Introduction
Part one
1 The four fields or mysteries
2 Diagram of the absolute structure
3 Changing route
4 Making a clean sweep
5 The exploratory field
6 Transforming the framework of the mysteries.
7 Transcending allegiances and teachings
8 A few basic aspects
Description of the mysteries
Mystery number one describes the subject, the Self, individual consciousness which attempts to establish its own sense of permanence, through a feeling of personal identity. We can already state that this primordial space is explored by more or less every individual. Many human beings, especially in tribal societies which have been sheltered from history are not affected by their own individuality. They are happy to follow their instincts and the current laws and taboos, in keeping with ancestral tradition. By contrast, a genuine spiritual seeker is preoccupied by the mystery of his own individuality. He strays from it sometimes, by cultivating fleeting identifications or by imitating, then comes back, often by force of circumstance, when suffering drives him into a corner. Anybody who asks themselves seriously "Who am I?" (a question which the ancients Greeks raised relatively late compared to the Chinese and Hindus) begins consciously to explore the first field and learns how to keep coming back to it until this becomes instinctive and effortless.
The third Mystery forms the foundation. It is animate matter, i.e. life, which on our own scale means the sphere in which our existence takes place within its own environment. It is the history of our own childhood which is believed to guide us towards the inner Self and it is also our whole span on Earth, seen from the outside, with our animal being perceiving its surroundings through the senses and grappling with time, the body and the environment. Number 3 therefore adds a physical dimension to number 1. Whereas the Self seeks to establish a sense of permanence through his consciousness of the first Mystery as a being and as a separate entity, independently of what is happening, when we venture into the third field we have to deal with everything which we have experienced over the course of time. In this zone, we therefore spontaneously adhere to accidents and opportunities. Sensations and emotions manifest themselves in ephemeral patterns whose meaning can easily escape us in this zone in which we are connected to the present. During childhood, when the permanent Self is not yet fundamentally established, we are subjected to so many pressures that conditioning occurs to falsify any objective interpretation of events. We could caricature human beings confined in Mystery 3 as brutes who are basically concerned with defending their territory, respecting only what is established and scorning any different form of thought. The third field is therefore that of the physical body within its environment, throughout its cycle, animated by many phases which give countless forms to experience, but which fundamentally refer back to the animal state. We are in field three when we are ourselves as normal in a waking state neither inward-looking nor excessively outward-looking, without any particular sense of tension, in the ordinary course of time and in our usual environment, but with our senses alert, of course. By contrast, awareness of field 1 is always receptive, slightly in the background, for reflection, decision-making and communication. (We are in field 1 (without 3) when we draw a veil over things, eliminate our identifications, feelings, emotions and beliefs, forget our sensations and try to seek to be, or to reflect on our relationship with the world.) In the third zone, we feel imprisoned by external constraints and are slaves to our basic appetites (food and sleep). We are sometimes subject to superficial or even artificial relationships and we feel that we are dependent on a large number of factors over which it is difficult to exert any influence. We participate fully in our surroundings.
A considerable number of mental habits can stem from this third mystery and be explored by looking at things in a different light. All memories can be revisited and corrected in order to release traumas and suffering and it is therefore quite normal to venture frequently and for long spells of time into this mystery in order to rid oneself of influences, obsolete identifications and old emotional patterns. This work can enable us to become conscious of bad habits in interpreting experience resulting from violent feelings, particularly during the first three years of existence.
2 Diagram of the absolute structure
In a square divided into four equal sections we shall put Mystery number 3 in the lower left-hand quadrant, where we see a human being taking shape from embryogenesis, dictated by a powerful genetic code. We imagine our life unfolding within its context like a film in fast forward. This child is already rushing towards the adjoining right-hand quadrant,
Mystery number 4 duration - but also this current moment, the present, which will shape our existence. By moving through duration chronologically, or by following behind it if one prefers an overall view, the biological entity or thinking animal reaches Mystery number 1 in the top left quadrant and tries to find himself in ontological permanence. He explores his character, temperament and personality - similar structures which defy experience and which are sufficiently plastic or flexible to play with the interpretation of events - and he devotes himself to reviewing his past and imagining the future, wanting to make his instant projection in the present correspond to how he feels about himself as an individual endowed with personal free will. He explores those things which resist being distorted by opportunities, accidents, emotions, feelings, failures, successes, disappointments or joys. He constructs a code of values. He claims qualities and character traits for himself.
A minority of human beings wants to pursue the journey beyond this stage and sets off to discover Mystery number 2 (top right) that part of us which is greater than what we already know and which Sri Aurobindo called the Subliminal self.
Une minorité seulement d'êtres humains veut continuer sa route au-delà de cette étape, et elle part à la découverte du Mystère numéro 2 (en haut et à droite), cette partie de nous-même plus grande que ce que nous en savons déjà, et que Sri Aurobindo a appelé le Moi Subliminal.
(The path therefore describes an "s" shape right from the outset).
In Mystery number 2, we find the potential for our solar future, the fruit of transformations in other mysteries and we can naturally flush out divine energy and consciousness, just as it is also possible to establish conscious contact with the immortal within us - the soul in Eastern esotericism and the psychic being in the new revelation of Sri Aurobindo.
We have to refer back emphatically to the essence of pure duration and invite everybody to acknowledge it as pure virgin matter, like an available stream of permanent clues to the divine quest, as the means to constantly transform the relationship between the other three mysteries. Therefore, if you want to practise quantum meditation, you must experience duration per se by ceasing to attribute any kind of finality to it. If this is not possible on a permanent basis, then you can begin to do it using this treatise as you would learn to do in an ashram, monastery or any place of initiation. You must be able to separate the mind from the mechanical stream of thought before claiming to be able to change the association of ideas which reveals the meaning of things in a new way.
Since
we will establish four different types of meditation, each corresponding to one
of the Mysteries, it is necessary at this point to set out the characteristics
of meditation in zone four. This is where we will surrender ourselves
to the present, without worrying about anything else. It will not be a
question of knowing who observes what, nor how it might be useful. Moreover,
this meditation is the one advocated by many traditional teachings. Practising
the fourth field is difficult at the outset. It creates an interplay,
new variations within the areas which constitute the four Mysteries, because
the present appears more often now as a rich, open and indeterminate state,
whereas the personal sphere appears to be built in a subjective manner and less
solidly than before. The self suddenly seems to be buried under new questions
and overall reality increasingly evades intellectual exploration. The interplay
which occurs between the pieces of the puzzle prevents us from controlling
thought and situations as usual and threatens the order of the past in order to
look forward to a far broader sphere of consciousness, creating a centrifugal
movement within the Mysteries which can shatter their limitations. The neophyte
sees his brain constantly producing thoughts which spring up out of nowhere and
are completely out of context and it can be like being pestered by a swarm of
flies. However, when you are simply contemplating, sat quietly or cross-legged,
you cannot manage to stay in this simple state and devote yourself entirely to
it. All sorts of preoccupations surface which you have not summoned up and which
really interfere with the time which you wanted to devote to this simple recreation,
or search for emptiness. This meditation is intrinsically humiliating because
it not only shows that the spirit can neither control nor direct its thoughts,
but that it is also incapable of making them stop. This meditation is so
fundamental that different virtues are attributed to it according to the
cultures which advocate it.
In praise of the present. (Fourth Mystery).
In
most Hindu schools, thought is considered deficient per se and practising Mystery
number 4 enables one firstly to space out its rhythm and to slow down the pace
of psychological content and then secondly, to discover Brahman, the
great empty, undifferentiated reality, mere contact with which frees the brain permanently
from its dynamic projections. In Chan and Zen, this same meditation is
generally accompanied by a physical posture which is somewhat ritualized and this
is a double-edged sword, because attributing too much importance to it can stop
the mind from really letting go if it believes that there is something at stake
and therefore remains tense. Its fundamental aim is satori or immediate
enlightenment, which reveals the unity of all things and puts an end to all
feelings of duality. For Taoists, who are not wary of thought but prefer to
seek out its quintessence, this meditation does not so much aim for the
liberation of the mind as the growth of unlimited receptivity which is likely
to dissolve the Self into the Tao or to connect heaven and earth - which comes
down to the same thing. Although Buddhists are steeped in their own
explanations they still evoke sunyata as the critical step in
spiritual ascension an experience which reveals that the original spirit is
empty of all content. When you take into account that races themselves impose
somewhat different ways of using the brain on individuals, it is remarkable how
unanimity has been achieved across the millennia on the spiritual use of
duration in the East.
Even
in the Sufi or Christian mystics, who do not systematically wage war on thought
but actively seek the soul of the world or contact with God, you find numerous
testimonies in which the eventual conquest of inner silence is a form of
antechamber prior to piercing the secret of the Divine himself. In ancient
Greek times we find ataraxia, which trains the intellect to turn towards
principles by detaching itself from rapid forms thoughts which the spirit
creates.
By
simply abandoning the notion that duration is at our mercy, we open up the real
sphere of possibilities. By contrast, permanently striving to achieve something
else (even good meditation) only prolongs the ordinary mentality which is a
prisoner of greed and fear. We can always amuse ourselves by reversing the
points of a train but this merely changes its direction, without altering its
speed. Furthermore, this same meditation is thought by Buddhists to favour
detachment from fear and desire, which form the basis of human ignorance. It
can seem paradoxical that in order to free yourself from ignorance you need to
embrace higher ignorance i.e. the random and malleable instant which offers
itself to us before we make it a tool for conquest or for some form of
appropriation. However, as Lao-Tzu said: making darkness darker is the gateway
to divine origins. We must see the ignorance of the spirit face to face, find
it natural and admit that it only grasps isolated scraps of reality which it
sticks together arbitrarily. This admission of our condition opens up immense
vistas. It is simply a question of embracing the spirits impotence to grasp
the One, God and indivisible reality in order to discover ways other than thought,
sovereign paths which project the being out of the animal state into the realm
of the Spirit, which finally becomes accessible.
3 Changing route
If
we consider that nearly all cultures teach us to orchestrate time from
the moment we learn to speak, then you can see the huge amount of work required
in a reverse direction in order to unlearn this. Locked in the third
Mystery, the Self which is sensitive to conditioning believes that it must
constantly set an end point to the instants of the day. Time will be cut into
slices, each with its own purpose and the individual will thus become a
complete prisoner of a planned fabric of different identifications. Those
people representing social values will try to make the young disciple of the
Absolute feel guilty if he sometimes feels the need to do nothing in order to
give himself over to deep thought. It would seem that the basis of middle-class
society is the need to appropriate comfort through an obsession with social
activity and with the religion of work, which is thought to bring its exponents
an enhanced status in which they revel in order to exploit the weak. In these
cultural conditions, the spirit will only grasp what is external and never
think to look inwards at what it is, at the inner master whom it is serving.
The subject will only experience a present which is predetermined by all
its memories, habits and outdated plans, whereas the current moment will have
to adapt to prior demands of conforming to long-dead models. Admittedly, this
moment is sometimes crowned by violent reactions in the ecological environment,
an accident which could show the way to the inner sun if it were followed right
through, which is rarely the case. In general, the subconscious hijacks
prejudices which the non-self inflicts on the self through the spearhead of
narcissistic wounds, accidents, bereavements, serious illness or unbearable
failures.
While
these events should in a sense be construed as awakening agents in a
truly divine culture, they are on the contrary represented as curses and maledictions,
undeserved obstacles and unjust facts. The mind, obsessed by the
paradigm that Reality must not extend beyond the framework of its preferences
and hatreds, rejects humiliating factors instead of assimilating them and they
can no longer play the role in our society which was represented by spiritual
initiation in traditional cultures. The transition from Mystery number 3 to
Mystery number 1 can no longer take place properly in modern cultures because
adolescents are no longer called upon to recognize the sovereign authority of
the Whole over existence since religions have lost their edge. Nobody teaches a
growing child any longer how to become an adult who is capable of analyzing
himself without seeing himself as a victim of circumstances when the outside
world fails to correspond to his requirements. By making the socialized
self the only form of psychological reality, modern cultures since the
eighteenth century have forgotten that the inner being can take precedence over
the external being and shape it and they have strived to divide up reality until
almost nobody can experience the feeling of belonging to a single great Whole, thus
promoting purely superficial identification. However, since we have reached a
dead-end and our so-called civilization cannot offer anything other than
destruction, we are starting to turn again towards the secret mysteries of our
being in a what is perhaps an instinctive burst of integrity - those secrets
which want to emerge from within us and give us the satisfaction of living for
something more than a social or family role. After being swallowed up by matter
in the manner perpetrated by rationalism for more than three hundred years, we
have rediscovered the need to see things as a whole, in their unity and in the
homogeneity of natures systems.
4 Making a clean sweep
In
this immense boundless reality, our own spiritual life consists primarily in
finding the true materials of which we are made and examining them in
order to understand them. This work initially takes place in the privacy of our
own consciousness, with as its sole aim becoming receptive to supreme reality.
We will innocently analyze the power of life which establishes the basis for
our incarnation in the third zone which always gives us a hard time,
with all its issues of the jigsaw of our territory and its combined elements:
membership of a profession, family, race, region, political group, religion,
heredity or sex, which can all sometimes be painful. Whoever we think that we were
in Mystery number one, we find ourselves incarnated in the third field
with our mortal body subject to the cycles of time and doubtless
imprinted with hereditary characteristics, some of which are poisoned chalices,
morbid, fossilized memories carried from generation to generation down to the
body which falls to our lot. The question of knowing what to do with our
genetic and psychological inheritance arises regularly through family
relationships and personal psychological problems similar to those in other
members and prone to the same diseases. Paying attention to the body was
scarcely advocated in spiritual traditions. Most teachings even compromised
themselves by presenting the physical body as the main obstacle to divine
revelation. The body has been demonized in every possible way or abandoned in
too many paths, under pretext that if we give free rein to our feelings they
seize hold of our whole being and plunge it not only into desire, but into
cultivating sensual pleasures. But feeling forms the basis of perception and it
is necessary to transform it. TodayAgenda de Mère [Mother's Agenda], vol I, published by the Institut de recherches évolutives the Divine wants to
seize Matter itself - the physical body can no longer be the focus of
opprobrium or be considered an obstacle. It is the pedestal, it even becomes
the lever for divine Ascension in supramental yoga, especially in intense
moments when the body is actually crushed (pounded) by the Supermind.
Practising
the 4 Mysteries deepens the role of the body and mobilizes the intellect until
it understands the mechanisms for appropriating Reality through which it grows
processes which are independent of the mind, especially in times of crisis,
danger, disappointment and suffering, in which the subconscious
increasingly mingles with consciousness and submerges it, painting a blacker
picture of experience, while seeking forms of defence. After essential
emotional cleansing, the physical body will become directly receptive to divine
energy. Numerous enlightened approaches can supply material for investigation,
such as studying parental character, reappraising childhood and the
relationships which prevailed then, or a live reading of the horoscope at birthNatarajan, Astrologie supramentale [Supramental Astrology], published by Trédaniel, looking forward towards the
transcendent future, where numerous forces
are represented in a sufficiently precise psychological context to be useful. Restricting
oneself to ones environment can be one of the forms of meditation in zone
3, which also consists of many others.
5 The exploratory field
Insofar as we
can contain everything in the four zones with the Self at their centre,
meditation must begin with a very broad representation of the four primordial
states, in order to enable the spirit to explore easily in the directions
mentioned.
Mystery 3 will contain any sequence of our existence at all
from our origins to the present day, just as it also consists of our
relationship with the body, with other people and with our environment. It
represents our outward-looking experience, the sum of our every moment and
therefore also our entire memory. This mystery forms the basis of our contact
with the external world and can, therefore, also include our plans, fears for
the future, deadlines, house moves, changes of partner and everything which
makes up our membership of the non-self through the structures which govern our
surroundings.
Mystery 4 represents time in different forms duration which
passes and the present. Devoid of objects, it leads to the pure moment which
has not been orchestrated by thought or by emotion which severs it Brahman..
(The atman the
non-mental is at the centre of the cross of Mysteries).
The first Mystery represents our sense of personal identity, but it
is something very personal coming as it does from the depths, so we can
incorporate into it "what we want to be" as well as "what we think we are" i.e.
our self image.
The second Mystery is, at the end of the day, the most difficult to
define, because it gathers together all the subtle and divine characteristics
available to us. Our psychic being is therefore part of number 2 and the purest
solar aspirations of cosmic integrity refer back to it. The psychic being is a
fragment of the divine world proper, with the Spirit on one side (Satchitananda)
and divine creative energy on the other (maha Shakti), or Aditi, the Supreme
Mother and her four supramental manifestations. Meditation in Mystery 2 can
take different forms contemplation, prayer, the need to surrender to the
Divine, mantras - and it is likely in theory to awaken the subliminal self, i.e.
to create subtle planes of consciousness between the soul and the Self. It is
also favourable to developing higher inner centres of energy the chakras of
the heart, throat, pineal gland and fontanelle.
6 Transforming the framework of the mysteries.
In order to
avoid excluding any form of exploration, it is necessary to follow the
development of what the four Mysteries represent in the course of our practice. This is an essential theme which enables
us constantly to renew the four meditations.
In Mystery
number 3, we can not only bring about realizations regarding memory and our
past, but we can also have an effect on the representation of our own
experience, i.e. we can flush out ready-made images from our history in
order to transform them.
In Mystery
number 1, access to what we truly are as human beings is sometimes concealed by
beliefs about ourselves and by the value which we place on them, which is often
too subjective or unduly influenced by the quality of events. When we
disidentify from the external world, reflection on self-image is
therefore just as necessary as meditation proper on what we are.
In Mystery
number 4, we can only come close to the pure moment if our intellect has
understood the purpose of de-orchestrating duration. If we do not see
the need to suspend the mind or at the very least let it act without any
guidance, then we have not discovered the aim of meditation. Reflection
therefore plays a part in the process of putting meditative procedures in place
so that we truly understand their meaning before putting them into practice.
