discredited. It is almost unanimously acknowledged that there is no algorithm (not set method) for generating theories from data; the very notion was part of the myth of the given. Nonetheless, most philosophers--and certainly most working scientists--have a clear enough idea of what "doing science" actually means; enough, anyway, to differentiate scientific knowledge from poetry, faith, dogma, superstition, and nonverifiable proclamations. The scientific method might be slippery, but it still manages to get a lot of work done. . .
On the one hand, "empirical" has meant experiencial in the broadest sense. To say that we have some sort of direct experiential evidence, data, or confirmation. To be an "empiricist" in this borad sense simply means to demand evidence for assertions, and noot merely to rely on dogma, faiith, or nonveribiable conjectures.
I have a great deal of sympathy for that position. In fact, using "empirical" in the broad sense of "demand for experiencial evidence," I count myself a staunch empiricist. For the fact is, there is sensory experience, mantal experience, and spiritual experience--and empiricism in the very broadest sense means that we always resort to experience to ground our assertions about any of those domains (sensoory, mental, spiritual).
Here are what I believe are three of the essential aspects of scientific inquiry--what I will also call the "three starnds of all valid knowing.
1. Instrumental injunction. This is an actual practice, an exemplar, a paradigm, an experiment, an ordinance. It is always of the form "if you want to know this, do this."
2. Direct apprehension. This is an immediate experience of the domain brough forth by the injunction; that is, a direct experience or apprehension of data (even if the data is mediated, at the moment of experience it is immediately apprehended). William James pointed out that one of the meanings of "data" is direct and immediate experience, and science ancors all of its concrete assertions in such data.
3. Communal confirmation (or rejection). This is checking of the results--the data, the evidence--with others who have adequately completed the injunctive and apprehensive starnds.
These three strands, then, will be our guide through the delicate world of the deep interiors, the within of the Kosmos, the data of the Divine, where they will help us, as they do with the exteriors, to separate the dependable from the bogus."
Tuesday, June 7, 2022
One Taste
In this post I am happy to include excerpts from: ONE TASTE, book penned by Ken Wilber, whose brilliance I admire very much. His over 32 books are translated into 34 languages, dealing with topics of psychology, philosophy, politics, ecology, sociology, ecology, mysticism and spiritual evolution. And, based on what I have been 'allowed' to See/Know/Feel within my deepest interiority, the She Who Stands in the Center of Holy Fires of Exalted Wisdom, bears witness to the fact his words - with regard to the post-enlightenment stages - are not the 'last word'. He is still writing and maybe will have something more to say with regard to the Final Samadhi / non-biological Soul's Liberation.
"The stages of adaptation leading from causal/nirvikalpa/nirvana to nondual One Taste (or sahaja) are knoown as post-nirvanic stages, of which three or four are usually given. There are several variations on on these stages, but they all center around constant consciousness, or the unbroken access to witnessing awareness through all three states--first as plateau, then an adaptation--and then the disappearance of witnessing into nondual One Taste--first as peak, then as a plateau, then an adaptation.
Once One Taste has been stabilized as an adaptation, the post-enlightenment stages unfold. These are said to result in bhava samadhi, ot the complete bodily translationof the human into the Divine; or, alternatively, "the complete extinction of all things into the dharmata"; or, another alternative, the achievement of a permanent light body. (See The Eye of Spirit for a discussion of post-nirvanic and post-enlightenment stages of development.)
The post-nirvanic stages (the essence of Mahayana and Vajrayana, which do not merely embrace Formlessness--nirvana--but integrate that with the entire world of Form--samsara--to result in pure nondual One Taste) have always make sense to me; and based on my own experience, I can testify to the existence to of constant consciousness and One Taste, both of them as prolonged and recurrent plateau experiences, sometimes lasting uninterruptedly 24-36 hours (although, in one case, constant consciousness persisted day and night for eleven days.). Neither is a permanenet adaptation in my case, but there are several teachers I have met who, I believe, are in such, and the literature is replete with them. All of these post-nirvanic stages inherently make sense because they are, after all, simply the stages of adapting to nonduality (the stages of integrating nirvana and samsara, Spirit and manifestation, Emptiness and Foorm). Morover, with the EEG data now being gathered by Alexander and others, we seem to have hard corroborating evidence that such stages do in fact exists.
But the pos-enlightenment stages have never made much sense to me, nor have I ever met anybody who who was believably at those stages. Those stages, as they are described, have always struck me a a holdover from magic--they always include items such as one's body going up in light, being able to perform ectraordinary miracles of transformation, etc.--none of which has any credible, reproducible evidence. As for the notion of "the extinction of all things into the Dharmata," this sounds indistinguishable from jnana or nirdoh--a regression from One Taste, not a development beyond it. I am not saying these stages do not exist; I am saying that, compared with all the other stages that the traditions offer (and that I briefly outlined above, including the post-nirvanic stages), the post-enlightenment stages have the least amount of evidence--possibly because they are so rare, possibly because they are not there."
