Eternal Expanding Consciousness
The true description of Enlightenment may be eternal expanding consciousness. The Sanskrit word brahman is derived from the root √brih which means to expand, thus brahman is the fullness, the broad, high, wide and deep ever expanding ubiquitous One that pervades All. Brahman is termed Parabhairava in Kashmir Shaivism, the Presence, also the luminescent effulgence, akshara [the Imperishable], Atma [Self], and Isha [power]. Over millenniums the names have changed, but never the One. This substance that is no substance is the eternal substratum of all that is temporal, the Sufi poet’s ‘beneath the curtain of each atom’ [Mahmud Shabistari].
The Rishis, meaning Seers that composed the Rig Veda X.129 wondered if the
One can ever be known, [my 'translation']:
6.
Who here can grasp the colossal
This universe is only a fraction,
Who can speak further of far away creation?
7.
As we are ever in motion
undulating, two serpents embracing,
even far away space ever
expanding,
We know not if it can be held,
Surely it is true that the expanding Knowledge of That which we are — and is
beyond Time and Space, the nameless formless that is simultaneously all
names and forms — will go on and on in continuity for eternity. There are
billions of galaxies now seen by our earth bound astronomers.
The Myriad Worlds, the realms of manifested universes have been
‘seen’ by the Seers of ancient days, Vedic, Buddhist and others.
It is thus the substantive cause of numerous universes floating in it
like bubbles in an ocean.
World without end
Therefore it seems logical, at least to me that we, as the joyful
enterprising mirrors in ‘discovering’ unending aspects and facets of the
Creator Oneness weaving this magnificence, might never reach an end final
anything completion. How can there be an ending for the never-born and
never-dies? The next adventure will always await us, perhaps especially for
those who have been brave, even stubborn and a bit arrogant, enough to come
to this pleasure-pain sukha-duhkha polarity earth plane, which is considered
by the Tibetans to be the Realm of Endurance.
As Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita IX.33, “Having attained this
impermanent [anityam] and unhappy [asukham] world [lokam]…” The Razor’s Edge
is not an easy place to walk! No one said it would be easy. But here we are.
We must love the challenge of being Veiled in density, ignorance, delusion
[moha], and the adventure of Waking Up to our Real Self, the One within All.
The One enjoys being in these data-collecting vehicles — us, you and me — in
our Veiled states, from more or less Veiled ignorance to subtle layers of
Enlightened consciousness, as we move across the galaxies in search of our
dreams and desires. We are here on planet earth ploughing our fields,
kshetra,
metaphysical and other, while simultaneously some are transporting their
consciousness in a non-existent instant across the vastness of space to
other dimensional realms.
While it is fun to speculate on other possible excursions into the vastness,
layers of infinite waveforms, nevertheless we are here and must focus our
concentration on this world. We came here for total Liberation. As Rene
Guenon has said in ‘Multiple States of Being’:
“…all these [multiple] states [exist] simultaneously in one and the same
being. …There is an
indefinity
of such possible modes of manifestation. …The existence of extra- or
super-human beings is fundamentally of little importance to us. There may,
assuredly, be an indefinite variety of them…we still have no reason to
occupy ourselves especially with them…many and different stages which can be
passed through successively or simultaneously…must never be confused with
total liberation.”
Everything is coagulated consciousness.
We are all Consciousness. There is nothing but consciousness; everything is
consciousness. Form is coagulated consciousness. The Shiva Sutra 3.17 says
that the one who knows there is no difference between ice and water is wise
indeed. What we think we see, hear, etc. – meaning differentiated five sense
perception are merely the transitory temporal coagulated aggregates of wave
forms that emerge interactively as appearances in Time & Space. Just as ice
is water in another form, so the universe is the temporal coagulation of
consciousness. When we realize, recognize this consciousness as
God-Consciousness and experientially feel that we are That — TAT TVAM ASI
[Chandogya Upanishad VI.8.7] — we have reached Enlightenment, the ever
expanding, Brahman, the adventure of Knowing the imperishable immutable One.
In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna often enumerates many of the qualities we
should ideally aspire to that are natural to the man of wisdom. For example
in BhG. XII.17-19 he says that dear to Him [the Oneness] is the man
[or woman] who neither rejoices nor hates, nor grieves nor desires,
has renounced good and evil, is alike toward enemy and friend, [reacts] the
same in honour and disgrace, alike in cold and heat, pleasure and pain, and
is freed from attachment, indifferent to blame or praise, silent, content
with anything whatever. When I first read these amazing elevated words, I
thought — Oh God, how far away I was from real wisdom. And yet now I am at
least beginning to see that these qualities are simply the inevitable result
of Self-Recognition and Knowing the One is you in All.
