|
Home
Doors
Essays2007
Essays2008
Essays2009
Essays2010
Wisdom
Gallery
Links
Bios
Contact
|
..:: Enlightenment
V / The Balance ::..
By
Alan
Schneider
In many ways, the priorities of the higher and lower minds are
diametrical opposites – the physicality of lower mind experienced
directly through the activity of the senses and organized by the ego
cannot be ignored, but the spirituality present in higher mind
represents the only enduring meaning present behind those senses. If
we live for sensory gratification alone, we invariably find ourselves
lost in an endless search for more, and yet more, gratification, as
desire and desire action compulsively drive us on the rat-wheel of
material achievement, essentially going nowhere. Certainly this
cannot be the meaning of existence. Yet, we live in the flesh, and
under the shadow of the ego. What, then, is the root mechanism laying
at the foundation of this evident conflict? I have come to the
unavoidable conclusion that this mechanism is Karma.
At some point in the
existential (and spiritual) development of the individual, the
dawning of an inkling of higher purpose occurs beyond physical
gratification, as the residual unrest of the total mind (the
Psyche) provokes us to search further and more deeply for meaning
and connectedness in existence. Eventually, this search tends to
reveal something like a map of higher manifestation, and, although there
are myriad systems present in the Mystery Teachings that all allude
partially to this map in their own specific terms, one must make at
least the primary, fundamental decision to view the physical universe
shown to us in the senses as a conscious process to make much
progress with any of them. If this decision is made, then a
distillation of the Mysteries can be arrived at. Since I prefer the
relatively scientific approach of Jungian psychodynamics, I will
describe this distillation from that perspective.
The Jungian Self is
the ultimate source of the total mind, of which the elements of physical
sensory experience are a portion, but certainly not the whole. Since
we are all ultimately fields of consciousness present within the
total mind, that consciousness trumps sensation in the map of higher
manifestation – and meaning trumps action. Because the Self is
the source and Creator of all experience in the total mind, this
creation necessarily includes both individuality and collectivity under
the combined heading of universality. If one can quiet the lower mind
effectively enough through the use the techniques of higher
investigation, principally (but not only) meditation, then the Self can
be directly contacted as the source of Creation, and that Universal
Presence revealed as the only conscious manifestation present
anywhere – only the Self is real – all other apparent realities
amount to fragments of the One Self.
The fundamental aspect of the
Self is Love – specifically, Universal Love expressed as
the Kundalini Energy, or libido, in more scientific terms. Again,
since I am prone to the influence of science, I will use libido as the
default implication here. Because the Self is “composed” of Love, this
characteristic, like the Self, simply exists – the actions that
we perceive as the flow of motion and time occurring in space do not
really exist any more than we ourselves really exist as the
discreet objects perceived by us as our bodies and lives. This is why
the relativity physics of Einstein deals with events that are
seen as eternally present within spacetime, having event horizons
that define their boundaries – the physical perception of reality as we
seem to experience it is an illusion created in and by the action
of the senses – and, once again, only the transcendental Self is real.
The essence of the Self as a field of Universal Love demonstrates
existence on all levels of perception including the physical,
where human observers are entrapped in the turbulent, gross vibration of
Karma. The body and the apparent movements of this level of perception
are elements of the Karmic turbulence present here, nothing more. And
just as the totality of Universal Love must embrace suffering and
chaos to be complete, so these are seen as manifest here in this
perceived life of Karma and dense, interactive form. The body itself
is made of Karma, as are all the other forms present here, and exists to
suffer for that reason. The Buddha wisely observed that all life is
suffering, and so it is, because it must be to fulfill the local
requirements of The Cosmic Balance. Only the pursuit of Enlightenment
positively affects this condition.
The primary vehicle of Karmic
expression in this particular universe is radiant energy – radiation of
all the many types known to exist, including visible light and heat, the
two kinds that human beings can perceive. This Divine Light
forms the third aspect of the Self active in addition to Love and
Presence. Like the first two, the Light simply exists without further
qualification within spacetime – it always has been, and always
will be. The Self is Presence, expresses Love,
and radiates Light. This Light – this Radiant Energy – assumes
the relatively dense form of Karma at the vibrational level of rote
human physical perception, but can assume higher states of manifestation
through the practice of higher consciousness techniques ultimately
leading to EnLightenment. All that we perceive is composed of
Divine Light vibrating at various frequencies and amplitudes within the
Self as one of the primary aspects of the total mind.
The individuals choosing to
develop the higher mind are facing many serious challenges to their
practice. For one thing, this enormously complicates the fundamental
ongoing battle for survival and advantage that characterizes material
life. Now, we must juggle the priorities of material living with the
generally conflicting priorities of spiritual development. How am I to
smite my “enemies” when I have attained the Enlightened realization that
we are all One Being in many forms? How am I to blindly compete
against my brothers and sisters when I know they are my spiritual kin?