Meditation in
Mystery number 2 can only take place properly if we correct ready-made images
which we might have of God or the Divine based on what we have inherited or on
embryonic experiences. This meditation is only correct and pure if it is
stripped of all our own idols, which are often crude, innocent
representations of what an intelligence truly superior to ourselves could be.
It goes without saying that zone 2 contains higher energies of compassion and
unconditional love and that we can in a sense receive graces there, if
meditations in other zones have provided a substantial degree of clarification
of our relationship with the non-self and a deepening of our relationship with
ourselves.
NB: no single
meditation out of the four is better than any other since each one enables us
to bring about spontaneous realizations in order to de-mechanize experience and
our self-image. It is even advocated that if we do not manage to meditate in
the fourth zone we should follow up the information which occurs there. This
will immediately provide us with feedback on the inner tensions arising from
another mystery. If it is impossible to allow the spirit to roam freely, to let
it freewheel without it coming back repetitively to the same object or group of
objects, then this is because we have psychic matter there to transform. If we
cannot enjoy a present there to which we are closely bonded and which leaves no
mark, we can by contrast, determine psychological content which the brain
places at our disposal. This is material which it seeks out itself because we
have deliberately stopped guiding its work, thus enabling it to let all sorts
of feelings which characterize us rise to the surface which we would sometimes
like to keep quiet out of an obsessive desire to control the self and its
discourse. It is therefore apparent that if meditation in Mystery 4 cannot
continue, it opens up analysis in 3 (circumstances and events to be dealt
with), initiates a meditation in 1 (malaise, guilt and anxiety) or projects us
into a meditation in 2 if the spirit becomes eager to climb towards the psychic
being or subtle and divine energies.
Practising
the four Mysteries therefore cannot fail, since it merely supplies a huge amount of
information which can always be used if the spirit is keen on integrity. At
that very moment, the intellect has a remarkable quality which we must allow it
to express instead of distorting it with our preferences, fears and the work of
the ego, which would invent preconceived ideas instead of letting the real work
of awakening take place.
Cardinal
meditation is an
infallible means of learning to distance oneself from ones experience (by
meditating in 4, 1 or 2 in order to move away from the past and memory).
Similarly, we can leave aside our personality, which is still more or less
crystallized, by surrendering ourselves in 4 and then in 2. Analysis of the
fabric of experience in 3 refers back to the other zones again. By placing
ourselves in zone 3, we can really take note of our responsibilities in our
surroundings in relation to the body locating evasions, compromises or habits
which stem from alienation from our surroundings. By going into mystery number 2,
which can occasionally serve as a refuge, the whole of our life can be viewed
in a final or evolutionary manner and one can feel the highest degree of
involvement in the growth of the universe. Experience, the way in which we use
time with less determination, and work on the personality can sometimes appear
synthetically and spontaneously in meditation 2, which must be practised with
enthusiasm and sincerity because it is the highest and deepest. I therefore
warn practitioners against the massive illusion of overindulging in field 2,
because this excess systematically hides the work to be done in other fields.
Quantum
meditation roams around
the mysteries and sometimes reaches their centre the Self if the four
fields balance themselves in a natural order.
It is harmful to
believe in the pre-established value of one meditation out of the four as being
more appropriate than the others. A preference may be legitimate at the
outset, as I have pointed out in seminars, because new participants often
feel the need to rebalance the whole by attacking the deficient Mystery which
they have just discovered. But, with practice, intuition must allow us to
change direction when the attention deficit with regards the weakest mystery
has been filled. When sustained work has been accomplished, in order to
reintegrate the field which had been neglected, a new, subtle balance reveals
itself and each fields progress can be divided up equally so that we do not
keep hounding one single field. The success of the system depends more on a
permanent, rapid, light, frequent and unforeseen adjustment of the four fields
than on a plan for practice pre-established by the mind. If each of the areas
is explored properly, it is likely that the Self will begin to emerge at the
best moments in any of the four zones and enable an objective realization of
the work of the spirit in each of these directions. We will return to this
issue. By contrast, transforming one, two or three mysteries in a privileged
manner, leaving a deficit of attention, cannot produce the harmony
necessary to reveal integral silence and this prevents the evolutionary
spiral from occurring: one part of the person does not move forward and
whatever its achievements in the other zones, the inertial force in the
neglected field will mean that it levels out indefinitely until it turns
towards the mystery which has been left out.
7 Transcending allegiances and teachings
One of the
dangers of traditional teaching is that it only promotes our attention in
certain zones. We cannot refer all work back to 4 and 2 without running the
risk of being naively unrealistic, despite the obvious beauty of pure
mysticism, or we lose sight of the legitimacy of incarnation, like the Cathars
for example. In other systems, work takes place in 3, 4 and 1, but the divine
aspect is overlooked. Since the Mother and Sri Aurobindo, the future of the
human race belongs to a higher order of which religions and spiritual
traditions were unaware, with the exception of the Vedic rishis, whose ideas
gradually spread through the Vedanta and Upanishads. In the twentieth century
we discovered psychology and it is now obvious that education
enriches the natural mirror of the spirit by distorting it and the shuttle
movement between 3 and 1 must be much more conscious if it is to clean up the
past which intercepts our interpretation of the present. As he practises the 4
Mysteries, the seeker will discover the complementary nature of these fields
and their constant, mutual interference and combinations which create the
global field of the individuals perception by gathering together all the
information, including the moral or emotional limitations to which it gives
rise. Even though the mind is able to amalgamate things, to combine the Self
with the non-self through all sorts of opinions and identifications
which enable it to grasp objects, it is still the case that our identity is
stratified: furthest back and deepest of all is the psychic being, for which
existence is just a simple journey or item of clothing. Below that lies the
permanent personality which is an intermediary point between the physical body
(and therefore the brain) and the soul. Then there is the cellular animal
completely imprisoned in lifeThis rather
drastic description came to me as the result of very deep supramental
experiences. I realized that some of my organs were not informed by my spirit
but by that of my parents and grandparents and I began to want to explore this
in order to facilitate the transformation of my body. The physical body is
fairly anonymous and common to all and trying to infuse it with ones own
personal consciousness is something that tempts some people, but it requires
regular practice which the system of four Mysteries does not claim to offer.
The Supermind acts spontaneously in our cells and frees all sorts of engrams.
8 A few basic aspects
Personality in
the first field gives us each the feeling of being unique and encourages us to
differentiate ourselves. It creates values itself, i.e. reference points.
Further down, our physical constitution and the subconscious (3) process the
subjects information in his surroundings and in relation to himself (emotional
reactions) and do not concern themselves with moral or ethical values. This
field is autonomous and has a form of room for manoeuvre which operates within
us and unbeknownst to us, creating all sorts of psychological knots and
complexes which are the legacy of problems which the personality has
encountered in the external world, and there is also the issue of whether or
not the permanent self in field 1 can integrate what happens to the historic
subject connected to the event. This is also where the supramental mutant
discovers the physical mind which is at the service of death, a little
autonomous conscience, higher up than the vital, which organizes the process of
somatisation, creating diseases on the basis of psychological content in
order to legitimize the lack of harmony between the self and the whole. It is
therefore a particularly dark force, which is the most shadowy power of the
subconscious, because its work consists of accelerating ageing and death in the
physical body. The more clear, limpid and effortlessly vigilant the spirit is,
the more able it is to feel deeply the nature of the relationship between the
Self and the non-self and the nature of the contact between consciousness in
the third field and consciousness in the first.
This
stratification reveals different speeds at work in the layers. The self in 3 moves
about at a steady speed and perception stays stuck to emotions and events.
By tracing a path back towards consciousness of the Self proper in meditation1,
we encounter a much slower speed of psychological content and with a degree of
training ideas even follow on from each other - pure abstractions devoid of
characteristic forms, which can give meaning to any event. With
practice, consciousness can stay motionless in the centre, without thinking,
mingled with the self. At last, the psychic being becomes conscious in
immutability, and movement is merely one attribute of life, one characteristic
of its incarnation. Practising the four Mysteries enables us to exploit all the
spirits potential, without ever forcing it to crystallize its efforts in a
single area of reality. By surrendering to its action in the 4 primordial
directions which characterize our incarnation, we learn to straddle the
present, without worrying about turning it into a preconceived future,
whilst ridding the past of negative or crystallized traces.
Part two
PREPARING FOR MEDITATION
1 The map plays tricks with the landscape
Descriptions
of the Mysteries distort them to some extent because their reality is not
designed to be represented. It is therefore naive to think that an intellectual
approach can account for the whole of a field using an appropriate description
and thus enable us to meditate better. This would be like believing that the
score contains the orchestras particular playing style. The same piece has an
amazing number of formal variations and it is only by stepping back from the
notes rather than by sticking to them that we can discover their content and
richness. Intuition of the four zones is sufficient to practise
meditation by following the broad lines, i.e. by creating an X-shaped diagram
of the four special fields. What is important is to differentiate between them
and to see how the spirit jumps from one mystery to another, whether it does so
harmoniously or whether frictions arise between interests in particular fields.
Seekers who might think that the system is vague will realize in this way
that they lack innocence, which is a valuable tool for dismissing the mind, or
that they underestimate it. Yet it refers back to the spirit of nature,
virgin intelligence devoid of goals, as described by a few ancient teachers who
savoured pure instant.
It
is up to each individual to fill the Mysteries with their own psychological
content, just as we might put fish in a fish tank. Then, with the Self in still
and quiet watchfulness, we see what happens. Some fish knock against the
glass these are psychological content which is easy to understand and they
come tamely right up to the observer - consciousness-witness - and yield
meanings, which can trigger feelings while shedding light on the management of
the field in question. Others are more difficult to observe and reveal
themselves later, as if working themselves up to an admission. It is likely
that the different breeds of fish will behave differently for each person. Some
practitioners understand the structure of a mystery quickly and others take
longer and actually struggle in the last one. This is quite normal given the
complexity of our nature, which is open to all possibilities, possessed by
duration and able to dig down or take wing, preserve or innovate. There is no
success in principle and if yoga is skill in works, it stems from
commitment and not stubborn determination to do well, because constant
commitment will triumph over the usual mechanisms of the brain, not a special
process applied to an ordinary vision of life.
IMAGE OF FIELD THREE:
The
body functions on its own behalf, without the approval of the mind, which only
grasps small parts of its principle in action. Our metabolism incorporates
psychic data since events in the consciousness have an effect on physical
behaviour, modify the respiratory rate and exchanges between endorphins.
Emotional feelings serve as a link between the subjects body and consciousness
and this is why the Chinese developed techniques six thousand years ago which
enable us to act from top to bottom or vice versa, by creating gentle or
controlled emotions believed to promote harmony between the physical base (3)
and personality (1) through work led by the body in field 4.
Homeostasis,
which regulates body temperature, is autonomous and we are not aware of what is
going on within us, although hundred of parameters organize themselves towards
one purpose, which continues to exercise biologists because the central
organizer which groups together the different specialist processes in order to
maintain equilibrium cannot be pinpointed. Several hundred measures converge
simultaneously towards the same goal right under our noses to bring about a
general equilibrium out of constant small variations. This confirms that a
magnificent intelligence pervades living matter - life - and synthesizes
all functions at all times, without the mind being directly involved.
Meditation, hypnosis and certain mystical practices enable us to infuse
information into the apparently autonomous body, of which it will take account.
In a way the supraconscious can compensate for the subconscious
which does the opposite. Information from the physical body rises to the level
of consciousness and if it is painful it affects our sense of self.
IMAGE OF FIELD FOUR:
Duration
is quasi-eternal, like the pure present and was not invented to
correspond to any description specified by a somewhat mad animal species which
is the last to reach the very end of evolution and which thinks that it can
submit time to its whims on the pretext that it can manipulate it mentally. No
representation of time exists which would yield its secrets or instructions for
use, whether we measure it in fractions of seconds, minutes, hours, weeks or
years. Knowing the speed of an arrow from a bow is not what makes it hit its
target. Passing time is neither wasted nor saved and it is only when we learn
not to attribute an end to it that it reveals its true nature. The present is
not at anybodys disposal and encountering it in its huge, indeterminate
atemporal virginity, free of all concepts, feeds the brain in a new way and
establishes a new, intuitive conception of existence.
IMAGE OF FIELD ONE:
As
for the permanent self, if it were simply an object to be represented in three
dimensions we would know what it is and what it is used for, but no psychology
is exhaustive and comparing cultures does not yield very much. Everywhere we
look, some people progress further than others and hold secrets, as it were,
for which they are either banished or consulted. They do not use ordinary
language and their mental field of vision is way beyond the norm. It doesnt
matter if they explain that they gained their knowledge or their power by
sacrificing commonly held values, that they left the beaten track and crossed
other thresholds, people still try to extort their knowledge through flattery
or torture, threats or corruption, as if the ordinary mind cannot accept that
certain individuals transgress it totally by devoting their lives to
something else in this instance the seamless Whole, Unity. (Given the scope
of the project it is obvious that everything has to be sacrificed to this
quest). The permanent self is not necessarily accessible as a whole, nor is it
limited by the characteristics of the ego either. However, each individual
knows that he is himself and suffers when he moves away from his true nature,
even if he does not know how to define it.
IMAGE OF FIELD TWO:
Everything
which makes us aspire to the light, integrity, truth and the abolition of
earthly suffering. Everything which dictates higher forms of behaviour and
ideas to us to raise consciousness, embrace unity and feel love for the mystery
of our own existence. Everything which enables us to envisage solar
transformations, greater intimacy with what is fundamental. Everything which
encourages us to seek the path to greater conformity with the infinite, Tao,
the Divine.
The subtle planes of our being which take part in cosmic evolution.
2 Dismissing the mind
The
mind will defend different options with equal pertinence if it analyzes the
diagram of the Mysteries with its lofty inquisitorial spirit, with the stupid
aim of examining it from all angles. There is no consciousness of self if
there is discontinuity, therefore the permanent self takes the upper hand over
the other three fields. The first Mystery is the most important. It will
be proud of its analysis. Then it will change its mind and will contradict
itself impatiently, proud to have found a new perspective: Thats not
right, everything begins with the body, with the journey from baby to old man,
and that is the fundamental reality emotional discourse and the sensations.
Experience forms the basis of the human being. Mystery number 3 wins. Satisfied,
it will place number three at the front, but then as it continues on its way it
will shout: Im such a fool! It is time which gives birth to everything so
it is the fundamental mystery and earns first place . Finally, after analyzing
the infinite possibilities of field three, it will proclaim after hours of
prevarication: Let me see now, of course, it is the Divine which is the
origin of all things obviously, or in its absence that intelligence which is
constantly organizing itself for the better, which assembles and consciousness
while pervading it with enormous energy. Then it will pace around again
only to come back with new arguments for what could establish the definitive pre-eminence
of one field, on the pretext that, all things considered, they are
virtually equal. Lets leave him to hold forth on the subject. Let us get
back to the issue of the dynamic of the method and abandon his plan.
Lets
avoid the issue of pre-eminence, since in practice we will inflict a wound on
ourselves which is harmful to the lower mysteries in relation to the higher
mysteries and which would pervert the practice of cardinal meditation from the
outset and poison with duality the very method which is deemed to liberate
us from it. Quantum meditation accepts wholesale all the thoughts,
emotions, dross, fantasies, insights, memories, impulses of hatred, lust and
anger - i.e. all our psychological content - without any mark sheet which would
award good marks to some and black marks to others. The self is happy to
receive all this material and to sort it straightaway without following any
procedure based on a model, morality or teaching - i.e. a bias. The
emotions which then occur in the self are liberating and if it is true that
realizations can sometimes appear harsh, the flavour of conscious emotions
differs from that of instinctive emotions. Conscious emotions are physical
impulses which accompany flashes or insights into oneself, blinding
illuminations into matter in transformation, appropriations to drop, errors
committed or disappointments inflicted, which liberate new energies which we
shall term resolutory. Forgiveness is one such example, or forgiving oneself,
which is a radiant emotion, sometimes accompanied by physical manifestations
such as tears, rapid breathing, etc.
Wrong
turns which occur along the way are merely viewed as stumbles on an objective
and distant path and in this way there is no need for guilt in order to get
back on track and find ones route again, or it may manifest itself and then
dissolve with conscious emotion. The concept of error is in fact a wonderful
thing, because something which has been accomplished without any benefit can be
seen as sterile or harmful, thus opening up the path to other strategies,
thoughts, intellectual routes and of course to diverting harmful consequences.
When the self is truly present, there is no reason to keep making the same
mistakes. The subject becomes attentive to the quality of all its initiatives
based on new approaches, in the knowledge that there is naturally scope for
error on a trail that has not yet been blazed. The material nature of the
fourth field is accepted and we know that the present is the sovereign of
opportunities and accidents. It deals out what appears to be favourable or
unfavourable according to its whim in the huge field of intermingled
circumstances. The ludicrous idea of trying to incorporate all events into ones
own overall strategy, which is the final fantasy of the mind, is abandoned as a
childish superstition. Mistakes are acknowledged with good grace, as in any
other apprenticeship, corrected without resentment and accepted without any
sense of drama if they cannot be avoided.
It
is peculiar to individuals who practise meditation to enjoy discovering their
mistakes. Now that they live in the pure present, admitting to a mistake is no
longer humiliating because it is in the past, an area of the self which has
already been abandoned, and bringing it to light opens up a better path. Making
mistakes is necessary, firstly because the subject is so small compared to all
the categories of the non-self which surround him that he cannot constantly
watch all fronts at once and conform perfectly to everything come what may.
Secondly, it is always difficult to make decisions based on the unified self.
The historic subject (3) can be opportunistic and commit the whole self to a
siding where surface interests dominate and drown the inner being. The historic
subject can be manipulated by fear, threats, gratification and interest.
Passion in the present (4) can on rare occasions mask certain character traits
and push the self blindly into a seductive but discontinuous dimension which
becomes heterogeneous and then dangerous, before finally forcing it to
backtrack. Sometimes the permanent self (1) turns in on itself, lacks the
piquancy of 4 and is wary of experience and refuses to become involved, which
is something which it might regret later if it is attached to its own image.
