We understood the need to withdraw from mental conceptions and align ourselves more with the flow of nature, especially when some unbidden pressure builds up inside and pushes us to awaken to our deeper self—to make us flower, like a blossom bud in spring. And we ignore its promptings at our peril. This means that we have to work on tossing out all the concepts and conditionings of our upbringing, and also the conditionings we have unquestioningly lapsed into in our present lifestyle. We investigated whether me and ‘my mind’ were intrinsically involved or actually separate entities.

This section may give you some difficulty in comprehension. But the investigation is worth pursuing.

Realm of Spirit

Every night, we enter into a state of mental non-existence with no knowledge of existing.

And yet every morning one always seems to wake up from it. By extension, can there then be such a thing as death? For everything in the realm of Spirit has its analogy in the world of ‘matter’. Similarly, everything in the world of matter reflects an aspect of the subtle workings of the Spirit. Nightly sleep is the nightly death of the individual.

And every night is a rehearsal for our own final absorption into the Absolute.

Yet we are not afraid to enter into that nightly ‘non-existent’ condition, which so terrifies us in the thought of death. On the contrary, it is the greatest bliss for us. We are only too eager to escape into it after spending only sixteen hours or so of wakefulness in this workaday world. Why is it so? As the sages maintain, with the dissolution of thought we enter into the ‘Consciousness of the Self’ (or God-Consciousness), from whence we emerged into self-consciousness, or awareness of existing. We are only conscious in the present because of ‘awakening’ out of that space. But this condition into which we awaken is equivalent to a dream about being alive, compared to the vital reality of that original state.

In deep sleep, we return to that condition—but without conscious awareness.

However, it is possible to be aware of that space consciously.

Blissful mindlessness

There comes a period when all the unreal and superimposed mental gabblings of the waking and dreaming worlds finally come to a halt. In this ‘night of the mind’, we blissfully abide for a brief time in our true condition as the substratum of existence. And in sleep, this short contact with our real nature is the only experience of the day which refills us with enough mental strength to go on through another sixteen to twenty odd hours of what can sometimes be absolutely hellish non-stop thinking. Even a few minutes of that blissful mindlessness each night is enough to recharge us.

If we were denied access to that condition by being kept at the surface level of sleep for a few days, then we would soon become physically uncoordinated and mentally disoriented to the point of madness. Therefore, the deep sleep state or nightly entry into the Self is a vital necessity—at least for those of us who are not experiencing ‘effortless awareness’ in meditation.

It is frustrating to realise that every night we effortlessly enter into a similitude of the sat-chit-ananda samadhi [or Ultimate Super-Conscious] state, but with veiled awareness. Like the flowers and trees unfolding themselves in the flow of universal consciousness, we are not cognisant of it. We can only infer the ‘existence’ part of that condition because the mind-body-ego-complex we take ourselves to be, still appears to exist on waking—but the ‘consciousness and bliss’ experience is lacking altogether. Yet even in the oblivious ignorance of that nightly event, we are revitalised and refreshed.

If we could experience that condition while remaining conscious and alert, how much more powerful might it be? Is it possible?

Credits: Supplied Image; Author: Muz Murray;

Divine state

Not only is it possible, but it is the ultimate joy of joys expressed by the mystics down the ages who have entered into that divine state by the practice of meditation or enquiry into the Self. What they have done, everyone can do. Such is the assertion of all those who have ever attained to the realisation of the Self. And their methods have been refined and perfected over countless centuries, for the dissolution of the sense of ego and the vagaries of the mind.

If we have misused our minds for most of our lives, we cannot expect to have instant results from our practice. But gentle and persistent efforts will eventually bear fruit, providing of course, that one is constant in keeping the flighty mind from butterflying out into the delusions of the world.

As the sage Bhagavan says: “Though all the scriptures have said it, and though we hear it daily from the great ones and even from our guru, we are never quiet but stray into the world of Maya and sense objects. That is why conscious, deliberate effort is needed to attain that effortless state of stillness. Now [in the early stages of development] it is impossible for you to be without effort. When you go deeper, it is impossible for you to make an effort.”*

* Maya is the veiling power over the mind, which makes the illusion of the world appear as ‘reality’, giving the impression of being something distinct from the Omnipresence.

From: Sharing the Quest: Revelations of a Maverick Mystic

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