The Process of Liberation

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The Sky of The Heart: Jewels of Wisdom From Nityananda

The Process of Liberation

 

Within a human being there is a vast reservoir of spiritual knowledge

and pure capability, yet this great treasure is rarely tapped. Our

involvement in the world and our entanglement in the struggle for

survival limit our awareness to desires and their objects. Like a

kaleidoscope, these desires are continuously changing form; the

subtle images of shape and color never allow us to really grasp what

we think we are seeing. Unless we recognize the kaleidoscope for the

illusion it is, much unhappiness and frustration can result.

 

Return to the Self within and know your own secret! The universe is

inside you and you are inside the universe. The inner Self is the One

dancing in all...(Sutra 65)

 

The primary paradox of unity and diversity recurs at every level.

While the process of liberation appears hierarchical at first glance,

the orderly image of a ladder of ever-higher levels breaks down on

close scrutiny. The process is really more like drawing a series of

ever-expanding concentric circles. Jiva is in the center and the

Absolute is in the outermost circle as well as the paper on which it

lies and the pen with which it is drawn. This is a paradox that

cannot be neatly resolved through language. Only by continuous and

deep contemplation can the nature of this paradox be penetrated and

encompassed. What follows is called liberation.

 

Sound arises in the inner sky of pure consciousness, the heart-space

in the head, the sky of the heart. What manifests is Life-Power, the

One. (Sutra 37)

 

Nityananda addressed this paradox indirectly through the image of the

heart-space in the head, the chidakash, the sky of the heart. This

verbal image brings together what is " above " and what is " below " with

intuitive clarity; in the sky of consciousness, there is no duality

and no paradox. The question then is how to reach this center.

Nityananda directs the seeker to " the royal road. "

 

A true guru can turn you from the jungle road of ignorance to the

royal road of spiritual knowledge. (Sutra 102)

 

But without the Guru, you cannot reach the goal. (Sutra 9)

 

The paradox is repeated in the form of the guru, because the guru has

two aspects. Nityananda called these the primary (or action) guru and

the secondary (or causal) guru. On the one hand, there is the

physical teacher. This is personality to be dealt with and talked to,

a person who performs actions that have an effect in the world, a

person viewed by some with admiration and by others with disgust; in

other words, someone viewed by ordinary people as the same or less

than they are. On the other hand, for the few people who are able to,

or care to, look deeply into the situation, what is really there is

not a personality but an extraordinary field of spiritual energy from

which they can draw nourishment for their innermost being. With this

nourshment, they can attain complete maturity in the supreme state of

pure consciousness.

 

The secondary guru leads you to the well--the primary guru drinks

from it. (Sutra 104)

 

The physical aspect of the guru, the secondary teacher, serves as a

doorway. Through our diligence, love and devotion we pass through

this doorway of the physical teacher into the level of consciousness

that Nityananda calles the action guru. The action guru is the same

as Parabrahma, Paramashiva, or chidakasha. At this level, we express

the infinite spaciousness, extraordinary power, and creative

intelligence that are characteristics of the essential state of unity

from which all experience takes its form.

 

Liberation does not come serching for you. You must make the effort

to seek it. (Sutra 117)

 

The effort required if you sincerely seek God is to see through the

form, to pass beyond the personality, the individuality, and the

eccentricity of the teacher, and in so doing to transcend your own

personality and limitations.

 

Draw the breath up to the Brahmarandhra at the top of the head.

Kindle the fire, purify the subtle channels, burn up the impurities.

This is the yoga-fire of deliberation... The pure energy of the

Supreme. (Sutra 28)

 

The power inherent in the presence of the guru energizes every level

of a human being. The transmission of this power is shaktipat, the

transmission or descent of Grace. Shaktipat brings about a quantum

leap in awareness that puts us in contact with the innate freedom and

spontaneous creative power that is eternally and everywhere present

as the source of all. It awakens the deepest potentiality within us,

and the kundalini shakti begins its extraordinary unfoldment. As this

unfoldment continues, the entire structure of the human being is

refined and purifies. When subjected to fire, iron is freed of its

gross crystallization and impurities and reorganized as the finer,

stronger metal of steel. The human being also, through contact with

the forge of the guru, becomes purified by the inner fire of

kundalini and is established in the supreme state of awareness.

Seeing past the form of the physical teacher brings awareness of the

power that is functioning as and through the teacher. And stilling

the mind in the flow of the power is liberation.

