Self & Samadhi

By Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

First Edition

Copyright © 2012
Himalayan Academy

This first edition of Self and Samadhi is published by Himalayan Academy to honor the eleventh anniversary of the Great Departure of Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami (1927–2001). All rights are reserved. This book may be used to share the Hindu Dharma with others on the spiritual path, but reproduced only with the publisher’s prior written consent. Lovingly produced, designed and typeset by the swamis of the Saiva Siddhanta Yoga Order, 107 Kaholalele Road, Kapaa, Hawaii 96746-9304 USA.

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Self & Samadhi

REFLECTIONS ON LIFE’S ULTIMATE GOAL

Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

Echoing the ultimate teachings of Hindu scripture, Gurudeva, Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, spoke boldly of the Divinity within us. This book is a collection of those teachings, nine inspired talks in which he urges us to mold our thoughts, emotions and way of life around this knowledge. He explains that the Self is the core of you, the part of you that is identical to God in His Parasiva perfection. One of his trenchant teachings was “God is the Life of your life, your very Self.”

The Self God was the Life of his life. From the age of 12, he studied and tirelessly practiced the arts of awareness. At age 22, in the caves of Jailani in Sri Lanka, he emerged from Self Realization—the deepest of samadhis, absolute union with Absolute Reality—holding Truth in the palm of his hand. Having reached what seems unreachable, for the next fifty years, he explained the unexplainable. Using the subtle Shum language, which he discovered deep within himself, Gurudeva named and described every stepping stone, every state of mind, all the way to the dissolution of awareness into the Self. His words were confident and unequivocal: you can attain it, too. You must. It is the destiny of every single human being, if not in this lifetime, then in another.

He shared this wisdom with all who came to listen, including those who were too bound in the intellect to ever attain it in this life, too noisy on the inside to actually seek the Self. He laid out the path to thousands whose real and immediate goals were simpler: overcome fear, anger and jealousy, purify the mind, strengthen the will and develop a contemplative lifestyle. He spoke of the Self to his householder followers and especially to his order of sannyasins.

A monk once shared a crucial insight: “Gurudeva, it seems to me each time the Self is known, the mind, in the aftermath, has had a hole punched in it.” “Yes, that’s right,” he offered, “the Self must eventually be known throughout the mind for the realization to be complete. Each time you enter the Self, it is from a different part of the mind, and its retrospective impact on that part is to obliterate it a bit. If you do it enough times, the mind becomes like Swiss cheese and seems less solid than before.”

Gurudeva spoke of the Self even on his deathbed. Just days before his grand departure, he responded to a monk’s query about realizing the Self, “You have to realize that you already have it. It’s not something you are going to get or that is out there in time. You already have it. So you have to think on that. First admit to yourself that the Self is in you. The end of the light is imkaif. Admit that the Self is not apart from you. It pervades everything, creates everything and destroys everything. You are the Self right now.…It’s very simple. You have all the tools.”

Gurudeva spoke freely of realization, the clear white light, the high “eee,” the divine mind, kundalini and the chakras to one and all, knowing that each would benefit according to their place in life and stage of evolution. To Gurudeva, the Self was the obvious secret, the truth that he knew, that rishis know, but which was hidden to the masses, spoken of by a mere handful of teachers. One of his greatest gifts to humanity was to make this knowledge available, to delineate the way to Self Realization with unprecedented clarity and panache.

Scriptures state that even to hear of the Self is rare. Gurudeva set about to change that, sharing the news that it is “closer than our breathing, nearer to us than our hands or feet.” It is the core of you. In thousands of talks, he spoke of our true nature and eternal being, encouraging us to adopt that game-changing paradigm as the new vision of who we are. What could be more wonderful? Accepting the reality of the Self, even intellectually, is a step toward discovering it.

We present this book in hopes that these ancient truths and Gurudeva’s articulation of them will inspire you to strengthen your commitment to sadhana, to live in harmony with Siva’s perfect universe, to know that you are a glorious, immortal soul, at one with Siva this very moment, and to strive as karmas permit to realize the timeless, formless, spaceless Self.

163rd Jagadacharya of the Nandinatha Sampradaya’s Kailasa Parampara
Guru Mahasannidhanam, Kauai Aadheenam, Hawaii
Gurudeva’s Eleventh Mahasamadhi Observances, November 11, 2012

A talk given by Gurudeva in 1973 at Kauai Aadheenam

You have heard me, and other mystics, talk to you about the search for the Self. And it means just that. If you lost something that was of value to you, you would search for it. You would try to find it. You’d look here and there and everywhere. You’d look around your house. You’d look in your neighbor’s home. You’d call up your friends, and you’d look inside your own mind to try to remember where you put it or where you lost it. And you’d forget everything else while you were doing it. You wouldn’t have a mood or emotion. You wouldn’t have an ache or a pain. You wouldn’t have a hard feeling or resentment. You wouldn’t have a subconscious area of the mind that you were conscious of. You’d simply look, you’d simply search, for this article of value.

Searching for Siva, the Self God, is done in the same way. Where is He? Where is God? Is it in my head? Is it in my nose? Is it in my little finger, my toe, my leg? Is it in meditation? Is it in contemplation? Where is it? Have that search, that unrelenting search. Get excited about it! Is it in the back of my neck? Some say it is in the lotus of the heart. Is it in the lotus of your heart? You have to look and try to find it! Search, look, hunt.

Of course, you are in a dual state when you do this. You are in duality. It is you, the searcher, looking for that which you’re eventually going to find. That’s certainly not an advaitist state. It’s a dual state. But it’s a positive dual state, because if you’re not searching and you’re simply sitting waiting for it to come to you, or for you to automatically realize the Self without doing a thing about it, you’re still in a dual state. And you might philosophically be fully aware of all the implications of the advaitist path, of being that which you’re looking for already, but you haven’t found it.

So, the mere fact that you’re in a dual state doing nothing indicates that you’re not going to find or realize the Self, because you’re doing nothing about it. The fact that you change that pattern and, in the dual state, begin to look for the Self, search for the Self, hunt for Siva within—timeless, causeless, formless—indicates that you’re putting an end fairly soon to that dualistic experience, and you’re going to become the true advaitist.

When you lose something of value to you, something that you really love and you’re searching for it, and all of a sudden you put your hand on it and there it is, the search is ended! That which is lost, been lost, no longer exists as something that has been lost; the gap has been filled.

When you find the Self, the search and that which has been searched for and found are one. The searcher and that which has been found are one. And the search—which is the power of that looking for—merges back into its very source.

Don’t be content living in an instinctive area of the mind. Don’t be content living in the intellectual area of the mind all of the time. But you have to do sadhana. You have to do tapas, a certain amount of austerity. This gives the fuel! This mellows the entire nature so that everything begins to work. The darshan from the line of gurus begins to permeate you. It begins to work within you. The scriptures begin to come alive in you when you discipline yourself, when you discipline your moods, your emotions and allow yourself to be disciplined also by others without resentment; and to be able to say a quiet: “Thank you for helping me along the path by pointing out my faults to me.” This great, profound humility exists in the aspirant on the path.

So, begin to look. Begin to search. And don’t be satisfied until you find Siva, the Self God, within you. And remember, whatever you think Siva is is where you are on the path.

Have you ever heard that high-pitched tone that sounds like an “eeee” within your head? This comes after the kundalini force has been awakened to a certain degree. And when you sit in and are totally absorbed within that tone, this is called iikaif. And you begin to tune into the darshan of the great beings of this planet. The great Deities, the great Gods, the great devas of this planet, can penetrate a beautiful darshan through this high eeee tone. Sit and become fully absorbed within it. If you don’t hear that tone from time to time within you, this indicates just how far awareness—your individual awareness—is externalized in the outer layers of the mind. And it shows that you need to do sadhana, do tapas, do austerities, in order to break out of that externalized condition, break awareness out of that externalized condition so it can begin to flow within.

The mere fact that you know where the Self isn’t indicates that a certain area of your awareness knows where it is. And that gives some confidence, doesn’t it? The mere fact that you know where the Self isn’t indicates that inwardly you really do know where it is.

Siva, the Divine Dancer, may be hiding from you. Well, you can even realize the Self by worshiping Siva as a physical person. Then you begin to see Siva as an intellectual being who can do all sorts of many things, because He has a lot of arms and several heads, indicating the ability of an individual to do many things. And then you begin to worship Siva’s divine energy, His life force, and you realize that same life force going through you. And then you begin to turn inward and worship the life force within yourself. And you have to be very humble in order to worship. That’s why only Hindus can worship the Hindu way. Then you’re worshiping life force, pure consciousness, as Siva, God.

Then you keep asking yourself: “Where does it come from? Where does it come from? Where is this pure consciousness, life force, where is it emanating out of?” And you keep looking, you keep looking. You know where it’s not, and inwardly you know where it is. But you have to have that urgency of the search. You can’t be content with finding the little things along the way on the path.

From Gurudeva’s 1970 Audio Master Course

The study of awareness is a great study. “I am aware.” The key to this entire study is the discovery of who or what is the “I am.” It is the key to the totality of your progress on the path of enlightenment. What is awareness? As you open your physical eyes, what is it that is aware of what you see? When you look within, deep within, and feel energy, you almost begin to see energy. A little more perception comes, and you do actually see energy, as clearly as you see chairs and tables with your physical eyes open.

