NIRVANA AND SAMSARAAll life is either a conscious and deliberate, or a furtive, half-hearted and indirect acknowledgement of the Absolute. It is the One Law, the One Life, the one Force of all Forces, the One Element that is the source of all elements, and as the One Being it is the source of all being. It is the One that is alone, unaffected and untouched by manifestation, by space, time and motion, by mind and matter. It is omnipresent in every point of space, in every second of time, in every thought or feeling, however foolish, of every being and in every breath. It is everywhere. It can be excluded from nothing, and yet it is no-thing. It is within everything. It is outside everything. It is beyond everything. It is everything and nothing. It is TAT, and TAT is SAT, the truest of all that is true, the most real of all that is real. It is Chit, and it is beyond all consciousness, even beyond the power of conceiving or being conscious, because it is beyond all objects of thought, and it is beyond all subjects who think. It is beyond the process of thinking itself, which pertains to the realm of the manifest and which is often dead before it ever comes to be visible. It is the source of all that is creative and yet it is unconfined and indifferent to all creations, to every leaf that withers, to every human being that dies, to every soul that goes into avitchi. None of these affect the Absolute. And yet, it is all compassion. It is the power that gives life to good and evil, to death and birth, to everything that happens, to everything that confines and everything that frees. But it is still beyond all these things and therefore it is called THAT or IT. Only the IT in us can reach out to the IT in THAT, and therefore the mahavakyam of the Great Sages: Tat Tvam Asi –That Thou Art. The emphasis at one level for the meditative mystic is THAT which is transcendent, whilst at another level it is Thou which transcends all specific acts of longing, looking and searching. This shows obeisance and reverence to every parent, every teacher, and to all the lineages of all the sages, wise men, and awakened ones. So magical is this reverence that it dignifies a human being, making him more human, and divinizes him in the act of veneration to all those greater than himself, to all those beyond him who have trodden the same path and become signposts. They have left footprints, and in myriad ways shown to the homeless wanderer the way back to the only home he searches for, and which, when he finds it, he finds he never left it. Life is a return to where one started, and therefore all of life is a meditation on the Absolute. The moment this meditation, which must be as ceaseless as breathing, is translated into a set of finite acts, forms, fruits and seeds – even the best – something is lost. More is lost than saved in the telling, even in the sharing. It is unshareable, and is the source of all that is to be shared. Therefore the wise recognize that there is nothing more beautiful in the Mahamaya, in the realm of the unreal where relativity supervenes, than the supreme veil that shrouds the majesty of the Absolute. Not just the rare astronomer, but many a humble sea captain and many an ordinary person has had the privilege of seeing the nimbus of the solar corona during an eclipse of the sun. Having seen something so overwhelmingly beautiful, they understand that everything seen and known about the physical sun is but a dim, paltry veil upon the glory of the Invisible Sun. Its radiance is even more overwhelming in the Divine Darkness which illuminates and gives intelligence to the whole of life and every atom. It is the sanctuary of the highest beings in the whole of evolution. The Lords of Light belonging to the primordial seven rays – ever motionless like the Absolute within the moving wheel of time – give forth the most potent thing conceivable in manifestation. These are the myriads upon myriads of nucleoli that are indestructible like the Absolute, sprung from within the secret, sacred heart of the Spiritual Sun, making a dark embrasure into the hidden Darkness. This dark veil upon that which is eternally hidden can be recognized only by going within, by averting one's gaze from everything that is outside, including most of oneself, and by persisting in the darkness of the cave in the heart. Moving fearlessly like a spiritual mountain climber, one must experience intense horrors that bring one close to the most tragic beings in the worst possible states of the hell of loneliness, self-hatred and self-destruction. At the same time one will see even there the compassion of the greatest and wisest beings, who are far greater than any conceivable god, because they are Sages and yogins. They raised the fundamental questions aeons ago, answered them, and remained simple witnesses, by their breathing, to that ever-present, invisible