Gurudeva's long explanations of the seventh dimension of the mind: "...Enter realms of knowledge resulting from superconscious perceptions of the superconscious itself...Everything learned must be forgotten..." Discard the baggage of accumulated opinions and misunderstandings, unresolved issues, memories, externalizing samskaras. The seventh dimension, endless inner space, is beyond concepts. As per the Sarvajnanottara Agama: Reach a bodiless state; practice non-dual meditation for the attainment of meditative union with the Supreme Self.

Unedited Transcript:

Good morning everyone.

This morning we're continuing our series on the seven dimensions of the mind, specifically the material we call the long explanations of the seventh dimension of the mind by Gurudeva back in the early 1970's. This is the second part of The Seventh Dimension.

"Entering the seventh dimension, we enter realms of knowledge resulting from superconscious perceptions of the superconscious itself. It would be the heaven world of the Gods themselves. Their retreat place. The seventh dimension does not look back into the fifth dimension at all. It does look into the sixth and deeper into the eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth dimensions which exist in a completely different realm--a different universe so to speak. And all of this takes place within you, within the wonderful mind of man, your mind.

"Everything learned must be forgotten to enter the seventh dimension. There are no concepts there, no feelings, no thoughts, no unfolding anyone--just pure space or pure consciousness. So, in that sublime state there is nothing to do except to let consciousness be aware of itself and finally swallow itself. Then the Self alone remains. After that total elimination of consciousness into the Nothingness of Being, pure consciousness returns, forgets itself and travels as niimf back into the mind, flows into the fifth dimension, flows out to the fourth, looks into the third, second and becomes involved. The whole thing starts over again for you. Isn't it wonderful!"

So the idea of nothingness is also found in Yogaswami's story told by Sam Wickramasinghe:

"Look at those trees. The trees are meditating. Meditation is silence. If you realize that you really known nothing, then you would be truly meditating. Such truthfulness is the right soil for silence. Silence is meditation."

"Yogaswami bent forward eagerly."

"You must be simple. You must be utterly naked in your consciousness. When you have reduced yourself to nothing--when your self has disappeared, when you have become nothing--then you are yourself God. The man who is nothing knows God for God is nothing. Nothing is everything. Because I am nothing, you see, because I am a beggar, I own everything. So nothing means everything. Understand?"

"'Tell us about this state of nothingness,' requested my friend with eager anticipation."

"It means that you genuinely desire nothing. It means then you can honestly say that you know nothing. It also means that you are not interested in doing anything about this state of nothingness."

"What, I speculated, did he mean by 'know nothing?'"

"The state of 'pure being' in contrast to 'becoming?" Yogaswami responded to my thoughts, "You think you know, but, in fact, you are ignorant. When you see that you know nothing about yourself, then you are yourself God."

And back to Gurudeva's Seventh Dimension.

"The experience of kaif is simple, our concepts about it are the biggest barrier. We often feel that pure consciousness must be earned by a saintly life and we generally know our life well enough to disqualify ourselves. But that is the 'I'm' out here and heaven is 'in there' concept--a false concept if ever there was one. Turn it inside out. realize and then convince the subconscious mind that you are the whole thing right now--the within as well as the without. The saint you envision living the perfect life lives in your own consciousness. All dimensions of existence reside in you, and you will never be more or less than you are at this very moment. That makes attaining pure consciousness simple, doesn't it? And it is simple, if we discard the baggage of accumulated opinions and misunderstandings."

So this is some of my thoughts on that, the last sentence in particular.

We need to discard the baggage of accumulated opinions and misunderstandings. That's what occupies a lot of our mental activity or that's what a lot of our mental activity consists of for lots of people. We're reviewing our accumulated opinions, updating them. And we're unhappy about our misunderstandings and our faults. Well that has to be given up. As Gurudeva says, we need to discard it. We need to set aside opinions because as the first sentence of this said it's beyond concepts what we're trying to experience as the seventh dimension. And we have to set aside misunderstandings. In other words a negative concept about ourself is a limitation. It can prevent us from going deeply within ourselves. We don't think we're worthy as Gurudeva's pointing out. More profound perspective than to simply focus on the faults we see is to remember that we're a being that consists of three phases of the mind: instinctive, intellectual or in superconscious. And just because we experience the superconscious doesn't mean the instinctive or the intellectual goes away. It's still there. So, we just need to harness them and function in them wisely.

Back to Gurudeva:

"Between the fifth, sixth and seventh dimensions the lines we draw are understandably hypothetical. We give them boundaries and brackets in order to understand them, to define and identify these realms. The dividing lines between the first, second, third and fourth are clear and distinct. But in the deeper realms we know that they run together and merge, each existing as it does inside the other. This is intellectually intriguing, but the experience is much different. And that is what is sought, the direct personal experience.

"Anyone can experience kaif, awareness aware of itself, for brief interludes. It is much more difficult to sustain the intensity, however, for the very power that allows us to control the mind enough to touch into kaif stimulates the other dimensions as well, setting a wave rippling through the stillest consciousness. That wave travels through the sixth, then the fifth, fourth and third dimensions, right out into the second. And if there are areas of the mind, especially in the second and third dimensions, which are not under guidance of the will or which are unresolved, then that ripple will catalyze them and pull awareness out of kaif. That is why very few aspirants are able to just sit in the absolute simplicity of kaif--they are externalized by the outer dimensions as the intensity of pure awareness radiates and reverberates through the nerve complex. Therefore, although kaif is itself easy to attain, it is indeed difficult to sustain for longer periods and even more difficult to dissolve into imkaif, Self Realization. The aspirant, noting this, then dedicates himself to refining the outer manifestations of the second, third and fourth dimensions in order to gain a stable control over those forces so that when he does return to kaif, the ripple that goes out into the mind does not cause a backlash stimulation sufficient to pull awareness out to the third dimension..."