How am I to awaken to the Truth and forsake the material illusion when I
seem to be surrounded by a world culture that worships illusion
and attempts with great persistence to destroy those who have
awakened thus? And we cannot turn away and forsake the Truth,
returning to our spiritual sleep, once we have awakened – the powerful
epiphanies and realizations that mark our progress change us forever
once they have occurred. Oh, yes, I say the use of the term
“complicates” here is an understatement of understatements!
This life of Karma seems to
select certain people for introduction to the spiritual awakening
process – in most cases, a certain minority of the general population
will inevitably be so “selected”. In times gone by this was referred
to as having “The Calling to the Spirit” – and spiritual awareness,
processes, and other activities of diverse varieties. Primitive
cultures frequently recognized this as a legitimate condition, and made
provision for the existence of those “Called” to spiritual service –
shamans, diviners, seers, yogis, priests, and others were actually
esteemed in days long gone by now. Today, the brutal, blind
mechanization of modern and Post-modern industrial culture has all but
crushed Enlightened spiritual practice and those called in this way,
labeling them charlatans, criminals, and psychotics. Yet, the fact is
that this process is an inexorable facet of our right nature, and the
denial of this constitutes the fundamental perversion that is
progressively destroying humanity through its worship of high-tech
“achievement” at the expense of Enlightened personal development. I
suppose this is also Karma after everything is said and done, as the
Self in the embodiment of the Soul – the Divine Spark nested
within the individual organism – experiences what it must to grow
and develop as a higher spiritual entity. Such being the case, we must
acknowledge the severity of the spiritual crisis that can befall the
Called, and give them as much shelter as we may.
The Buddha knew well the
price of Awakening, and specified that the faculty of compassion
held forth in the Heart was the single greatest human achievement –
beyond the Guru’s Samadhi, beyond even the Satori and Nirvana that he
himself had espoused as ultimate spiritual goals. This is why
Buddhism is such a uniquely grounded practice in daily reality – the
reality of the here-and-now involvement with life, the body, the senses,
and the ego, along with the Enlightened understanding of how all of
these affect consciousness and the total mind. The development of
compassion in the Heart through study, meditation, and (above all)
service to others liberates consciousness.
The Balance is a dynamic,
evolving condition within the total mind. Libido is a demanding
master, never stable anywhere for long, and continuously driving us to
search on for whatever answers we can discover to the riddle of life.
The general action of The Balance can be summarized as follows: The
Self generates all awareness of everything and anything attainable on
any level of perception through the action of its three primary aspects
– Cosmic Presence, Universal Love, and Divine Light. These aspects are
omnipresent, operating at all “times” and in all “places”, each in its
special manifestation as a driver of consciousness. In particular, the
Divine Light expresses the quality of vibration, the highest
frequency of which is the Presence, followed by Universal Love. The
human consciousness is of a variable frequency that can perceive a
relatively wide “bandwidth” of other frequencies with training –
specifically the training of Enlightenment practice – but normally only
perceives the dense vibration of physical form and process called “life”
in common parlance, but known in Enlightened terms as the phenomenon of
Karma. Life is Karma. Some people are selected to experience
Awakened Awareness (Enlightenment) by the Self, although this
ongoing process is frequently accompanied by much suffering as the
illusion of Karma is supplanted by compassion as experienced in the
Spiritual Heart and Soul of the individual. Full Enlightenment is
attainable through this compassion, demonstrated by spiritual study,
meditation, and, above all, humble service to humanity in this
life, at this vibration.
It can be argued that as long
as consciousness occurs at any level of perception within the vehicle of
the body, no matter how high the vibration experienced is, Karma is
still present. For example, Hinduism specifies many levels of Samadhi,
the highest awareness attainable in that system, ranging from
Sivakalpa Samadhi – essentially a transitory spiritual epiphany –
through Nirvakalpa Samadhi – a much more profound experience of
union with the Self having lasting consequences – and Sahaja
Samadhi – full and permanent union with the Self that, however, will
still permit interaction with others on the dense plane of Karma,
although the practitioner no longer has any Karma apart from the
physical body. This final aspect of Karma is released in Maha
Samadhi, the physical death of the organism. With the introduction of
Satori and Nirvana, Buddhism takes the concept into the additional realm
of Non-Dual perception of pure consciousness devoid even of a
perceiver – simply a stream of no-thought, attainable through
meditation if the individual’s Karma will permit this occurrence. This
is the continuum of The Balance – ranging from full envelopment in the
material illusion without even the perception of Karma as the source of
that illusion at one end to full Enlightenment and union with the Self
as simultaneously Everything and Nothing while still incarnate in the
body at the other. Karma as the vibration of Divine Light active at
the human level of experience is the deciding influence of where and how
The Balance is expressed for individuals, groups, cultures, societies,
planets, solar systems, galaxies, and even universes, all
expressed as elements of the Self.