lineage of inexhaustible divine wisdom, which makes the earth what it is and certainly saves it from much worse than ever faces it. The light of the Invisible Sun lends whatever beauty, truth and meaning there is to human life and to the lives of all beings, so powerful and potent is it. Though one can see and sense this even on the physical plane, most people fail to think about it. Instead of drenching in the external, coarse, visible sunlight, which the wise find suffocating, one should sit in the shade as birds and animals do, and as human beings do when they remain simple and full of love for the soil on which they walk. Then when closing one's eyes, whether at mid-day or at night after one has fulfilled one's duties of the day, one should turn homeward within and think of the ineffable, invisible glory hidden behind the veil of the visible, the mask of manifestation, ever celebrating the One without a second, the One and only existence. Then one may recognize the unbelievable solidarity of the greatest beings conceivable in manifestation who are of one mind, one heart, one breath. They have no identity apart from the whole, and where they are hierarchies that maintain this universe in motion, individuality only belongs to them in groups. Where they are Mahatmas, enlightened beings, they have totally destroyed the root of individuality at the highest level in Mahat and in their subtlest vesture, let alone in name and form that belong to the evanescent body. That mystery beyond the radiant veil is invoked in the Gayatri: UNVEIL, OH THOU WHO GIVEST SUSTENANCE TO THE UNIVERSE, FROM WHOM ALL PROCEED, TO WHOM ALL MUST RETURN, THAT FACE OF THE TRUE SUN, NOW HIDDEN BY A VASE OF GOLDEN LIGHT, THAT WE MAY SEE THE TRUTH, AND DO OUR WHOLE DUTY, ON OUR JOURNEY TO THY SACRED SEAT. That radiant veil of supple, noumenal, light – too sacred to be spoken of aloud – is the light of understanding and inner illumination, the light that lighteth up the soul of every man. When one invokes it on behalf of universal good, consciously and deliberately, one fulfills one's mission as a human being, consecrating one's life and breathing through adoration and veneration until these enter into the breathing of all the vestures and vehicles. This devotion brings one closer to the greatest Beings in the entire system, enabling one to enjoy – through their eyes, their minds, and their hearts – the pure perception of the ultimate hidden meaning behind the whole wheel of time, the whole cycle of manifestation, the whole of samsara. One can even come to appreciate and enjoy in the Maya, the Mahamaya – the priceless opportunity extended from the divine ground for infinite learning to an overwhelming, boundless array of elementals and beings in all kingdoms of Nature, including the human, so that there is a ceaseless onward march towards the universal enlightenment of everything that lives and breathes. This consummation far transcends all worlds, systems and paths, and far surpasses the imaginative capacity of human beings. The wise characterize it as 'the endless end.' The ending of manifestation is lost in that realm where all endings and all beginnings have dissolved. One can gain an intimation of this supernal state with the help of sacred words in sacred scriptures, especially ones made alive by those who know, using them as aids to refine, train, purify and clarify one's heart. The heart is more important than the head. The clarification of the heart and the feeling nature requires a purging of every wish other than the wish that all may thrive and flourish. Cleansing the mind means getting at the root of all the clusters of pseudo-thoughts that have been given artificial life by a kind of ghoulish mental blood transfusion. They are mental corpses, creating a kind of kamaloka and fattening the kamarupa. One must let them go and dispel them until they are dissolved and do not lodge anywhere. Then one can open what Shakespeare calls "the book and volume in the brain" beyond and behind the bonfire of cremated thoughts. As one enters its hidden spaces, one comes closer to the pulse of divine thought and ceaseless divine ideation, and begins to see that which underlies all thoughts, that which transcends all conceptions and conditions of embodied and disembodied consciousness. It is so free that it is inconceivable within the mortal mind and finite consciousness. It is so rich and magnificent that once one begins to get a taste of it, one wants nothing else. When it becomes the most natural thing in the world to enjoy mystic meditation, one is always seeking every opportunity to get back to that fundamental current of ideation. Everything else is merely a veil, distracting and concealing, falsifying, and often alas, tragically inverting the truth of the Oneness of all life. Therefore many sages speak about there being only one true human