Sometimes so much work takes place in Mystery 2 that any decision to be made of
a contingent or material nature can seem unreal, out of place or even hostile.
This is a feeling which can lead to postponements which may or may not be wise.
Admitting
to our mistakes is simply a way of rediscovering our own direction when we have
lost it for whatever reason. Many things lead us to make mistakes and in the
West we have a tendency to think that they stem from lack of knowledge of
external data. In the East, by contrast, people recognize that if they make
mistakes it is because they do not know themselves sufficiently well to
avoid compromising themselves in heterogeneous situations. Cardinal
meditation welcomes observations on mistakes in everyday life and
relationship problems, but it also welcomes the theory that the facts in
question, external facts, were only able to occur because of a state of
mind which allowed them to. When a train comes off the tracks, this is an
accident, but it is caused by faulty points - an omission. Therefore, failures
in field 3 provide us with information on our own temperament which is too
slack or too tense, too forward-looking or too reserved in relation to the
requirements of our environment.
If
we consider ourselves to be students of the universe strangely confronted by a
self which we cannot escape, then at every instant our achievements and
failures provide us with information on the basic nature of what we are and
encourage us to vary our approach to things, to transform our territorial
consciousness, test our solar aspirations which we place unconditionally before
the Divine and to let our self-image die and be reborn in a glittering
present. This present is so pure that not one fragment of it is an extension of
the past and this is infallible for severing our beliefs, abolishing obsolete
representations of who we are and of what we want to achieve.
The
body can take longer than the self to free itself from pointless memories and
cardinal meditation can be an adjunct to all forms of exercise which enable the
physical body to free itself from the past. A huge repertoire of techniques is
currently available, but in every scenario the physical body being worked upon
must reach a significant state of rest to eliminate the toxins of memories.
Slow, conscious breathing from the stomach generally brings immediate relief
after all the emotional reactions which triggered a radical split from certain
structures and attachments from the past. Tears are liberating when they occur
spontaneously and it is not necessary to stifle them when they genuinely come
from the body. On the other hand, allowing a sequence of negative thoughts to
occur in which one goes round in circles until quasi-artificial tears are
summoned up is an old strategy from field 3, devoid of all intelligence, which
digs the ruts of the ego even deeper and consecrates vanity through
complacency.
What
meditation teaches us is precisely how to distinguish emotional discourse, which
is by definition plaintive, from the abstract vision of the problem which is
causing us to suffer and which has not let itself be caught up in the closed
monologue of complaining. It testifies faithfully like a stubborn animal at its
own biological level that a breaking point has been reached between the
self and the non-self. Inner suffering is divinely calculated to serve as an
alarm bell when we begin to drift towards an agreement where the self and the
non-self interweave and become confused. The emotion is so sincere that it
embarrasses most people because it is forced on them in order to break the bars
of the cage of ready-made representations and to shatter the mirror of
self-image which is often simply an idol. Accepting emotion, whether it terrifies
or delights us, allows us to respect the authority of the universe with regards
to us and to understand that it warns us permanently through this emotion of
the structures existing between ourselves and the whole which require
transformation, as well as between ourselves and what we think of ourselves,
now that our line of conduct has been called into question by inopportune
moods, excesses which suddenly orphan the self without any object on which to
project its need for security and without any internal or external force of
authority.
The
self changes its interpretation of things because it has nothing to defend and
no longer attempts to interpret anything. It is simply there, enduring the
whole manifestation without being fundamentally alien to it a state which
only skilled physicists could establish using abstruse equations because it is
so difficult for the mind to grasp this status. However, if evolution moves
towards conscious complexity, we will eventually be able to make the materials
of our global being converge with the Supreme Being, who has instilled them
with his own Presence while separating them from each other - hence our
conflicting, material, spiritual horizontal, vertical, immediate and permanent
position. Every option is offered to us but for some mysterious reason we
reject them all. When they survey the issue, awakened ones are unanimous if
we content ourselves with nature we will relish our tragedies and passions and
we will find happiness in the keen fight for existence which is intense and
multi-coloured, sanctioning violent impulses wholesale as if they were
legitimate as well as our justifiable hatred of peccadilloes. Our ambition,
which we cultivate religiously will, by contrast, survive all sorts of
meaningful failures and our inflexible and shadowy self-image will be fiercely
preserved. We will remain in a crude state of unity which can be compared to
the animal state and which comprises unbearable degrees of tension at irregular
intervals.
By
contrast the idea of turning inwards towards the centre of the self
offers the possibility of freeing ourselves from the dualities which block our
path those fundamental dualities which we express in the transverse axes of
the Mysteries. The whole starting position will be abandoned then destroyed and
unity will be rebuilt on new criteria from the inside, which will give a new
status to perception of the senses. The permanent immediacy of field 4
is implacably opposed to the mysterious motionless unity within us which
we call ourselves and which has accompanied us since childhood and strives to
conjugate the verb to be. Consciousness of the physical body, the pressures
of survival in its environment and also its weakness and weight contrast with
the majesty of field 2, where the Divine gives the shape which suits him
directly to the intelligence, soul, chakras and the subliminal self through the
powerful ideal which he imposes on those who want to join him and who receive
the strength to love obstacles.
All
representations of life other than those which stem from our own experience in
the infinite adventure, here and now, are futile presuppositions and
subtle conditioning for dealing with the present according to a preconceived
frame of mind. Aspirations are sufficient to overcome abuses of power on the
part of the mind, which grasps the highest realities and kills them with the
limitations which it imposes on them. The will does not have to do anything at
all, other than aspire to be revealed by preventing the mind for as long as
possible from setting the rules, which it does by loading the dice, to avoid
being banished from its realm.
3 The quantum approach to meditation
Once the major
worlds of higher consciousness have been described, the main issue lies in
finding the path to them rather than in enriching them with futile
considerations. Cardinal, or quantum, meditation is simply the fullest
and the most synthetic reappraisal to date. Sri Aurobindo borrowed a
significant number of Sanskrit terms which specifically describe those
fundamental realities which we have lost and which the Supermind enables us
to rediscover. Reading his works would seem to be an effective aid to
understanding the supremacy of field 2 in our own system, the need for self or
Brahman and the complementary nature of divine consciousness and the creative
energy of worlds. For our part, we face the need to establish a new spiritual
method which, without renouncing the splendours of the past, will take into
account the spectacular advance of human consciousness in the twentieth
century, because our species has just rediscovered the SupermindSri Aurobindo, La Manifestation
supramentale [The supramental Manifestation] published by
Buchet-Chastel after several thousand years of eclipse,
opening up completely new horizons as described by Sri Aurobindo and practised
by the Mother and the author of this work for nearly thirty years.
It was during
the twentieth century that the intellect developed in a new way and somehow
learned to go back over its workings with new vigilance, as quantum
physicists blazed the trail in parallel with the most rigorous psychologists.
Once Western intellectuals acknowledged that the characteristics which we
attribute to things are merely provisional representations, overall
Reality suddenly became an unfathomable mystery. The best minds in many
disciplines have got into the habit of only trusting immediate results, ready to
call a theory into question as soon as it comes to light and to enlarge it as
soon as it has been born.
The well-known
saying The map is not the territory has led to the establishment of a new
school of thought which included the most profound thinkers. By adopting a form
of intellectual discipline which they arrived at empirically, they were keen to
distinguish constantly between how they apprehended reality - a totally
internal process - and the groups of objects which the spirit was trying to
decipher. The results of this new intelligence have admittedly not reached the
public domain yet and very few people today know that what they call reality
has almost no relevance to it. However, the vision is directly derived
from particle physics, whose paradigm consists of establishing that
reality will always move away from that place where we thought we had
comprehensively grasped it.
This paradigm
constitutes scientific proof that the mind is not designed to grasp reality,
but merely to represent its immediate materials to the self, which is subject
to the ceaseless work of the spirit. The more the self decides to broaden the
spatial field of this immediacy, the more it finds it normal to be
simultaneously interested in things which infinitely transcend the boundaries
of sensations and environment, and the more the mind gropes to represent
apparently remote still virgin territories. However, intelligence is delighted
to expand its realm and is triumphant on rediscovering a free, broad activity
in the human brain which is conducive to its elevation.
A new phase
therefore occurs in which the intelligence begins to get to know itself and
knows how to avoid all sorts of useless processes. It learns to abandon
representing things which are too huge for it, whose image would merely be a
grotesque caricature. Therefore it is possible to abandon our model of the
Divine and, contrary to what most people think, this opens up the presence of
the Divine to a greater extent than modelling based on the limitations of the
mind, if it is guided by sincere aspiration. In fact, whilst anticipating a
divine which conforms to a model, perception will lean towards catching
feelings in the present instant which concur with the model we have in mind,
rejecting all spontaneity, every state of grace which has not been through the
mill of this imaginary conformity, which is by definition critical. Similarly,
Chan and Taoist teachers insist that the Path cannot be represented, although
this in no way invalidates its existence. Lao-Tzu even goes so far as to say in
one chapter that history places at the beginning of the Tao-te King that
the path which can receive a name cannot be the supreme route. Viewed in
this light, all religions could fundamentally be denounced as a pure
counterfeit versions of the spiritual idea. However, if this point of view is
right per se, when taken out of context, it is false in relation to the
empirical history of mankind. Managing to turn towards the Divine without first
having imprisoned him in a cage of values and ideas is not a process which we
can inflict on culture. This would be equivalent to extolling the virtues of a
staircase with out any steps which would rise like a wall, on the pretext that
it would be quicker but would require an impossible leap. It is likely that
each self attached to matter, each being must work on the use of the brain in
the field of representations to avoid mistaking what one feels with the
senses with what one perceives with ones inner being, as the mind amuses
itself by futilely appropriating objects to which our being aspires
knowledge, Good and Right. For thousands of years, this simple truth has formed
the basis for the need for consecration, which is not so much offering ones
existence to absolute Mystery as a firm daily resolve to pay careful, close
attention to how we use time (4) and the body (3) to prevent the discourse of
thought from appropriating reality through the words it projects onto it.
This is why it
is not unusual to meet certain teachers who think that it is necessary to do
very little for a whole day in order to let the spirit work unhurriedly on
everything it grasps and also so that it learns to surrender to it. This is a
necessary stage during the transition towards the spiritual life in which the
mechanical spirit tries by any means or activity to fill the moment, to avoid
turning inwards where the proof of its ignorance would appear in the mirror.
Once we have passed through this phase, mental pride is quashed and a new form
of lucidity appears in which the complexity of decision-making surfaces,
because friction occurs between instinct, the moral code and the need for the
personality to express itself against the background of totality which becomes
a vague sort of partner, but one whose role will continue to grow.
Our intelligence
encounters the rough edges of the object which it is exploring at all times. We
do not really know to what extent far we can gather together the necessary
parameters which will give rise to a more favourable situation, or we are
struggling with the issue of working out if we are on the right track, i.e.
the one which will lead to the implosion of thought, revealing integral
silence, or contact with a higher shakti (energy) . If we are
being taught, it is not unusual to realize that we have got a statement the
wrong way round, because the spirit will only project its own experience on the
idea contained in the phrase which is written or heard. This weakness on the
part of the mind legitimized the authority of teachers in the past, as they
were the only ones who could immediately unscramble a novices distorted
representation of the spiritual world by making signifier and signified
tally through dialogue. There is no call for this process of listening to the
awakened one in order to liberate intelligence to disappear, but it is not
sufficient to enable consciousness to grow. It is time for most people to
understand that the brain is a sort of extremely complex biological machine,
but one which works mostly on information from the senses and nervous system to
decree what is real and what is not.
This blind faith
in the workings of the brain yields terrible results, like those great
religious intellectuals ready to burn everything in their paths on the pretext
of revealing the kingdom of God. Both neurobiologists and psychologists must
continue to explore patiently the different ways in which the spirit makes
what it perceives its own by calling this reality. We know the extent to
which other people can become part of us, a child for its mother, a
mother for its child, a teacher for his disciple, a loved one for their lover
and sometimes, as we see in British culture, an elderly retainer who identifies
completely with his employer whose every requirement he anticipates, as if he
were himself although the relationship has never been an intimate one. Beyond identifications,
which are just like a distorting glimpse of knowledge through identity, the
self is already the non-self: consciousness is supreme in relation to all
objects snared by the spirit in order to make them oneRupert Sheldrake, The Sense of Being Stared At published
by Editions du Rocher with it.
The self can
be considered to be like this immobile, quantum spirit, which is simultaneously
identified with the object and profoundly external to it. It is a wall which
reason cannot scale, which is fundamentally difficult to reach and yet until we
scale it, life is just a long unfolding process which we endure, whatever our
own scope for manoeuvre invents and whatever the merits of free will.
4 The fundamental duality
A search which
is detached from the self and from anticipation of enlightenment which will
crown our existence releases the mutual forms of blackmail which the four
Mysteries maintain between themselves and it is therefore necessary to separate
the merits of either pole of the fundamental reality consciousness and
energy, purusha and prakriti. If these two realities converged
naturally it would not have been necessary to distinguish between them. Energy
(prakriti) would have been placed at the service of the spirit and we would
thus have a very reassuring model of the human being unity in motion which
continuously interweaves ideas and actions effortlessly and totally
automatically, moving from one piece of knowledge to another and from
development to realization. However, the whole of human history is a symbol of
how impossible it is to reconcile consciousness and energy. Energy is always
out at the front; it supports countless movements on its own and lives for
itself, in a sense, as is evident in the grammar of animal communication in
which dominance codes play the main role and prevail over embryonic individual
identity, with the dominant and the dominated dividing themselves up in
appropriate proportions.
If we give free
rein to prakriti, Mystery 3 and Mystery 4 support each other to create a
human being who will be permanently intoxicated by experience and by the powers
of life, whilst leaving the moral self behind there, because he will let
himself be consumed by the power of the moment or of desire which are one
and the same thing. If, by contrast, the self becomes taken only with purusha,
then Mystery 1 will combine with Mystery 2 and allow access to a form of
ascetic holiness, dominating life without touching it and the existence of the
body will be referred back to its simplest form. The mind and the
representations which it will be capable of creating will end by dictating a
priori the interpretation which the senses will have to attribute to the
objects explored. Therefore, for example, the founders of Jainism had
become taken with non-material consciousness (without any movement) to the
point of virtually denying their physical existence. This is still the case for
a few followers of Shivaist or other sects seeking to obtain the self or
contact with the Divine through dogmatic but practical contempt for the body,
in which case it is quite appropriate to submit it to all sorts of privations.
In fact, the appeal Cathar vision, which demonizes life, resurfaces at regular
intervals and it can only recognize consciousness by shutting itself off
proportionally to matter and energy which still leads to serious mass suicides
to this day.
By contrast,
investigating the four Mysteries allows us to harmonize consciousness-witness
and the material energy of the body with its different energy flows the chi
devoted to the organs and the breath of life - whilst the still deeply
mysterious subconscious will reveal the processes of amalgamation between the
self and the non-self, which will then be able to dissolve (complexes, knots of
energy and obsessions). The movement of prakriti and the immobility of purusha
can be joined harmoniously with extreme care and in this respect I am merely
updating the Isha Upanishad which, in just a few verses, makes light of
all the contradictions and antagonisms which we encounter on the spiritual
path. Purusha and prakriti are not completely distinct since our mental
activity ground down intensely by our brain cells (or vice versa) mingles with
the pure energy of life, while simultaneously creating sort of virulent inner
ghosts which escape from us like sub-personalities, such as chronic obsessions,
serious compulsions or minor reactive diseases which are caused by the same
events. Obviously, what interests us is the absolute convergence of purusha and
prakriti, where neither one suffers from the attention being paid to the other,
which can still be found in a very small number of secret teachings, generally
referred to as tantric, in which the idea of opposing principles is
completely abandoned. From our point of view, only the self at the centre can
absorb in its vastness, or its neutrality if one prefers, the movements
of energy without getting lost or fighting them in vain. Enlightenment
therefore seems to be an obligatory stage for reconciling ethics and the ideal
(which have a tendency to rise of their own accord or to become abstract to the
detriment of feeling) with vital and behavioural energy which tends to sink
under pressure of fear and desire and trivialize the
present or fourth field which prepares and performs situations and roles and
their constant maelstrom. Enlightenment is prepared by all incursions into a
more pared-back mental field, which is slower and tends towards the void.
Traditional
forms of wisdom which seem to prefigure the descent of the Supermind have
tried to reconcile opposites rather than to praise the higher, celestial pole
and life after death to the detriment of permanent observation. However, since
the union of opposites, alchemy, is more difficult to achieve than
forward transcendental flight movements which never abandoned incarnation
whilst seeking higher wisdom only affected a few elite groups. Anything which
is subtle escapes the vulgar masses and it takes at least three generations for
a revealed religion to become its own counterfeit. I would say that Buddha
preached a radical vision which was likely to lead to the self, in which
meditation on fear and desire played a role, as advocated and recorded by Chan,
which has nothing to do with standard Buddhism which has spread throughout Asia
and is steeped in morality, common sense and complacency. In the Baghavad Gita,
a few luminous passages denounce rites and liturgies in veiled terms, whereas
the injunction Take refuge in me alone stipulates that it is sufficient to
surrender oneself sincerely to the Divine without further ado in order to meet
Him. Christs gospel preached genuine politics, an on-going initiative to be
carried out in daily life outside the framework of time in order to listen to
others, share the same intelligence and build a society which is no longer
based on greed. The Taoist fathersLi Tzu, Lao-Tzu, Chuang Tzu wanted to unite heaven and earth by
learning the intricacies of yin and yang which, when revealed by a teacher,
account for the purusha/prakriti polarity in a different way.
