The Non-Dual Experience and the Practical Means to Return to It

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The Non-Dual Experience and the Practical Means to Return to It

The non-dual experience is simply to directly experience one's self

and the world as Consciousness without the use of the mind and

senses.

There are various means to recollect this experience, which is what

and who we always already are. There are apparently 2 directions you

can take. One of them is to talk it out, compare notes, compare

teachings, and hope for the best, a sort of existential approach,

lively and intellectual, like reading Henry Miller, Albert Camus,

Jean-Paul Sartre, hanging out, so to speak, with like-minded chums,

who like in the lively days back before television, sat around (now

over chat-rooms) mulling over in consideration of all the proponents

of the idea of non-dualism and discussing what it could possibly be -

good fun. (facetious)

In actuality, in every Religion and related philosophies and yogas,

there are many, study groups, which in any case develop insight,

devotion and proximate perception of the Truth that usually

culminates in the experience of "hearing." However, the effect is

usually much greater when people are also talking about the lives of

the Saints, Sages and Saviors, when they discuss their sacred Words

and Teachings, such as Buddha, Christ, Krishna, Rama, Moses, Guru

Nanak and the Ten Sikh Gurus, Milarepa, Maher Baba, Ramakrishna,

Ramana Maharshi, and so on, because their lives represent the Reality

of who we really are, giving substance and meaning and the power of

emotion to so transform the mind into a state of purity, that the

Inner Self, apparently hidden, awakens and recollects Itself in an

experience the Sages call "hearing."

Apart from the reading, discussing and commiserating about the subject

of non-dualism, the other approach, is to take up practices that clear

out the false or mistaken ingrained identification of one's sense of

self or "I" that results in the an emergence from a kind of

progressive amnesia with the experience of single pervasive

Consciousness.

In this experience, there is no subject object dichotomy, as there is

apparently with the mind and the senses. Initially, when one awakens

to or begins to recollect and experience one's Self as Consciousness

Itself, the use of the mind and senses are abated. You still see

them, like one sees a full moon in a crystal blue sky, but you no

longer need the light of the moon to see, as the Sun of your Self has

risen.

Looking at these choices from different perspectives, but focusing

more on the practice to eradicate this progressive amnesia....

What happens through the reading and rereading of non-dual texts,

various types of meditations etc. are the occasional "grokking" of

the experience, which Buddhists call a "Satori."

A Satori is a sudden flash of pure consciousness.

To experience oneself as consciousness means, simply, that the use of

the mind as an instrument of seeing and knowing, as well as the

mind's focusing power of attention, and the use of the senses to see

and know, come under abatement, and for a while one experiences

oneself as a field of consciousness. This is also why Krishna

describes the body as a "field."

These Satori's are actually quite common. They don't come just as a

result of solving the Koan Riddle. In Christianity and really all

householder oriented religions there is an admonishment to persevere

in one's life regardless of circumstances and to orient oneself to

excel in whatever talents and abilities one has, for example Christ's

Parables of the sower and the talents. As the artist, the

businessman, the military man, the holy man, the journeyman laborer,

any people with any vocation or avocation exert effort to excel

regardless of circumstances in other words to resolve and overcome

barriers in their path, there is a continuous flashing of awareness

throughout the nervous system to the point where the nerves are so

irradiant with these flashes of intuition in persevering that there

arises a sudden experience of the seer prevailing without the

attention to objects, an experience, which over time does not

diminish and instead draws the person's mind inwards, while the

body's nervous system becomes brighter and brighter, and the mind

more and more intuitive, single, inward drawn. There's a sensation

of listening to soundless sound with such an intensity that one

remains undistracted even in a crowd, even as one goes about one's

daily life.

Many people that have this experience don't know quite what has

happened to them, but as it emerges out of the intensity of their

lives they tend to realize it as the presence of their own being and

abiding in it persevere in their lives, lives that center around

taking a stand in Truth and their Word.

In the practice of spiritual meditation, there needs to be the same

sense of urgency and determination to "figure out" the experience

proclaimed by the Sages, Saints and Saviors, which also requires a

total belief and resolution, therefore, to "break on through" with

the same intensity as the life experiences mentioned above, or the

process will be long and remain unresolved.

As these Satori's flash in the mind over and over, the Truth of one's being begins to take hold.

It should be understood that Consciousness is not something that has

to be discovered, it is where and who we are already. This becomes

quickly apparent with practice. Then starting from this perspective

and belief, it is clear then that the mind is illumined by and within

the "field" of consciousness and that in turn the senses are illumined

by the mind. This also means that all we see and know is seen and

known through a process of "recognition" of knowing that comes out of

Consciousness.

When we look at anything that seems outside the body or consider any

imagined image or idea, what happens is that the mind focuses

attention and the awareness, which is really the projection of

focused Consciousness, extends to encompass the object, and the

knowledge, to the extent that pre-judging is limited, flashes into

the mind, like an intuition. Therefore, there is no knowledge or

image outside of the source of consciousness in the body.