Non-attachment
Perhaps the cornerstone of the Bhagavad Gita is this concept of
non-attachment. The Sanskrit word
sanga
means attachment or clinging. Attachment to temporal forms, whether they be
family or possessions, is a consequence of identifying with the body. As
long as we feel that we are solely the small identity ego-self that is
limited to the current data collecting vehicle, born on such date, 'I' did
this and that etc. — then we will remain attached to all those people and
things that verify and prop up our limited identity. We are
not that.
The Sanskrit texts often advise those who are seeking wisdom to give up
their 'kith and kin' and reject any connection to their previous loved ones.
This admonition is quite common in texts for Sannyasins, those ascetics and
monks who have “thrown down completely” everything. I have observed that
family is a double-edged sword, offering comfort, acceptance and at the same
time confinement. The family unit has a hierarchy and each member, no matter
how dull or troublesome is accepted for what they are as long as they keep
their place in the order, and don’t move beyond what is comfortably accepted
by the others. Each is confined to their expected identity within the group.
Achieving a state of non-attachment from family, while not abandoning our
loved ones can indeed be arduous; however, not impossible for some.
The Real is that all beings are the One. Family members and strangers,
people of all races and colours are the One. We are interconnected in the
Oneness. Each is our brother, our mother, and friend. Swami Muni Narayana
Prasad points out that the Sanskrit texts don’t need to preach brotherly
love as many religions do, because love for all others simply blooms in the
Heart once we Realize they are us! The Real is that all beings, all names
and forms are the temporal coagulations of waveform frequencies of the One.
All the wisdom in the Sanskrit texts is said to originate from the Rig
Veda and yet...
"...Veda has no mention of the idea of 'hell' or
naraka
mentioned in the Puranas. Yama is the ordainer and king of the
pitriloka
[the world of the ancestors]. Rig Veda mentions clearly the concept of
rebirth or metempsychosis.
"Many popular beliefs on death are not found in the Veda. ...Veda, in
particular, does not mention the belief that a person is born on earth
because of the effects of his works done in earlier births, the so-called
prArabdha karma."
- quoted from 'Semantics of Rig Veda', by R.L. Kashyap, Sri Aurobindo Kapali
Sastry Institute of Vedic Culture, Bangalore, 2006.
My exploration of many of the divergent schools that developed from the
Sanskrit texts over the centuries and recent discovery that there is no
concept of hells worlds or the idea of ‘prarabdha’ karma in the Rig Veda,
said to be the source of all the other texts, has opened my mind to a lovely
sense of freedom. As the Kashmir Shaivite Abhinavagupta has said:
"But all such theories are merely dialectical speculations useful in
discussions and debates. None among such entities has a real existence, as
all these are mere suppositions and imaginary concepts of thinkers. No
diversity is the real truth."
The hell worlds described in such excruciating detail in the Puranas and
texts of other religions, are the temporal holographic projections of the
minds that created them. They were created for the purpose of control, to
stop people from committing harmful acts that would destabilize society, and
give priestcraft tyrants the power. They are also the product of a resonant
consciousness. The human beings who conceived these hell realms had
themselves sunk to that level.
The invisible realms work on the principle of magnetism and like attracts
like. Forgive me being personal here for a moment. Back in my Texas high
school days, I experienced the little Greys. My teen-age memory of this was
suppressed to protect me and so their faces came out in my oil paintings,
which oddly enough were very popular, coveted and even stolen. In my 40s, I
again briefly encountered these happy beings who were delighted to see me,
literally laughing in innocent childlike joy. The point is that I never
experienced any fear around them.
In the same vein of thinking, my visions of the colonization of this planet
by the Anunnaki did not include fear-loaded experiences with blood-dripping
Reptilian monsters. Instead, my consciousness picked up on Inanna as a
spoiled self-willed lady who like most of us, came to the end of her foolish
selfish desires and sought the higher truth. ‘Inanna Returns’ is about her
journey to enlightenment, not grisly tales of reptiles devouring humans. The
laws of magnetism are infallible. Those in fear will perceive fear and
attract fearful experiences. The cultivation of a higher consciousness is
our only Refuge.
“Space represents pre-matter, the sub stratum in which energy can be
manifested in the form of vibratory waves and magnetic forces… Time is born
of consciousness. …The formation and development of the visible world is
related to the principle of Time…expressed in the form of rhythms.”
- Alain Danielou, ‘While the Gods Play’
The quotation above from the French scholar Alain Danielou is from the
concepts of the ancient primordial metaphysical teaching Samkhya.
In ‘While the Gods Play’
Danielou explains that the length of a moment is established by the rhythms
of consciousness that perceive it:
"It is energy, by producing vibratory waves having direction and
length, that will give birth to the rhythms whose perceptions will create
the dimension of time, the measure of space, and at the same time the
structures of matter.
