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emc
2072 Posts |
 Posted - Oct 12 2007 : 5:59:24 PM
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I have a strange thing that has been following me since I was a kid. I've always said, and have had the feeling "I'm an old being and this will be my last journey".
Even though I am not at all steady in any realizations, a knowingness is growing stronger and stronger.
The manifested consciousness stems from The Source, The Absolute, The Unnamable, Undescribable. Stillness can be described, ecstacy and life force can be described. The male and the female are two poles - thus expressing duality, although really the one and the same.
Living in existence as an enlightened being, expressed as stillness in action, is one step of enlightenment. Realizing that the world is only a reflection in the consciousness, that non-form and form are codependent and simultaneous, is beautiful. Oneness is beautiful. Lifting the veil and see the illusion is grace. Being the outpouring divine LOVE that I AM is awesome.
I still "know" that's not IT.
Nisargadatta is very clear on this:
quote:
The no-being state is the Absolute, that is what you call pure awareness. Beingness is the feeling "I am". That "I am" itself is love to be. I would like to be. I would love to perpetuate myself. That is love. Consciousness itself is love. With consciousness, you would love to be.
In the perfect state, that state does not want to become something other than what it is. Nor does it want to be. Therefore, that beingness is not there, the feeling of "I-am-ness" is not present in the perfect state. Everything is complete.
When your need is fulfilled, there is no more need, no more lack. There is no more movement. Love is also dissolved at that moment.
I bursted out in a huge sobbing cry on the tube, among all people when I read the following lines of him. It's an answer to a question when he was sick and close to "death" and was offered a healer to come and see him:
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I am not the least interested in this daily ritual of getting up in the morning, eating and again sleeping and all this... I have had enough of all that. I do not expect anything from this world. I am not going to achieve, attain, possess anything, because I am fed up with that very consciousness out of which the world is created and want ot get rid of this consciousness.
The beauty and the wonder of this existence... It's not it, and I know it so deeply. The thing is to stay home, all the way home. Neither existent nor non-existent. Bakthi is leading beyond the beyond, to merge with the source eternally.
But this is nothing more than a nudge in me so far... and I might be totally mixed up about this. Can a being evolve to the point where there's no need to come back to the "five-element-manifested-existence" and gather more experience??????
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Anthem
1608 Posts |
Posted - Oct 12 2007 : 9:35:32 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by emc
I have a strange thing that has been following me since I was a kid. I've always said, and have had the feeling "I'm an old being and this will be my last journey".
Too funny, I used to say the same thing from the time I was a kid as well, that this is my last trip through this planet. No idea where it came from, just a feeling inside. I haven't thought about that idea for some time now, even forgot about it until you mentioned it in your post.
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Nisargadatta is very clear on this:
The no-being state is the Absolute, that is what you call pure awareness. Beingness is the feeling "I am". That "I am" itself is love to be. I would like to be. I would love to perpetuate myself. That is love. Consciousness itself is love. With consciousness, you would love to be.
Sounds somewhat like the witness state described in the AYP lessons. I know realizations don't necessarily come in "order" but for me it is very much different. I experience nothingness when I close my eyes, if my mind is calm enough, particularly in the evenings or at night before falling asleep or if I wake up in the middle of the night. More recently I have had the sensation at moments of not existing somehow and there being just watching, without a watcher when talking to some people, it takes some getting used to and used to scare me when it happened.
Perhaps these experiences I describe are more in keeping with dualistic experiences, nothingness being at one end of the spectrum and "everythingness" or oneness being at the other, I'm not sure. The experience of oneness is more elusive for me and only dawns in me very rarely. Perhaps the absolute that Nisargadatta refers to is beyond all this.
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In the perfect state, that state does not want to become something other than what it is. Nor does it want to be. Therefore, that beingness is not there, the feeling of "I-am-ness" is not present in the perfect state. Everything is complete.
I have experienced something like this and any effort in any "direction" for lack of a better word, takes one out of this state.
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I am not the least interested in this daily ritual of getting up in the morning, eating and again sleeping and all this... I have had enough of all that. I do not expect anything from this world. I am not going to achieve, attain, possess anything, because I am fed up with that very consciousness out of which the world is created and want ot get rid of this consciousness.