But what is it that is aware? When awareness moves through superconsciousness, it seems to expand, for it looks out into the vastness of superconsciousness from within and identifies with that vastness. This is what is meant by an expanded state of awareness. What is awareness? Discover that. Go deep within it. Make it a great study. You have to discover what awareness is before you can realize the Self God. Otherwise, realization of the Self God is only a philosophy to you. It is a good philosophy, however, a satisfying and stable philosophy. But philosophies of life are not to be intellectually learned, memorized and repeated and nothing more. They are to be experienced, step by step by step. Get acquainted with yourself as being awareness. Say to yourself, “I am awareness. I am aware. I am not the body. I am not the emotions. I am not the thinking mind. I am pure awareness.”

It will help for us to make a mental picture. Let us now try to visualize awareness as a round, white ball of light, like one single eye. This ball is being propelled through many areas of the mind, inner and outer, and it is registering all the various pictures. It has, in fact, four eyes, one on each side of it. It is not reacting. The reaction comes when awareness is aware of the astral body and the physical body. It is in those bodies that reaction occurs. We are aware of the reactions in these bodies, for the physical body and the astral body are also part of the vast, vast universe of the mind.

Each individual awareness, ball of light, is encased in many bodies. The first and nearest encasement is the body of the soul. The second encasement is the astral, or intellectual-emotional, body. The third encasement is the physical body. The radiation from awareness, this ball of light, is the aura. Awareness is an extension of prana from the central source, issuing energy.

Energy goes where awareness flows. When awareness focuses on relationships, relationships flow. When awareness focuses on philosophy, that unfolds itself. Ultimately, when awareness focuses on itself, it dissolves into its own essence. Energy flows where awareness goes. I was always taught that if one foot was injured, for example, to focus on the other foot and transfer the healthy prana from that foot to the ailing foot.

Awareness Finds a New Home

Needless to say, the Self does not mean the realization of your personality. Some people think that this is what Self Realization means. “I want Self Realization,” they say, thinking all the time it means, “I want to realize that I am an individual and not dependent upon my parents. I want Self Realization.” Other people feel it means, “I want to realize my artistic abilities and be able to create.” It does not mean that at all. All this is of external consciousness, the intellectual area of the mind. It is a lesser form of self realization. Self Realization is finding That which is beyond even superconsciousness itself, beyond the mind—timeless, causeless, spaceless.

After Self Realization, awareness has a new home. It does not relate to the external mind anymore in the same way. It relates to the Self God, Parasiva, as home base and flows out into the various layers of the mind, and in again. Before Self Realization, awareness was in the external mind trying to penetrate the inner depths. Then it would return to the external mind and again try to penetrate the within through the processes of meditation. After Self Realization, the whole process of the flow of awareness is reversed.

Mind and consciousness are synonymous. Awareness is man’s individual spiritual being, the pure intelligence of his spiritual body, flowing through this vast universe of the mind. We want to be able to flow awareness through any area of the mind consciously, at will, as we go in and in and in toward our great realization of the Self God, which is beyond mind, beyond time, beyond consciousness, beyond all form. Yet, it is not an unconscious state. It is the essence of all being, the power which makes the electricity that flows through the wire that lights the light that illumines the room. When we sit, simply being aware of being aware, the currents of the body harmonized, the aura turns to streaks of light dashing out into the room, and we are sitting in our own perfect bliss, simply aware, intensely aware, of being aware. Awareness itself then turns in on itself enough to experience, to become, the Self God—That which everyone is seeking.

That is the sum total of the path. That is the path that you are on. That is the experience that if you keep striving you will have in this life, even if it is at the point of death. It is then you will reincarnate as a great teacher on the planet and help many others through to the same goal. For there is no death and there is no birth for the immortal body of the soul that you are, that pure intelligence that goes on and on and on and on and on and on. So go in and in and in and in and in and in. Arrive at the ultimate goal. Make it your journey, your quest. Want it more than life itself.

Generally our greatest fear is death. Why? Because it is the most dramatic experience we have ever had in any one lifetime. Therefore we fear it. We are in awe of death. It is so dramatic that we do not remember, really, what happened during part of the experience, though occasionally some people do. However, the body of the soul knows no birth, knows no death. It goes on and on and on, and its awareness goes in and in and in to its ultimate goal—awareness of itself turned so much in on itself that it dissolves in the very essence of Being, as it merges in Siva. You cannot say anything more about the Self, because to describe the Self adequately there are no words. It is beyond time, form, cause, mind. And words only describe time, cause and mind consciousness, which is form. You have to experience It to know It. And by experiencing It, you do know It.

Cognizantability, Aphorism 48

Attachment is of the reasoning plane. Therefore, all attachments must be given up subconsciously, through understanding, before the Ego can go beyond the conscious mind. The conscious mind can be controlled through concentration, which leads into meditation (after the physical body has been stilled). This then unfolds into a state of contemplation, and finally the Self, spirit, Truth, or samadhi, is realized.

Commentary: This aphorism means we must have faith in the future, faith in ourselves, faith in others. To truly give up attachment, we must be confident in our own personal powers of creation, lest we always be hanging on to the past—things, people and the ideas within it. The future is to be remembered and created just the way the divine forces working through us, from Lord Siva Himself to the physical plane, will it to be. For nothing can happen but through His grace. Lord Ganesha has opened the door for this knowledge to bloom. We in turn must unreservedly prostrate ourselves in complete abandon before the Supreme God of all the Gods in order to, as the aphorism states, unfold into states of contemplation, and finally the “Self—spirit, truth or samadhi—is realized,” our true eternal Sivaness.

From a talk entitled “The Consciousness of Comprehension”
given at the San Francisco temple in 1958 or 1959

When one looks at the Earth and the Sun, one thinks more of the Earth than of the Sun, which is so far away. Traveling through space toward the Sun, the Earth fades into a distant speck and one contemplates the Sun as it looms larger and larger as he draws nearer and nearer. There is no intellect here, you see, for the intellect is connected to the Earth in its exterior ramifications of worldliness. The devotee’s path is to merge into the Sun. The devotee’s path is to merge—in the totality of his awareness, willpower and life force—into the Self, God, Siva. Siva is the ancient name of the Self, God. Mystically, Si is the Absolute state. Va is the All-Pervading Self flowing through the mind. It is only when the devotee, through yoga disciplines under the direction of his satguru, traverses the thought strata of his mind that he begins to experience what he has been learning philosophically. Then the Sun, his Siva, the Self God, blooms paramount before his vision. Earthiness, worldliness, humanness, instinctiveness fade into a speck within his memory patterns; and like the astronaut hurtling through space toward the Sun, awe-struck as to the impending annihilation of the remnants of his identity, the devotee piercing his inner depths awes at the magnificence of Siva.

This then brings willpower into its crowned usage. The transmuted force of the divine will of the devotee compellingly guides the last remnants of intellect and passions, and in total surrender, when confronted to respond, he voices, “I know not. Siva’s will be done.” The will of Siva—the totality of all force that is active, quiescent force and nonforce as found in Si and Va—begins to take over the dharma and the karma and floods through the being of the devotee on the threshold of Reality. And so, while in a dual state of assuming some personal identity, he states, “Siva’s will be done,” as his new and most refined sadhana of giving up the last of personal worldliness to the perfect timing of the infinite conglomerate of force and nonforce within him. This he says as a mantra unto himself when he sees and hears in the external world. But when eyes and ears are closed, through the transmuted power of his will he merges into the samadhi of Va and Si and Si and Va, experiencing Reality as himself and himself as Reality.

It is important to gain an intellectual concept of what it is like to experience through a prolonged term the deep, inner will of Siva—for, granted, we are always experiencing something. Therefore, it is easy to categorize in one of three departments just where the impulses are coming from that cause our motivations. Number one: the instinctive impulses are from us and from others, and mainly concern our body and baser emotions. These are easy to distinguish, as these impulses provide most of the daily activities. Number two: the impulse to speak and to think, begun through one’s own efforts or those of another. This is generally based on recurring knowledge accumulated in the past, churned up through present observations and conjecture about the future. This is also easy to distinguish, as these impulses generally fill any gaps that the instinctive impulses have made in a typical day. We can easily see that unless some break occurs, there is absolutely no room for number three, which is simply for Siva’s will to occur.

Therefore, the process is one of breaking up the patterns of instinct and intellect, separating the impulses of them both, through regular and regulated periods of sadhana and meditation, so that the divine will, spiritual energy and infinite awareness can filter in and cause a new intellect to form. Beginning the sadhana, and the continued practice, is the first sign that Siva’s will is being done in the aspirant’s life. New energy abides within him because of the transmutation from the base to the Divine. New knowledge comes forth from within him as he builds upon it through remembering his accumulated inner experiences as if they occurred but a moment ago.

Should you wish to separate number one from number two and experience the dominance of number three, Siva’s will, simply begin to say to yourself, “Siva’s will be done,” throughout each day as the occasions arise. Be careful to categorize each impulse, so that it is clear to your intellect which category you are aware in, just as by being more aware of the Sun than the Earth you begin to forget the Earth and come to know the Sun. Siva’s will is being done always. By being more aware of the inner processes and impulses of willpower than the outer configurations of other people, their thoughts and feelings, you will soon live in the world contentedly and come to know the Si, the Absolute Self beyond all form, time and causation, and the Va, the All-Pervading Self, as actinic energy permeating all form, and you will rest blissfully in this new knowledge on your new intellectual threshold. “Siva’s will be done”—the first sadhana on the path. “Siva’s will be done”—the last sadhana on the path, after all others have been perfected.

An inspired talk given on October 3, 1959

The Self: you can’t explain it. You can sense its existence through the refined state of your senses, but you can’t explain it. To know it, you have to experience it. And the best you could say about it is that it is the depth of your Being, it’s the very core of you. It is you.