Consciousness-witness
is passive it receives and transforms movements from energy and nature which
are always active and part of us dreads this passivity, because humiliating
truths will take advantage of our complete openness to pass through our
defences and to show us in a different light what the material part of our
being would rather not have seen. Awakening is difficult to achieve because
prakriti is always one step ahead our reactions precede our thoughts and our
desires precede our consent to realize them. Our fears precede an objective
evaluation of danger and our anger precedes our so-called control of it. In
short how can we find the strength not to be swept up in spite of ourselves
by prakritis head start?
It is necessary
and sufficient to be able to counter it with the proportional counterweight of
perfect stillness, which characterizes the self, so that natures head
start is slowed right down and can be observed at source by the truly awakened
one. Actions then conform to the traits of the inner being, because they are no
longer impulses tugged by nature or pushed by the past, but true expressions of
a being who has achieved mastery over his senses. Few paths deal in detail with
the work which the inner being must carry out on the physical body in order to
reconcile the antagonisms represented by the Mysteries. But without the self,
which acts as a bridge between the ideal and the contingent, between the self
and the subject plunged in desire and fear then opportunities and accidents
have too great an impact on determining our perception of the moment. Therefore
we have to be able to be present, fully attentive to each moment,
without losing ourselves in what we are listening to, as if it were possible to
allow the meaning of things to occur on its own at the point of intersection
between the open, detached, non-judgemental self and the uncontrollable
non-self, which is likely to challenge our expectations, beliefs, values ideals
and most deeply-held wishes. The aim of supramental activity on earth is to
make the self one and the same thing, because the unity in question is so total
and so whole that consciousness of the self by embracing the universe in one go
becomes the universe itself. This is a new experience which Mother and Sri
Aurobindo shared in the twentieth century, without daring to state that we would
manage to achieve it.
5 The physiognomy of quantum meditation
The system of the
four Mysteries enables what are called obstacles to meditation to become part
of meditation itself and to be absorbed into it purely and simply. In this
respect what we advocate represents a departure from Zen belief which is too
precise and seemed to want to monopolize the image of meditation and
disseminate it in Europe for several decades based on its reputation for
authenticity and seductive simplicity compared to Hindu or Buddhist schools of
thought. In order to practise the four Mysteries correctly, it is necessary to
move away from former beliefs or conceptions about meditation and to be keen
for past experiences to be viewed as preparation rather than as reference points.
It is not a handicap to have no experience in this area since our method can
then be grasped in all innocence without interference from the double-edged
sword of erudition in this chapter.
This is a new
form of practice and its aims differ from those which, for example, the great
expert on these matters Maharishi Mahesh Yogi[The Science of Life and the Art of Being],
published by Robert Laffont wanted to develop and which we will quote
shortly because he knew how to clear out dualist presuppositions which prevent
us from understanding the essence of meditation. Cardinal or quantum meditation
is simply something different which cannot be compared to anything else because
it is a sort of dialectical combination of traditional arts necessitated by the
descent of the Supermind in 1956, which added to the quest for ones being the
possibility of physical experimentation with the Divine (Mother and Satprem).
The aim is not to gather together a percentage of meditators to make peace
easier to achieve, nor merely to de-stress us, any more than realization of the
Self can claim to be the only good. Cardinal meditation frames our whole lives,
but it does not have a frame itself and it prepares us for all events - be they
subjective or objective, individual or historical - because it has the power to
transform the tree structure of individual ideas and, therefore, to transform
perception itself and, as a result, the meaning of all things.
Just two right
angles which bisect each other perpendicularly, define four specific fields
for exploration, fields which give us directions for observing the pile of
layers which constitute us, each of which makes the brain work. In simple
terms, four motors make the machine work on different types of fuel as
it were, but only the centre which does not move can give everything
its place and function in relation to others. This provocative caricature
underlines the fact that because human consciousness is based on different
components it must have a mechanism, a secret law governing how it
works, which organizes bonds between the physical body, energetic bodies and a
sense of permanent self, the three stages being pervaded by duration
which is malleable on the one hand due to our choice of schedule and inflexible
on the other with the alternation of occasions and accidents which do not
depend on us. Once we have understood and memorized the diagram, all the rest
comes down to practice and experience, because the passive spirit of the
self which is integral and present will welcome identifications and their
objects in order to de-dramatize them, re-centre them in relation to the
essential being which is sovereign in respect of circumstances, acts and
emotions.
Forgetting our
references is not that easy and it is always tempting to imprison oneself in a
stated tradition or freedom in order to put an end to exploration which seems,
rightly or wrongly, to be dangerous or risky. There is always the same risk
that one danger will hide another, i.e. that the emphasis placed on one
particular truth will leave other not insignificant aspects in the background.
The great advantage of the supernatural is that its scanning cannot miss
anything or leave anything to chance and I would therefore say that it is
Divine energy which encouraged me to explore the four fields, something which I
would not otherwise have done because I wanted to remain in my superior
bubble of somebody awakened to the self. Supramental consciousness is direct,
based on immediate identity and does not need constructions anymore, although
significant linkages occur. I would never have found the diagram of the four
mysteries without the profound and varied experience dating back to the start
of 1977, which opened up a new world to me. Since then, I have been forced to
go back endlessly over all aspects of my personality in order to offer a relevant
experimental field to the Divine in this area and I accepted the critical
importance of the physical body in this form of yoga. It was becoming necessary
therefore to weave a web of representations to describe the third field to
which I was able to connect evolutionary memory: effective subconscious
programmes to assure the survival of the physical body and take
advantage of lack of conscious attention or difficult events in order to
transform our brain chemistry and produce regressive states of consciousness.
The obstacles encountered in Mystery three, the field of the ecological self,
can resolve themselves as soon as the self has reflected them through the
determination of the subject in the first field, his aspiration in the second
and his ability to let go in the third, and all their combinations.
Thanks to Divine
aspiration and to the powerful mantra I have been using since1982, I generally
manage to recover from my descents into the very depths of life, sometimes to
the frontier with death, and in this way have been able to rigorously counter Mystery
3, which is concerned with our passage into incarnation with the weight of the
body and its survival mechanism, and Mystery 2, which is particularly aptly
named because most direct action by the Divine on us cannot be predicted and is
secret, right up to powerful, supreme supramental energy felt in every fibre of
the body which often decides to intervene on whim. As for Mystery number 4, it
brings together time in its objective forms duration which takes its course,
the present moment, the here and now but it is pointless to include
the past, because it is our past and our deeply subjective and
limited memory and it is pointless to add the future which has no objective
reality because it does not exist yet. Faced with the apparent irreversible
speed at which duration flows, consciousness of field 1, or the permanent self,
plays at juggling with time because we are very well aware of how to remember
and anticipate, to create virtual forms of duration independent from the
authentic flow of time in which we are just as likely to see ourselves in the
past as in future situations, through the powerful intermediary of collections
of memories or a range of images of the gratification to be obtained. These range
from quasi-subconscious fantasy to the purest wish, passing through all sorts
of desires, blueprints for plans, more or less wishful thinking and hopes
followed up to a greater or lesser degree by the steps necessary to make them
happen.
6 Analogies
In fact,
depending on what happens in actual practice, the person conducting the
experiment will be able, if he so desires, to make a new realization coincide
with content already recorded in another system whose name is not
important. Only flavour - rasa - counts in meditation and it is not used
for collecting higher memories. A particularly inspired shuttle movement
between Field 4 and Field 1 can produce the equivalent of a Jnana-yoga or
Samkhya meditation. The subject suddenly discovers in duration itself a new
form of sustenance, capable of satisfying his thirst for knowledge, which it
now feels to be at its disposal (whilst refusing to submit to this
availability), while experiencing a new intelligence, which is henceforth less
driven to react to different opinions. Invigorating and conscious sessions of
walking, snorkelingLooking underwater from the surface, with
freediving. In water at 27 or 28 degrees one can rediscover the original
happiness of the womb. or strolls during which Field 3 yields to 4, while
Field 1 explores consciousness of the body can be equivalent to advanced
Tai-chi, Ki-kong or hatha yoga exercises, reinforce the immune system and
awaken hara. They can enable us to free ourselves from ancestral fear or
to purify the vital, if breathing exercises are correct (which calls for a
particular type of letting go).
An equilibrium
between the four Mysteries which would come close to perfection fairly and
without friction by virtue of its neutrality and detachment in all four
directions can produce so-called tantric experiences, without any
opposition occurring between the Self and the Manifestation. Desire finds a new
paradoxical place which the mind cannot represent. Meditation in 4, untroubled
by emotional or semantic remanence, is in keeping with the living anthology of
devotees of Chan and Zen, or teachers of Advaita. Increases in consciousness in
field 2 through the intermediary of the self which unites the other mysteries
give rise to experiences analogous to those described by mystics vibratory
frequency fields which are normally forbidden reveal themselves within
perception itself, linking the moment to Eternity.
In fact, the
intelligence is always free to try all sorts of approaches to make the physical
body more conscious and at the end of the day practising the three mysteries is
simply an accelerated method for enriching the self through multiple
confrontations with the physical body (and its defence of its territory), with
the framework of a present stripped of all finality (in which the centre and 4
merge) and the higher mystery of the subliminal self, in which secret
energies work to open the chakras, Intellect and the psychic being. Although we
start from the basis of division - the four fields - meditation takes
place in unity because the self at the centre will end up blurring the
antagonisms which naturally emerge from the four sectors through its
consciousness of them and the need for us to abandon habits and work in new
directions. In simple terms, we assume that that the form of the four Mysteries
is constantly changing and it is thought that meditation enables us to sort the
puzzle out so that the four pieces join properly so that we can enjoy wonderful
unity as the four fields become one. Each realization in whatever zone frees
the self and keeps it present whilst other identifications continue to take
place. As Maharishi Mahesh admirably put it, if the self remains present,
he does not need to try to eliminate identifications, he takes advantage of
them, they confront him and provide him with information. The spirit then
becomes quantum identification and non-identification merge.
"The thought of
freedom, even if it seems good, is just a thought, not a state. The thought of
freedom is just as alienating as any other thought. By its very nature, thought
takes us out of our Self. When the spirit begins to have a thought, it
penetrates the realm of duality and thought hides the essential nature of the
spirit. Consequently, all thought, whatever it might be, entails
identification.
Therefore the
problem of identification was not resolved at all by the thought of the Self,
the Divine or of God. This is why these practices have not managed to bring
freedom and it is also why the quest for freedom has remained unfulfilled and
the paths leading to it have been blurred by our habits of entertaining the
idea of the divine Self or God at the level of thought.
The fundamental
error came from the fact that we mistook identification itself for alienation.
In fact, identification is not alienation. What constitutes alienation is an
inability to hold onto the Being at the same time as identification. What
constitutes alienation is an inability to hold onto the Self when there is
apperception and we are active.
If
identification were alienation, freedom would not be possible in the state
following death in which all perception and activity cease. While ever a man is
alive, he continues to have experiences and to act, so that it is impossible
for him to avoid identification during his lifetime.
Identification
is not the same as alienation because freedom is lived out in the real world
and living in the world involves identifying with everything there, with
experience and activity as our aim."
In this respect,
the self can consider that memories of behaviour which hinder pure meditation
to be external to it without avoiding them and that thought in field 3
faithfully brings them to the surface like a stubborn dog who keeps bringing
his master objects for him to throw when the master does not want to move. In
certain schools, it is said that meditation can only take place when you have
got rid of the dog. This is not the answer. The self absorbs everything which
appears and finds evolutionary meaning in it and does not have to deny the past
because it can transform it. Absolute silence will occur eventually without
having to be summoned when intelligence becomes weary of fragmented thoughts
and finally moves towards its own source. The brain does its work perfectly when
it places before us everything which disturbs it and it is simply because we do
not have the self to welcome this painful material that we seek to cheat
with the truth and repress what we do not want to see, using checks to deny
access to awkward information which generally deals with a lack of skill in
different sectors which we do not wish to acknowledge. As soon as the self
manifests itself, the meditator confronts the shame which arises, dissolves it,
consigns it to the past and can eliminate the processes by which it could
recur. It does the same thing with all sorts of guilt as it can also absorb
humiliating images of the self into its own neutrality without being affected,
realigning itself by drawing strength from within or from field 2. When
grappling with the pure present , the Self dissolves what we could call sins,
cancels out mistakes by the absence of any need ever to make them again which
he is now able to do because tamas is stronger than rajas and
even stronger then sattva. The self has the power to turn over a new
leaf, to abandon ipso facto what we thought we owned, just like a snake
changes its skin, whether that be the smug virtue of vanity, recurring faults
or weaknesses which it throws away like worn-out clothes if aspiration in field
2 is sufficiently strong. Imperfection is not an obstacle, but the actual path
to perfection, which becomes apparent by pruning back the separative processes.
7 The general outlook of quantum meditation
The conscious
practice of free meditation, which turns towards the self while accepting
information as and when it arises from each of the Mysteries, enables the
spirit to discover its true nature infinite flexibility which will no longer
be bounded by the rigid confines of the ego, nor the square fears of the body
and which will make its way through the desires of the personality to command a
huge territory. This will occur as soon as the immobile centre and Field 4
achieve a relationship which is stable rather than based on accidents.
Churning the mind sometimes suddenly
opens the door to far deeper consciousness of Field 2 and this is when quantum
meditation produces new feelings in the meditator, who feels that he belongs
unfailingly to not only to life and to the earth, but to consciousness of
the universe. These moments have different names depending on the tradition
and put us in touch with different types of energy. Only the mind, which likes
to create boundaries and separate, tries to differentiate unduly between
meditation and contemplation, in which love for the Divine manifests itself in
servile adoration. The true self is broad and is nourished in several ways,
therefore it is dry and blurs objects in such a way that the spirit can turn in
on itself, whilst avoiding losing everything in favour of the object which it
can see. Contemplation is virtually liquid nourishment, something which is
probably indescribable, but which happens and bases the identity of the self on
the identity of the Whole, as if all the territorial defences of Fields 3 and
the psychological barriers of Field 1 would collapse in one single go, revealing
the living Presence, different from Brahman and indifferent to life.
It can also be
the case that attention from Field 1 directed towards Field 3 through the
intermediary of progressive acknowledgement of the indeterminate nature of Field
4 (free from past and future) allows for inner work analogous to that found
in the paradigm of transpersonal psychology or esoteric Buddhist philosophy,
which is quick to advocate all manner of mental exercises designed to break
down the usual resistances of Field 3, steeped in generic fears, those of Field
4 with its opportunistic desire and those of Field 1 grappling with the
framework of self-image. When mental silence surveys the Mysteries in a simple
passive scan, it sometimes encounters concrete psychological content which is
almost physical and clutters up the psyche and it can dissolve it or become
aware of it and search for a solution. Quite independently of complexes and
broadly catalogued sub-personalities, meditation can encounter expectations,
like clots of energy, continually issuing requests, like a permanent distress
signal. The desire for approval and the desertion complex are the best-known
examples.
Human beings virtual
realizations are poorly described in the most authoritative descriptions. Only
experience can show what an authentic mediation, a genuine process of
individuation, a real consecration, or even the true present moment really is
and the model is very elusive, which makes it useless. Trying to describe the
procedures would be like building made-to-measure cages again for the
glittering birds of awakening, as if the instructions spared us from using the
device. The only reality is the one we are experiencing, it is our personal way
of getting our bearings in the compass directions, of returning to the
centre in the knowledge that everything is there, in the constraint of the
self linked to the physical body, in the servitude of the self in relationship
to the supreme Present, master of opportunities and accidents, and in
the respectful obedience of our being towards the infinite universe which it is
leaving and which we have represented by Field 2
8 The duality of the mind
The four
Fields are not only huge, which makes any attempt to define their limits
futile, but the centre of the self is boundless and immutable. This means that
the principle which enables us to form thoughts at all times is so deep and so
perfect that any attempt to get hold of it is doomed to failure.
It is therefore
a case of coinciding with this source rather than getting hold of it by
grasping it objectively. This is the fundamental difference between the wise
man and the philosopher. The philosopher still believes that his own spirit
will be able to grasp itself and he would give anything to achieve this result.
The philosopher therefore forces himself to become an architect and he imagines
that the scaffolding of ideas can account for the necessity of life and Order
and even God. By contrast, the wise man, through a grace which he cannot
perhaps always explain to himself, has reached the conclusion that the mind
cannot not grasp reality. By giving up trying to tame intelligence, not only
does it dissolve, but it manifests itself with such spontaneity that it will
reveal the true nature of things through immediate contact with them and
not by any kind of process of elaboration which would attempt to fit
observation into a premeditated framework.
This revelation
of the supremacy of spontaneous intelligence over the cultivated mind has been
proclaimed in every age and in many countries. Lao-Tzu transformed the
pragmatic Chinese mind by convincing it that it would obtain better results in
the search for harmony if it abandoned rites and ancestors in order to
surrender to the innocence of a playful vision of reality in which the great
principle could be found once more if one yielded to it. But the folly of
Socrates and Empedocles and the very concision of Heraclitus perpetuate the
same myth. Anybody who agrees to tip over beyond human boundaries (i.e. beyond
the manipulation of the brain or Field 3 in our jargon) can discover what laws
forbid: that God is not an authority figure but a presence full of infinite
love, whom we can touch and feel, and that the sufferings of life hide joy
beyond all imagination, which the Self, concerned with its own depths,
eventually finds and may perhaps even keep. Quantum meditation opens up the way
to all explorations which we generally find listed in other paths, but its
genius lies in not letting any one orientation prevail, as this would limit the
impact of the others, increasing the value of some fields to the detriment of
others, when in fact they are all interwoven.