being in any solar system in any period of manifestation. All seemingly separate human beings are merely atoms within that one being. The immensity of this can be understood by thinking of the billions of cells in the human body, that virtual universe or cosmos which each soul carries on the physiological plane. Yet, most people are not aware of it most of the time, and are merely leaning back upon nature's cycles, trusting to Nature's compassionate toil in keeping the vast cosmic computer working. To be able to insert oneself into the unity of Nature and human life consciously and deliberately, and to do it joyously and with total consecration, self-abandonment and self-abnegation at the root, destroys at the source all thought which gives rise to false and delusive desire, which can only trap one in time, making one captive to bondage, illusion and delusion. Therefore, one meditates upon karmalessness by honoring the one universal, unknowable, ever mysterious Law of Karma, cleaving to that which is at the core of it, beyond all definition and articulation. In the memorable words of the Light of Asia, "the heart of things is sweet." There is bliss at the core of the cosmic process. There is love and compassion, and therefore one can rejoice – amidst a world of ignorance, darkness and mortality – that the immortal prevails, that light persists, and that goodness ever triumphs at the end of the pilgrimage of the immortal soul. To raise one's sights and see beyond all lesser perspectives is to relativate and make absurd the mimicry of the mind working through the mimicry of human speech. The chattering of monkeys and crows is more beautiful and meaningful than the chattering of human beings who have, often unaware, desecrated that divine estate. Now, if the Absolute is logically beyond all and cannot have any relationships whatsoever, this is merely a correlate of the ontological fact that there is nothing else but the Absolute. It has no parts, so there can be no relations between parts of the Absolute. Nor can one treat worlds as parts of the Absolute, because that would be to fail to understand homogeneous Spirit-Matter. It would be a failure to understand the nature of that ultimate divine field in which there is a potentiality of universes. The Absolute must transcend anything and everything that is confined within the logic of worlds and systems, let alone the little worlds of little human lives. Consequently, all true learners know that all questioning is self-questioning. Instead of becoming complicated and indirect, they learn consciously to commune with that which is boundless, the Rootless Root within themselves. Once they begin to do this, much starts to happen. They suddenly become courageous, solitary and free, effortlessly able to gain self-mastery over their field. At the same time, they are ever receptive to the music of the spheres, to the flute of Krishna, to the majestic heartbeat of the universe, to the majestic F note of nature, to what the ocean is saying by not saying it, what the sky is breathing inaudibly, and what true fire and true water – the true elements – are speaking. Then one is grateful to all those beings, whether they be birds or poets, that bear witness to the rich, magnificent, melodious language of invisible Nature, which is a ceaseless celebration of Sat-Chit-Ananda – truth, intelligence and joy fused forever in a sacred Three-in-One at the heart of the Absolute. Only the highest Dhyanis can directly reflect the divine thought and ideation of the Universal Mind, of which only a small portion, called Mahat, becomes the mind of a cosmos during a period of manifestation. Those who understand this will begin to learn from and listen to everyone who knows more than themselves. On that inner journey, they will also have the courage within themselves to prostrate before, to seek avidly, and to move towards the exalted, invisible Enlighteners and Teachers of the human family. They will see them all as parts of one immense Tree, and try to get to the invisible sap and roots of that invisible Tree. They will try to see the crown of that Tree which is like the crown over the head of every human being. The Atman is above the body, and the Atman is below the body. The Atman is within in the secret, sacred, spiritual heart of every being. The Atman also is ceaselessly within the Golden Egg of the cosmos that is mirrored in the pristine, golden Aura around every being that breathes. It is most sublimely present in the Divine Host that descended eighteen-and-three-quarter million years ago into the human form. It is silent throughout mundane life, though it whispers in deep sleep. It speaks more strongly in deep and regular meditations, and, in those who begin to become wise and enlightened at any level, it becomes a chitkala, the infallible Voice that guides, speaks, opens the eyes, opens