I admire Ken Wilber's brutal honesty, his assertion which I second wholeheartedly, that: " "Soul" has come to denote, in this feeding frenzy of translative grasping, not that which is timeless in you but but that which most loudly thrashes around in time, and thus "care of the soul" incomprehensively means nothing much more than focusing intensely on your ardently separate self. Likewise, "spiritual" is on everybody's lips, but usually all it really means is any intense egoic feeling, just as "heart" has come to mean any sincere sentiment of the self-contraction." +
"...but authencity always and absolutely carries a demand and a duty: you must speak to the best of your ability, and shake the spiritual tree, and shine your headlights into the eyes of the complacent. You must let that radical realization rumble through your veins and rattle those around you.
Alas, if you fail to do so, you are betrying your own authenticity. You are hiding your true estate. You don't want to upset others because you don't want to upset yourself. You are acting in bad faith, the taste of bad infinity.""Because, you see, the alarming fact is that any relalization of depth carries a terrible burden: Those who are allowed to see are simultaneously saddled with the obligation to communicate it to others (that is the ultimate meaning of the bodhisattva vow). And therefore, if you have seen, you simply must speak out. Speak out with with compassion, or speak out with angry wisdom, or speak out with skillful means, but speak out you must. And this is a terrible burden, a horrible burden, because in any case there is no room for timidity."
"The stages of adaptation leading from causal/nirvikalpa/nirvana to nondual One Taste (or sahaja) are knoown as post-nirvanic stages, of which three or four are usually given. There are several variations on on these stages, but they all center around constant consciousness, or the unbroken access to witnessing awareness through all three states--first as plateau, then an adaptation--and then the disappearance of witnessing into nondual One Taste--first as peak, then as a plateau, then an adaptation.
Once One Taste has been stabilized as an adaptation, the post-enlightenment stages unfold. These are said to result in bhava samadhi, ot the complete bodily translationof the human into the Divine; or, alternatively, "the complete extinction of all things into the dharmata"; or, another alternative, the achievement of a permanent light body. (See The Eye of Spirit for a discussion of post-nirvanic and post-enlightenment stages of development.)
The post-nirvanic stages (the essence of Mahayana and Vajrayana, which do not merely embrace Formlessness--nirvana--but integrate that with the entire world of Form--samsara--to result in pure nondual One Taste) have always make sense to me; and based on my own experience, I can testify to the existence to of constant consciousness and One Taste, both of them as prolonged and recurrent plateau experiences, sometimes lasting uninterruptedly 24-36 hours (although, in one case, constant consciousness persisted day and night for eleven days.). Neither is a permanenet adaptation in my case, but there are several teachers I have met who, I believe, are in such, and the literature is replete with them. All of these post-nirvanic stages inherently make sense because they are, after all, simply the stages of adapting to nonduality (the stages of integrating nirvana and samsara, Spirit and manifestation, Emptiness and Foorm). Morover, with the EEG data now being gathered by Alexander and others, we seem to have hard corroborating evidence that such stages do in fact exists.
But the pos-enlightenment stages have never made much sense to me, nor have I ever met anybody who who was believably at those stages. Those stages, as they are described, have always struck me a a holdover from magic--they always include items such as one's body going up in light, being able to perform ectraordinary miracles of transformation, etc.--none of which has any credible, reproducible evidence. As for the notion of "the extinction of all things into the Dharmata," this sounds indistinguishable from jnana or nirdoh--a regression from One Taste, not a development beyond it. I am not saying these stages do not exist; I am saying that, compared with all the other stages that the traditions offer (and that I briefly outlined above, including the post-nirvanic stages), the post-enlightenment stages have the least amount of evidence--possibly because they are so rare, possibly because they are not there."
I admire Ken Wilber's brutal honesty, his assertion which I second wholeheartedly, that: " "Soul" has come to denote, in this feeding frenzy of translative grasping, not that which is timeless in you but but that which most loudly thrashes around in time, and thus "care of the soul" incomprehensively means nothing much more than focusing intensely on your ardently separate self. Likewise, "spiritual" is on everybody's lips, but usually all it really means is any intense egoic feeling, just as "heart" has come to mean any sincere sentiment of the self-contraction." +
"...but authencity always and absolutely carries a demand and a duty: you must speak to the best of your ability, and shake the spiritual tree, and shine your headlights into the eyes of the complacent. You must let that radical realization rumble through your veins and rattle those around you.
Alas, if you fail to do so, you are betrying your own authenticity. You are hiding your true estate. You don't want to upset others because you don't want to upset yourself. You are acting in bad faith, the taste of bad infinity.""Because, you see, the alarming fact is that any relalization of depth carries a terrible burden: Those who are allowed to see are simultaneously saddled with the obligation to communicate it to others (that is the ultimate meaning of the bodhisattva vow). And therefore, if you have seen, you simply must speak out. Speak out with with compassion, or speak out with angry wisdom, or speak out with skillful means, but speak out you must. And this is a terrible burden, a horrible burden, because in any case there is no room for timidity."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)