 

First silence the mind and establish it in the Self. Then concentrate

deeply with spiritual discernment. (Sutra 179)

 

When the various waves of creative energy that form the mind are

stilled and become like the surface of a calm lake, our awareness can

penetrate our own depth and recognize the complete oneness of our

individual Self and the Divine. Deep contact or connection with a

guru enables us to feel so deeply secure and calm that we can begin

to turn within and observe the workings of our inner universe without

the doubts, fears, and tensions that continuously draw the mind of

the ordinary person back into the realm of dualistic awareness.

 

Mind is the root of bondage and liberation, of good and evil, of sin

and holiness. (Sutra 71)

 

The mind is both the entity to be stilled and the means of stilling

it, for the nature of the mind is complex. Nityananda used many

different terms to distinguish its facets. The major distinction is

between manas and buddhi. Manas is the ordinary limited mind and

buddhi is the higher mind, the one capable of subtle discrimination

and spiritual discernment. In some classical Indian systems, the word

chitta denotes the whole mental apparatus composed of three parts:

manas (the perceiving mind), buddhi (the discriminating mind), and

the ego (I-consciousness). Nityananda used " body-idea " and " body-

consciousness " synonymously with " I-consciousness. " Although simple

thoughts, feelings, and desires arise in the mind, the mind is also

capable of realizing jnana and truth. Jnana (pronounced jnyana) is

the highest wisdom, the wisdom of the jnani, one who has realized the

Self. Here again is a paradox, for the wisest person has transcended

the mind and its desires. " A jnani has no mind, " says Nityananda.

 

Without a pure mind, how can you develop equal vision? Without

practice, how can you develop balance? Through practice, the subtle

intelligence develops and the desire for objects disappears. (Sutra

141)

 

As our understanding expands and we begin to see beyond the " body-

idea " and beyond the limits of ordinary mind, a sense of detachment

also grows. Detachment, desirelessness, and perfect dispassion for

worldliness (what Nityananda called vairagya) are necessary

requirements for the seeker. The Sanskrit word sannyasi means

" renunciate, " literally " one who has cast away. "

 

However, renunciation is a subtle concept. It is not objects that we

must renounce, but our desire for objects; not actions, but our

attachment to the results of those actions. True renunciation is not

of things but of the desire for things. Vairagya is the attitude

leading to a state of understanding in which the true nature of

objects is known. Consequently, these objects no longer have any

power over a person.

 

No need to strive for anything. When the mind chases desires, one

must strive to attain one-pointedness. Concentrate the mind in the

higher mind...(Sutra 80)

 

Meditation is an integral part of sadhana. Nityananda spoke of

meditation as a focused concentration, the merging of mind into

wisdom, the look within. The goal is bringing the mind to perfects

one-pointedness; achieving this goal tests all the faculties of the

seeker. The mind must be stilled and drawn away from desire; the

breath must be harmonious and ultimately become single; the awareness

must reach inside to come in touch with and observe the action of the

kundalini shakti.

 

Like milk being boiled, the vital breath in the sushumna channel is

heated by intense faith and discrimination and led toward the

sahasrara chakra, the still point at the top of the head. As the

kundalini power crosses each subtle energy center, properties of the

energy that evolves as the world changes. (Sutra 21)

 

Then, as a natural result of the awakening of the inner transforming

power, the kundalini shakti rises through the chakras to join and

merge into the heart-space, the Brahmarandhra. The love and happiness

that then arise within us dissove all the various tensions and

superficial desires and satisfy our deepest needs. With a full heart,

the mind can become still and one-pointed on the power of the Divine

Presence. This is the merging of the individual into the universal

and transcendent that Nityananda consistently called the most

important purpose of our presence on this earth. To merge heart to

heart and spirit to spirit with the guru in the field of supreme

Shiva-Shakti frees a human being from all mechanistic thinking and

from the bonds of cause and effect. This is the union of the

individual and the Divine.

 

Fulfillment is possible only when you merge with this pure heart.

There all idea of " you " and " I " disappears. In the sky of the heart

is liberation, love, and devotion. (Sutra 40)

 

Liberation is the clear, luminous recognition that our mind,

emotions, and physical body are nothing more than extensions of the

supreme Mantra of God* that pulsates silently everywhere and always

at once.

 

Everywhere we look, inside and outside, we experience nothing but the

extraordinary clarity, beauty, and the power of the supreme Self. It

is eternally pulsating, creating, absorbing, and manifesting yet

again--ourselves, the world, all that is. This is simply the

fundamental expression of its absolute freedom to do whatever it

wants, and expression of its supreme freedom and its incredible joy.

Satchidananda!

 

The Sky of The Heart: Jewels of Wisdom From Nityananda

compiled and translated by M.U. Hatengdi and Swami Chetanananda;

Rudra Press P.O. Box 13390 Portland, Oregon 97213.

Editor, Cheryl Berling Rosen