I don't understand the above quote but I believe that a person is not complete if they are not in a perpetual state of peace and love. If something we experience touches us and evokes an emotional reaction hence pulling us out of the here and now, then there is work to be done to clear ourselves out.
I couldn't imagine Byron Katie having the above reaction if things were consistent for her as she describes it has been for the last 20 years of her life. She would likely be enthralled by the experience of dying and love every moment of it.
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But this is nothing more than a nudge in me so far... and I might be totally mixed up about this. Can a being evolve to the point where there's no need to come back to the "five-element-manifested-existence" and gather more experience??????
To me this is where true mastery lies. Will we give our energy over to emotional reactions of fear, hate, jealousy, anger, etc. etc. when we experience an interaction with another person or with a situation we don't enjoy or will we be whole within ourselves and our energy and remain in the here and now? Every time I experience a situation where I detect an emotional reaction (no matter how subtle), I know there is more house-cleaning to do.
Must be time for sitting practices, eh Yogani?!
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emc
2072 Posts |
Posted - Oct 13 2007 : 09:23:42 AM
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Anthem, funny you also have had that feeling of being old. 
I am really on deep waters here, and only write from some sort of sense, so I understand it might be difficult to follow my thought track. I'll try to point out even more clear how I see it:
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Sounds somewhat like the witness state described in the AYP lessons.
I wonder if that is so... The witness must witness something. Beyond the existence there's nothing to witness. But who is aware of the Witness?
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Perhaps these experiences I describe are more in keeping with dualistic experiences, nothingness being at one end of the spectrum and "everythingness" or oneness being at the other, I'm not sure. The experience of oneness is more elusive for me and only dawns in me very rarely. Perhaps the absolute that Nisargadatta refers to is beyond all this.
Yes, that's what I see, it's beyond all of that. The nothingness and the everythingness are two sides of the coin: "..that very consciousness out of which the world is created" - as soon as there is consciousness there is the world. Without consciousness - No World! But who created the coin? The source, The absoute. If you can describe the Darkness and the Light - they are opposites - duality. What's beyond that? The Unnamable. It is not experienced by someone, it's not consciousness experiencing itself through manifestation, it is not even being WHAT IS, it is beyond being.
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I don't understand the above quote but I believe that a person is not complete if they are not in a perpetual state of peace and love.
If you have come into a perpetual state of peace and love you are in what Nisargadatta describes as: "That "I am" itself is love to be. I would like to be. I would love to perpetuate myself. That is love. Consciousness itself is love. With consciousness, you would love to be."
Then he says: "When your need is fulfilled, there is no more need, no more lack. There is no more movement. Love is also dissolved at that moment." So there's a state where even that perpetual LOVE is dissolved!
So when you say:
quote:
I couldn't imagine Byron Katie having the above reaction if things were consistent for her as she describes it has been for the last 20 years of her life. She would likely be enthralled by the experience of dying and love every moment of it.
... I feel you might twist Nisargadatta's words. He WANTS to die, he says no to any healer, and he is not in agony about it at all. He does not even want to BE THE LOVE, The Universal Consiousness. He is fed up with the whole enchilada of consciousness creating the world, he is fed up with being stillness in action.
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To me this is where true mastery lies. Will we give our energy over to emotional reactions of fear, hate, jealousy, anger, etc. etc. when we experience an interaction with another person or with a situation we don't enjoy or will we be whole within ourselves and our energy and remain in the here and now? Every time I experience a situation where I detect an emotional reaction (no matter how subtle), I know there is more house-cleaning to do.
Hm... What is true mastery? To me it is the Babaji-thing - when a being is evolved enough to be born fully conscious and is able to go in and out of physical existence, mastering the Will to be a manifested consciousness or not. And that is what I think Nisargadatta is talking about. As long as we are still evolving we are doomed to come into existence and purify through experience. Enlightenment has many milestones. Will we ever be evolved enough not to come back here? To fully merge in Nirvana and never be reborn... To stay in parabrahman, out of existence... |
Edited by - emc on Oct 13 2007 09:29:43 AM |
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emc
2072 Posts |
Posted - Oct 14 2007 : 07:05:10 AM
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Sorry for "thinking aloud" here in forum, but there's something turning and turning here and there's a need to express it... I'm being guided towards this at the moment.