If you visualize above you nothing; below you nothing; to the right of you nothing; to the left of you nothing; in front of you nothing; in back of you nothing; and dissolve yourself into that nothingness, that would be the best way you could explain the realization of the Self. And yet that nothingness would not be the absence of something, like the nothingness inside an empty box, which would be like a void. That nothingness is the fullness of everything: the power, the sustaining power, of the existence of what appears to be everything.

But after you realize the Self, you see the mind for what it is—a self-created principle. That is the mind ever creating itself. The mind is form ever creating form, preserving form, creating new forms and destroying old forms. That is the mind, the illusion, the great unreality, the part of you that in your thinking mind you dare to think is real. What gives the mind that power? Does the mind have power if it is unreal? What difference whether it has power or hasn’t power, or the very words that I am saying when the Self exists because of itself? You could live in the dream and become disturbed by it. Or you can seek and desire with a burning desire to cognize reality and be blissful because of it. Man’s destiny leads him back to himself. Man’s destiny leads him into the cognition of his own Being; leads him further into the realization of his True Being. They say you must step onto the spiritual path to realize the Self. You only step on the spiritual path when you and you alone are ready, when what appears real to you loses its appearance of reality. Then and only then are you able to detach yourself enough to seek to find a new and permanent reality.

Have you ever noticed that something you think is permanent, you and you alone give permanence to that thing through your protection of it?

Have you ever stopped to even think and get a clear intellectual concept that the Spirit within you is the only permanent thing? That everything else is changing? That everything else has a direct wire connecting it to the realms of joy and sorrow? That is the mind.

As the Self, your Effulgent Being, comes to life in you, joy and sorrow become a study to you. You do not have to think to tell yourself that each in its own place is unreal. You know from the inmost depth of your being that form itself is not real.

The subtlety of the joys that you experience as you come into your Effulgent Being cannot be described. They can only be projected to you if you are refined enough to pick up the subtlety of vibration. If you are in harmony enough, you can sense the great joy, the subtlety of the bliss that you will feel as you come closer and closer to your real Self.

If you strive to find the Self by using your mind, you will strive and strive in vain, because the mind cannot give you Truth; a lie cannot give you the truth. A lie can only entangle you in a web of deceit. But if you sensitize yourself, awaken your true, fine, beautiful qualities that all of you have, then you become a channel, a chalice in which your Effulgent Being will begin to shine. You will first think that a light is shining within you. You will seek to find that light. You will seek to hold it, like you cherish and hold a beautiful gem. You will later find that the light that you found within you is in every pore, every cell of your being. You will later find that that light permeates every atom of the universe. And you will later find that you are that light and what it permeates is the unreal illusion created by the mind.

How strong you must be to find this Truth. You must become very, very strong. How do you become strong? Exercise. You must exercise every muscle and sinew of your nature by obeying the dictates of the law, of the spiritual laws. It will be very difficult. A weak muscle is very difficult to make strong, but if you exercise over a period of time and do what you should do, it will respond. Your nature will respond, too. But you must work at it. You must try. You must try. You must try very, very hard, very diligently. How often? Ten minutes a day? No. Two hours a day? No. Twenty-four hours a day! Every day! You must try very, very hard.

Preparing you for the realization of the Self is like tuning up a violin, tightening up each string so it harmonizes with every other string. The more sensitive you are to tone, the better you can tune a violin, and the better the violin is tuned, the better the music. The stronger you are in your nature, the more you can bring through your real nature, the more you can enjoy the bliss of your true being. It is well worth working for. It is well worth craving for. It is well worth denying yourself many, many things for—to curb your nature. It is well worth struggling with your mind, to bring your mind under the dominion of your will.

Those of you who have experienced contemplation know the depth from which I am speaking. You have had a taste of your true Self. It has tasted like nothing that you have ever come in contact with before. It has filled and thrilled and permeated your whole being, even if you have only remained in that state of contemplation not longer than sixty seconds. Out of it you have gained a great knowing, a knowing that you could refer back to, a knowing that will bear the fruit of wisdom if you relate future life experiences to that knowing, a knowing greater than you could acquire at any university or institute of higher learning. Can you only try to gain a clear intellectual concept of realizing this Self that you felt permeating through you and through all form in your state of contemplation? That is your next step.

Those of you who are wrestling with the mind in your many endeavors to try to concentrate the mind, to try to meditate, to try to become quiet, to try to relax, keep trying. Every positive effort that you make is not in vain. Every single brick added to a temple made of brick brings that temple closer to completion. So keep trying and one day, all of a sudden, you will pierce the lower realms of your mind and enter into contemplation. Then you will be able to say: “Yes, I know, I have seen. Now I know fully the path that I am on.” Keep trying. You have to start somewhere.

The Self you cannot speak of. You can only try to think about it, if you care to, in one way: feel your mind, body and emotions, and know that you are the Spirit permeating through mind, which is all form; body, which you inhabit; and emotions, which you either control or are controlled by. Think on that, ponder on that, and you will find you are the light within your eyes. You are the feel within your fingers. “You are more radiant than the sun, purer than the snow, more subtle than the ether.” Keep trying. Each time you try you are one step closer to your true Effulgent Being.

From Dancing with Siva and Merging with Siva

Rishis proclaim that we are not our body, mind or emotions. We are divine souls on a wondrous journey. We came from God, live in God and are evolving into oneness with God. We are, in truth, the Truth we seek. We are immortal souls living and growing in the great school of earthly experience in which we have lived many lives. Vedic rishis have given us courage by uttering the simple truth, “God is the Life of our life.” A great sage carried it further by saying there is one thing God cannot do: God cannot separate Himself from us. This is because God is our life. God is the life in the birds. God is the life in the fish. God is the life in the animals. Becoming aware of this Life energy in all that lives is becoming aware of God’s loving presence within us.

We are the undying consciousness and energy flowing through all things. Deep inside we are perfect this very moment, and we have only to discover and live up to this perfection to be whole. Our energy and God’s energy are the same, ever coming out of the void. We are all beautiful children of God. Each day we should try to see the life energy in trees, birds, animals and people. When we do, we are seeing God Siva in action. The Vedas affirm, “He who knows God as the Life of life, the Eye of the eye, the Ear of the ear, the Mind of the mind—he indeed comprehends fully the Cause of all causes.”

The ultimate goal of life on Earth is to realize the Self God, the rare attainment of nirvikalpa samadhi. Each soul discovers its Sivaness, Absolute Reality, Parasiva—the timeless, formless, spaceless Self.

The realization of the Self, Parasiva, is the destiny of each soul, attainable through renunciation, sustained meditation and frying the seeds of karmas yet to germinate. It is the gateway to moksha, liberation from rebirth. The Self lies beyond the thinking mind, beyond the feeling nature, beyond action or any movement of even the highest state of consciousness. The Self God is more solid than a neutron star, more elusive than empty space, more intimate than thought and feeling. It is ultimate reality itself, the innermost Truth all seekers seek. It is well worth striving for. It is well worth struggling to bring the mind under the dominion of the will. After the Self is realized, the mind is seen for the unreality that it truly is. Because Self Realization must be experienced in a physical body, the soul cycles back again and again into flesh to dance with Siva, live with Siva and ultimately merge with Siva in undifferentiated oneness. Yea, jiva is actually Siva. The Vedas explain, “As water poured into water, milk poured into milk, ghee into ghee become one without differentiation, even so the individual soul and the Supreme Self become one.”

The Self is like a neutron star, one million times harder than a diamond, not light, not dark, not within, not without, all things and nothing. You can’t smell it, yet you sense its smell. You can’t hear it, yet you feel its noise. You can’t see it, yet you are blinded by the thought of its light. You can’t know it, yet you know it; and knowing it is irresistible. The compact neutron star is heavier than heaviness itself, lighter than a balloon within air, space, nonspace, matter, nonmatter, air, the absence of air, light, the absence of light. How can we compare the neutron star to the Self, which is a trillion times greater, infinitely greater? There is no comparison, only an analogy of its greatness, of the stability-of-hardness, ever-present Self within each and every one of you. Quell the wanderings of the external mind. Bring it in through breathing, regulated breath. Quell the waves of the subconscious mind by bringing it into right belief, right words, right action—dharma—thus acknowledging all wrong actions, wrong words, wrong belief with penance, perseverance and final dissolution. Then there is nothing left but dharma—right action, right thought, right speech—within every experience of life. Dharma is sustained.

The neutron star: a trillion times more solid is the Self, which is you this very moment. Feel strong, feel secure, feel invincible, untouchable and yet able to be touched. Claim your heritage. Learn to work with yourself within yourself to accept your inherent identity. Don’t waste your time looking for your religious roots, racial roots, from the past. Once found, they will only give you momentary fulfillment. Accept and learn to deal with the realization of your acceptance of the undisputed fact of the strength of the Source. You are always your Source, emanating, ever emanating, creation, preservation and dissolution, but to create again to preserve the whims and fancies of the emanations of the neutron star. The emanations of the star, of which the Self, Parasiva, you, is a billion times more compact, is this maya of a constant, intricately complex series of performing, sustaining and cancelling out to perform again. Let’s all dance with Siva and unfold within ourselves Siva consciousness—the all-rightness of whatever happens, of all the happenings in the perfect universe called Sivaness.

The Self is timeless, causeless and formless. Therefore, being That, it has no relation whatsoever to time, space and form. Form is in a constant state of creation, preservation and destruction within space, thus creating consciousness called time, and has no relationship to timelessness, causelessness or formlessness. The individual soul, when mature, can make the leap from the consciousness of space-time-causation into the timeless, causeless, formless Self. This is the ultimate maturing of the soul on this planet.