The integral
seeker, who is purely a precursor, can nevertheless think of himself as a wise
man or mystic, a teacher or an innocent who has unlearned all the labels, as
a psychologist or a warrior, since former labels no longer correspond to
current experience, as is tangible in Mothers Agenda. He tries to let others
who are moved by respect for Consciousness, love of the Earth and hence
recognition of Matter forgotten in many paths, benefit from his lead. Those who
love the truth can collect new, different forms of testimony by tuning in to
their frequency. An author for example cannot make a big deal out of his own
experience and revel in it, because Mothers vision of worlds and contact with
Supreme Consciousness will have revealed his place to him on its true scale in
infinity. It is a tiny little place (but it is not separated from anything)
which enabled him to reduce all realities down to just five in a dialectical
paradigm the four Fields defined by the cross and its centre, the self, which
any intellectual approach damages or destroys. The words applied to
realizations are by definition deceptive because they fix in swift and concise
pointlessness the whole content of a movement filled with quantum leaps, i.e.
transitions from one area of consciousness to another which cannot be explained
by reason or described by any route. We are, therefore, now free to welcome
what the spirit offers us in order to see which zone is really affected and
what turbulence is produced, given that Field 3 pulls us in the opposite
direction from Field 2 (unless we carry out major work) and Field 1 never
knows what to do with the pure moment.
Unless one is
profoundly convinced that the Self is at the centre of this cross and that it
can make light of conflicts between the four Mysteries and resolve them, then
cardinal meditation is just practised artificially. The testimony of great teachers
from the East therefore gives us hope for a transcendent resolution of the horizontal/vertical
tension which is part of incarnation. Those who have climbed the wall
before us clumsily try to show us the way in order to make the transition
easier for us, however as has already been mentioned, words can only
represent the experience that the reader or listener already has of them.
Hence the cruel fact that enlightenment represents many more things for the
disciple pursuing it than it does for his teacher, who is only describing one
episode of his existence. We therefore know that we are taking a few risks by
creating such a simple and complete diagram as that of the four Mysteries in
which the self occupies the centre position, because if it is misunderstood,
this limpid, simple, childlike representation could enable some complicated
minds to lock themselves into a sort of preconceived or voluntarist meditation
if the mind were to hijack the dazzling intuition which confers power on this
method. But this is a calculated risk, because the system integrates infinite
possibilities into a small number of facts, which actually makes it a quantum
model adapted to each unique individual. Quantum representation allows
the spirit to become flexible and supremely skilful at letting go and also
facilitates recognition of the spirit of Fo-Hi: adopting the constant
transformations of the universe in order to stay interwoven with the Whole so
that we can understand how universal consciousness embroiders our existence into
the space-time continuum (which obviates the need for us to invent false
motives).
Everything is
being transformed at all times - words are not what they represent and
signifiers lead to a plastic, flexible, often formless signified in the case of
higher realities (God, totality, existence, life, being, realization etc.). The
identifications forced on us by our waking state are infinitesimal segments of
the continuous and indestructible self within us and this conscious silence can
play with them and choose or eliminate them in an infinite dance in which only
our tamas suffers the inertia which is particular to the laws of the
species (the subconscious still plays its part with a certain degree of
authority in the life of man, the evolving cosmic individualKnow
that tamas, born of ignorance, is what leads all incarnate souls astray; it is
through carelessness, indolence and sleep that it binds the soul to Bharata.
Bhagavad Gita, song XIV.).
We therefore approach our exploration of the four Fields with a certain degree of casualness, so that it it does not become an onerous duty or a routine activity, whilst remaining aware of the circumstances of mental silence, as well as the instructive return of unresolved dross and parasitical constellations, in the simple unfolding of the unique moment, which is always the same (for the self) and always different (for real life and its history).
9 The system behind the system
A few modern
awakened ones are beginning to denounce the myth of enlightenment, when it is
obvious that they themselves have passed through the mental wall to embrace the
motionless source of the spirit. This is a position which should be approached
with caution, because it is certain that obtaining permanent mental silence
opens up new horizons. On the other hand, we do believe, like these modern
teachers, that enlightenment must not be pursued as an aim, as this would make
the centre, the self, a supreme locus per se when it is there especially to
enable the Fields to integrate in individual unity, which then becomes a
fractal of cosmic Unity as the microcosm joins the macrocosm, in order to yield
to it with total confidence.
If this were the
case and the self were considered to be independent of everything around it,
what we defined as meditation in Field 4 would have to be considered a missed
opportunity if it were troubled by thoughts, because at the end of the day it
is supposed to merge with the self, Brahman, by dissolving. Therefore, the very
fact of wanting to force oneself not to think provides an aim and a stake which
prevents the self from manifesting itself spontaneously - the main theme of
the discursive symphony which is this work and which we must treat in a variety
of registers. Practising the four Mysteries not only entails accepting that
meditation will be disturbed, but also takes advantage of this to discover what
is preventing the spirit from being calm and correcting it through inner
dialogue. Insofar as impulses are clearly defined, there is nothing to prevent
us from remedying them. The more distinct the differences between the self, the
ocean and the fishes which are thoughts which occur, the more information
will be clear. When the self is transparent, i.e. motionless and not exerting
any effort, everything which stems from thought has clear outline, the sequence
makes sense and is all the more meaningful because we want to change its actual
nature. According to Satprems formula the obstacle becomes the ally. In the
end we will only encounter two categories of obstacle: those which belong to
the external world and can be observed, and those which belong to the inner
world - beliefs or values totally imagined by the spirit, the implicit
recurrence of dubious actions and repressed desires or fears which are more
difficult to unearth but which feelings of unease reveal and which we end up
feeding, as it were.
A meditation can
be disturbed either by sensory stimuli (sounds, smells, temperature), or by
thoughts which have absolutely nothing to do with the context, whose unknown
origin has yet to be discovered. The difficulty stems from the amalgam that the
spirit produces between the objective problem and what it represents. We
can be asked through meditation to resolve contingent problems (e.g. finding a
new form of relationship with a close relative or finding a new job), but this
question will only very rarely be considered without the possibility of failure
or success, states which bring an emotional dimension to the solution being
sought, with fears on the one hand and hopes on the other. At this point,
meditation allows us to frame the question better, because if the question
asked concerns Field 3, then the answer to it can come from Field 1 and have
nothing to do with the objective circumstances. The image which we create of
ourselves automatically attaches itself to the way in which we envisage the
reply. The same objective question will be treated in a different way depending
on our skill in the meditation. A subject who does not realize that in his
search for a solution he is mixing up strategic reasoning and unconscious
content will certainly not find the answer which is in line with the question
asked. Subjective interference, like crackling on a phone line, will
stop the self from addressing the question and it will therefore be treated not
as a question but as a simple reaction looking for a way out.
The transverse
line of Fields 1 and 4 has already been mentioned and processes have been
described for making the transition to enable the permanent self to open itself
unconditionally to the pure and indeterminate present and to tame the
field of the contingent and physical self by making it participate in the
encounter so that it abandons appropriating the moment from the very fabric of
the past. We must in a sense make 4 move back up towards 1 and the moment must
impregnate the passive self. In the other direction, it is the personality which
dominates the moment and gives it a framework in which several filters remain.
In order to achieve a perfect form of circulation - an osmosis between the
present and the self - it is necessary to confer authority per se on the
moment.
The transition
from Field 3 to Field 2 is archaic, a legacy, and is used in difficult times by
those least concerned by metaphysics, who suddenly ask God to exist in order to
ask for a favour during a very bad patch. It is at this time that childish
religiosity can manage to establish itself, as the emotional self constantly
reassures itself by bribing the Divine with petty little attentions. Moving
from Field 2 to Field 3 is a difficult process, but it can be accompanied by
mantras and devotional chants, sacrificing physical satisfaction, and by the
occasionally excessive rigor of discipline. Lateral movements also exist
between the permanent self and the supreme self, without distance or duration,
but it is difficult to describe them as they transcend language. Transitions from
3 to 4 without the presence of the structured self in Field 1 are dangerous and
regressive, but exist in different forms in extreme cases of survival, in
fights to the death and to counter diabolic or satanic initiation and serious
addiction to sex, alcohol, drugs and money.
Vertical
transitions are virtual and difficult to detect, although the permanent self
(1) can control the body (3) by simple determination, without relying on
temporal processes by the simple effect of will or immediate understanding. The
transition from 3 to 1 uses a number of subconscious channels and forges a
higher ego. The direct shuttle between Fields 2 and 4 is the most seductive,
rare and elevated it abolishes the feeling of having a personal identity with
defined contours, but it cannot last for long because returning to the physical
transformation of the body must follow on from supreme upward flights in
magical alternation, guided by the great Mother. However, in the other
direction - from the moment towards the soul - the purity of the present
sometimes leads to Field 2 via the self, and this repeated experience has
conferred an illustrious character on spiritual history and allowed different
doctrines to become established in which the same learned names appear in order
to try to define both transcendent spaces and their approach, on the basis of
pure, instantaneous feeling.
The outcome
of the spirit in each moment is an infinitely complex process, but we can clearly see that it mingles
Field 3 (the subject and the senses) very closely with Field 4 (the object and
the moment) under the legitimate, shifting gaze of Fields 1 and 2, which have
some latitude to identify with what is happening. Meditation appears to be the
only way in which we can reject being manipulated by Field 4 and its
opportunistic desire, by the Field 3 and its attachment to defending and
preserving and by Field 1 with its determination to hold onto the seductive
image of itself. Even Field2, if it is powerful but not sufficiently clarified
(i.e. consciously and correctly connected to the other three Mysteries) can
avidly manipulate a subject who is broadly attracted by the unknown and
transcendence.
The self
occupies the centre of the four fields, absorbs the fourth Field
naturally and accepts the other three unconditionally. We can therefore rely on
total surrender of reality to achieve non-separativity, harmonious symbiosis
and finally, unity in multiplicity when enlightenment erases the boundaries
between the four Mysteries and when mental silence blurs the lines of the cross
until it becomes an infinite circle: this is me.
Part Three
THE FLUCTUATIONS OF THE MYSTERIES.
1 Excesses in the Mysteries
The
reasons for which one field becomes dominant to the point where it tries
to suppress the balance of the whole are diverse and are not revealed until we
have restored equilibrium, because the self gets into the habit of mechanically
filling the strongest Mystery, thus compensating for any gaps elsewhere. The
centrifugal motion of one particular field can drag the whole psychological
self towards it with the following results:
In
4 - the tyranny of the present, emotion, pleasure, existential
intoxication and various addictions. In 3, the tyranny of control from
our social and family background and various attachments to material things,
unhealthy possessiveness towards loved ones. In 1, the tyranny of the cult
of the self, an obsession with disappointing oneself, missing ones goals
and of not being fully valued, ill-intentioned authoritarianism or asceticism,
a sense of superiority, and very limited openness towards others. In 2, the
tyranny of imaginary perfection, attachment to idols, a superior sectarian
attitude, fascination with the occult, siddhis, teachers and the paranormal.
An obsession with the future. Overwhelming idealism and prophetism.
A An excessive sense of Mystery 3
The
excessive development of consciousness of self as a physical entity and social
being is, in the final analysis, the most naive distortion of all. It is
based on the irrefutable fact that the Whole Self is just an extension of our
birth in the physical world which connects with our environment through identification.
For the moment, few human beings have truly analyzed the structural
differences which are positioned along the path of our existence. By contrast,
those who have done so never cease reiterating, each in their own way, the
extent to which the impulse towards individual differentiation takes place from
the basis of a jumble of amalgamated dependencies. A parallel reading of the
works of ethologistsBoris
Cyrulnik: several works., paediatricians,
psychologists and spiritual teachers makes our intelligence converge on a
reality which is difficult to accept without some emotional upheaval. Different
imprints take hold of the Self and mould it indefinitely in this single
direction of material consciousness if it did has not had the opportunity to
reassess the way in which it experiences sensations.
The
maternal imprint is without doubt the strongest because the individual in
gestation can absorb some of its mothers psychological states even before
birth. We only need to draw a parallel between the young child under the age of
three and any sentient animal (such as a monkey, wolf or dolphin) in order to
understand that automatic codes establish themselves to manage the relationship
between the subject and his environment before the faculty of discourse
comes along to transform this dialogue completely. In the semi-consciousness of
the little child, extremely deep habits can register the law of action and reaction,
of what is gratifying and non-gratifying. The more we try to push for
consciousness of the Self per se, i.e. that consciousness of self which is
rooted in belonging to the cosmos as opposed to belonging to our
territory, then the more we try and get rid of habits acquired during the first
six years of life which will have led the subject to distort certain types of
event by interpreting them through the automatic gate of tragic or wonderful
first impressions and of the signals they produce. We merely need to
look at the problems which can arise at any age which skew our approach to a
situation due to interference on the emotional line, in order to find clues to
the origin of a false or confused situation. If we are attentive, we can
eventually understand that a traumatic remnant has been brought back to
the surface by a corresponding situation. Psychoanalysis largely revolves
around this paradigm. Humanist astrologyDane Rudhyar, An astrological Triptych maintains
that certain moments are critical for everybody, particularly the end of a
homogeneous cycle if this cycle has not yielded any spiritual fruits and can
inflict protracted spiritual crises on the individual whose outcome is
uncertain, particularly at the age of 29, at around the age of 40 and between
the ages of 58 and 60. These are what we call heavy transits (i.e. the
passage of the powerful planets Saturn and Pluto over favoured points on the
birth chart) and they also correspond to periods when the self and the non-self
cannot coincide in the same way, using the same overall strategy, and we
have seen in readings that an individual depends on cosmic timing, whether he
acknowledges it or not. A whiff of fate, which is often accompanied by a
feeling of injustice then overwhelms the individual who is struggling with real
life or psychologicalAlexander Ruperti, Cycles of Becoming difficulties,
which are not mutually exclusive, so that it is difficult to know in what order
the psychological collapse or the distress which leads to changes of
direction took place . It is probable at the end of the day that reciprocity increases
the damage, i.e. that the individual is less able to adapt during these
periods, just when they are bringing much more difficult or different events
than usual.
Precursors
of consciousness were quick to spot the limitations of the structural crystallizations
represented by foundation myths, religious obligations and their ceremonies
which founded a conservative order, and the framework of socio-cultural values,
and so they ventured forthRead or watch Jonathan Livingston Seagull , accepting the risks
and dangers of a journey beyond the fixed frontiers of their clan, into the
forbidden areas of Mysteries 4, 1 and 2. The need for physical security
prolongs the influence of the mother over the adult and the need to submit to
moral authority prolongs the influence of the father. These substitutes
organize themselves, with a certain degree of scope for manoeuvre, and are
sufficient to constitute ordinary values in the long term, but the conscious
evolving individual transcends the objects required by these needs and is not
satisfied with them. This means that intuition in the fourth Field is like a
perpetual reservoir of possibilities and is finally understood through its
practical repercussions: abandoning beliefs, individual demarcation and inner
work.
In
fact using duration is not free, wherever it is and meditation enables us to
rediscover our natural feelings. All cultures incite their representatives to
grasp passing time for a specific purpose. Everything which is in front of us
is already our personal property in a sense, if we refer to the values of
modern society stemming from the eighteenth century Western world. In this
respect, acquiring what time will yield feeds the major forms of conditioning
endured during childhood and fills them. The future will become the slave of
archaic presuppositions and can only be desired for its imaginary conformity to
a pre-existing model having the effect of an intellectual enchantment. We
must use duration at all costs to turn it into something gratifying which will
elude what is non-gratifying. Out of this futile attempt to totally manipulate
timetables and the non-self itself a pedestal for the deep ego takes shape,
which filters duration through psychological stencils, which will prevent the
spirit of the moment from going beyond the limits imposed by fear and
desire forever. The subject will retreat from thought (opening 4 up to 1 and 2
combined) which would undermine the basis of self-image and demonstrate that
our feeling of selfhood is self-created and is only founded on structuring
appearances and a dialectic of reactions.
In
fact this system has proved itself. Life passes through all these people who
experience ordinary sensations and believe that this is enough, without getting
worried. They reinforce prevailing codes by approving them, following them and
defending them, whilst all the while remaining in the psychiatric ruts of
family, clan and race with some subjective interplay (stemming most often from
our hereditary nature or astral structure), such as political opinions or
religious commitment, for example. This type of human being can easily harm
others because he remains convinced that his law is the right one and that he
must disseminate it, as it were,, but he can be manipulated by a stronger force
which partially accounts for the force of history. Such a natural feeling of
smugness can in fact be a characteristic of people who identify so closely with
their own culture that they decide to impose it on others, as if to develop a
homogeneous universe which they had originated. This is precisely the sort of tribal
consciousness which the universe seems determined to eradicate from the
Earth by pouring forth celestial and universal energy. It is not a case of
criticizing its legitimacy because it is based on memory of life itself and of
the extraordinary leap which life has made by imposing the mind on a new
creature. The mind cannot be satisfied with ecological law, but it defends it
in the first instance. It transcends it by definition and only comes back to it
if things go badly, when there is really something vital to defend which puts
the compulsion to survive violence and all the rest back into play. Certain
beings liberate themselves from all physicalKrishnamurti,
The Awakening of Intelligence territory, and this is the movement of History, albeit it a hesitant
one. Therefore, there is a willingness in the brain to escape from the tangible
world, even if it is only in order to create new orders of interpretation for
things which we have undergone, but it remains mixed with the vital, except in
pure abstractions and perfect intuitions, or in the non-mental which is
immobile behind thought.
The
early years of our existence are purely and simply endured.