Yesterday the body grabbed Barry Long's book "The origins of Man and the Universe" out of the shelf and opened a page - a book I haven't read at all yet, it has been waiting. Reading it made me cry helplessly of recognition again:
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The moment before the beginning of existence is deep within our own mind. For our mind is simply an extension into sense of original infinite mind. By keeping the mind still and focused on what is being said, we can energetically participate in the truth of the beginning. This is because the beginning is not in the past; it is happneing forever now within us.
We are looking into the void of infinite mind, into nothing. We are immersed in it. We do not know or need to know whether we exist or do not exist. This state is like being conscious in the stillness and silence of deep dreamless sleep. Suddenly a tremendous crack of 'sound' fixes our attention on a point somewhere in the void. This is the echo of the instant of eternity, the now, approaching and expanding towards us at absolute velocity.
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The now cannot continue as infinitude in the presence of any thing. So as the point of the now emerges at absolute velocity, the watching consciousness instantly retreats or withdraws at infinite speed. The effect is similar to that of a spaceship suddenly accelerating away from an approaching, apparently expanding planet and by its superior speed 'reducing' the planet's size and maintaining is at the size of a dot. By exceeding the absolute speed of the now, the consciousness escapes, transcends the absoluteness of time and vanishes.
This induces the first time-change in eternity, out of which arise the three principles behind subsequent existence: intelligence, space and energy/matter.
In an earlier post, this was written by 'me': "Immense forces we are dealing with in pure tantra, dragging down the Big Bang into our bodies, since all of that is happening NOW, always has been and always will be now. It's the true power of NOW."
I seem to open up to writing such things ahead of my comprehension of them... It is confusing for me, so please excuse this current mish mash of mind junk and greater truths in my postings... This body-mind is wobbling.
Also found this passage in Barry's book, describing what happens when man is looking inwards, into what he calls "The spiral girdle of eternity":
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The entire spiral girdle is a massive, self-sufficient, objective system of being and existence in the infinitude of mind. It is powered or fuelled internally at every level by the concsiousness and will or eternity - the now. Its cosmic, spiritual name is reality.
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As a result [of looking inwards] he begins to have two simultaneous perceptions; one of the projected sense-world around him (to which he is losing his attachment) and the other of increasing consciousness of the reality within.
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A man looking inwards through the minds in their correct order is actually looking 'up' through the girdle's central axis of intelligence.
I woke up this morning and this previous post I wrote in the Time-thread was in my mind, associating it with the passage in the book, and a knowing that that axis have some significance:
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I have visited Father Time twice now. He has a long white beard, all the way to his feet, brown deep eyes and is always softly smiling. He lives at the top of the stairs of existence and keeps track of time and rules the minutes and seconds. Last time he put a ring of time around my being, a thin ring of gold marked with lines and signs for every year, horisontally placed around me, reaching from the beginning of history until today and beyond. A ring starting where it ends and ending where it starts. The ring was circling around me, but I was non-existent, vertical in the middle. I was the axis the time circled around. I was trapped in time, but then again, not trapped, since it was I holding it up.
Then I found this passage in the book this morning, associating to the ring of time that was written about above, time implying life-death, being born and die:
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By discovering the reality of himself within his physical being, he can bring immortality into this physical life, and death the scourge will then be conquered, overcome. Immortality is man's own real state anyway, and by bringing it consciously with him into his mirror-life on earth he completes the mysterious, sacred circle, linking the beginning (reality) and the end (infinity), uniting Yang and Yin, as foreshadowed by that most ancient of spiritual and occult symbols - the ouroboros, the serpent swallowing its own tail.
I think I am integrating stuff and my mind is protesting against what's happening, hence the need for writing like this, kneading a dough... Hopefully it's valuable for someone else. |
Edited by - emc on Oct 14 2007 07:12:25 AM |
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Anthem
1608 Posts |
Posted - Oct 14 2007 : 2:08:14 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by emc
Anthem, funny you also have had that feeling of being old.