Form in its cycle of creation, preservation and destruction is always in one form or another, a manifest state or a gaseous state, but is only seeming to one who has realized the Self. Siva in His manifest state is all form, in all form and permeating through all form, and hence all creation, preservation and destruction of form is Siva. This is the dance, the movement of form. No form is permanent. Siva in His unmanifest form is timeless, causeless, spaceless—hence called the Self God. Hence, Siva has always existed, was never created, as both His manifest and unmanifest states have always existed. This is the divine dance and the mystery revealed to those who have realized the Self.

The soul merged out of Siva as the Self in His timeless, causeless, spaceless, unmanifest state and from Siva as the Creator, Preserver and Destroyer in His manifest state of all form. The core of the merger between these two states, or the apex, causes a cell which breaks loose another cell, thus spawning souls. Each time the Being of Siva goes from His manifest to His unmanifest state, it spawns a soul.

Where the Shakti unites with the unmanifest and Siva unites with the manifest, this natural process, which continues even into the sahasrara of man, is the core from whence creation comes.

Each God has a vehicle through which he is represented—Ganesha the mouse, Murugan the peacock, and Siva rides in man. The origin of man—being spawned from Siva, the birthless, deathless God—therefore, is as a pure, taintless soul. After thus being spawned, the soul goes through a maturing process. This slow growth is in three basic categories: karma exercises, anava clouds, maya distorts. This classroom of these experiences finally matures an intelligence free enough from the bondage of the classroom of anava, karma and maya to realize its own Divinity and at-one-ment with Siva as a taintless, pure soul. This, then, is the foundation, after once attained, for final liberation, Self Realization, to be sought for.

When the soul is spawned, it is a release of energy. This energy, once released, accumulates more energy around it from the manifest world, which is also Siva. The impact of the spawning is so strong that finally a body is created around this tiny cell, which looks exactly like the Primal Soul body of the God that spawned the soul into being. The word soul in itself, meaning core, refers to this cell. The body of the soul, the actinic causal body, as it becomes denser, moves into another plane of manifest being and begins on its own to create, preserve and destroy, for it now is form, taking on the same nature, which is its nature, of Siva in manifest form. The only difference now between this soul and Siva is that Siva can be in unmanifest state, but the soul is caught in the activity, the so-called bondage, of the manifest state. It has not yet completed the cycle. Once this soul has completed the cycle of the manifest state, then quite naturally it merges back into itself and realizes, or is, the unmanifest state.

After realization of the Self, to attain actual liberation from rebirth requires the willful and deliberate act of the adept at the point of death to direct the course. If he feels and knows that he has yet to perform actions of service on this planet, once the physical body has been parted from, he will find himself on an inner plane in which he can prepare to return at the proper place and proper time to fulfill his desire. However, should he have felt well satisfied with his many lives, as they play before his vision during his transition from his physical body, now ready to go on in this liberated state, he would find himself on an inner plane whence it would be impossible to reenter flesh. Thus, moksha, kaivalya, liberation from earthly birth, has been attained, and the way is open to further evolution on the subtle planes.

Embodied souls have attributes that are constantly refining themselves as they traverse the instinctive nature toward the Divine. These qualities are becoming more and more like Lord Siva’s. His personality, attributes and qualities are described by the 1,008 names given to Him, for no single name is adequate to depict His attributes. Similarly, a person could not be adequately explained by one word. Now you can see the similarity between Lord Siva and His offspring.

A talk given by Gurudeva in the late 90s

Remember why you are here on Earth: to find the Self, and you are going to come back and back and back and until you do. So you might as well do it now and get it over with. You can find the Self in one of two ways. You can either go in and in and in and in and in and in and in…there it is!

Or, you can do it the artichoke way. You can say: The Self is not the emotions, it’s not the body. It is not this thought and it’s not that thought. It’s not this thought and it’s not this thing that I want, and it’s not this and it’s not that, and not this and not that. Why, it’s not even awareness. Uh oh! You’re right there.

Do you like the artichoke way? If you tried the other way and it didn’t work, try this way. You have all discovered your emotions, right? You have all discovered your physical body. You have all discovered your thinking mind. You have all had intuitive flashes—“Oh, yes, I see!” You have discovered your superconscious mind.

You have all discovered your subconscious mind. That’s the part you drag along with you; it’s called the past. Get that past behind me. Then the past is pushing you along. It is still there. Then it goes over to this side. “Let’s get that past behind me. Let’s get on with my life.” And you have all discovered getting rid of the past by putting your problems at the feet of the Deity, putting your problems in the homa fire, putting your problems in the sacred river. They go away.

You’ve all discovered your infinite energy. The energy in your body, which is the same energy in my body and every body and every animal and every living thing in every planet in this whole universe. Same thing. Just keep discovering that and you get right to the core of existence itself. It’s that easy.

Only you can do it. Nobody can do it for you, nor can anyone give it to you. Why can’t they give you the Self? Because it’s already there. You already have it. You can’t take it from one person and give it to another. The guru can’t take the Self out of him and give it to you. It’s already in you. It’s always been in you. It’s just all the outer stuff that keeps our attention occupied so much that we forget and become insecure in the outer. We forget the dynamic security of the Self which is stronger and more powerful than a neutron star. It has never, ever changed, never shall change, cannot ever change. You are that.

So, concentrate on the all-pervasive energy. Every time your mind wanders on something else say: “Well, it’s not that!” Take that silly little thing off that enormous artichoke there. Put on a little mayonnaise. Mmmm!

And finally, you will arrive right at the Self. First you intuit its existence. Then finally you realize that you have always been That.

Give it a try. Promise? Give it a try?

The yoga of action is comprised of austerity, scriptural study and japa, and devotion to Isvara. This yoga has the purpose of achieving samadhi and lessening the causes of afflication.

Sage Patanjali, the Yoga Sutra, 2.2.1-2

An inspired talk given at Kauai Aadheenam on January 1, 1984

Never have there been so many people living on the planet wondering, “What is the real goal, the final purpose, of life?” However, man is blinded by his ignorance and his concern with the externalities of the world. He is caught, enthralled, bound by karma. The ultimate realizations available are beyond his understanding and remain to him obscure, even intellectually. Man’s ultimate quest, the final evolutionary frontier, is within man himself. It is the Truth spoken by Vedic rishis as the Self within man, attainable through control of the mind and purification.

It is karma that keeps us from knowing of and reaching life’s final goal, yet it is wrong to even call it a goal. It is what is known by the knower to have always existed. It is not a matter of becoming the Self, but of realizing that you never were not the Self. And what is that Self? It is Parasiva. It is God. It is That which is beyond the mind, beyond thought, feeling and emotion, beyond time, form and space. That is what all men are seeking, looking for, longing for. When karma is controlled through yoga and dharma well performed, and the energies are transmuted to their ultimate state, the Vedic Truth of life discovered by the rishis so long ago becomes obvious.

That goal is to realize God Siva in His absolute, or transcendent, state, which when realized is your own ultimate state—timeless, formless, spaceless Truth. That Truth lies beyond the thinking mind, beyond the feeling nature, beyond action or any movement of the vrittis, the waves of the mind. Being, seeing, this Truth then gives the correct perspective, brings the external realities into perspective. They then are seen as truly unrealities, yet not discarded as such.

This intimate experience must be experienced while in the physical body. One comes back and back again into flesh simply to realize Parasiva. Nothing more. Yet, the Self, or Parasiva, is an experience only after it has been experienced. Yet, it is not an experience at all, but the only possible nonexperience, which registers in its aftermath upon the mind of man. Prior to that, it is a goal. After realization, one thing is lost, the desire for the Self.

Like a Child’s Self-Discovery

Look at a child standing before a mirror for the first time, feeling its nose and ears, eyes and mouth, looking at itself reflected in the glass. Feeling and seeing what has always been there is a discovery in experience. Parasiva is the same. It is always there in each and every human being on the planet. But involvement in the externalities of material existence inhibits their turning inward. The clouding of the mirror of the mind—that reflective pond of awareness which when calm sees clearly—or the ripples of disturbance on the mind’s surface distort seeing and confuse understanding. Without a clear mirror, the child lacks the seeing of what has always been there—its own face. Parasiva is an experience that can be likened to the hand feeling and the eyes seeing one’s own face for the first time. But it is not experience of one thing discovering another, as in the discovery of one’s face. It is the Self experiencing itself. Experience, experienced and experiencer are one and the same. This is why it is only registered on the external mind in retrospect.

Most people try to experience God through other people. Disciples see a guru as God. Wives see their husband as God. Devotees see the Deity in the temple as God. But all the time, behind the eyes of their seeing, is God. The Self, Parasiva, can be realized only when the devotee turns away from the world and enters the cave within as a way of life through initiation and under vows. We know the Self within ourself only when we fully turn into ourselves through concentration, meditation and contemplation and then sustain the resulting samadhi of Satchidananda, pure consciousness, in hopes of finding, determined to find, That which cannot be described, That which was spoken about by the rishis, Parasiva, beyond a stilled mind, Parasiva that has stopped time, transcended space and dissolved all form.

Defining the Destination

How can we know when we’re ready to know the Self? How do we know when the soul is spiritually mature? When we begin a journey and clearly define our destination, then we must begin from where we are, not elsewhere. Clearly defining our destination requires knowing where we are, requires determining whether or not we want to go there at this time. We must ask whether we have the means, the willpower, to get there. Are we ready to leave the world, or must we fulfill further obligations in the world and to the world? Have we paid all of our debts? We cannot leave the world with karmas still unresolved. Perhaps we desire something more, some further human fulfillment of affection, creativity, wealth, professional accomplishment, name and fame. In other words, do we still have worldly involvements and attachments? Are we ready for the final journey life has to offer? Are we prepared to endure the hardships of sadhana, to suffer the death of the ego? Or would we prefer more pleasures in the world of “I” and “mine”? It is a matter of evolution, of what stage of life we have entered in this incarnation—is it charya, kriya, yoga or jnana? When the soul is spiritually mature, we know when we’re ready to know the Self.