the doors of the senses, and goes beyond them. It gives one myriad gifts, enabling one to see beyond the cycles of time and the confines of space. It enables one to experience closeness to what is so seemingly far off in physical space-time. It gives one the ever present companionship of the entire assembly of the Gods, and the sages higher than the gods, but also all those true beings who have learned to walk in the ways shown by the sages and blessed by the Gods. This is an eternal undertaking in which the language of separation makes no sense. To talk of the I, even the I-am-I, the I that is immortal, is an absurd illusion. The notion of the I falls away, and all language becomes merely the working of the elements or gunas, the forces of Nature using all bodies as vehicles for the great enlightenment of all life. At the highest level Sat-Chit-Ananda, the Three-in-One, is a much richer and more profound representation of the essentially nameless ground of all being and non-being than the 'Absolute', which is, as a philosophical term, scarcely two hundred years old. There is even more abundant meaning in the truly ancient Sanskrit term Parabrahman – that which is beyond all Brahmas and all periods of manifestations, that from which all the Brahmas come. The lower mind falsely thinks that the moment one points to something beyond, one is belittling what is below. On the contrary, to speak of Parabrahman is to give beauty to all the Brahmas, because they come out of Brahman. There can be as many personal gods as one wishes, in as many systems, as long as one sees, like the peasant, that they all come from that which is beyond all definition and limit. True philosophical negation – of form, colour and limitation – is endless affirmation of the sort shown by humble souls like Carlyle or Whitman, who spoke of accepting life, accepting the universe, accepting everything that comes, and rejoicing in it. The challenge is to learn to see life now the way one will see it at the moment of death, lest in life one become a traitor to one's true self. Where one cannot understand, one must be as patient as the mountains and the rocks, waiting to learn the meaning of a particular moment or event, even if it takes all one's life. This demands trust in the integrity of the universe, trust in the divine, trust in its supreme and total infallible mathematical exactitude. When this trust is real, the words of the sages become real: there is not a single accident, not a single misshapen day; there is not a misfortune or mishap that is unnecessary to the evolution of the soul, and which one cannot courageously understand. Instead of seeing a tiny portion of the curve, one could see the larger extensions of the vast infinite series of chains that must surely bridge what existed billions and millions of years ago and what exists now. The universe has integrity not just in terms of spatial extension, but it has an even deeper integrity, like a tree, through time. There is nothing now which is not connected with all that existed before. In the age of computers when literally billions of operations are involved in running the simplest program, to presume that the integrity of life cannot be understood could only be a symptom of soul sickness and pathetic perversity. In fact, it is much worse. It is evidence of a secret alliance to the legions of darkness – power maniacs, traducers and desecrators of the sacred – pacts souls have made in other lives, which they keep secret, but which work constantly through weaknesses making them terrified that they will be rejected by the universe. They are right. The universe rejects everything that comes in the way of the whole. The part must always give way to the whole, and those who are self-separated from the noble stream of life are the enemies of humanity and of all life. Yet, even they are given a function by Nature and the gods. They become the scavengers of manifestation. But those who seek to be part of the grand stream and cooperate with it consciously must learn to be like the gentle birds and the beasts all around, like the gods ceaselessly engaged in sacrifice, like the sages ever celebrating the joyous light of the Atman, and like the best beings of every age who have shown the way of soul strength and unpretentious compassion. Separating themselves from the mass of sick elementals masquerading as human beings, they become attentive to the Voice, the Soundless Sound, meditating upon the exalted Three-in-One hidden in Parabrahman itself. Sat-Chit-Ananda is one way of characterizing it. The three Logoi is another. They correspond exactly to that which is not just the Logos of the entire system, but also of every human being – the Atman, which is the Paramatman in its cosmic sense, and the Atman ruling over each and all. This is the true meaning of the light of the Atman called Buddhi, which