That's a beautiful sentence. I'll read it again, it's so great.

"...The aspirant, noting this, then dedicates himself to refining the outer manifestations of the second, third and fourth dimensions in order to gain a stable control over those forces so that when he does return to kaif, the ripple that goes out into the mind does not cause a backlash stimulation sufficient to pull awareness out to the third dimension. And you have all experienced this. You have been absorbed in a meditation only to be drawn out into a vision or into your legs which were hurting or into some thought sequences in the mind. Therefore, the realm of Self Realization protect themselves from entrance simply by the nature of the mechanism of the dimensions."

So my comment is on the unresolved areas of the mind. So the text says:

"And if there are areas of the mind, especially in the second and third dimensions, which are not under guidance of the will or which are unresolved, then that ripple will catalyze them and pull awareness out of kaif.."

So how do we overcome that? Well the second dimension is the body in this case. So the body has become very uncomfortable in one place or another and you need to move it. So ideally additional hatha yoga or some type of focus on keeping that part of the body quiet would achieve what you need.

Third dimension is the unresolved issue. So, if something in the third dimension gets stimulated by the increase and intensity, what do we do? We need to note what it is. This issue is unresolved in my mind, has been magnified by the intensity of sustained kaif, let me do some vasana daha tantra, let me resolve this thing. So we need to notice the issue or issues that pull us out then work on resolving them. And it's a very important part of the meditative practice that Patanjali emphasizes. As I've mentioned before, when we think of meditation and we think of Patanjali we think of thoughts. Cause that's the second verse: "Yoga is the restraint of mental activity," which means our thoughts. But then a little bit later on he talks about samskaras or our memories and how samskaras are initially of an externalizing nature. So this is an externalizing samskara. Perfect example of it. Away in mediation it gets stimulated and pulls us out. Externalizing samskara.

How do we get rid of externalizing samskaras according to Patanjali? Just by the practice of meditation, by creating internalizing samskaras and by insights, superconscious insights. Change this, externalize the nature of the externalizing samskara is change so it's not externalizing anymore which applies to this. If we resolve something that's a superconscious insight, changing an externalizing samskara.

Back to Gurudeva:

"The clear, placid, powerful seventh dimensional space has remained the same for millions of years, untouched and untampered. Awareness travels through it viewing the various breakdowns of color, hearing the various pitches of sounds. It is the very source of the construction of all things. It is actinic energy within its quiescent state. For when actinic energy and odic energy intermingle, the mind then becomes active and awareness is thrust on the waves of mind substance and therefore views different things. Actinic or pure energy when blended together with odic, magnetic energy creates form in a similar way that the combination of air which is invisible with smoke creates various forms or clouds in the sky. Different patterns are made by the intermingling of smoke and air depending on the density of one and the motion of the other."

End of Gurudeva's text on The Seventh Dimension.

Shum word. Seventh dimensional Shum word.

Vumlifka

1) Aum, soundless sound, the sound of inner space, a vibration in the seventh dimension of the mind. 2) The sound of the inner space is so apparent that it is all-pervading, and is so quiet. 3) This is only perceived from the sixth dimension.

Then terms of Sanskrit, scripture. Ah that's interesting that our chant, Vyoma Vyapine Chant that we use for abishekam generally, is talking about the seventh dimension. In other words, when you think about religion and you think about God, generally God is not thought about as endless innerspace. More concrete form involved. Lord Rama, Lord Krishna, you know it's, the mind likes something more complete than the concept of an endless inner space. But this chant is starting out, and it's all about space and pervading.

[Vyoma vyapine vyomarupaya sarvavyapine Sivaya]

So, vyoma vyapine means: Who pervades endless inner space. Vyomarupaya: Who though associated with forms continues to pervade endless inner space.

(Because there's a form side, that Siva has two, he's still able to pervade endless inner space. That part doesn't go away.)

Sarvavyapine: Who pervades all Sivaya: Salutations to Siva.

So it's very much describing what Gurudeva's describing as the seventh dimension.

And the last part:

Sarvajnanottara Agama quote, three verses, it's describing a soul who is mature in the jnana pada.

"In this way, the seeker who is fully qualified to practice such supreme kind of meditation as instructed by the Guru well versed in this Sarvajnanottara Agama, becomes completely disentangled from all the bonds, evolves into all-knower and becomes all-pervasive by the constant practice of non-dual meditation. Having set aside all those scriptures which contradict the truths enshrined in this Agama and having clearly understood the pure nature of the Self as conceived in this Agama, the knower of this Agama, being refined and firmly resolved, should practice this non-dual meditation for the attainment of meditative union with the Supreme Self. Having realized with all certitude that there is not even a single discipline here superior to this yoga of non-dual meditation and having arrested all of his mental modifications and fluctuations, he should practice this supreme science of yoga. Upon such constant practice, he reaches a bodiless state and gets established constantly in that state. He reaches all directions and places simultaneously by virtue of his bodiless and pervasive nature; he becomes the Liberated Self. He becomes the possessor of all the exalted qualities of Lord Siva who presents Himself simultaneously within and outside the universe replete with movable and immovable existents."

Have a wonderful day.