When one is bound down by his past karmas, unhappy, confused and not performing with enthusiasm his dharma—be it born or chosen—making new karmas as a result, his lethargy results in despair. The camel walks slower with a heavy burden and stops if the burden is still heavier. The burdened have no sense of urgency, no expression of joy. They have stopped. They are standing on the path holding their troubles in their hands, unwilling and unable to let go.

Worship of Lord Ganesha sets the path of dharma. Go to His Feet. He alone can perform this miracle for you. He will release the mental and emotional obstructions to spiritual progress. He will remove the burdens of worldliness. To live the perfect life of the grihastha dharma, of family life, brings as its fulfillment the all-knowing bliss of Satchidananda, realizing ourself not as formless Parasiva but as the pure consciousness that sustains and pervades all forms in the universe. Yes, there is a sense of urgency on the path of enlightenment, but only when we are unburdened of karma, only when we are walking the path of dharma. Only then can true yoga be practiced and perfected.

All Hindus without exception believe in reincarnation. In each birth we must fulfill more goals leading to the one ultimate goal which after many births well lived will loom before us as the only goal worthy of striving for in this lifetime. All other desires, all other aims and ambitions pale under the brilliance of even the thought of realization of Satchidananda and Parasiva.

In fulfillment of our duties to parents, relations and the community at large, become a good householder, be a good citizen, live a rewarding physical, emotional and intellectual existence. These are the natural goals of many. Once this is accomplished in a lifetime, it is easy in future lives to perpetuate this pattern and evolve toward more refined and more difficult goals, such as gaining a clear intellectual knowledge of the truths of the Agamas and Vedas, most especially the Upanishads, and establishing a personal contact with Lord Siva within His great temples through the fervor of worship.

Harnessing the Energies

Still other goals must be met: quieting the energies, the pranas, through pranayama, purifying or refining mind and emotion, quelling the ever-constant movement of the restless, external mind and its immediate subconscious, where memories are stored, preserved memories which give rise to fear, anger, hatred and jealousy. It is our past that colors and conditions, actually creates, the future. We purge the past in the present, and we fashion the future in the present.

All of these emotions are the powerful force that bursts the seals of the psychic chakras, four, five, six and seven. Once harnessed, turned inward and transmuted, this life force drives the spiritual process forward. Ours is the path of not only endeavoring to awaken the higher nature, but at the same time and toward the same end dealing positively and consciously with the remnants of the lower nature, replacing charity for greed and dealing with, rather than merely suppressing, jealousy, hatred and anger.

Most people do not understand that they have a mind, that they have a body and emotions, that what they are is something far more lasting and profound. They think they are a mind, they presume they are a body and they feel they are a given set of emotions, positive and negative. To progress on the spiritual path, they must learn they are not these things but are, in fact, a radiant, conscious soul that never dies, that can control the mind and directs the emotion toward fulfillment of dharma and resolution of karma. While living in a normal agitated state of fears, worries and doubts, seeing the deeper truths is impossible. To such a person, there is no doubt about it: “I am fearful. I am worried. I am confused. I am sick.” He says such things daily, thinking of himself in a very limited way.

This wrong identification of who we are must be unlearned. Before we actually begin serious sadhana, we must understand ourselves better, understand the three phases of the mind: instinctive, intellectual and superconscious. This takes time, meditation and study—study that must culminate in actual experience of the instinctive mind, the intellectual mind and the transcendent subsuperconscious state of the mind. Seeing the mind in its totality convinces the seeker that he is something else, he is the witness who observes the mind and cannot, therefore, be the mind itself. Then we realize that the mind in its superconsciousness is pure. We do not have to purify it, except to carry out its native purity into life, into the intellect by obtaining right knowledge and transmuting the instinctive or animal qualities. This is accomplished from within out. It is not as difficult as it may seem.

Preparations for True Yoga

We must live in the now to follow the path to enlightenment. In the lower realms of the mind, where time and space seem very real, we are worried about the past or concerned about the future. These two intermingle and limit conscious awareness. Living in the past or the future obstructs us in this way: the past, by reliving old experiences—mainly the negative ones, for they are vividly remembered—clouds our vision of the future. Living in the future overactivates the intellect, the emotion and the desires. The future is little more than another form of mental fantasy. Past and future are equally unreal and a hindrance to spiritual unfoldment. A person functioning in the now is in control of his own mind. He is naturally happier, more successful. He is performing every task with his fullest attention, and the rewards are to be seen equally in the quality of his work and the radiance of his face. He cannot be bored with anything he does, however simple or mundane. Everything is interesting, challenging, fulfilling. A person living fully in the now is a content person.

To attain even the permission to perform yoga one must have the grace of Lord Ganesha and the grace of Lord Murugan. Lord Murugan is the God of the kundalini, of the advanced yogic practices. Unfoldment all happens within the kundalini and the chakras within our subtle bodies. Once a profound relationship is developed with Lord Murugan, then, with the guru’s permission and guidance, true yoga may commence. Otherwise, no matter how long one sits in meditation, no matter how hard one tries, it is just sitting, it is just trying. There is no fire there, no shakti, no power, no change. It is the Gods who control the fire and at this stage help the devotee immensely, bringing him closer and closer to the supreme God, Siva. Quite often the yogi in his deep internalized state may see in vision the feet or form of God Siva before he begins to blend into the mind of God Siva, called Satchidananda. It is God and Gods in form that help us to find the formless God.

The Perspective of the Knower

Most people have not realized that they are and were Siva before they search for Siva. They are confined to their own individual anava, their personal ego and ignorance. When we realize that we have come from Siva, the way back to Siva is clearly defined. That is half the battle, to realize we came from Siva, live in Siva and are returning to Siva. Knowing only this much makes the path clear and impels us to return to Him, to our Source, to our Self. We only see opposites when our vision is limited, when we have not experienced totally. There is a point of view which resolves all contradictions and answers all questions. Yet to be experienced is yet to be understood. Once experienced and understood, the Quiet comes.

The only change that occurs is the awakening of the sahasrara chakra and the perspective that a mind has which has undone itself, transcended itself in formless Being and Non-Being, and then returned to the experiences of form. The experiences are all still there, but never again are they binding. The fire or life energy, which rises in the normal person high enough to merely digest the food eaten, rises to the top of the enlightened man’s head, burns through a seal there, and his consciousness has gone with it. He is definitely different from an ordinary person. He died. He was reborn. He is able and capable of knowing many things without having to read books or listen to others speak their knowledge at him. His perceptions are correct, unclouded and clear. His thoughts manifest properly in all planes of consciousness—instinctive, intellectual and superconscious or spiritual. He lives now, fully present in all he does.

The internal difference that makes a soul a jnani is that he knows who he is and who you are. He knows Truth, and he knows the lie. Another difference is that he knows his way around within the inner workings of the mind. He can travel here and there with his own 747, without extraneous external conveyances. He knows the goings-on in far-off places. He is consciously conscious of his own karma and dharma and that of others. For him there is no apartness, due to his attainment within the chakras previously described. His only gift to others, to the world, would be blessings, an outpouring of energy to all beings from the higher planes where he resides. It is the jnani, the enlightened being, who sees beyond duality and knows the oneness of all. He is the illumined one, filled with light, filled with love. He sees God everywhere, in all men. He is the one who simply is and who sees no differences. That is his difference.

For those who have strong dedication, samadhi is near.

Sage Patanjali, the Yoga Sutra, 1.1,21

Drawn from Gurudeva’s 12-hour Audio Cassette Edition of
The Master Course (1970) and earlier manuscripts

When your awareness is in superconsciousness, you see yourself as pure life force flowing through people, through trees, through everything. I have seen myself, in a certain state of samadhi, as pure life force flowing through a jungle, through trees, through plants, through water, through air. That is superconsciousness. It is so permanent. It is so real. Nothing could touch it. Nothing could hurt it. In this state we see the external world as a dream, and things begin to look transparent to us. People begin to look transparent. This is superconsciousness. When we look at a physical object and we begin to see it scintillating in light as it begins to become transparent, this is superconsciousness. It is a very beautiful and natural state to be in.

Occasionally, in deep meditation we see the head filled with an intense light, and we know that that is the natural state of man. This is superconsciousness: when we can look at another person and know what he is thinking and how he is feeling and how his subconscious is programmed. While we are looking at him, all of a sudden he can be seen in a past life, or in the future, or in the eternity of the moment. You are so naturally, without striving, in the superconscious area of the mind. No technique can give you these experiences that you unfold into as you walk the path toward merger. You come right into them, and the experience is how you are. Occasionally, when you close your eyes in meditation, you may see the face of your guru or some divine being that possibly once lived on Earth, and now just the shell of his subtle body remains vibrating in the ethers. You see superconscious beings while in the superconscious area of the mind. Occasionally you clairaudiently hear voices singing, music playing, just as Beethoven heard his wonderful symphonies that he recorded like a scribe. It is the superconscious mind again, so near, so real, so vibrant.

And when you are in contemplation, so engrossed in the energies within you—within the physical body and the energy within that, and that within that—that you become totally engrossed in the peace of the central source of all energy, that too is superconsciousness. Being on the brink of Self Realization, having lost consciousness of the physical body and of being a mind, you are only conscious of a vast, bluish white light. You get into this through going into the clear white light and out through the other side of it. Then you come into pure consciousness. It is a vast, pure, pale bluish white light—endless, endless inner space. It is just on the brink of the Absolute, just on the brink of the fullness of Self Realization. When you are in this beautiful, blissful state of pure consciousness, you are barely conscious that you are there, because to have a consciousness of being conscious, you have to be conscious of another thing.