This is also so in relation to knowledge of the Self - single

pervasive Consciousness. When we repeatedly try to understand and

know that part of us that understands and knows, especially by

reading or being told about the lives and words of the Saints, Sages

and Saviors, who are the living expression of the Truth and who

speaking continuously of their ever abiding experience as

Consciousness Itself, realizable without the use of the mind and the

senses, then That Self, which is our own Self, "hears" and

"recollects" Itself, and in a flash discards the use of the mind's

mechanism of attention.

With this comes an impalpable, totally unique and radical experience

some call a "churning in the nadis," which is a deep sense of on the

one side the mind of thoughts and images and related physical

sensations being sucked inwards no longer outgoing, and on the other

side of a pervasive penetration of radiance that feels like

de-contraction, as though the cells and atoms of the body, previously

gripped by the force of maintaining an identity to myriads of images

and impressions chemically encoded and stored throughout the body,

are being blown apart by a penetration of radiance of such deepening

and expanding intensity that the images hold no more interest. With

this comes the pulsation of "I" - no longer, "I - this" and "I -

that" but "I as I." A soundless single pervasive reverberation of

pure Being That "I AM."

The words "I am the Truth" and "I am the Light of the World" spoken by

Christ mean simply what every Sage, Saint and Saviors have said that

"I am Consciousness Itself" and the experience of Absolute Truth

beyond opposites. These words mean something to the Self, which is

Itself the experience of these words, but little to the inquiring

mind, which through continued quest becomes pure, reflects its Source

and vanishes.

The experience of abiding as Consciousness Itself is non-dual, as

seeing happens within a field of consciousness in which the spatial

images are no longer differentiated. They appear and manifest like

the ebbing and flow of waves on the ocean, all without the use of the

mind's power of attention. The sense is of timelessness, of the state

having no cause, of being unconditioned by time and space, space-like.

At first there is the sense of seeing both the world of senses and

ideas, while abiding transfixed in a state even beyond purity, but

over time even the abatement of images begins to dissolve.

And the waking field of consciousness begins to awaken to the

subconscious mind, meaning that even dreams begin to fade. This means

that you experience the world in the same way that you experience

dreams, where you recognize that the dream and the player or

protagonist, yourself, in the dream are both created or manifested by

you. In other words, as you awaken, to what the conscious mind has

categorized as subconscious, within the "field" there is no sense of

separateness. It's all "I" without the slightest vestige of a thought

or movement of breath.

The use of the senses and mind to see fade even further.

There are any number of practices, which necessarily depend, as well,

on the study of scripture, as a reference point to be able to somehow

come out of the progressive state of amnesia that clouds us over.

When the mind is pure, i.e., the heart, a the mind rises or projects

out of from the what yogis call the Spiritual Heart (unrelated to the

heart chakra), not the brain which is the reflected consciousness,

then there is a sudden "hearing" Self recognition, and the knot that

binds the mind and body idea to the sense of "I" is sundered.

Meditations of all kinds and the various yogas encompass the path of

what can be called "withdrawal and dissolution" - technically, the

path of Pratyahar.

Of the various yogas, probably the most effective exponent is the path

of Raja Yoga, as outlined by Sage Patenjali, and in the related

commentaries of Vivekananda. In practice the basic components

include fasting, to eat little or no food for the duration of the

intensity of the practice, then 2 times a day, e.g., at 10 am and 3

pm to do a series of asanas very slowly watching every breath and the

motion, while watching through the body, the mind in complete abeyance

of any thought, so that the movement and breath are like a prayer or

offering to God. Then 4 times a day a series of pranayamas at 6 am,

noon, 6 pm, 11 pm for 1.5 to 2 hours at a sitting, while watching the

movement of prana through certain main nadis. In the interim times

you read non-dual scripture. As the weeks and months pass, you begin

to become light, feel transparent, feel the still silent

pervasiveness of the "I" and you come to be able to see as

Consciousness without the use of the mind and senses.

Eventually in the stillness, something deep emerges - awakens, a force

of discernment, of Intelligence, the sense of "I" independent of the

notion of identity in reference to objects, a state often called

non-objective awareness. This also comes about due to the mind no

longer being used to generate thoughts, meaning that prana begins to

accumulate throughout the body as a kind of kinetic or potential

energy, which begins to take on an electromagnetic quality. Then

suddenly it's as though a graviton in the Heart has been triggered

and the mind is gripped by the pulsation of "I" and whole body fills

with light (to paraphrase Christ's explanation of the experience from

Luke 11:34).

The nadis irradiant act like a light in the darkness, meaning that you

experience the ability to see as Consciousness, without the use of the

mind or the senses.

