I am Underwater:
A fish doesn't necessarily know that it is in water. The medium of water becomes the "given" and is assumed. "If there was a sound, continuous since birth and omnipresent until death, what would you call it?" "Silence." If there is a YOU, consistent since birth, identified with the same, if slowly changing body, a family, an environment, culture and customs, what do you call it? ME.
You are Other:
If I am ME, then you must be YOU, and you are NOT ME! When, therefore, we contemplate God, we contemplate that which is not ME. As I cannot BE YOU, then I cannot BE God. Or so says logic.
Out of the Labyrinth:
If we encounter the Vedantic and metaphysical teaching that we are children of God and that our destiny is to reclaim our divinity and soul freedom by becoming ONE with God just as a wave is in separable from the great ocean, how then do we find our way out of the labyrinth of ME vs YOU?
My Help Cometh from the Lord:
There has been no time in known history where nations, tribes and peoples were not guided by spiritual teachers, prophets, or guides. In all walks of human life, there are leaders among whom there are, however rarely, great and inspired geniuses. In any successful group dynamic and enterprise, leadership emerges and proves essential. "Help" as if "from above" enters the picture at every crucial juncture of human history. As our intellect and intuition are centered in the heart and the brain (and not the stomach), and as ideas appear as ideas in our mind or heart, so too is all life guided silently and invisibly from a higher realm which we cannot see.
While you may justly claim that "I had an idea," you cannot say from "Whence cometh" the idea. We do not know where our inspiration and good ideas come from. We only know they simply appear, full blown (sometimes) whether in dreams or in our waking hours. It is true that we usually attract ideas by putting out the effort to think things through, to put our mind to the task of solving problems, and otherwise by intense mental or physical effort in a given direction, but the solution itself, we cannot otherwise account for its timing or substance. At the same time, only Einstein received E=mc2. I didn't. No poet did. Neither did a composer or a housewife. We get inspirations (usually) that are personal and pertinent to my life. [Habitual dreamers, those who live in make believe worlds of their own imaginings, may receive all sorts of ideas but they never bear fruit.]
From Whence Cometh the Lord?
Just as you cannot account for the appearance of an idea in your mind, neither can you account for your own existence. You, too, simply appeared: to yourself as an infant, toddler, child and an adult. If however, "you" are a soul and not a body, then we are like prodigal children caught in a foreign land, seeking our way home. We need a spiritual "Einstein," an alchemist, to show us how to convert flesh into spirit. We need a guide. Only one with the proven power to go between the two worlds of Spirit and Matter can teach you how to do it. Do you need to eat? To breathe? Can you stop your heart and breath at will and leave your physical form behind, and then return at will? Why then imagine you do not need an enlightened teacher to show you the way?
Letting Go
We cannot fall asleep consciously for the simple fact that the subconscious state is not the conscious state. To enter the state of sleep we must "let go" of the conscious mind and "fall into" sleep. Sleep is a lower state of awareness. In sleep we are either unaware or our dreams are an incoherent jumble (most of the time).
Superconsciousness lies at the opposite end of the consciousness spectrum. Unlike sleep, we are, in superconsciousness, vibrantly alive and awake. But like sleep, superconsciousness is not under the control of the conscious mind. And, therefore, like sleep, it also entails a kind of letting go. Swami Kriyananda, in his landmark book on consciousness, "Awaken to Superconsciousness," describes this process as "upward relaxation [back] into superconsciousness." The conscious and subconscious states are but derivatives of the superconscious mind.
The experience of superconsciousness is not the product of an intellectual assent or mere affirmation of will. It is a state of being which is very subtle relative to the vibration or frequency of ordinary thoughts and emotions. Superconsciousness lies as a horizon line between the lower state of sleep and the conscious state of wakefulness. To use another image: think of superconsciousness as the top point of a pyramid: the two lower and opposite corners are the states of the conscious and subconscious mind. To ascend to superconsciousness we must strip away the heavy baggage of passing thoughts, heaving emotions and body awareness that the very light balloon of pure awareness might rise.
The Movie
Our conscious mind and subconscious mind are more like the appearance of reality on a movie screen: the hero and the villain, as it were; day and night. Both emerge from the singular beam of superconsciousness from the projection booth of Spirit. The images are caused by the darkening imprinted dots on the film. These are our restless, body-bound thoughts and emotions. The beam of light is otherwise unaffected by the film crossing over it. The images on the screen continue until the film is over or the operator removes the film to reveal just the pure beam of light on the screen.
The Transmission
To switch metaphors, but like a transmission of radio signals, superconsciousness requires a sender and a receiver. The sender has to have a sending "unit," which is to say, must be already in superconsciousness, while you, the receiver, have to be turning your dial to the frequency of the sender. Bit by bit you refine, clarify, and purify the frequency of your receiver, thus showing your readiness and attunement to the sender's wavelength and frequency. This is the guru-disciple relationship. As St. John in Chapter One of his gospel writes of Jesus Christ: "To as many as received him, to them gave he the power to become the sons of God."
In meditation we learn to focus calmly but deeply and intently, at the point of singularity (this horizon line) in the forehead. There, awaiting the transmission "signal" given to us by the guru's invisible presence, our breath can be snatched away (temporarily, at first) as we enter into this sacred land of the soul. [It is not necessary that the guru be in a human body at that time or physically present for us to receive his transmission, for we are speaking of higher states of consciousness which are independent, indeed the very source of, material and physical realities.]
Being
Superconsciousness is not born of ego. It is a state unto itself: universal and omnipresent, stripped of the characteristics of ego (memory, desires, senses, personality, and bodily identification). The ego therefore does not possess the right frequency to tap into superconsciousness alone. The ego frequency is, as stated earlier, derived FROM superconsciousness and is a lower vibration, rate of frequency and so on.
No mere book or course or ordinary (if brilliant, witty, and even wise) teacher can take us to this "land beyond our dreams" (as Paramhansa Yogananda called it). A true teacher is one who already is awake and living in superconsciousness and who can transmit it at (the command of divine) will.
"Beam me up, Scotty!"
Joy to you!
Swami Hrimananda
