The Lotus of the Heart, Part Four
Author: Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami
Description: Grow a subtle nerve force within yourself that turns awareness in to the inner being; feel the Self God, your Śivaness. This self-luminous emanation is like a diamond that is filled with light. Once desires are flowing properly the nerve system will be filled with a new energy, an actinic energy radiating out of the light from the lotus within the heart. The fourth dimension, simvumkami in Shum, relates to the lotus of the heart; consciousness should never go lower, but when soaring higher returns to this resting place.
Transcription:
Good morning everyone.
This morning we're finishing up "Merging with Siva" Chapter 9 entitled "Lotus of the Heart" drawn from "The 1972 Master Course" and we just have two short lessons to read to finish it up.
Lesson 62, 'The Diamond of Light"
"How do you avoid unhappy states of mind? By consciously flowing awareness into the radiance, the light emanating from the self-effulgent being within the lotus of the heart. Direct awareness through controlled breathing. Remembering this basic principle, tell yourself that it is there, and soon you will begin to feel it. You will actually cause to grow within yourself a subtle nerve force that will turn awareness into the inner being so that consciously you can feel the Self God, your Śivaness, and the emanation that even now exists within you. In this way you can experience true bliss, true happiness, blissful happiness that does not cycle or fade.
"One moment of contact with your inner being that resides within the lotus of the heart, that is always there—one moment—will clear up a whole situation in the external area of the mind for you. It will give you clear insight into how you should live your life, how to meet your circumstances, how to avoid whatever you do not want to find yourself involved in as the cycles of your life begin to repeat themselves.
This self-luminous emanation is like a diamond that is filled with light. Think about it in that way. It is filled with light, the diamond that resides within the lotus of your heart. Try to visualize this clearly and precisely as you read. Visualization of inner things is the same as opening an inner door for awareness to flow through to gain the experience that is already there. Visualization helps to pinpoint awareness and hold awareness concentrated in one certain area of the mind and gently move it to another. With this shining diamond constantly within the body, how could you become aware of an unhappy area of the mind?
"How could you become selfish? How could you hold resentment? How would it be possible for you to dislike another? This diamond within the lotus is within others, too."
So then my commentary:
Gurudeva has given us a valuable key in this lesson which is how to use visualization to experience an inner area of consciousness. He stated: “Visualization of inner things is the same as opening an inner door for awareness to flow through to gain the experience that is already there.” In other words, if we are trying to experience inner light, if we visualize the light first it is easier to have the actual experience after that.
However it is important to keep in mind that the visualization is not the experience. It's just a visualization; it helps you have the experience.
Lesson 63, Ardent Striving On the Path
"How are we going to master awareness so that it does not feel that it is what it is aware of? We have to pull awareness within, to the more refined areas of the mind. This is called going within yourself. You have to temporarily gain enough composure, through control over awareness, so that in thirty seconds you can pull (within) yourself and, in a sense, light up because you become a little bit aware of the existence of the inner light. Now, of course, if we are pressured by desires that conflict with basic religious principles, it will be difficult even to become aware of or to even think about the inner light. It’s easy, though, to find the darkness of the mind.
"But if desires are flowing in accordance with the proper, basic action-and-reaction patterns of life, and one is living up to what he knows he should be living up to and allows the awareness to flow through the unwholesome areas of the mind, he begins to hurt deeply on the inside. That is the so-called conscience hurting, because the light shines through the conscience, too, and makes the conscience self-luminous to us. We cannot see the light, but we can feel it. And when awareness flows into the consciousness of bliss and peace, you won’t hurt anymore on the inside.
"The nerve system will be filled with a new energy, an actinic energy radiating out of the light from the lotus within the heart. Then you will be happy and joyous until awareness wanders again and brings up other emotional or desire temptations. Then you will hurt again. This is what is meant by the statement “constant striving on the path”staying mentally healthy so that the conscience does not hurt.
The Self God is within you. The light emanating from your effulgent being is within you, too, within the lotus of your heart. The Self God is. It simply is. We do not have to awaken the light within the lotus of the heart, because it is always there, always has been, and always will be. We just have to become aware of it. Then go in and in and in to it until awareness, aware only of itself, dissolves, and be the Self. Be That."
And the commentary, in Shum the dimension that relates to the lotus of the heart of course is the fourth dimension:
simvumkami
Fourth dimension; subsuperconscious mind; awareness cognizing the interrelated forces of the fifth, fourth and third dimensions; from this detachment we gain the ability to dissolve confusions, conflicts and the various and varied entanglements that are encountered daily; the realm of artistic creativity; here is the resting place where we look in and up and out and down; consciousness should never go lower, but when soaring higher returns to this resting place, the fourth dimension; this dimension relates to the kamshumalnga rehmtyenali; to experience the portraits within this dimension, look at the world from the chest area.
So, thank you very much. Have a wonderful day.