These are some of the wonderful signposts on the path, all within your immediate grasp in this life, just as the ability to play the vina or the flute beautifully in this life is within your immediate grasp. It takes practice, following the rules and then more practice.

Maturity of Being

Now we begin to see the vastness and yet the simplicity of the superconscious mind as awareness flows through it. Nothing is there for awareness to attach itself to. When aware of something other than itself, awareness is in its natural state in subsuperconsciousness. Occasionally in superconsciousness we can feel and actually inwardly see the inner body, the body of the soul, and we can feel this body inside the physical body. This is the body of light. Then we know through feeling and seeing that this body has existed and will exist forever and ever and ever, and we enjoy moving within the energies of this inner body. As we feel them, we become so quiet, so centered, that awareness is aware of itself so intently that we are right on the brink of the Absolute, ready to dissolve, to merge, into That which is man’s heritage on Earth to realize, the maturity of his being, the Self God.

We grow up physically. We grow up emotionally. We acquire a lot of knowledge. We must acquire the best knowledge, the cream of all knowledge. This is the knowledge of the path to enlightenment. And then, as awareness soars within, we begin to experience the realms of superconsciousness, man’s natural state. Then we have our ultimate experience, awareness dissolving into itself, beyond superconsciousness itself.

After Self Realization, you are looking at the film, the movie of the actors and actresses, including yourself, previously seen as real, being more subsuperconsciously conscious of the light projected on the back of the film than of the pictures displayed, which were seen as real before this awakening.

Willpower Is the Fuel

You need a tremendous, indomitable will to make a reality of your quest of realizing the Being within. Unfoldment doesn’t take a lot of time. It just takes a lot of willpower. Someone can go along and sit at attention, and concentrate and meditate for years and years and years and, with a minimal amount of willpower, constantly be distracted, constantly be complaining and constantly be unsuccessful. Another person can have the exact same approach and over a short period of time be extremely successful, because he has will. The previous way he lived his life, the previous things that he did, he handled in such a way that that willpower was there, or his awareness is a manifestation of willpower, and he goes soaring within on this will.

Will is the fuel which carries awareness through all areas of the mind, that spirit, that spiritual quality, which makes all inner goals a reality. Unfoldment does not take time. It takes a tremendous will. That will has to be cultivated, just as you would cultivate a garden. It has to be cultivated. Those energies have to all be flowing through, in a sense, one channel, so that everything that you do is satisfying, is complete, beautiful.

Discover the will. Back to the spine. Feel the energy in the spine. There is no lack of it, is there? The more you use of it, the more you have to use of it. It is tuned right into the central source. When you become aware of the energy within your spine and within your head, you have separated awareness from that which it is aware of, for that is awareness itself, and that is will. We are playing with words a little. After awhile we will gain a new vocabulary for this kind of talk, but right now we are using our old-words’ way of looking at it, because our subconscious mind is more familiar with these words. Energy, awareness and willpower are one and the same. When we are subconsciously conscious that we are a superconscious being, and the subconscious mind has accepted the new programming that energy, willpower and awareness are one and the same thing, when the subconscious mind has accepted the fact that the mind was all finished long ago in all its phases of manifestation, from the refined to the gross—then the subconscious begins working as a pure channel, so to speak, for superconsciousness. Awareness can then flow in a very positive, in a very direct, way.

You want awareness to be renewed. The first step is—don’t try to go to the Self; you haven’t realized it yet—go to the spine. Feel the spine. After you realize the Self, you go deeper than the spine, you go into the Self and come back. Before you realize the Self and have that samadhi—attention, concentration. Concentrate on the energy within the spine. Go in. Awareness, energy and will are all one. Come slowly out again and you have all the willpower you need to finish any job that you’ve ever started, to make decisions, to do things and handle your external life in a very positive way, so that it does not capture awareness and hold it steadfast for a period of time, deterring you on the path of enlightenment.

Realization Requires Will

Work with willpower, awareness and energy as three separate items first. Feel awareness and discover what it is. Use willpower and discover what it is. Feel energy and analyze energy and discover what it is. Then separate the three of them in your intellectual mind and experiential pattern. Then, after you’ve gotten that done, you will begin to see inside yourself that the three are one and the same. And it is actually the beautiful, pure intelligence of the immortal soul body, that body of light of you, on its path inward into its last phase of maturity on this planet. This inner body of light has been maturing through many, many different lives.

If you would like to know how it came along, for instance if you had ninety lives on this planet, each life the body of light matured one year. So your body of light would be ninety years old, so to speak. You can look at it that way. That’s not quite the way it actually is, but looking at it that way gives you an idea of the maturing of this body of light. The pure intelligence of it is your awareness—which is energy and which is willpower—that life after life becomes stronger, more steadfast. Finally, in your last incarnation on the Earth, you merge into its final experience, that great samadhi, the Self, beyond the complete, still area of consciousness. You go in not knowing what you are getting into, and you come out wise. Your complete perspective is changed, and you only talk about it to those that are on the path of enlightenment, as they are the only ones steady enough or free enough to understand the depth of this realization.

Here are the ingredients: attention, concentration, meditation, contemplation, samadhi. Willpower is the fuel. It does not take time. Someone asked me, “Do you think I can have this samadhi, realize the Self, in ten years?” I said, “I certainly don’t. I don’t think you have enough willpower to realize it in a hundred years, because it doesn’t take time. It takes will. If you had the will, you wouldn’t add ten years on it. You would simply be telling me, ‘I am going to have this realization.’ And I would believe you because I would feel your will moving out of every atom of your body. But the mere fact that you take an intellectual approach, I have to say no, because whatever I did think wouldn’t make any difference one way or the other. You are not going to get it with an attitude like that, because it’s not something you go out and buy. It’s not another getting, like ‘I have a car. I have clothes. I have a little money. And now, after I get my television paid for, I think I’ll get the Self, because that is the next thing to get. It’s really great. I read about it. I heard about it. I heard a speaker speak about it. I’m all fired up to get this Self, and it’s next in the line of getting, so I’m going to get it!’

It doesn’t work like that. You don’t get that which you have. You can’t get that which you have. It’s there. You have to give up the consciousness of the television, the money, the clothes, the people that you know, the personality that you thought you were, the physical body. You have to go into the elements of the physical body, into the elements of that, and into the energy of that, and into the vast inner space of that, and into the core of that, and into the that of that, and into the that of that, and finally you realize that you have realized the Self. And you’ve lost something. You lost your goal of Self Realization. And you come back into the fullness of everything, and you are no longer looking, and you are no longer asking, and you are no longer wanting. You just are.” When you get tired of the external area of the mind that you are flowing through, you simply dive in again.

From “Man, His Seven Aspects,” first published in 1960

Within all seven aspects of man lies the body of the soul, the actinic causal body, anandamaya kosha, the real you. The soul body has a form, just as the astral body has a form, but it is more refined and is of a more permanent nature. It is this body which reincarnates, creating around itself new physical and astral bodies, life after life after life. This process matures and develops the body of the soul. Hence we have old souls and young souls, depending on the maturity and unfoldment of the soul body, or depending upon the number of lives or the intensity of maturing experience which the individual has passed through. The body of the soul is pure light, made of quantums. It is indestructible. It cannot be hurt or damaged in any way. It is a pure being, created by Lord Siva, maturing its way to Him in final merger. The body of the soul is constant radiance. Its mind is superconsciousness, containing all intelligence, and is constantly aware, does not sleep and is expanding awareness as the soul body matures. For the soul-realized person, awareness travels through the mind as a traveler travels from city to city, country to country, never caught in any one area for longer than necessary, always consciously conscious of awareness in consciousness at every moment. The body of the soul lives in the eternity of the moment, simultaneously conscious of past and future as a one cycle. The true nature, everlasting secure personal identity, is realizing oneself as the soul body. This is truly finding our roots, our source, our indestructible, ever-maturing soul.

In the years that follow complete illumination, or realization of the Self, in obtaining a stabilized nirvikalpa samadhi, a body of pure, actinic, golden energy, the svarnasharira, begins to form. I experienced this beginning to happen in me in 1955. At that time there was only enough odic force to hold the physical body together in material activity. This new actinic body is built through the consecutive practice of nirvikalpa samadhi on a daily basis, which forms one of the highest disciplines of siddha yoga.

However, it should be mentioned that the first great attainment to be striven for by the aspirant is the experiencing of inner light, which is taught to family people and renunciates alike, implying that he has enough inner dominion and control over the intellect that the radiance within the head or body is actually seen. This implies also a working control of the manipura chakra and a conscious awareness of the working of the anahata chakra of cognition, allowing a burst of actinic energy to the vishuddha chakra of love.

The next step for aspirants is what is known as “touching into the Self.” When this occurs, the soul body is released, made completely autonomous, so that they can then be trained in its conscious use and control. It is in this body that they attend higher plane schools and communicate through vibration with others in the soul body. From then on, it is for them to train with the guru personally so that they learn to use and control the body of the soul. With this control and altered consciousness, they eventually come into a sustained realization of the Self, nirvikalpa samadhi, in this or a future life, for the next phase on the path to merger is to make ready and then sustain renunciate life in the truest sense by becoming a Natha sannyasin. It must be said that many frustrate themselves by seeking realizations beyond their abilities, while not accomplishing the realizations that are within their abilities. We must remember that savikalpa samadhi relates to the anahata and vishuddha chakras, sustained by a purified intellect and a dynamic will. Whereas, nirvikalpa samadhi is of the ajna and sahasrara chakras and those above and is sustained by complete renunciation of the world to the point where the world renounces the renunciate. These are the venerable sannyasins.