The
little Self is powerless to oppose his surroundings. In this respect,
everything which is endured is a double-edged sword. If a youngster suffers
from an absence of love and respect, this can leave deep behavioural codes in
his psychological make-up. By contrast, if he is too pampered, admired on
principle and thought to have his own autonomy and thus his own authority too
early, then he can just as easily adopt perverse behavioural codes in which the
non-self will be considered as an object, purely and simply orchestrated to
serve the egos ends. The semi-consciousness of early childhood is therefore
the major paradox in our incarnation. If during our first year the self and the
non-self are totally merged and if from the age of 30 the self and the non-self
are quite distinct the whole intervening period is just a battle between
dependence and autonomy, between the integrity of the Self which is searching
for itself and the many pressures from the non-self with which the subject must
identify. These pressures can sometimes be gratifying such as the feeling of
love, be it virtual or actual, or even more restrictive pressures, like how to
fit in with other people through financial independence. However, taking care
of the jurisdictions which only extend our physical birth only requires a very
small part of the minds available activity, contrary to what is claimed,
whereas we are encouraged to identify excessively with our socio-professional
surroundings. According to Goleman, depression is rising to dangerous
levels in most of the wealthiest countries, whose culture undermines spiritual
values. The role of teachers and avatars is to urge the spirit of a race or a
particular age to concern itself with what lies beyond the tangible world
inherited at birth, whose demands are sclerotic and superficial. All pioneers
concur in describing worlds which are invisible, but perhaps more real than the
tangible world which is subject to appearances, i.e. the unpredictable
interweaving of accidents and opportunities, of controllable and digestible
events and manifestations of chaos which reveal the limitations of our power
and emotional tolerance.
Mystery
3 prevents us from forgetting that we are flesh and blood, with immutable
physical needs and a set of compulsory relationships with the environment and
with others. However, sacrificing everything to it is a form of behaviour
dictated by ancestral memory. The more capable the spirit is of stepping back
and putting more distance between itself and this scenario, between itself and
the film which we are experiencing in real time, the more it is able to change
its direction and its shape. This implies knowing how to shatter the law of
conditioning which makes us experience time in a preconceived way and it also
requires the Self to look inwards to the source of its own existence, an
infinite secret which cuts the umbilical cord with our birth once and for all.
B An excessive sense of Mystery 4
Instigating the
search for the pure present can only take place in a spiritual
framework. In this context, one simply becomes aware that the spirit overlays
its own projections onto the passing moment and that it is virtually impossible
to see the clues to new beginnings in that moment. However, once it is removed
from the spiritual context, the search for the present holds countless dangers,
because one can more or less consciously orchestrate the present in the
quest solely for pleasure and gratification. If the Self has a genuine solar
aspiration, it will not let itself get too carried away by the mirages of a
present which reveals that the soul of life is made up of desire. It is in fact
quite traditional in hagiographies to find the trials which wise men and saints
experienced before reaching mental silence. Often a more pared-down form of
contact with duration allows us to space out our thoughts and achieve new
serenity. It is after this phase that meditation becomes more difficult,
because vital consciousness can take advantage of the progress we have made to
slip into a powerful and broad present from which desire will seem to erupt
with unexpected and overwhelming strength. Legends describe the apparition of
demons which try to prevent the individual from passing into ultimate reality.
The present
described by traditions is a void which contains everything in immutable
peace and cannot be compared in any way with the essence of life, which also
inhabits the pure moment and incorporates the will to experience pleasure in
order to grow. These two presents overlap simultaneously in the quantum
world and it is therefore completely natural to believe that certain
meditations designed to savour the Self lead, as if by chance, into the soul of
shimmering life, which will emphasize the needs of the physical body with
quasi-diabolical persistence. But the temptation of hedonism is not the only
danger inherent in the untimely discovery of Mystery 4. If the subject
surrenders himself complacently to each new day, he will end up by unravelling
his own will and cultivating impossible expectations (unless he can compensate
with an equivalent amount of work in Field 1, in order to let the days
exploration settle).
Becoming
somewhat fraudulently intoxicated with the immaterial nature of duration ends
up giving rise to a disconnected vision of reality, in which things apparently
follow on as if naturally, without us discovering the true links of cause and
effect or the evolutionary connections. The spirit therefore gets into the
habit of accepting all sorts of heterogeneous events which end up looking alike
in a sort of homogeneous inevitability, a mixture which is attractive
because it keeps changing. This topic would merit detailed development, which
would justify, once and for all, the spirit turning in on itself in order to
digest events (introspection, meditation, reflection and exploration of
beliefs). Without the safety net of spiritual values, fascination with the
present can absorb the Self into a permanent headlong flight, in which trickery
will glue alien values to each other until all ethics disappear in sweeping
torrents of events which have the force of law. It is among unconscious
followers of Mystery 4 that we find these weak beings eager for omens and
convinced that their true personality will emerge from a fortuitous combination
of circumstances rather than from inner effort. Admittedly, the temporary dominance
of Mystery 4 constitutes a necessary phase in initiation, for example in
adolescence, when sexual desire is made more attractive by the search for an
ideal object so that the Self and the non-self can henceforth agree to support
each other, instead of fighting or remaining in a narrow status quo.
It is far from
harmful on principle to be swept up in the wonderland of the vital mystery,
because it is here that the sense of belonging to life is established
legitimately and totally naturally, with an unconditional desire for life which
likes momentum. Therefore, we should not be surprised that a small number of
doctrines, such as Chinese and Hindu tantrism reveal the dual nature of the
present, as both the essence of life and desire and as the uncreated void
which frees us from all thoughts and attachments (an aspect which we place in
the centre of the diagram). We should also view in this light paradoxical arts
in which physical techniques combine with subtle exercises to achieve the aim
of merging the transformation of the vital and the search for the Self in one
single movement as in ancient Taoism, certain forms of Ki Kong, hatha yoga, or
other secret practices in which breathing is required. Taming the vital through
work on the physical body can accompany pure research, but this is not
necessary and certain doctrines dispense with it.
All this means
that knowledge comes at a price, given that the paths which reveal it carry
some risks unknown to ordinary minds. Reaching the pure moment free from
all projections - the Self - which one approaches initially by ridding the here
and now of all finality, can bring some discouraging detours such as being
confronted by lingering animal instincts (terror, anger, lust and cruelty)
rooted in the Earth and Fire elements and the humiliating vision of the
numerous expectations projected into a naive and childish future which
is rooted in the elements of Air and Water. However, the pure present, which is
the stepping stone to the Supermind, transcends all distinctions of
matter and is the supreme pedestal from which all attempts to exist begin. This
is why many wise men stopped here for good by agreeing to surrender themselves
heart and soul. Even Buddha seems to have drowned himself there. Because he was
saturated by this huge living knowledge, he seems to have stopped seeking the
existence of the Divine described by Sri Aurobindo, for example, as infinite
consciousness on the one hand and the Mother of all Worlds on the other.
It is hardly
surprising that this fundamental zone, the quartile as it were of reality,
which affects our evolution, can be approached from so many different angles, since
this is where everything happens. Even philosophical thought without any
meditative pretentions, such as that carried out by the ancient Greeks, shows
us that time is unfathomable and that memory, which is both the imprint and the
ghost of the present in the past, has no true consistency. Yet we can roam
smugly around our childhood haunts using the same powers of imagination which
transport us towards the future we desire.
It is precisely
in this way that the mystery of the spirit, the enigma of the mind is
established: what is real and what is not are one and the same thing.
The subject
sees what he wants to see in an object rather than observing it. The Self
confers beauty on the object for which it lusts and ugliness on the truth which
it finds disturbing, in a constant headlong flight in which each being invents
its own existence with unconscious motivation and ideal arabesques rather than
progressing through it in a way which is connected to its main aims - Heaven
and Earth for the Chinese, God and nature for monotheists, and consciousness
and energy for Hindus and tantrists. Plunging into Field 4 holds countless
surprises, which become just so many cracks in the closed system of
conventional representations and which dig the evolutionary tunnel. There, the
Self is forced to observe movements specific to Field 3 and to appreciate the
consciousness force of nature in order to free itself from it. When the speed
of thought decreases, it can also see the need to appear to be a unique, whole
individual, devoid of the dross of influences, in control of ones own thoughts
and searching for ones own vertical axis. This is when consciousness of
Mystery 1 flirts with that of Mystery 4 and consecrates the hope of a future
shaped by unconditional discoveries. At last, in moments of extreme coincidence
in which Mysteries 3, 4 and 1 support each other, supreme consciousness of the
divine Self can take hold of the subject, flout the limitations of the physical
body, forgive those of the personality and connect it to supreme consciousness.
Territorial law
will have been repealed, our vague awareness of belonging to a single
particular background determined to defend its only values at any price will
have given way to a universal spirit, endowed with unfailing intelligence and
which sees the Whole in every fragment, without violence or effort,
transcending all places and eras. The here and now is, therefore, the
absolute door through which all forms of imprisonment are shattered like
eggshells and the huge expanse ceases to become a threat in order to become a
promise. Abandoning oneself to 4 without redressing the balance by revisiting 1
and 2, far from purifying the emotions, increases them to dangerous levels,
forcing the subject into vulnerability which will become unhealthy and could
take him towards regressive lunar sensitivity, as sometimes happens to some
artists and poets, particularly those who launch themselves sometimes
shamelessly into immediacy without a safety net.
C An excessive sense of Mystery 1
The feeling of
permanent identity establishes itself through force of circumstance and every
human being is continuously referred back to his physical body by its everyday
needs. Inner and external identity are in fact merged together because of the
extent to which the Self constantly projects itself onto its background to
establish gratifying strategies. Our first strong emotions are proof that a
self exists behind the identifications, separate from its background and thus
the self can always become deeper, increase the range of first person verbs
it employs and the distance itself from everyday needs. The first person
I uses countless verbs and the dichotomy between I feel and I am, for
example, forms the basis of all moral systems and religious practices and
punctuates philosophy by establishing the fundamental psychological quartering
of the cardinal cross, which we use in the system of Mysteries. Human endeavour
has for a very long time been directed to making a structured self prevail over
a self made up only of identifications with our surroundings (3) and desire
(4), as well as with transient objects and this concern has also motivated and
inspired philosophy since its origins.
The role of
powerful emotions is to make us understand that we are not the objects with
which we identify. The loss of a loved one, for example, reveals that we had
mixed up the inner Self and the external Self in our affect for this person,
whose hologram, as it were, lived within us and which one might say is
seeking to outlive the original. Proof lies in older couples who part
and are happy to do so because the memory of the other person survives and the presence
of absence imposes itself with disconcerting force in their new existence.
Transforming the dose of memory which is left in true love is beyond the
grasp of the ordinary subject. This is because the spirit works to weave the
Self with the non-self into an extremely fine fabric and this work largely
passes us by, going downwards with the subconscious and upwards with the supraconscious
and the subliminal. Just as the eye cannot see infra-red or ultraviolet, our
feelings are coded to a certain extent in reservoirs of information which elude
us, but which the supernatural, by its nature, reveals because it breaks down
barriers. Meditation also demonstrates this, to a lesser extent, but still
significantly and exponentially.
In fact, most
human beings only return to consciousness of their permanent identity if they
are forced to do so by circumstances, which are usually painful. Only priests,
mystics, warriors, shamans, magi and philosophers truly seek to explore the
difference between the inner and outer Self. The priest does so because he
loves the principle hidden behind the manifestation and the mystic because he
seeks contact. The shaman and magus do so because they are interested in
effective but hidden energies. The philosopher does so because the spirit is
supreme compared to the objects which it grasps (and because he intuits
Intellect behind thought) and the warrior because he has to develop qualities
intrinsic to self-knowledge in order to face dangers and survive. Some, but not
all, artists burrow inwards because they are eulogists for Field 4. Women must
transcend the pleasures of being a mother and wife to dig truly towards the
self and in more general terms to become weary of the social roles they play
out in order to confront the deep Self. They have just as much chance as men of
achieving it because they are less easily fooled by mental constructs and more
tempted by establishing a permanent synthesis between their feelings, actions
and aspirations.
What is needed is to inaugurate a period in which every
persons need for self-knowledge as a cosmic being becomes natural. At
the moment, most human beings looking for the structured permanence of the Self
still do so through a higher quest for what is gratifying. All cultures
advocate obtaining a skill likely to bring success, fame, prestige and wealth.
In order to achieve it, it is obvious that some inner work must be undertaken
and the foundations of the permanent individual identity appear. The feeling
that life must bring some form of blossoming surfaces, but it is accompanied by
a procession of archaic representations stirred up by fear and desire. The Self
is looking for itself and manages to alter its ecology by stepping back from
things and developing a dynamic intelligence. But until sudden recognition of
the supremacy of the whole occurs, the Self which structures itself in the
Field 1 forms a more powerful ego than that of nature and develops an efficient
individual which will easily act against the interests of others and contrary
to respect for others. It is as if Field 1 were developing on the pedestal of
Field 3, without passing through Field 2 with its openings onto the unknown,
while simultaneously explaining the here and now without any shame.
However, in most
civilizations hypertrophy in Mystery 1 is considered a luxury to
be attained, because it is establishes in a concrete way, a feeling of
superiority which humans try to claim on principle, as it were, to confront
otherness. A triumphant self is established, which has initiative and free
will, and a certain feeling of triumphalism can also seize hold of the
individual who can achieve his own objectives most of the time. It is
difficult, however, to know how a reversal can take place, i.e. how somebody
can reach a tipping point and recognize their cosmic identity after having
struggled for a long time to become what he thought he was. This is a thorny
issue, because different perspectives appear from which to approach it, each of
which contains an element of the truth. If, like Sri Aurobindo, we imagine that
life moves inexorably towards the Divine, we have the leisure to believe that
individuals who are profoundly structured in Mystery 1 will eventually grow
weary of their conquests. Individuals with a strong personality would therefore
end up abandoning their material kingdom naturally, in order to submit to the
spirit. In a historical perspective, however, it would seem on the contrary,
that most powerful and strong people not only never call their ego into
question but, on the contrary, seek constantly to extend their empire.
On the other
hand, it is an absolutely established fact that the soul can change direction
from one existence to another. Souls which have ventured deep into evil and
chaos in the past can, in their current existence, feel a very powerful need to
return to cosmic conformity. Weak personalities who want to serve God in some
way on principle or out of duty run the risk of having a superficial faith and
an indifferent degree of commitment. It is impossible to generalize on this
issue and to claim that we must avoid building a strong, powerful, autonomous
personal ego, independent of any recognition of the divine. The unconditional
need to be can arise at the very heart of experience because all movement towards
the Self can turn proportionately towards the non-self and we can state, as
do scripture and some testimonies, that it is sometimes those who have strayed
from the divine who come back with the greatest passion, love and respect. This
paradoxical truth establishes experience as the only path to the truth.
We come under a
great deal of cultural pressure to develop hypertrophy in Field 1, which is
likely to help us climb up the social hierarchy. We learn to orchestrate
intelligence to material and financial ends, as if all of its power were
limited to manipulating the structure of the non-self in order to extricate
itself. True progress towards consciousness of the Self, through recognizing
modern foundation myths such as psychoanalysis is swiftly hijacked by
the need to assert ourselves in social reality. Admittedly, intelligence seems
to be able to balance the needs of the inner Self and those of the external
Self, but given the values currently prevailing in all societies, this balance
cannot be maintained. If individuals are weary of reaching a ceiling in Mystery
1 and if they really want to start work on their own existence and
discover nourishing duration, then they must generally give up increasing their
social prerogatives or be particularly skilful in their own surroundings to
avoid feeling weighed down by stress, responsibilities or schedules.
From a certain point of view, human beings must constantly make sacrifices to
the archaic idols of the territorial sphere and arrange their chaotic survival
in an environment in which the economy seizes hold of the political to the
point where it destroys the values of civilization itself.
Duration has
been buried in empirical and pragmatic values. Hence the insistence of all wise
men, teachers and avatars on the quality of meditation which counterbalances
all the hours which have been hijacked by purely commercial ends or avid
entertainment. It would seem that history is running out of steam, because
everything that has been accomplished to free people from material survival has
only alienated them further. The insane optimism of the nineteenth century has
been radically destroyed. Scientific progress has not changed the value of a
society in which inequalities are increasing irrespective of the regime in power.
The time has come to assert that the mind, which believes that it is
intelligent per se, is in reality stupid. Analytical dissection cannot grasp
the systems as a whole from which it removes what it chooses, while disfiguring
the backdrop in which any change has repercussions for the whole. That the best
minds could be so greatly mistaken about the direction of history demonstrates
how limited and unreliable thought is, despite the blind trust placed in it by
leaders and intellectuals. It does not matter that some individuals structure
themselves in Mystery 1 in such an autonomous fashion that they think that they
are above the law and are ready to do anything to retain their power with
quasi-religious cynicism. Even the most obscure forces of the Manifestation
which want to seize hold of humanity can only disappear under the pressure of
the consciousness of supramental reality, however long the transformation may
take. Territorial law will be repealed and a conscious movement towards unity
will eventually prevail through the sum of individual existences.
D An excessive sense of Mystery 2
Unduly
developing the area of the second field constitutes a sort of luxury, available
only to individuals who want to adhere firmly to subtle planes. The second
Mystery is in fact a place where you find what you bring to it, because
we can project on it our representations of God and all the embellishments with
which we want to decorate our own existence if we do not find it bright enough.
There is a real lack of reference points in the second Mystery. It may be easy
to observe our own existence in our environment, to check what the present
moment is causing us to feel and it is natural to want to explore within
ourselves the question Who am I?. However, it is more tricky, by contrast, to
avoid mixing the very stuff of imagination with our purest and deepest feelings
for the mystery of the cosmos and the secret of the Divine.
If we have a
natural tendency to take refuge in the invisible ethers and we reckon that we
are inhabited by superior presences, it is by staying alert to what we are in
the third Mystery that we can really adjust our vision of reality and not
forget that our transcendent flights and wishes can only be based on objective
consciousness of our projection onto the environment. This is an Eastern
paradigm from China and India, both eulogists of non-separativity and it is
less common in the West, where the vision of the physical body is difficult to
integrate into spiritual concepts and where will is considered to be the
universal panacea. However, in the light of recent discoveries such as the
potential sabotage of the Selfs plans by the subconscious (somatisation,
repression, sub-personalities, traumatic traces) a return to consciousness of
the body within its environment (vulnerable to accidents and opportunities)
seems to be the obvious new paradigm for establishing not just holistic
medicine, but also the principal evolutionary route devoid of all
particular forms.