Hi EMC,
Just to clarify, not the old part so much as having said a lot when I was young to my parents that it would be my last time through. Who knows if that will end up being true!
quote:
quote:
Sounds somewhat like the witness state described in the AYP lessons.
I wonder if that is so... The witness must witness something. Beyond the existence there's nothing to witness. But who is aware of the Witness?
From my perspective, the witness is awareness itself. But who is there to say I am witnessing, now that's the tricky part!
quote:
Yes, that's what I see, it's beyond all of that. The nothingness and the everythingness are two sides of the coin: "..that very consciousness out of which the world is created" - as soon as there is consciousness there is the world. Without consciousness - No World! But who created the coin? The source, The absoute. If you can describe the Darkness and the Light - they are opposites - duality. What's beyond that? The Unnamable. It is not experienced by someone, it's not consciousness experiencing itself through manifestation, it is not even being WHAT IS, it is beyond being.
I see nothingness as just that, spirit from which all of creation (physical and otherwise) has sprung. Stillness in action as Yogani says. The flow of life is spirit manifesting in creation (another word for creation could be the universe of form). Is there something beyond all that, maybe, but I can’t see it from my current perspective.
quote:
So when you say:
quote:
I couldn't imagine Byron Katie having the above reaction if things were consistent for her as she describes it has been for the last 20 years of her life. She would likely be enthralled by the experience of dying and love every moment of it.
... I feel you might twist Nisargadatta's words. He WANTS to die, he says no to any healer, and he is not in agony about it at all. He does not even want to BE THE LOVE, The Universal Consiousness. He is fed up with the whole enchilada of consciousness creating the world, he is fed up with being stillness in action.
Maybe I do twist his words unintentionally and it is beyond my understanding, but all I know is that if we want to be complete, or whole or fully home, (using these 3 words to describe the same thing) then being fed up indicates leaving ourselves to experience "fed-up" that leaving is not being whole or home, it sounds like discontent to me. In this instance of “fed-up”, no matter how small or subtle, we have divided ourselves to have this experience and are no longer present.
quote:
Hm... What is true mastery? To me it is the Babaji-thing - when a being is evolved enough to be born fully conscious and is able to go in and out of physical existence, mastering the Will to be a manifested consciousness or not. And that is what I think Nisargadatta is talking about. As long as we are still evolving we are doomed to come into existence and purify through experience. Enlightenment has many milestones. Will we ever be evolved enough not to come back here? To fully merge in Nirvana and never be reborn... To stay in parabrahman, out of existence...
When you say "doomed" EMC it sounds a little like this is what you feel about existence here on earth? Where is the torture of this existence when we are home in the here and now?
True mastery was probably a poor choice of words on my part, perhaps it is better to say fully at home with our true nature in the here and now without interruption.
To me, we are all of existence, the good, the bad, the ugly, the male, the female, all of it. Is it not a perpetual self-accepting process of returning to what Is, returning to know ourselves as everything? After all, isn’t our true nature all of what is? I don't know yet for sure, but would like to find out.
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emc
2072 Posts |
Posted - Oct 14 2007 : 2:58:54 PM
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Oh, thank you Anthem for replying! Much appreciated!
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The flow of life is spirit manifesting in creation (another word for creation could be the universe of form). Is there something beyond all that, maybe, but I can’t see it from my current perspective.
I think the key for me here was given by Barry:
"The moment before the beginning of existence is deep within our own mind."
"Not only is it possible to perceive reality as it is now - it is also possible to see how it began, and all its constituent parts still in the act of forming."
That's probably what I felt was "beyond the beyond" - to be able to see the point before creation of existence. It's definitely beyond my current perspective as well... but reading about this makes me cry so much... There's something in it.
quote:
Maybe I do twist his words unintentionally and it is beyond my understanding, but all I know is that if we want to be complete, or whole or fully home, (using these 3 words to describe the same thing) then being fed up indicates leaving ourselves to experience "fed-up" that leaving is not being whole or home, it sounds like discontent to me. In this instance of “fed-up”, no matter how small or subtle, we have divided ourselves to have this experience and are no longer present.