All the abstract and poetic phrases we read in scripture are all describing just this.

There is also another yoga, in which the practice of Pratyahar is one

aspect, the other more predominant aspect being the practice of

Radiance and Will.

Radiance, which in other meditation and yoga practices oriented to

Pratyahar, comes much later, has 2 aspects: Many varied postures and

movements combined with powerful breathing techniques, where the

postures and movements put an expanding or contracting pressure in

certain areas or systems of the body causing the blood to saturate

there. Combined with the breathing, the purified and electrified

blood then saturates these areas, removing impurities and filling the

areas with voltage, life force. Then in the passive phase of the

exercise or kriya, the glands secrete to support the voltage in that

area, which then balances throughout the body. The experience is one

of pervasive deepening "radiance." In this yoga this balanced

practice of Laya and Pratyahar is called the Yoga of Light, because

through it all the nadis and the entire body field are illumined

within the body field.

Once the body is so charged, it becomes capable of amplifying sound,

which means that certain types of mantra felt reverberating

powerfully throughout the body field, whether repetitive mantra, as

with kirtan, or specialized laya mantra combining breath, bhandas and

cadence, balance yet increase the voltage geometrically.

Systematically, in hundreds and thousands of yoga sets and kriyas of

many varied types, and mantras, the electro-chemical encoding of

impressions and images throughout the body are dissolved in the force

of radiance, a balanced flow of voltage / life-force that vibrates

above the frequency of thought.

The radiance continues to extend and deepen until one begins to feel

the sensation of penetrating de-contraction.

The mind's mechanism of attention, which typically focuses

energy-consciousness in the body and to illumine the encoded thought

impressions, is gradually overcome by the rising voltage that becomes

greater than the voltage of the attention mechanism. This means that

you begin to notice that thoughts are in abatement and you experience

yourself as spatial consciousness. You feel the entire body radiating

and dissolving without focus or attention - at once!

As the nadis brighten, the ability to see spatially without the mind

begins to encompass the area around the body, i.e., the entire body

field. In this yoga practice, this is called the "neutral mind"

state or satvic state.

You experience yourself as spatial consciousness. Gradually, as the

sense of de-contraction continues, giving a deepening sense of

penetrating light that blows apart the atoms and cells of the body,

various layers pure mind begin to unfold giving the feeling of

pervasive Goodness, without its opposite, a sense of devotion and

quest for the Truth - in a steady emergence from the previous cloud

of amnesia.

Then there arises the beginning of a sense of a force of singular

Intelligence that irradiates through the body and mind with a force

of enquiry as to the source of the seer.

What is happening is that you, as an individual unit of consciousness,

begin to "impact" the Infinite all-pervasive Consciousness which is

the True source of the Light that, piercing through the Heart,

illumines the body and mind. In other words, your voltage and

vibration begins to come into the range of the Light Force that

animates the Universe in all its dimensions with the Light of Being.

Suddenly, with the slightest provocation of words expressing the

Truth, there arises a sense of intense "hearing." Recollection, as

though coming out of a coma, a stupor or progressive amnesia. The

entire field of consciousness is sucked inwards into the Heart and

blasted out the other side of the shroud, and the body and mind stand

Transfigured. Radiant like a Sun. The "I" pulses as "I" and even the

field of consciousness begins to dissolve, and with it all latent

images and impressions.

Your first words, if spoken at all are, like Christ, Nanak and Krishna

and everyone that comes by this experience are: "I am the Truth" -

"Sat Nam" - "Tatvamasi"

In this yoga, this entire practice is called "One Star Spirituality."

This is a practice, some elements of which one sees in Tibetan Yoga,

which was taught at different times throughout the ages, usually in

secret to special classes of "worthy" people, then lost. We read

about it almost like a mythology of the Maha Siddhas of the past,

such as Naropa, Tripola of southern India, the teachings totally

destroyed, but not after being transported and translated by Marpa to

Tibet and taught to Milarepa in recent time of 1,000 years ago.

Out of the distant past, this teaching suddenly comes on the scene

again, as though warped in from another time and brought forth in a

relentless revelation over a period of 35 years to provide a

"practicalapplicable" means through which to open the dawning of a

new Age, an Age no longer mired by endless discussions and

considerations and comparing and categorizing of Truth, rather an Age

in which one can practically apply a teaching that results in actually

experiencing and living the Truth expressed as possible for everyone

by the Sages, Saints and Saviors over the last 10,000 years.

The Teacher of this possible experience is Yogi Bhajan; the practical

practice is Kundalini Yoga, a Yoga for the experience of the Totality

of Being. Throughout his teaching period he reproved any that would

listen to him and take his teachings to heart to believe in and

pursue the experience and to stop at nothing short of That.

If you're interested, just click on the websites below for more information.

Pieter

www.kundalini-matashakti.com

www.adityahrdayam.com