is the light of understanding and the beauty of concentrated thought. From dharana through dhyana the soul readies itself for absorption through samadhi into the Absolute, into the Atman, which exactly mirrors in its eternal motion the light essence of the Parabrahman. Unaffected by time, it is the only source of dynamism in this universe, which makes its continuous maintenance possible as Vishnu, its perpetual destruction and regeneration possible as Shiva, and its ceaseless creation possible as Brahma. These are all only three names of the same Supreme Godhead, too sacred to be spoken of unless one has earned the right to do so by giving one's whole life to it and cooperating utterly with that Divine, as all the mystics have shown. At the same time, one must not mistake the correspondence in the human constitution to the highest in the Divine for identity. What is below is only a small portion of what at the cosmic level precedes and antedates, as well as succeeds and goes beyond, the vastest periods of time and grandest arenas of space. Therefore the outstanding way of understanding this, as pointed out in the Mahabharata by the great Rishi Sanatsujata – Dakshinamurti, the Initiator of Initiates, who is again the custodian of this moment of global civilization – is that meditation is silence, meditation is the AUM, meditation is Brahman, Brahman is the AUM, and Brahman is silence. Whether one thinks of the AUM or of silence, or of Brahman, or indeed of true meditation, all of these are the same. Everything in life leads to that same Unit Source, which means meditation must go beyond all divisions, comparisons and contrasts. Those who have the courage to revere the richer life hidden in Nature know that the whole of the invisible Himalayas is in the human heart, and that the invisible Ganges flows through the human body. Right there, within oneself, are the invisible beauties of Nature which bring one closer to the wise. They do not lie in the realm of the visible, which is only a theatre of trial, temptation and of deception. Therefore the AUM represents the forever concealed. Every representation of it points to that which is unrepresentable, concealed within the heart of the Absolute. When it spreads its light it becomes that which binds the whole, the Three becoming the Four, which was honoured by disciples of Pythagoras as the holiest of holies, the Tetraktys, the Three-in-One which cements the whole. To see this is to see that meditation upon the Absolute is a recovery of the Lost Word. It is becoming worthy of the Word, becoming capable of seeing the hidden Sound behind all sounds, the hidden Word behind all the revealed words of all the scriptures. It is the unutterable and the unuttered Word – because its utterance is only possible among Initiates within the Mysteries after myriad lives of discipline and preparation. Any human being at any time can get an inkling of the triad within, and there are millions of triads within. But, they all have ultimately their root in a supreme Triad that has never incarnated in a human being, because it is in the immortal direct Ray from the Absolute. That is the highest teaching hidden in all the sacred books. The Unit Ray, which does not divide, is the AUM. Therefore the wise unify and integrate, healing and overcoming all splits and fragmentations, and they go beyond all words and concepts, all pairs of eyes, all forms, and all names. Meditation means a continual enjoyment of transcending the multiplicity of names and forms and getting only to that One which is honored above all, and to which one pays total homage and makes one's whole life an act of obeisance. Never is that Word in manifestation without men of the Word, custodians of the Word, true Gurus. Though they may work in myriad ways through all life, through all the elements of Nature, and through all beings, above all they remain in themselves obedient servants of the Hierophantic Host that serves the One and Only, Supreme in Eternity and in time, which is the hidden meaning of the doctrine of the Purna Avatar. That direct Ray is the most potent gift that a human being has, but it is only when one transcends all that is indirect and lesser – by painful degrees burning out everything that comes in the way – that one comes any closer to the direct Ray of divine perception and illumination. In it one begins to experience the thrill of communion leading to union, becoming ultimately a constant fact of ever-present unity with the cosmic Three-in-One. That is the highest teaching ever given, and it can only become real if one can practice seeing that AUM in the Atman all around. One must refuse to use the eyes or the ears, let alone the tongue, except to see and hear and speak of That. Naturally, if one is going to do it all the time, it will have to be done quietly, even inaudibly, without coming in the way