And there are additional
considerations of what is the best, most appropriate outcome for
humanity implied by The Balance. If this life is essentially an
exercise in transitory difficulty mediated by the body, and serving only
the purposes of Soul evolution present in the Self, what then is the
most appropriate life to be lived by individual human beings? What is
the “good life” under this scenario, which I personally believe to be
the most accurate one?
Paradoxically, the illusion
of material existence cannot be dispelled by resisting it, but only by
accepting it as it is. We must continue to work, play, suffer,
and question as parts of this acceptance process, all the while knowing
regardless that we are enmeshed in the vibration of deception. The
distinction for practitioners of Enlightened awareness is that these
(and many more) essentials of living are augmented with the three
activities noted earlier in this essay – spiritual study, meditation,
and selfless service to others. Let us examine these three in greater
detail now, as they constitute the keys to Liberation from Karma while
still living among human beings in the human condition.
First, the three keys must
all be practiced simultaneously to one extent or another to unlock
the bonds of Karma – no lesser combination of just one or the other of
them will work. This having been said, let us consider first the Key
of Spiritual Study. This study is probably best undertaken in the
context of a study group of like-minded people for maximum
effectiveness, because the discussions that can and should take place as
result of this involvement are of infinitely more fruitful nature than
even the best realizations attainable through isolated practice. It is
understood that the concept of what “like-minded” is will necessarily
evolve along with Enlightened consciousness, but most people will have
some notion at any given time of what this means, and the utter plethora
of spiritual study groups available means that there is some group out
there somewhere for almost everyone interested in spiritual growth at
any level. Now, this can certainly be augmented by individual study as
well, but we are social creatures for good reason – evolution has
selected this as a primary human survival trait – and this must be
acknowledged as fundamentally appropriate for our species. Study at
least monthly in the supportive presence of others. In this way, the
aspect of the Self as Divine Light is realized within the personal
higher mind.
The Key of Meditation has
been considered at great extent in these essays, and for good reason,
because meditation has the ability to begin directly dissolving the
Karmic illusion, progressively revealing the Spiritual Truth in the
process. Almost any kind of meditative practice will suffice
for this purpose, and there are hundreds of them out there to my
knowledge. The object here is the induction of a state of trance-like
heightened awareness by lulling the ever watchful ego to sleep while
still maintaining wakeful awareness. In the resultant altered state of
consciousness, the contents of the collective unconscious can be brought
into awareness – the Jungian archetypes – and their deep messages for
the higher mind understood through Enlightened perception. The only
caveat here is that those who have experienced much trauma in life
frequently have difficulty meditating in any tradition, and may want to
consider a course of therapy before proceeding, or concurrently. Only
meditation can directly reveal the Truth of Consciousness and the aspect
of the Self as Cosmic Presence. It should be noted here that
meditation is also best practiced in the presence of others – in this
way the collective vibration of the group of meditiators reinforces the
experience for the individual.
This brings us to the
all-important consideration of selfless service, the Third and
final Key to Liberation. The term “selfless” here means volunteer,
as opposed to paid, service to the other struggling sentient beings here
on the material plane. It is very important that the spiritual
vibration of the work done not be polluted by any considerations
of material gain. And the spiritual vibration is the point of this
Key – giving in service without expectation of reward is the primary
activator of compassion in the Heart and Soul of the individual. This
compassion is, in turn, directly linked to the Universal Love noted
earlier as one of the primary aspects of the Self – in giving
selflessly, we build the perceptual road back to God and the Self – the
Kundalini highway – and thereafter can travel it at will. There is no
other way to build this road to my knowledge – even meditation is
incomplete as a spiritual practice without additional selfless service,
the Key to the Self in the aspect of Universal Love. Virtually any
form of spiritual selfless human service will work to this end, but it
must be done at least weekly, and in the company of others for the
reasons already noted in previous paragraphs – there is something about
the collective vibration of spiritual activity that is very important
for individual progress.
In these ways The Balance can
be shifted from ignorance to Enlightenment, and this is necessarily a
good practice, because with Enlightenment comes spiritual freedom –
Moksa, or Liberation from Karmic bondage – the
presumable object of our occurrence in the flesh of the body and the
experience of the physical senses as interpreted by the ego. Inasmuch
as the physicality of this existence is linked under ignorance to
endless suffering, I concur with the Buddha, Christ, and all of the
other Enlightened Masters of history that Liberation of the Jivatman –
the personal Soul – ultimately to regain the Self is indeed a good goal
for humanity, and perhaps the greatest goal of all!
- With Love, Alan -
(Copyright 2010, by Alan Schneider)
Return to Top
|