Today supreme
consciousness amuses itself by playing with cells, exploring them and
superimposing a far faster movement on the fabric of nature. The ideaSatprem, La Genèse du surhomme [The Genesis of
the Superman], published by Buchet-Chastel is to
recreate the beings new overall unity by integrating the separate work being
done in the subconscious, conscious and Supraconscious into one single
material/spiritual being.
The seeker who
places too much faith in the growth of Field 2 in order to evolve ends up by
contrasting the vertical solar universe of his own aspiration with the real,
contingent world. What usually ensues is the cultivation of potential conflicts
between solar aspiration and the external environment, between divine wishes
and practice in relationships, which leads to conflicts and spiteful
judgements, preserving a favourable decor which cuts itself off from real life,
and somatisation is encouraged because Field 4 no longer supplies homogeneous
duration, but contrasting highs and lows which exhaust the nervoushence the need for equality, which calms the gunas
in the best Hindu traditions. system
and manhandle self-image. On the other hand, it has been established for
thousands of years that powerful spiritual experiences cannot be transmitted.
The best guru in the world cannot trigger enlightenment at will in his
disciples. It is remarkable that transcendence in Mystery 2 resists any
attempt at appropriationTo
the Lord be all that is, so that he may inhabit it and everything, a universe
moving with a universal movement. Detach yourself from all this and take
pleasure in it; do not lust after any possession which man appropriates. Isha
Upanishad, commentaries by Sri Aurobindo (Arya, 1914-1915).. No formula can force the Lord to manifest himself and counting on
excessive prayer or contemplation to move forward faster is just a ruse on the
part of the mind to hoodwink the ego. The structure of a discipline is
necessary, with the paradox that it must undergo the real imprint of duration
to acquire pragmatic flexibility, i.e. truly taking into account the impact of
events instead of whistling for them when they depart from expected
conventional conformity. It is quite plausible to spend several days or even
weeks in almost uninterrupted contemplation, if circumstances allow, whereas
other periods can inflict the temporary surrender of the highest aspirations or
even the deepest hell. Scope for manoeuvre in exploring the four Mysteries is
enormous and it is more natural to adapt to experience (the concrete supremacy
of Mystery 3 unfolds and cannot be called into question) than it is to fix it
in an inward-looking system which is virtual and timeless.
The Supermind
establishes the supremacy of the second Mystery once and for all. It dominates
the other three on principle and remains the one which is most buried in
experience and to this extent it can only be reached properly when duration is
used afresh in field 4, which will have established a new dialectic
between the contingent self of 3 and the integral and permanent self in 1,
which aspires to being by passing through the centre, the Self, where the
spirit is devoid of all concepts and present at its source. When observing
oneself becomes natural, it counterbalances flights of the imagination which
want to ornament the transition to the second field with elaborate symbolism.
On the boundary between the mind and the vital, we encounter a strange force
which tries to seduce the divine, like a young man who dreams up some sort of
scheme to make himself look good in the eyes of the object of his desire. If
this force grows, it can it can seize the individual and convince him that he
is just living out his own fantasies and it is this vital mind which is
responsible in some way for all types of fanaticism and fundamentalism.
Exploring the
four fields can always be experienced effectively in the transverses:
deep solar aspirations which still vaguely stir the self in Mystery 2 will be
confronted by unflinching observation of how we handle relationships, enabling
us to transcend animal impulses and compulsions in Mystery 3 aroused by
circumstance. The over-dominant claims of the permanent self which would like
to structure duration purely to its own advantage will be conf
go or non-action in the fourth field, which will allow the spirit to broaden
its vision of what is possible and to transform its self-image. Developing
Mystery 2 while forgetting Mystery 3 is just as dangerous as developing 1 and
forgetting 4. In both scenarios a triumphalist self avoids being part of
reality by forging the bars of its subjective prison using the will. Whether
they be more subtle in 2 or more concrete 1, the fact remains that some
orchestrated flights can hoodwink the subject who escapes from absolute mystery
in order to appropriate it for himself.
Deeper and
more neutral knowledge of the relationships between the four Mysteries
sometimes allows us to see the space at the centre - the self - emerging, a
presence without thought which has no need to identify with anything at all and
which embraces the moment completely, without grasping the object.
2 The Deficiencies of the Mysteries
A. A deficient sense of Mystery 3
Being constantly forced to perceive the non-self through the body feels
like a constraint at certain points in our existence and it can be tempting to
keep physical needs and material and relationship cf the story
of Marthe Robin. concerns separate from the spiritual
path. This is a topic which can be studied endlessly both in history and in our
own personal practice. In every era, new theories appear to warn seekers
against the tyranny of physical needs in an approach, under the pretext that
the brain acts under the pressure of evolutionary memory to bind the subject
to his environment alone through his perceptions. The great religions have
founded countless monastic orders to try to enable followers to live with their
spirit open to non-contingent realities. However, these processes which appear
to make things easier create their own new habits, which also crystallize
the spirit, and few human beings are truly ready to endure all the
sacrifices which accompany this difficult quest for the truth without coming to
harm. Fundamentalist ascetics have even invented mortifications to get closer
to God, whether they be mystical fakirs or the famous Cathars, and even
Pascal apparently wore a hair shirt!
The main difficulty consists in not rejecting the body, even though we
deny it many forms of casual pleasure, for which the subconscious tries to
extract its revenge.
We can often observe cruelty in people who believe they
represent a higher morality and who think that it is quite normal to make
individuals with superficial moralRegis Debray, describing the triumphalist intolerance of Che, for
example, punishing people for trifling matters. All praise to our masters
(p.189), GALLIMARD criteria suffer. This is a very thorny
question, when we take into account that the Inquisition lasted for three
centuries in Europe, and that people suffered unspeakable evil under the iron
rule of human beings who were supposedly convinced that they were acting in
Gods name. The mind can, therefore, detach itself so far from the physical
body and immediate realities that it makes its victims experience an abyssal
duality between the truth and the manifest world, between hope of a better life
for the soul and the actual state in which the physical body finds itself. The
mind can forget everything which disturbs it and it likes to decree what
must exist and what must not exist based on its own authority, independently
of all objective reality.
It is easy to be wary of the body or to think of it as the enemy. In
fact, what Sri Aurobindo calls the vital plays tricks on us in our
spiritual journey because it is an energy which has huge degree of autonomy and
a particular connection with the moment and so it is the essential link between
Field 3 and Field 4, if we believe that the permanent subject is slightly in
the background. The vital can seize the moment and it can impose any kind of
surge of impulses on the self (if it is weak). In monasteries, convents and
ashrams repressed anger creates struggles for power and influence and sexual
frustration gives rise to all sorts of perverse effects, ranging from guilt at
feeling desire through to secret relationships, often of a homosexual nature,
which represent the power of nature over our subjective will which strives to
conquer the spirit without making a distinction between the forms of matter
which constitute a human being. Trying on principle to create circumstances
which are more conducive to using time properly - i.e. the spiritualization
of matter - is a double-edged undertaking, because the natural state is
forgotten in favour of a partly imaginary creation, however ideal it might be.
Of course, each individual can use his own path to reach the major states of
spiritual consciousness and some who scorn the body, achieve remarkable
results, but in these cases consciousness of the second field will have
subordinated the first, then the fourth and finally, at the end of the line,
the historic subject will have submitted by controlling desires and emotions.
This drastic path does not seem to be the way forward, because divine
energy descends and if work is not carried out properly in the fourth
field it can even reach the physical body without it having been tortured by
the frustration believed to facilitate detachment. A few people choose to live
in caves or in pure solitude to obtain samadhi - realization -
but few of them remain in the frame of mind which leads to the Self. The rest
believe that they can reach it because they have accumulated forms of
perfection in order to surrender the spirit by inventing a transcendental
routine, as it were. Ritual perfection has always tried to buy intimacy with
the Divine and it is often those who think that they are beyond reproach who
have the driest hearts and the most quirky souls. Their haughty rectitude does
not embrace the contours of events, which they shrivel by stifling their
sensitivity.
Insofar as men and women do emerge, by contrast, into the Divine
Mystery having led outwardly ordinary lives and respected ordinary facts, it
seems pointless to specify the definitive status of the physical body and vital
needs. On the other hand, it is certain that everybody learns to fight it and
is amused to see the traps presented by mediocrity and carelessness when solar
aspirations have been bruised. In fact, the vital being seeks all sorts of compensations
when it does not connect the subject to his environment properly, in the simple
natural joy of existing. It is there, rather, that the true issue lies. If spiritual
asceticism places the self in an awkward position instead of comforting it with
the knowledge that it is an unconditional part of the Whole, then all sorts of
obstacles, weaknesses and demons manifest themselves to claim their due from
the coarse abundance which has evaporated and been replaced by higher
accomplishments, delicate sources of satisfaction and frivolous pleasures with
low expectations. It is always useful to discover the reasons which enable us
to avoid exploring Mystery 3. They are varied some are natural and others are
cultural.
If the subject has suffered too much in his environment, he can try to
get rid of his past by evading observation of his behaviour and relationships,
whilst constructing a powerful personality in Field 1, which will enable him to
justify the blind spots in his vision of the world, by avoiding calling
himself into question. This attitude can sometimes be legitimate if the subject
has had to suppress his sensitivity in order to survive, but it is a closed
one. Many people are incapable of questioning the way in which they behave with
others, simply because their upbringing has been sufficiently poor to leave a
permanently imprinted belief that otherness presents a threat. Certain
human beings barricade themselves in the personality of the first Mystery
because they would feel as if they were backtracking if they consented to
observe themselves in their relationships on a continuous basis. These people
easily become obsessed with power and are masters at the art of giving advice
and recommendations, which conveniently obviates the need to listen. The issue
is, therefore, understanding that nature knows how to set up powerful defence
mechanisms when the Self and the non-self no longer coincide sufficiently.
In fact one of the merits of modern psychology is to have identified
different processes for locking in information. There are countless processes
and at the time they seem to protect the self from the outside world, but this
protection is usually false and the subject cuts himself off from others and isolates himselfHealing Through Awakening, Natarajan, final chapters..
These automatic processes have nothing to do with the supreme distance and
imperial withdrawal which non-action supplies in an awkward situation. Whereas
unconscious locking mechanisms tend to deny facts and shut the self up in its
own representations, letting go, on the other hand , in a difficult time
preserves vigilance and envisages the possibility of conflict, however the
situation is not addressed through flight or rejection, but rather through intelligent
questioning which defuses the violent emotional momentum. Insofar as
incarnation stays open to the operation of the Divine on matter, then perpetual
observation of ones own territory, i.e. Mystery 3, is a necessity. In fact all
psychological reactions are like so many filters which deprive us of the self
and of the Supermind and so the bulk of spiritual life is accomplished in
the most trivial commonplaces of everyday life. Given that this truth is
disturbing because it holds onto gratifying headlong flight towards the other
three mysteries where it is easy to cheat, disciples can only gain an
understanding of the need for constant vigilance from teachers themselves.
The seeker often forgets to confront the ecological field for cultural
reasons, on the pretext that contingent life is implacably opposed to
experiencing the Spirit. This is a totally secular distortion, which opens the
way to the most dangerous forms of esotericism such as certain movements and
sects which manage to be simultaneously fascist and mystic, because hatred for
what is common and ordinary is cleverly nurtured. Fascination with verticality
which is not accompanied by horizontal exploration creates a perverse use of
the mind which dominates realities while condemning and judging them.
Inspiration also has its own casualties, those builders of new worlds who were
unable to discover the legitimacy of multiplicity in unity and who have
come back down badly after their ascents, like Nietzsche who talked a lot of
hot air and had a dubious relationship with his body to say the least, as his
mental will was combined with weak ability to let go in physical terms, as if
onanism wanted to keep him a prisoner of the world which he wished to escape.
Geniuses can partly be victims of approaches which open up new passages for
humanity, but rebellion against the established order and history can take us a
lot further forward today than previously if the Divine is intuited behind the
tragi-comedy of the Manifestation.
Difficulties which arise from Mystery 3 can be accepted by the soul,
the mind and the structured personality and in this way the higher powers also
learn to make situations less dramatic, thus releasing the emotions, decreasing
somatization and initiating a better permanent approach to the present
moment. Other variants are so keen to highlight the merits of fields 2 and 4
that they forget to mention that unless 3 is transformed, then non-material
duration remains dangerous and subtle universes are imaginary rather than actually
experienced. If we intuitively recognize the need for a nourishing and
flavoursome shuttle movement between the Self and the non-self, then we are
ready to observe all our own sensations and it is during this apprenticeship
that distrust on the one hand and complacency on the other decrease, giving way
to a more objective view. We often consider Mystery 3 to be less important then
the others to avoid confronting our fears on the one hand and lusts on the
other, whereas even in purely chronological terms it is in fact logically their
living origin.
Despite all this, we would not claim that ideal asceticism refers
perpetually back to the past on the pretext of extracting archaic material from
it, nor that relationships are the key to the spiritual path, that the work is
more important than the rest, or that we have to become fanatical about
examining our nocturnal consciousness. Field 3 contains intertwined elements
and behavioural structures, because this is where the present is based on the
past, on the permanence of emotional, social and affective structures and it is
here that today is more an extension of yesterday than it is today
itself, because we bring to each new day the structures of the previous day,
with the permanent problem of flushing out those which might disappear and
those which must be transformed.
In the end, if work in Field 4 begins to expand, then realizations
affecting the past will take place in the pure present, emerging of their
own accord. Meditation which launches itself into the moment without expecting
anything from it will enable the brain to free memories which would otherwise
stay locked away, and therefore inaccessible, under the control of the spirit.
Given that the energetic work of the Supermind affects the physical body, all
the emotional psychology affects the integral seeker.
B. A deficient sense of Mystery 4
In the lunar world of early childhood, a feeling of undifferentiated
unity is predominant until the first objects appear. These are the mother, as
soon as a baby realizes that she is not totally available, and the physical
body as soon as the baby knows how to arouse sensations by touching his own
skin. By contrast, it has not been established at all whether human beings as a
whole perceive duration as an object. For many of them, time has no independent
existence and is simply felt as an extension of the self. From a
supramental point of view, it is obvious that a lack of psychological maturity
alone establishes the feeling that duration is a part of oneself. This archaic
and rudimentary vision gives rise simultaneously to an attachment to the past
and the naive need for the future to meet our subjective expectations. Bending
the knee before the authority of time is initiatory in the true sense of
the word. At the end of the itinerary it becomes part of oneself once again,
but it is the mystery of Brahman, like a form of immobile unfolding and time no
longer gives the impression that it is fleeing. By carrying out this work,
which consists of renouncing our own lust for time, we learn to accept that the
present - the self - offers its own prerogatives, independently of our
volition. It is difficult for each individual to feel the virginity of the
present - the self - but this rarely stems from the same causes. The excessive
preponderance of one of the three other mysteries bars us from accessing the
objective moment.
A/ The sense of the present can be narrow for anybody who is too
focused on the past and their roots and who believes in the value of the
structures of the territorial world, of Mystery 3. The present will therefore
be rejected as a threat to what is perennial and which has already been
described and established. Today is merely an extension of yesterday. (Entering
the future backwards).
B/ The virgin moment will be banned by any individual who is too
confident in the merits of his personality and who believes in the strategy of
consolidating plans for total control of his own prerogatives. Today will be
the means to perpetuating his ossified personality.
C/ The pure present will similarly be shunned by eulogists of the
future, bogged down in excessive predominance of Mystery 2, which continuously
whispers new promises in their ears. It is in this light that we must
understand the intransigence of most traditional Eastern teachers, who delight
in reproaching their disciples for only being worried about their own little
personal transcendent desire, instead of surrendering to the absolute flow of
time, whose rapid and limpid movement alone can dissolve psychological
accretions, memories bound to traumatic events and the magical expectations of
an ideal which dominates reality rather than confronting it. Today will be at
the service of a cause which we are constantly pushing ahead of us.
By simplifying things as far as possible, we could almost go so far as
to state that all spiritual evolution depends on the possibility of grasping
duration without appropriating it. Close reading of Shankara or Nagarjuna
reveals the potential of the spirit which has nothing left to grasp or to
differentiate - especially not the Self from what is not the self. Indian
teachers force us to acknowledge this paradox and end up, like the Zen
patriarchs, by convincing people that the pure spirit is not rough and that
roughness does not lead to it (any system of thought or particular movement).
Of course plans can be supported and wishes retained after Field 4 has been
freely explored in depth, but it will be with greater reserve and marvellous
flexibility. From a technical point of view, it is necessary to discover that
state of spirit in which the self no longer seeks to seize the moment, to make
it say what it already knows. So if the spirit spends its time projecting the
inner structure of the self onto the non-self, it is not as easy as all that to
discover fundamental meditation,
in which thoughts occur, without the Self
considering itself to be their owner or originator.
Yet the most sublime message of the East does indeed consist of
declaring that thoughts occur spontaneously and do not belong to us. It may
take a long time to be able to see them forming, instead of identifying with
them body and soul, but the result of this process is a sovereign remedy
against all sorts of ills.
For example, emotions which occur can be experienced for themselves in
their ephemeral manifestations and the self thus prevents them from leaving
traces which are too deep in its own permanent structure. On the gratifying
side, pleasures can be experienced without leading to addiction and on the
non-gratifying side, deep sufferings are not necessarily somatised. It seems,
therefore, that duration must also escape from the law of territory.
Neither the present nor the future have by definition, the role of becoming our
personal property, according to the image which we might create of it. In fact,
the models for what we think we need to obtain are constructions which
are limited by our current ignorance. Opening up in a freer form of surrender
to all the forms of reappraisal of our behaviour in the Mysteries, as
representations which we have of them, is the route which enables us to
welcome what happens, whatever it is, with good will (or in any case
neutrality in the face of difficulty) which opens up evolutionary horizons.
In this respect, each individual must recognize that
he is his own victim if he does not succeed in surrendering to immediate
realizations which the present offers.
We are victims of wanting to create a preconceived order if Mystery 3
is too predominant and swallows up duration backwards. We are victims of
wanting to create without sufficiently taking cosmic laws into account if
Mystery 1 has the upper hand and deliberately controls everything which occurs.