of other people and their fickle ties and their false attractions. One has got to see it amidst everything in the realm of the manifest and within in every being. This is a slow and painful education, because if one leaves out a single being on earth, this will come and haunt one for lives. No being can be excluded. This learning, then, becomes a kind of practice of all inclusiveness in thinking and feeling, and it only becomes authentic and honest by the divine discipline of self-consecration, regular purgation and purification of the mind and the heart. Like a child learning to lisp, one must practice the language of the Silence, the language of the Divine, which is the forgotten language of the soul, so that one can hear it in deep sleep, recognize it in dreams, use it in meditation and in the anterooms of preparation for the Mysteries, thereby becoming a true listener to the highest expressions of that Voice which is the eternal religion of humanity, the Sanatana Dharma. One cannot really do this without voiding everything that is lesser, and one cannot do this once and for all. One does it repeatedly, just as one does not eat or bathe for all time, but eats and bathes every day. Every day one must cleanse, purify and nourish the body, and, which is the key to health, one must eliminate all that is unnecessary. Similarly, everything in the mind and heart that is on a lesser plane in one's thoughts, words, feelings and reactions to the world must be eliminated. Otherwise, one cannot begin to be worthy of the presence of the enlightened, the illuminated Instructors of humanity who are ever present, but whose presence – even if one were right there next to them – would never mean anything to the soul if one's whole being was not consecrated. That is why the alchemists speak of the mystic marriage in which one is wedded forever by the most sacred and indissoluble vow of all vows. It does not matter in what form one makes this vow, for it is the intensity and authenticity of it that will bind one to the entire golden chain. The truer and more constant one is, the more irrevocably one binds oneself in consciousness to the brotherhood of all beings and the working of the one great Law. The ceaseless harmonizing and equilibration of all life atoms in all kingdoms is going on invisibly in manifestation all the time, but it is too subtle and too illusive to be understood by the lower mind and the finite heart. It can only be understood by the cosmic heart and the cosmic mind, which means one must attune one's small heart and small mind to the great heart of humanity, the greater heart of all true disciples, and the measureless heart of Adepts and Initiates, which will bring one closer to the singular secret heart of the Absolute in the form of the Ishvara, the Supreme. Real meditation on the Absolute, then, releases everything that is true and good, everything that is light giving and beautiful, everything that is lasting and honest, everything that works compatibly with the good of all in one's life. Even if there are only three or four things one could select out of the myriad mass of one's life, if they are authentic, the very act of selection teaches one how to learn and lisp the language of recognition. One will begin to draw out from one's hidden resources a lot that could never otherwise emerge, because of the beastly and treacherous alliances one has made to so much that is so false, so wicked and so horrible. Taken from the dregs of the astral light and the depths of kamaloka, and made into what one thinks one is, this poison takes people almost to the point where the thread is cut and one becomes a leaky jar. But even the worst of cases can be redeemed by invoking the Light of all lights, by invoking the compassion of the lineages, and making not just what people make all the time – a new start – but making a more fundamental beginning in using all one's energy towards the only thing that makes life worth living. This invocation will work infallibly, gradually healing the heart and mind, and slowly removing from the vestures all the scars, such as those depicted in many a painting of many a disciple, even though these portraits are feeble attempts to reveal the mysterious inner process of alchemy and self-transformation. At the moment of death one will still be able to lay the finest and the purest of the best in oneself at the feet of the Guru – while the entire house is burning, so to speak. This act of consecration only becomes real when one actually begins to bring it to the level of touch, taste and the physical body, when one feels that every atom is sacred, that nothing is one's own, but everything is borrowed. Misuse of this consecration would be fatal and indeed at a certain point of evolution would be final, so one needs the courage to move against the grain, to come out and be separate, in the