For man, the perception of the dimension of time is determined by his vital
rhythms, his heartbeat…"
Thus time is experienced differently by all beings in various dimensional
realms. Here within the rhythms of our earth plane vibrational waveform
frequencies, the metaphysics of Time is a spiral compression that produces
density of form relative to our consciousness. As we move through the cycles
of time, our perception of Time speeds up and density increases as the
interaction between our five senses and external form generates the further
solidification of matter, from an astral-light fluidity to rock granite
hard.
Collapsing waveforms
Intergalactic Space travel across vast distances does not take place in such
a dense vibratory level of Time. Newtonian rocket-engine physics will not
liberate us from the boundaries of our heliosphere.
Perhaps there is a physics, or metaphysics of consciousness as yet unknown
to us, which delineates the technology of utilizing collapsing waveforms
that project and traverse in magnetic spirals into the multiple
hyper-dimensions of various holographic universes. Yet
we earthlings remain ‘trapped’ in density by our limited consciousness,
attached to the delusional perception that we are the body. A truly
Enlightened being Knows that he or she is not limited to the human
flesh-and-blood body. Thus the
siddhis,
such as remote viewing, changing the density in one's body, flying through
the skies and traveling in seconds from one location to another, etc. are
said to be effortlessly achieved.
All visible forms are merely the temporal accumulative aggregates of
waveforms. The space beings and their ships often appear and disappear, do
they not? These beings are not encased in delusion. Thus they move in and
out of the
akasha
at will. Their sky vehicles appear and disappear because they are not
limited to our Time/Space
A multidimensional fabric woven of electromagnetic charges
In
the treatise ‘Cosmos Without Gravitation’, the great iconoclastic thinker
Immanuel Velikovsky states that the Sun, planets, satellites (moons, etc.),
comets are charged bodies. As charged bodies they are interdependent.
As Spirit inhabiting human bodies, we are each similar to such ‘charged’
bodies. Velikovsky uses the term circumduction to describe the
electromagnetic interaction of celestial bodies. Circumduction would imply
moving around an object in a circular or spherical manner. If you imagine
yourself and those around you as unique spheres of electromagnetic energies,
the term circumduction becomes a more accurate and less linear description
of our everyday lives.
We
are all interacting with each other in every moment, not just in physical
passing, say in the market or street, but also at a distance as we think of
people or they think of us, or we read another’s thoughts or they read ours.
Life is a multidimensional fabric woven of electromagnetic charges, all
forming fields within fields.
Mad blissful Joy across thousands of universes
I believe there are benevolent beings observing this Earth, who are waiting
for us to evolve into a deeper understanding of universal metaphysical
Wisdom-Knowledge which they already possess. Our fear of them is symptomatic
of our lack of wisdom. Until we understand that we live in the Woven
Universe, where everyone and everything is deeply profoundly interconnected,
then we cannot be allowed a greater participation even in our own solar
system. We are destroying our precious blue-green jewel of a planet. Should
we be given access to vaster knowledge, science that goes far beyond our
conception of matter, which could destroy the fabric of Time itself?
A higher consciousness is our only Refuge. Amazing, is it not? This soup the
One has cooked up for Itself. What an adventure, yours and mine, into
limitation, five-sense perception, and very vulnerable perishable temporal
forms. God is crazy in Love for Its Creation. There is only one Soul,
forever dancing in crazy Love, Its mad blissful Joy across thousands of
universes — an eternally expanding consciousness.
We meet in the Heart
V. Susan Ferguson
The Bhagavad Gita in the Mahabharata, A Bilingual Edition, translated by
J.A.B. van Buitenen; The University of Chicago Press, 1981.
The Bhagavad Gita, translated by Winthrop Sargeant; State University of New
York Press, 1994.
The Multiple States of Being, by Rene Guenon; Larson Publications, NY, 1984.
Swami Lakshmanjoo: Shiva Sutras, The Supreme Awakening, With the Commentary
of Kshemaraja, Revealed by Swami Lakshmanjoo, and edited by John Hughes;
Universal Shaiva Fellowship, 2002.
Rig Veda X.129
http://www.metaphysicalmusing.com/articles/rigveda2012/rigveda004.htm
Essence of the Exact
Reality or PARAMARTHASARA of Abhinavagupta, English translation & notes by
Dr. B.N. Pandit;
Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1991, New
Delhi.
While the Gods Play, Shaiva
Oracles and Predictions of the Cycles of History and the Destiny of Mankind,
by Alain Danielou; Inner Traditions International, Vermont, 1987.
Extreme Deep Field Image
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Constellation_Fornax,_EXtreme_Deep_Field.jpg
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