Yes, I totally agree. That has been my view also, until I read it so clearly from Nisargadatta. I doubt he would not be stable in his realization and I doubt he would be out of presence. I would say he writes the following from the position "I AM THAT":
quote:
This love to be, this consciousness, unsolicited, spontaneously, it has come - for no reason. And since then, it occupies itself with all activities. All these worldly activities are only due to that, self-love, love to be. - - - ... the self-love is the one thing that IS; I call it consciousness, the sense of existence, the sense that I am. And because that is, everything is.
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I am no longer fascinated by that love to be. Because that is the main bondage, the main condition, the 'I-love'. So long as the vital breath operates, so long as the pulse will be beating, until then there is this love to be, until then there is the consciousness. When the vital breath quits the body, the pulse will stop and 'I-am-ness' is no more. Since my love to be is now completely finished, exhausted, I have no more fascination for that state of 'I-love'.
I find it peculiar also that an enlightened being would be "fed up", but it sure sounds like he is talking from presence. But I don't know. It just made me cry, and I have noticed my crying is like a "truth barometer". I cry when truth hits me.
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When you say "doomed" EMC it sounds a little like this is what you feel about existence here on earth? Where is the torture of this existence when we are home in the here and now?
Ok, doomed was pointing at the not-awake state we start off with as human beings, the state full of suffering. That is torture.
Phew... This is not anything for the mind. I just had to go a little round since the ingredients: crying, automatic book picking and page finding, and former experiences of meeting Father Time seemed to have something to do with eachother in the current moment.
As you say... is it possible that this is "our last time through"? I just felt that is what Nisargadatta was talking about... Or... perhaps he's just talking about simple physical death...?
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Edited by - emc on Oct 14 2007 3:09:06 PM |
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Anthem
1608 Posts |
Posted - Oct 14 2007 : 9:08:54 PM
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quote:
Yes, I totally agree. That has been my view also, until I read it so clearly from Nisargadatta. I doubt he would not be stable in his realization and I doubt he would be out of presence. I would say he writes the following from the position "I AM THAT":
Very possibly this is the case, who could know other than "That" within him. In regards to doubting that one even such as Nisargadatta could at some point be out of presence, I am sure there are moments for even the sages. I could see facing death as something that might bring up blockages for even the most enlightened. Wasn't Jesus reported to have "lost his cool" with gamblers in the temple (please excuse my biblical ignorance).
One thing I have observed and heard from some of the few "highly cleared out" people I have met and/ or read, is that it is a life long process of staying clear. Ever monitoring, ever watching, ever practicing some technique, be it meditation, or self-enquiry or whatever to remain home in the light. Miguel Ruiz, as one such example, still goes through many of the Toltec practices and still participates in rituals at sacred sites to keep himself clear. Byron Katie is always asking herself if it is true. I see it as becoming a way of being.
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bewell
1275 Posts |
Posted - Oct 15 2007 : 5:16:10 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Anthem11
Wasn't Jesus reported to have "lost his cool" with gamblers in the temple (please excuse my biblical ignorance).
Yes, they were making money by selling sacrificial animals. He turned over the money tables and set the animals free.
Jesus was very "cool" on the cross though, when in Luke's version, he says to the thief on the cross beside him, "Today, you will be with me in paradise." Readers usually assume he was talking about after bodily death, someplace spiritual. Few consider it a teaching about our relationship to suffering in the here and now. Actually, I had not thought about that possibility until now. I suppose Byron Katie could be in paradise while hanging on a cross. Right? Why not Jesus and the thief too? Luke's Jesus does say "today!"
St. Paul knew what it was like to be in Paradise -- he reports having experienced it prior to bodily death. But for him, ordinary life in the body was not a paradise -- he complained to God about a "thorn in flesh" but God did not take it away (for his story, see 2 Cor. 12).