words of St. Paul. But this is not something to talk about, because that will only destroy the work. The key is actually to do it repeatedly until one can respect oneself. In essence that work is the divinization through self-magnetization of the Atman in every atom – in the fingers and eyes, in the forehead, in the tongue, in the lungs, even in the liver and spleen, everywhere. Indeed, what can be more sacred than the generative principle, reaching from above the head through the sacred organs to the soles of one's feet, because man is meant to create and to emanate, but out of the deepest sense of the sacred, and he is meant to produce thoughts that can become potent and beautiful blessings and benedictions to all that lives. Because this is such a vast and magnificent enterprise, once one really gets serious and reaches a certain foothill, one begins to recognize myriads of beings who already are there, some of whom are stuck but others of whom are pointing the way ahead. Then one begins to see what is real, totally hidden behind the so-called real world in which one had lived before. People therefore naturally find, as all the Mahatmas have, that the sovereign mode of Buddhi Yoga is total surrender of the will, called ishvarapranidana by Patanjali – total surrender and total devotion. That alone is what brings one closer to understanding the mysterious eleventh chapter of the Bhagavad Gita – Vishvarupa Darshana Yoga, The Yoga of the Vision of the Cosmic Form – which precedes the twelfth chapter on Bhakti Yoga, The Yoga of Devotion, and follows the magnificent ninth and tenth chapters –The Yoga of the Sovereign Science and the Sovereign Secret and the Yoga of Divine Excellences. But these chapters can never be understood until one has actually mastered the teachings in the first six chapters, which is why reading them only arouses soul memories, but does not instruct the mind. Before the soul can be instructed, the mind has to be totally put aside. In the fifteenth chapter, The Yoga of the Supreme Spirit, Krishna declares:
That is the ultimate secret about the Absolute. Behind all persons there is one supreme Uttama Purusha. Otherwise this universe would have no logic to it. That is what is too sacred and too wonderful ever to be caught by human beings in any known representations of the God idea. The homage of the Sages alone is entitled to sing and speak at this highest level. Those human beings are wise who have so far transcended the realm of opinion and auto-generation, at the lower level of reaction, that they have totally become, in Gandhi's words, Zero, a cipher, floating on the ocean of Divine Truth. They therefore experience within the sanctuary of the heart the joy of the discovery that the object and the subject of meditation are ultimately one. Can it be any less than the whole of the cosmos? Can the meditator be any other than the Uttama Purusha? Can everything else that one sees in the realm of the many, be anything else than a mirroring? That is why the wise speak of the Self-Existent meditating upon itself. Below that, everything else is mayavic. Enlightened Beings are those who have fully mastered and recognized the truth of dukkha, the pain of living and of humanity. They see nirvana in samsara and inwardly experience the secret joy of the divine smile behind the divine dance that is ceaselessly working, in ways that transcend the reckoning and opinions of human minds, for universal uplift – sarvodaya, for lokasangraha – the welfare of all, for universal good – tò ágathón – and the universal enlightenment of the entire human race and of all that lives and breathes. So potent is this teaching on Meditation on the Absolute that, if devoted disciples genuinely try to use it in the coming months and years, it will give them a strong foundation which then can set a pattern in their lives that will become meaningful and sacred. Everyone can benefit from this teaching and all can participate in it. Quality is more important than quantity in this meditation, though quality does depend upon persistence and continuity in the attempt. It does not matter so much whether these disciples spend time together, for although this can help, it is also often a hindrance. The true Brotherhood they seek is eternally established in the Heart of the Logos, which is the fons et origo of all enlightenment and Enlightened Beings. Turning inward towards the light of the Paramatman, they will discover the only true joy allotted to intrepid pilgrim souls, which is the joy of moving towards that one True Light of their being through universal selfless service. Then, their highest meditations and noblest deeds, their deepest thoughts and finest feelings, will serve as living seeds and points of contact, not just among themselves, but really with the whole of humanity for the sake of the greater good of all. Raghavan Iyer |