Control of the mind builds the intuitive nature. By directing the flow of thought, perceptively discriminating between actions, aware of attending reactions, the yoga student soon learns the use of his actinic power. In order to hold an expanded consciousness, this power must be brought into use, and when it flows through the intellect, it automatically changes the chemistry of the intellect while it begins to build the intuitive nature.

Reverse your thinking about yourself. Feel that you come out of timelessness, causelessness, spacelessness. Visualize the pure radiant body of light, the being of the soul, the “I Am,” the “Watcher.” Then around that is formed the intuitive mind, and around that is formed the intellect. Then the chakras come into view, governing the highest to the lowest states of mind, and the ida, pingala and sushumna currents. The instinctive nature is formed around this, then the human aura, through which thought forms are created, then the vital health body, and then the physical body.

Drawn from three talks: “The Two Perfections of Our Soul” (1981); “On the Brink of the Absolute” (1960) and “Everything Is Within You” (1959)

We shall now discuss the three perfections of our Supreme God Siva: Parasiva, Satchidananda and Maheshvara. Isn’t it wonderful to know that two of God’s three perfections are inherent in the soul of man? What are those three perfections? The great God Siva has form and is formless. He is the immanent Pure Consciousness or pure form; He is the Personal Lord manifesting Himself as innumerable forms; and He is the impersonal, transcendent Absolute beyond all form. We know Siva in His three perfections, two of form and one formless. First, we worship His manifest form as Pure Love and Consciousness, called Satchidananda in Sanskrit. Second, we worship Him as our Personal Lord, Maheshvara, the Primal Soul who tenderly loves and cares for His devotees—a Being whose resplendent body may be seen in mystic vision. In our daily lives we love, honor, worship and serve God in these manifest perfections. Ultimately, in perfectly simple, yet awesomely austere nirvikalpa samadhi, we realize Him as the formless Parasiva, sought for and known only by yogis and jnanis. We cannot speak of His Absolute Reality which is beyond qualities and description, yet knowable to the fully matured soul who seeks God within through yoga under the guidance of a satguru.

For the sake of understanding the mysteries of the soul, we distinguish between the soul body and its essence. As a soul body, we are individual and unique, different from all others. Our soul is a self-effulgent body of light which evolves and matures through an evolutionary process. This soul body is of the nature of God Siva, but is different from Him in that it is less resplendent than the Primal Soul and still evolving, while He is unevolutionary Perfection. We may liken the soul body to an acorn, which contains the mighty oak but is a small seed yet to develop. Even when God Realization is attained, the soul body continues to evolve in this and other worlds until it merges with the Primal Soul, as a drop of water merges with its source, the ocean. This is the destiny of all souls without exception.

At the core of the subtle soul body is Satchidananda, or immanent Love, and at the core of that is Parasiva, or transcendent Reality. At this depth of our being there exists no separate identity or difference—all are one. Thus, deep within our soul we are identical with God this very moment, for within us are the unmanifest Parasiva and the manifest Satchidananda. These are not aspects of the evolving soul, but the nucleus of the soul, which does not change or evolve. They are eternally perfect and one with God Siva. From an absolute perspective, our soul is already in nondual union with God in His two perfections of Satchidananda and Parasiva, but to be realized to be known. Satchidananda is the superconscious mind of the soul—the mind of God Siva. Parasiva is the inmost core of the soul. We are That. We do not become That. There exists no relation between Satchidananda, which is pure form and consciousness, and Parasiva, which is without form. Paramaguru Siva Yogaswami taught us, “You are Siva. I am Siva. All are Siva. Even as Siva is immortal, so too are we.”

Form and Formlessness

We must caution each and all not to think of the external mind as God, which would be a self-deception. Man’s personality or individuality is not God—neither is the ego, the intellect or the emotions. Though the unenlightened sometimes make this mistake, I believe you will readily ferret out the difference. Parasiva, the Self God, lies resident at the core of man’s existence, far beyond the reach of the external phases of consciousness; yet these exist only because That exists, the timeless, causeless, spaceless God Siva beyond the mind.

The other perfection inherent in the soul of man is Satchidananda—Being, Consciousness and Bliss. When mind force, thought force and the vrittis, or waves of the mind, are quiescent, the outer mind subsides and the mind of the soul shines forth. We share the mind of God Siva at this superconscious depth of our being. In entering this quiescence, one first encounters a clear white light within the body, but only after sufficient mastery of the mind has been attained through the disciplined and protracted practices of yoga.

Hearing the vina, the mridanga, the tambura and all the psychic sounds is the awakening of the inner body, which, if sadhana is pursued, will finally grow and stabilize, opening the mind to the constant state of Satchidananda, where the holy inner mind of God Siva and our soul are one. I hold that Satchidananda—the light and consciousness ever permeating form, God in all things and everywhere—is form, though refined form, to be sure. Satchidananda is pure form, pure consciousness, pure blessedness or bliss, our soul’s perfection in form. Parasiva is formless, timeless, causeless, spaceless, as the perfection of our soul beyond form.

Though it is supreme consciousness, Satchidananda is not the ultimate realization, which lies beyond consciousness or mind. This differs from popular interpretations of present-day Vedanta, which makes these two perfections virtually synonymous. Modern Vedanta scholars occasionally describe Satchidananda almost as a state of the intellect, as though the perfected intellect, through knowledge, could attain such depths, as though these depths were but a philosophical premise or collection of beliefs and insights. This is what I call “simplistic Vedanta.”

To understand how these two perfections differ, visualize a vast sheath of light which permeates the walls of this monastery and the countryside around us, seeping in and through all particles of matter. The light could well be called formless, penetrating, as it does, all conceivable forms, never static, always changing. Actually, it is amorphous, not formless. Taking this one step farther, suppose there were a “something” so great, so intense in vibration that it could swallow up light as well as the forms it permeates. This cannot be described, but can be called Parasiva—the greatest of all of God Siva’s perfections to be realized. This, too, can be experienced by the yogi, in nirvikalpa samadhi. Thus, we understand Parasiva as the perfection known in nirvikalpa samadhi, and Satchidananda as the perfection experienced in savikalpa samadhi. By the word formless I do not describe that which can take any form or that which is of no definite shape and size. I mean without form altogether, beyond form, beyond the mind which conceives of form and space, for mind and consciousness, too, are form.

Being and Becoming

Out of the microcosm ever comes the macrocosm. Out of Parasiva—which is timeless, causeless and formless—ever comes all form. This is the great mystery without a reason why. Out of pure consciousness ever comes the light which binds all form together in specific bondage, individualizing forms, souls, one from another. This is ever happening, as simultaneously struggling souls remove their bondage through the grace of God Siva to come into Satchidananda, later to be absorbed into Parasiva. This, too, is a great mystery without a reason why.

The existence called Parasiva pervades the infinite Satchidananda, sustaining it just as the Divine Light of God Siva’s mind pervades and sustains the gross forms of this world. Parasiva does not create Satchidananda, yet Satchidananda is sustained because of the existence of nonexistence. Now, you might ask, “Why?” The answer is that this is the will of our great God Siva.

Therefore, first we seek to gain an intellectual clarity as to the path we are on. This purified intellect gives a philosophical clarity but should not in any way be mistaken for attainment. In the technological age there are thousands who are intellectually clear as to the task at hand, how to obtain the objective, and they have the necessary skills to begin. They do not delude themselves that they have already begun or attained anything until failure has been many times encountered, that failure conquered and success achieved in its place. Thus, we draw a distinction between the seasoned yogi whose knowledge has its source in superconsciousness and the armchair Vedantist who often thinks his intellectual comprehension is some kind of advanced attainment. It is not. Peoples of the West have come too far in technology, too far in the understanding and use of the mind, too far in personal study of Vedanta to be impressed by this anymore.

The two perfections explain well the deep questions man asks himself, questions which bring forth far too few answers. Through meditation upon the two perfections inherent in the soul, we can penetrate the mystery of the oneness of man and God. Man and God are one, yet God Siva has yet a third perfection, Maheshvara, the Primal Soul, already perfect and complete, whereas man’s soul body is still maturing, still evolving. One day, the soul body of man will merge with God Siva in this third perfection. So, we see that man is both being and becoming. He is already perfect, for the essence of his soul, Parasiva and Satchidananda, exists eternally within him as him, having never been created. Yet, man is evolving, becoming, for his individual soul body, created by God Siva, is not yet perfect, is still evolving through time, eventually to mature into the image and likeness of the Primal Soul and Creator, Maheshvara.

I might surprise you when I say that man’s soul is created and not created. True, the soul body of light was created by God Siva Himself. Within this body of light and consciousness exist, without beginning or end, the two perfections of Parasiva and Satchidananda. We find the paradoxes of oneness and twoness, of being and becoming, of created and uncreated existence subtly delineated through an understanding of the three perfections of our great God Siva.

The Point of Conception

The point of conception is the apex of creation. At what point do we conceive, and how do we create? Let’s expand our consciousness, really expand our consciousness, and begin to know that creation is merely recognizing what is already there—that there is nothing new; everything is within you and it is portrayed on the outside as you become aware that it is already created, finished, within you.

What makes the point of conception the apex of creation? It is the story of you. Expand your consciousness to take in the sun, the moon, the planets, the Earth, everyone. And when your limited consciousness focuses upon one thing, you say, “There is the sun, and in a few hours I will see the moon.” And in a few hours you do see the moon. You are the creator, but you only create to the lower realms of the mind. Everything is within you: the sun, the moon, the planets, all of the people functioning through all their different states of consciousness, all of the various manifestations of form. They are all within you.