I've been thinking about bodily death more lately. Sunday night I got a call that my father's heart is pumping at 15% capacity. He has an appointment with a cardiologist, but he does not seem in a rush about getting anything done. Last time I saw him, which was a couple of weeks ago, and he had some heart pain, and we were talking about the possible nearness of his death, I asked him if he had made his peace. He did not give a yes or no reply, but he did seem pretty cool about it.
I've been thinking about anxiety about bodily death. My wife said she is not worried at all about dying. I admitted to her that I had a worry that I might look back on my life and think that somehow I missed "IT" -- some key to it all. That clearly wasn't Nisargadatta's frame of mind at his death. That is a rather shallow worry. The deeper I go, the more I am ready to let go into the unknown when the time comes, as some level eager for the passage.
The idea that there is an afterlife is well-known as a belief held by Christians. But the belief is not unanimous, and I'm no fan of it. Henri Nouwan, writes, "there is no 'after' after bodily death." His point is that we are talking about the realm of the spirit that is outside of time and space. He says the same thing about the "second coming of Christ" -- it is an event in the realm of the spirit which happens in every generation. That, I agree with: Christ's second coming being a traditional way of talking about bringing human beings into union with the source, the One.
I like Yogani's teaching on "yogic dying." We practice dying daily in order to live embodied life well, and when when we have lived well, and our bodies are ready to die, we are ready to accept the dying well. |
Edited by - bewell on Oct 15 2007 5:39:50 PM |
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emc
2072 Posts |
Posted - Oct 16 2007 : 2:42:13 PM
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Anthem, you may be right about that. I guess we'll know for sure when it's time for our own body to die...
Just a thought about the idea that an enlightened being is always "cool" in every situation... I think it's totally not the case. I think thoughts come and go, emotions come and go, pain come and go as long as we have a body. We'll not become blasé or less human. We are to become more fully human and LIVE THROUGH all things, not fly over them in some spiritual superiority. We are ordinary beings and express ordinary behaviour even after enlightenment. But we see it for what it is, and we know it's not personal at all. Hence, all stories about masters being very temperamental on occasions.
I must ask a question, though, because the mystery continues here. Perhaps it's only The law of attraction working here, leading me to what I think about independent of truth, or there's something going on...
My body was lead by stillness to the Hare Krishna place in Stockholm, and a conversation with a woman there took place about Shiva-Shakti getting married. She said "Bah" to that marriage, and said "But that's only taking place in the manifested universes, where consciousness and life force are One - that's only one third of the universes, the other two thirds of all the universes are purely spiritual - no manifestations - and it is possible to chose where you are to serve." My eyebrows raised at least an inch! This is beginning to feel a bit weird.
Does anyone here know about the teachings of that tradition and can add on this?
Perhaps totally irrelevant, but during the evening meditation, I just put out the intention "Krishna, please share your wisdom", and during the whole meditation my spine was burning. I have never had that experience before. Extremely hot and it came from the top, the fire.
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Edited by - emc on Oct 16 2007 2:43:16 PM |
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Darko
21 Posts |
Posted - Oct 19 2007 : 01:50:46 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by emc
Will we ever be evolved enough not to come back here? To fully merge in Nirvana and never be reborn... To stay in parabrahman, out of existence...
You never were here. An eternal state can not "start" in the future. An eternal state has no beginning, hence if there is an eternal state this state is already ongoing.
Eternity has no end, hence you never will go out of existence or come back into existence. The very belief that you are something that is able to come or go has to be inquired. |
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Christi
United Kingdom
4382 Posts |
Posted - Oct 19 2007 : 05:38:08 AM
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Hi EMC
Darko's right. You were never born, you will never die. Everything is eternal in this moment. Everything that appears to be happening is eminating from a single point inside yourself. Even the heavenly realms where we can choose our rebirth at will, are eminating from this single point and have only apparent reality. |
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emc
2072 Posts |
Posted - Oct 19 2007 : 07:56:59 AM
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Thank you Darko and Christi. That is absolutely true what you write, total recognition from this side. You are talking about the non-duality side of the equation. Still, even Christi mentions the term "rebirthing": "Even the heavenly realms where we can choose our rebirth at will...". Paradoxically we have the appearance side as well, the manifested world - and in that one we have both time and space and birth and death and a current body-mind-vehicle to travel with, in (and out of) a companion until it dissolves into other energyforms, and we all start out with oblivion about the non-dual side, hence the purification job we're all involved in. It's not "ME", not personal in any way, still it's A BODY that is connected somehow to this individual evolving consciousness more than to anybody elses. Multiplicity is a fact. You're both talking very rightly about the stillness-side in the "stillness in action"-expression. I'm concerned about the action-side of it. It's both. Simultaneously. and the question is if there's ever any "stillness"-side without the "action" part... Is there ever a being - consciousness - without a manifested body?
I found the Krishna view peculiar, they obviously say there is! But I don't know anything about their teachings. And I deeply sense this merry-go-round-in-the-mind is about to belong to the passed very soon.
Thank you for reminding me of the core of the whole thing. |
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Christi
United Kingdom
4382 Posts |
Posted - Oct 20 2007 : 11:15:19 AM
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Hi EMC
quote:
Is there ever a being - consciousness - without a manifested body?
I found the Krishna view peculiar, they obviously say there is!
In Yoga, yes, consciousness exists eternally irrespective of any manifest body. In order to have the appearance of a physical sheath (kosha in Sanskrit) it is necessary to also (simultaneously) have a number of other sheaths. One of these sheaths is the sheath in which the chakras exist. The sheaths (bodies if you like) exist superimposed upon each other, but in increasingly subtle realms of existence, until we reach the subtlest realm in which time still exists which is called the causal realm. Beyond this realm lies the atmic realm which is beyond time and which is the true realm of our being.
The grosser sheaths can be dropped whilst maintaining the more subtle ones, a bit like taking off layers of clothing. So your question is a bit like saying "can we exist without our coat on?". And the answer is, yes... our existence never had anything to do with our coat, or our shirt, or our underwear. We existed before all of them, and we continue to exist when we take all of them off.
Each realm is populated by different beings. The beings become increasingly resplendent and majestic and magical as we ascend (in the spiritual heart) through the realms. When we reach the causal realm, there are beings that vibrate at such a high frequency that they change form thousands of times every second. The changing of their form makes a noise which sounds like the singing of a choir of a thousand angels.
But at no time is our true soul ever bound by these worlds. It is always free, and exists eternally beyond all the worlds.
I would be interested to see what a Hare Krishna devotee would say in answer to your question though. You see the Hare Krishna tradition is heavily Dvaita (Dual). They are Bhaktis (devotional yogis), and to be devotional, you need a body. Even in the realms that the lady was talking about, it is necessary to have a very subtle body, made of a very rarefied form of light, in order to live there. The Hare Krishnas hope to go to a world called Vrindavana when they die, which is a subtle world in the higher astral realm where Krishna lives. It is very pure and sacred, and everybody worships God all day and lives for thousands of years. It's a pretty cool place as places go.
But of course, to transcend all manifest reality, means to merge with the source of all and become a co-creator with God, at the right hand of God, beyond time and space. I have never heard a Hare Krishna devotee talk about this as a possibility. It requires the movement from Dvaita to Advaita, from Bhakti to Jnyana, from the idea that the divine is something that we worship, to the recognition that the divine is (and always has been) our true nature.
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Darko
21 Posts |
Posted - Oct 22 2007 : 02:24:18 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by emc
I'm concerned about the action-side of it. It's both. Simultaneously. and the question is if there's ever any "stillness"-side without the "action" part... Is there ever a being - consciousness - without a manifested body?
No. Only an "I" has consciousness (of this "I"). They are interdependent. And when the "I" arises also "body" and "world" appears. So, when the body dies the "I" dies. Like you said "It's both. Simultaneously". But you are untouched. |
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emc
2072 Posts |
Posted - Oct 22 2007 : 08:05:11 AM
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Oh, Christi, I see now what you mean about the Krishnas. I participated in a Sunday feast yesterday and pretty quickly got the idea of what they're doing. Indeed, very much Dvaita, worshipping, and also very much mind there - interpreting texts! It seems as if they do not have the same view of the Shiva-Shakti marriage as I'm used to. Thank you for making that clear.
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Beyond the beyond