As you become aware of one thing at a time, you are really creating it into the lower realms of your mind. You are translating it into the lower realms of your mind. Your recognition of what is is the way you create it to yourself. This is deep. This is in the realm of contemplation. And only in the realm of contemplation will you begin to conceive of it.

Those of you who have had the power enough to concentrate enough of the mind in order to contemplate should begin to be very godlike in your everyday life. You should work very, very hard to do each thing perfectly that you do in your conscious mind, to finish each job, and to have consideration for others at all times. That will take you into the next stages of contemplation.

When we become careless in our lower realms of the mind after having reached contemplation, we use that great God-power in a negative way and build great barriers within ourselves that hold us in the lower realms of the mind. But when we strive diligently to perfect devotion, which is bhakti, to perfect service, which is karma yoga, at all times—twenty-four hours a day the vigil is—then we release barriers, barriers that we are going to meet perhaps next year or the year after. We burn up and clean up karma that will come even in your next life. And you go from one stage of contemplation and become stable in the next stage of contemplation, until you begin to live on the very brink of the Absolute. And it’s on the brink of the Absolute that you can begin to realize that the point of conception is the very apex of creation. You realize all form, and then you realize formlessness.

Expanded Consciousness

The struggle with the mind is an easy struggle if you are constantly vigilant, all of the time, doing always what you know you should do, not allowing the mind to become instinctive, not excusing the mind when it does become instinctive, not allowing the mind to justify, rationalize, excuse, become combative, but making the mind always remain poised, like a hummingbird over a flower, so that you begin to live in the eternal now, constantly, permanently. And then the within becomes natural to you, not something you hear about, study about, talk about, sing about, for you become open, awakened within.

Contemplation is man’s power over his mind as he begins to go within himself. Concentration is man’s power over his mind as he goes through life working out life’s problems. And meditation is man’s wisdom.

Let’s expand our consciousness once again and see if we can become conscious of the entire universe all in one instant. Where is that universe? It is very real to you in that instant, but where is it? You might look above and say, “It’s out there,” but where is “out there?” Where do you conceive “above?” You might say the sun is way up in the sky. So is the moon. But where is the focal point of your conception? How do you create the sun, and how do you create the moon? You might say the sound of a waterfall is twenty feet away from you. Where is that sound created? Where do you conceive it? Only to the lower realms of the mind is the sun so many million miles away, or the waterfall so many feet from where you are sitting right now. Expand your consciousness, and you begin to know this truth. Do all the petty little things that you can do if you give way to the negative states of mind, and you bind yourself to the lie and live in the lie, like an animal would live in a cage. “Know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

Therefore, freedom does not come through what you have remembered, how well you can rationalize, how well you can talk yourself into and out of situations, how well you can excuse negative happenings. The knowing state of consciousness in which you can know the truth only comes when you can control the lower state of mind and live a godlike life each day, and then your consciousness does expand automatically. Your daily life becomes a life of inspiration, and in your expanded consciousness you begin to know the truth, and that knowing of the truth sets you free from the lower state of mind which you then realize is the lie, the eternal lie. The point of conception is the apex of creation.

Clinging to the Light Within

Many years ago, during the spring at our Mountain Desert Monastery, a young man wrote to me saying that he intended to give up the world and become a Hindu monk. Here is a letter that I wrote in response and an inspired talk I sent to him to ponder, entitled “On the Brink of the Absolute.”

“Namaste! Your lovely letter arrived just as I returned to the monastery today from our India Odyssey pilgrimage to my ashrama in Alaveddy, Sri Lanka, and eight other countries. That good timing indicates that you are on an inner beam, no doubt from the efforts already expended in your spiritual quest. From your letter, it is certain that you have exhausted the many dead-end trails on the path. Your decision to be a renunciate monastic is a good one. It is a big step and I know you have thought it over well. Times are changing. Dedicated souls like yourself are needed as helpers on the path in our monastic orders to stabilize and teach those who are seeking. It is time now for the Western mind to rediscover the vast teachings of Saiva Siddhanta Hinduism.

“I am going to give you the first of many challenges we may share together in this life. It is to meditate deeply every day for one full month on a talk I once gave to a small gathering of mathavasis, monks, at the San Francisco Temple. In fact, it was August 28, 1960. Like you, they were beginning to experience the blissful and peaceful areas of their inner being, and we spoke of enlightened insights one has on the very brink of the Absolute. You will be challenged by this assignment. Remember, the rewards are more than worth the effort required.

“It is my duty as your spiritual teacher to assure you that there will be trials. The sannyasin’s life is not easy. It will demand of you more than you ever thought possible. You will surely be asked to serve when tired, to inspire when you feel a little irritated, to give when it seems there is nothing left to offer. To drop out of this great ministry would not be good for you or for those who will learn to depend on you. A Hindu monastic order is not a place to get away from the world. You must teach us and yourself to depend on you, so that twenty or thirty years from now others will find strength in you as you fulfill your karmic destiny as a spiritual leader in this life.

“Therefore, read carefully these words. Weigh your life and consider well where you wish to devote your energies. The goal, of course, is Self Realization. That will come naturally. A foundation is needed first, a foundation nurtured through slow and arduous study, through sadhana performed and the demands placed by the guru upon the aspirant.”

ON THE BRINK OF THE ABSOLUTE: The higher states of consciousness very few people are familiar with, having never experienced them. They are very pleasant to learn of, and yet out of our grasp until we have that direct experience of a higher state of expanded consciousness. The mind, in its density, keeps us from the knowledge of the Self. And then we attain a little knowledge of the existence of the Self as a result of the mind freeing itself from desires and cravings, hates and fears and the various and varied things of the mind. I say “things” because if you could see hate, you would see it as a thing that lives with one as a companion. If you could see fear, you’d see it as a thing, and as understanding comes, that thing called fear walks away down the road, never to return.

As you unfold spiritually, it is difficult to explain what you find that you know. At first you feel light shining within, and that light you think you have created with your mind, and yet you will find that, as you quiet your mind, you can see that light again and again, and it becomes brighter and brighter, and then you begin to wonder what is in the center of that light. “If it is the light of my True Being, why does it not quiet the mind?”

Then, as you live the so-called “good life,” a life that treats your conscience right, that light does get brighter and brighter, and as you contemplate it, you pierce through into the center of that light, and you begin to see the various beautiful forms, forms more beautiful than the physical world has to offer, beautiful colors, in that fourth-dimensional realm, more beautiful than this material world has to offer. And then you say to yourself, “Why forms? Why color, when the scriptures tell me that I am timeless, causeless and formless?” And you seek only for the colorless color and the formless form. But the mind in its various and varied happenings, like a perpetual cinema play, pulls you down and keeps you hidden within its ramifications.

To the Depths of Your Being

In your constant striving to control that mind,your soul comes into action as a manifestation of will, and you quiet more and more of that mind and enter into a deeper state of contemplation where you see a scintillating light more radiant than the sun, and as it bursts within you, you begin to know that you are the cause of that light which you apparently see. And in that knowing, you cling to it as a drowning man clings to a stick of wood floating upon the ocean. You cling to it and the will grows stronger; the mind becomes calm through your understanding of experience and how experience has become created. As your mind releases its hold on you of its desires and cravings, you dive deeper, fearlessly, into the center of this blazing avalanche of light, losing your consciousness in That which is beyond consciousness.

And as you come back into the mind, you not only see the mind for what it is; you see the mind for what it isn’t. You are free, and you find men and women bound, and what you find you are not attached to, because binder and the bound are one. You become the path. You become the way. You are the light. And as you watch souls unfold, some choose the path of the Spirit; some choose the path of the mind. As you watch and wonder, your wondering is in itself a contemplation of the universe, and on the brink of the Absolute you look into the mind, and one tiny atom magnifies itself greater than the entire universe, and you see, at a glance, evolution from beginning to end, inside and outside, in that one small atom.

Again, as you leave external form and dive into that light which you become, you realize beyond realization a knowing deeper than thinking, a knowing deeper than understanding, a knowing which is the very, very depth of your being. You realize immortality, that you are immortal—this body but a shell, when it fades; this mind but an encasement, when it fades. Even in their fading there is no reality.

And as you come out of that samadhi, you realize you are the spirit, you become that spirit, you actually are that spirit, consciously, if you could say spirit has a consciousness. You are that spirit in every living soul. You realize you are That which everyone, in their intelligent state or their ignorant state, everyone, is striving for—a realization of that spirit that you are.

And then again for brief interludes you might come into the conscious mind and relate life to a past and a future and tarry there but for a while. But in a moment of concentration, your eye resting on a single line of a scripture or anything that holds the interest of the mind, the illusion of past and future fades, and again you become that light, that life deep within every living form—timeless, causeless, spaceless.

Then we say, “Why, why, after having realized the Self do you hold a form, do you hold a consciousness of mind? Why?” The answer is but simple and complete: you do not; of yourself you do not. But every promise made must have its fulfillment, and promises to close devotees and the desire that they hold for realization of their true being hold this form, this mind, in a lower conscious state. Were the devotees and disciples to release their desires for realization but for one minute, their satguru would be no more. Once having realized the Self, you are free of time, cause and change.

When diksha is given to a competent disciple, the guru enters into his soul, establishes himself as the disciple’s inner Self and, by means of his power, removes all the impurities that limit the essential nature of the disciple’s Self.

Sarvajnananottara Agama

Reflections

on Life’s Ultimate Goal