We are victims of already wanting to be further along, further ahead, if the
subtle magic of Mystery 2 has grasped the psyche and fraudulently pushes the
present into an imaginary future. Finally the self is also a victim of itself,
if it surrenders to the present without aspiration, without restraint,
reinforcing the power of the soul of life in him, while moving him further away
from the self , the uncreated and the supreme non-mental.
By referring the impulses of the spirit back to the four fundamental
directions, each individual can reflect on the available options,
Preservation of ones territory,
Letting go in the present,
Dialogue with ones deep inner self,
Opening up to the soul and to the Divine,
These are all essential realities which assail us without us being able
to establish that they can converge until we learn how to do it. The reptilian
brain is at the disposal of Mystery 3, the limbic brain is very receptive to
the moment; the neo-cortex and grey matter cheerfully serve Mystery 1 and begin
to concern themselves with Mystery 2, albeit with reservations. We are forced
to acknowledge that the complexity of our nature, both material and spiritual,
organic, nervous and mental, constrains us to make permanent adjustments,
forces us to seek balance with ever more perfect clarity and precision. There
is something in this impulse which goes beyond our natural will and comes from
much further, from the involuted presence of the Divine in matter, in search of
his own dialectical harmonization, a Divine which finds its own route in
reverse by freeing us from the vestiges of the past of the species, by a series
of untimely realizations, with the facts upholding aspiration and revealing
hidden meaning.
C. A deficient sense of Mystery 1
Every human being who does not feel the need to differentiate himself,
to find his own truth is still being manipulated by the spontaneous outcome of
the three other Mysteries. Only the self which is attempting to structure
itself is capable of finding a balance between ecological laws and the
architecture of relationships between the availability of the present moment
and cosmic aspirations which open onto the definitive meaning of life (and
therefore death). It is difficult to know on what criteria the fundamental
realization will be based, which will mean that the individual will never again
take for granted what he feels and thinks as dictated by the supremacy of
events. All scenarios are possible, whether they be such restrictive
imprisonment in Field 3 that it arouses the need to affirm oneself in a unique
way, or a feeling of such bliss in 4 that it encourages the self to deepen its
own mystery, or a sudden need to devote ones existence to what could
constitute the origin and end - the Divine.
Affirming that this impulse of the Self towards itself is inevitable
forms the basis of esoteric tradition, but historically the proportion of human
beings who devote themselves to the exploration of reality to discover what
they are remains very small. We might even consider that religions are ways of
forcing the historic subject to recognize that he is a cosmic being and that he
must account for himself to the universe i.e. dig towards the second Field
while accepting the first. This policy seems to have failed, as was doubtless
necessary in the dark period of the Iron Age, so that the urgency of chaos ends
up by waking the mental universe which can easily manage to explore the inner
universe, i.e. the world of psychological content (mutual manipulation of 3 and
1) once the new direction has been set.
Opponents of interiority are powerful forces scattered across all sorts
of material or subtle zones. From a historic point of view, powerful people
have always tried to prevent thought from being the concern of exploited
people. The liberating truths of religion have even been distorted so that the
individual remains subordinate to the ruling power, when it is obvious that
emancipation from tribal beliefs in favour of spiritual consecration must
affect all domains to facilitate individual differentiation. But further back,
as it were, the subconscious powers of nature try to dictate their laws to the
ordinary spirit so that it does not call into question the very basis of
perception: systematically seeking out what is gratifying and permanently
avoiding what is non-gratifying.
The gamble of becoming an individual and discovering ones own unity is
based on demystifying our natural interpretation of existence and the stake is
enormous. In every scenario, the mind turns in on itself and instead of being
satisfied with grasping the objects which are perceived, it carefully examines
what these objects yield in such an intimate and personal way that it is bound
to differ from conventional cultural and religious interpretations. However,
this leap forward can be difficult to achieve or can be deferred until
tomorrow. Because the mind suddenly finds itself confronted by an enormous
revelation: concepts cannot have any objective meaning. The only thing which
confers any substance or value on them is our own inner experience of them.
We can no longer innocently contemplate freedom without
wanting to free ourselves from slavery or constraints. We cannot let ourselves
go and say the word God without wanting to touch Him, taste Him and know Him.
We can no longer put the word I in front in front of any word in the natural
flow of impressions, without being taken aback by the stream of haphazardly
conjugated verbs.
The reasons for which the need for personal differentiation is not
established as the fundamental component of existence are varied. The natural
amalgamation of the other three fields is sometimes rich enough for life
to be lived out in a precarious balance which is simple and intuitive, without
the individual really needing to explore the mystery of his own existence any
further, as this would carry the risk of giving it a meaning which is too
subjective, whereas satisfactions can be truly appreciated without pride or
appropriation. In countries right across the world a few people who are
realized without even being aware of it still exist, particularly women, and
they represent totally successful empirical blossoming of the self and the
non-self which will probably disappear in the future which will create a
complex civilization.
Surrender to a single mystery which then seizes the whole personality
can lead either to rejection of genuine differentiation or demonstrate that it
is impossible. Many people try to respect territorial law and to obtain
satisfaction from convention, duty, fashions and taboos and they graft the
embryonic self from Field 1 onto the stock of Field 3, whereas the fourth Field
is like a subordinate slave. Others see the world of duration as being
genuinely in line with their presence in Field 3 and let themselves be carried
away in ordinary life with ordinary satisfactions based on judicious avoidance
and mediocre appropriation of what is gratifying. The self in 1 lies fallow and
fields three and four have reached a satisfactory compromise. It can also be
the case that excessive development of consciousness in the second Mystery
prevents an individual from accepting themselves and from seeing their fears
and desires and favours an imaginary character seeking perfection, but avoiding
any form of confrontation with guilt or his own limitations. Mystery 2 then
draws on Mystery 4 to the detriment of consciousness of the permanent self and
management of the environment is subordinated in order to make way for the
overarching supremacy of 4 and 2 combined, which cheat to avoid an encounter
with 3/1.
Field 1 can also exist, but in a completely distorted, caricatured, harrowing
manner in the case of those determined and demanding people whom astrologers
term Saturnian and who reduce Reality to what it should be in their own eyes,
in order to wage all-out war on it. The image of the self becomes confused with
the self itself. The perception of the senses is completely corrupt, everything
is interpreted, but nothing is felt without first being passed through the mill
of values which form an impenetrable grille.
It is not unusual to note that true individuals, people who have
transformed their ordinary membership of their environment into a realization
of the self have been through many ordeals, endured intense psychological
suffering and this is ultimately the obligatory route of emotional
de-dramatization on the one hand and putting down spiritual roots on the other.
D. A deficient sense of Mystery 2
At the end of the day this deficiency can be harmful only in the
context of a spiritual search. History reveals that a certain natural
consciousness of divinity has already animated cultures, as if intuition of wholeness
really did lie at the heart of the human being as he has been created. However
this intuition cannot be developed to its limit the search for the Self in
the framework of a religious culture, because the structures which animate the
relationship between the believer and the Whole are based on unconscious
mechanisms. Fear of Gods supreme authority transforms the small amount of
natural love which we can bring Him into a fairly perverse form of submission
which establishes blind spots. It is, therefore, not particularly helpful to
dwell on the success and failure of so-called civilizing religions, or even the
merits of primitive traditions in those proud and active people who have
chosen life in a sense over inventing writing and developing the mind which
withdraws from sensations (and projects us into the cult of the future).
Although work on religious anthropology has already been carried out by
remarkable men such as Frazer and Eliade, what interests us is facilitating the
emergence of the subliminal self in human beings, which can only be done in
specific conditions, independently of specific cultural and spiritual values
and independently of testimony from the past.
The absolute supremacy of the Divine must not only be accepted
intellectually, but profoundly felt, until the subject consecrates himself
permanently to reappraising his own psychological structures. Obviously the
more higher divine frequencies manifest themselves, the more natural and therefore
easy it will be to intuit true cosmic development in oneself. The terrestrial
atmosphere can still undergo fundamental modifications so that they create in
human beings a simultaneous need for authentic differentiation, coupled with a
need to conform to the higher principle of existence - harmony, inspired
intelligence and a feeling of a tight bond with totality. For the time being, a
lot of paths which claim to be able to transform a man are content to offer a
psychological building site between the root of Field 3 and the bud of Field 1,
passing via the obligatory opening of Mystery 4.
This work can only be a form of preparation and it is likely
that solar mutants will become attached to establishing the complementary
nature of work of the self on the one hand (which does not have to be based on
the Divine) and the opening of supreme Consciousness which opens up receptivity
to higher fluxes through unconditional consecration.
This vision could appear to be partisan because it establishes
mysticism as part of the evolutionary process of the self, which cannot be
proven intellectually, and in a sense holds back the transition to the
supramental world. We therefore come back to the need to develop a
supra-rational intuition which organizes itself within a supra-logic, in which
the ordinary limits of the mind are crushed (the popularization of quantum
physics points out the way). It is precisely this surrender to duration which
enables us to make the subjective spirit perfectly malleable. All those who venture
into the pure present have experienced how intelligence of the moment
eludes the constructs formed by the superstructure of Field 1 and the
infrastructure of Field 3.
Aspiration to become, which does not feature in traditional teachings
which target the immutable, temporal, impersonal being, is by definition
rehabilitated by supramental consciousness because the body becomes the witness
and the vessel for divine energy. In this respect the self (Brahman),which
seemed adequate in the past (and which we place at the centre), has today
become just a means of drawing oneself into the supramental shakti,
which is indescribably fast, and it seeks to sculpt the human body in order to
transform its sensations. Protracted thought is required in order to understand
the supremacy of Mystery 2 over the others and even this is sometimes not
enough. In this case, actual experience will establish this legitimacy
and enable us to begin to attach the spiritual seeker to this divine future
the centre, the self letting information, thoughts from all four
quarters of the cross resurface to allow the division to take place of the four
mysteries which are constantly changing in preponderance, order, proportion and
transcendent balance. Moments of opening cannot be predicted, but it is clear
that seekers who have already gone a long way towards exploring the other three
Mysteries by understanding their relationships can sometimes be swept up, even
if they are not expecting it, by a new vibration which will connect them physically
to the infinite (The Supermind has been working on a physical, cellular plane
since 1956[Mothers Agenda], Institut de recherche évolutive, by year.).
The processes which can impede consciousness of Field 2 are varied and
can easily be combined. A psychological fear of getting lost is generally
underpinned by social and religious values, which try to establish that we have
our heads in the clouds when metaphysical preoccupations surface and
draw the subject towards other concerns beyond moral rules and political and
religious ethics. It is equally clear that that mysterious recognition of Field
2 does not bring the same certainty concerning its results and
advantages. To this extent, exploration can seem so risky that one part of the
self rejects it, be it the vital which does not want to waste its time,
or even the mind, terrified by the idea of losing its supremacy. But it
is just a question of letting higher intuitions develop in the self, which
reveal the extent to which we are attached to the Whole, of overcoming
resistance and finding new satisfaction in the quest for the unknown.
Those who are afraid that they will not know where to go if they
recognize this field, simply state that they refuse to surrender their apparent
autonomy, which they consider to be superior to every other vision or strategy.
Therefore nobody can force anybody to acknowledge the supremacy of Mystery 2
and of everything which it contains. The Earth, therefore, contains types of
evolution which are very different from each other in a very broad framework in
which each individual can try to live in accordance with his own feelings. Our
own and Sri Aurobindos gamble is to state that supramental consciousness is
absolutely necessary and that humanity will be forced to recognize it and to surrender to itto
surrender freely to it. to
continue the impulse of life on Earth. Passing through meditation which leads
to integral inner peace is the most traditional and appropriate path for
preparing the coming of the Supermind. It is therefore the whole paradigm
of the existence which has been transformed in the twentieth century and it
is too early to judge the forms which accompany this transition. On the other
hand, what is certain is that the lateral opposition of Mysteries three and two
is becoming more marked. The greater the number of humans ready to abandon their
beliefs, the more those who want to impose their own law will organize
themselves to govern their territory while trying to increase its surface area.
These conditions are a sign of definite political upheavals, inevitable
economic upheavals and catastrophic ecological upheavals. Nevertheless,
supramental consciousness reveals that history is just an accident of
field, the playing field chosen by the Divine himself and it prevents us from
smugly identifying with subjective or collective tragedies, although unlimited
compassion accompanies the vision of human suffering.
Part Four
THE PRESENT- A PSYCHOLOGICAL MIRROR
1 Meditation and synchronicity
The
term system must be viewed in its objective sense as a collection of
structures converging towards a single end. In this respect, the diagram of the
four Mysteries was preceded by analogous creations which brought renown to
their respective cultures. The
Chinese book of transformationsThe best translation is the recent one by Cyrille Javery,
published by Albin Michel., the famous I-Ching, is also based on the division of
unity into its fundamental component parts and it is well known that anybody
who penetrates this geometrical puzzle ends up being enchanted by its
composition and the relevance of the overall work manifests itself in what is
conventionally termed a reading. Leibnitz would have opposed it. The power of
the I-Ching has been confirmed for millions of years and it can be used both in
practical terms (to make quick decisions) and also in an abstract way, where it
reveals the principles of existence through the Yin/Yang pairing, with each of
the polarities spilling into its opposite at its peak, which can be established
in the reading to adapt to the natural circumstances of events. Through it we
can see a perfectly mathematical system evolving which is symmetrical and
enables the spirit to take shortcuts between questions and answers. The Chinese
would be quite capable of creating pre-processed meditation for practical
purposes.
We
find a similar undertaking in the Kabbalah, which explains Creation through a
catalogue of twenty-two necessary and sufficient letters, each of which can be
considered as an energy, power or principle. Even though these systems are not
comparable in any way, they are both part of the same attempt to represent
Reality without blind spots (as indeed is creating quantum meditation) while
reducing it to its essential principles, so that they can be perceived. This
entails sacrificing the forms which disguise and hide them. An analogy could be
drawn between hexagrams and tarot cards and the Four Mysteries).
The
tarot of initiates in the Middle Ages was perhaps copied from the Kabbalah
itself because it is difficult to attribute the similarity between the number
of major arcana and the 22 Hebrew letters to chance. One cannot overlook
geomancy, which is extraordinary and refers the sixteen essential figures to
the key events of our existence sufficiently closely for the practice
undoubtedly to have existed since time immemorial in regions of the world which
are very remote from each other. The I-Ching is used throughout the world, which
proves that certain creations of the spirit are universal, so to speak, and
this must mean that the principles are the same everywhere, if we grasp their
essence and not the initial forms which they assume. Obviously, for a secular
mind these systems are merely a description of the world and give the
impression of being pictures. However, they are something quite different, i.e.
the description itself is merely the appearance or surface of a sophisticated
symbol generator, capable of immediately arousing new sensations in the mind of
the seeker. The I-Ching is a group of perfectly arranged mirrors, each with
their own shape and different silvering, designed to create a particular
resonance. The major arcana of the tarot, Hebrew letters and geomantic figures
all similarly enable us to respond to their call when curiosity or a reading
allows them to act on us.
Is
it really necessary to enclose reality in a puzzle, under the pretext of
gaining a better understanding of who we are? Good, well-ordered representations
which are in line with the principles of things can enable us to create
models of the fundamental connections which our lives will build with
external energies in which multiplicity threatens us and entanglement
predominates. Knowing exactly where we are is a permanent challenge: we
are manipulated from all sides and surrounded. The subconscious manipulates us,
the gunas manipulateEssay
on the Gita, the divine instructor, Sri Aurobindo, Editions du rocher us, time manipulates
us, other people manipulate us (although not all of them, fortunately) and
culture hypnotizes us. We would be better off looking at things head-on: what
exactly do we depend on and does dependence change according to the times, our
own collusion or implacable fate? Like all the best types of mantic mirror,
meditation answers this question.
Hindu
traditions list the tattva, which are supposed to be the essential
qualities of the human being and form what constitutes us from the sense organs
right up to the subtle realities with which we can identify using our
intelligence, surrender or consecration. Moreover, this culture reduces what is
essential to just three energies inertia, the impulse of life and the clear
light of the mind. These gunas form the basis of the antagonism of
creation, developing through the sattva, and they could be divided
across the four Mysteries to explain their differences better.The rajas would
be regally installed in the fourth field, throwing the gifts of the passions to
the subject; tamas hide in the third field to preserve and possess,
whilst the sattva, which is in love with potential, climbs up to the
first Field and sees things from higher up, but spends its time trying to
decide between its two fellows. The centre and the second Mystery transcend all
three. If these fundamental frameworks for representation are founded on
sensory experiences and not on purely intellectual constructs, then they have
real value. In this case, the eight Chinese trigrams truly represent the modes
of the single Tao which are scattered across time. Hebrew letters should allow
us to contact genuine frequencies; medieval arcana and geomantic figures should
encourage us to understand how we are linked to the whole at any given time if
we know which frequency to tune into or which inner direction to adopt.
Becoming aware of these great abstract inventions and trying to extract what
concerns us in a casual manner, without becoming attached to the idea of
practising them assiduously - which would become superstitious - is excellent
preparation for cardinal meditation.
The
system of the four Mysteries is abstract and concrete, formal and informal
because each individual is invited to explore his experience in relation to
only four directions conforming to the very physiognomy of the space which
defines us. The symbol of the cross is a very ancient one. The horizontal
line represents incarnation and the earth and the vertical line
represents the sky and also the great mysteries of birth and death, i.e.
everything which defies investigation, and possibly also the duties of the
Self vis-a-vis the Whole. We can, therefore, play at reducing the four
zones to two pairings. The yin pairing of Fields two and four is the
left-hand vertical axis on paper in which the non-self penetrates the
self, kneads it and then transforms it. The yang couple, formed by the
by the first and third Fields, is the right-hand vertical line where the self
must work on the outside world, take root and respond to the demands of the
environment, instead of surrendering to it, or else concentrate on itself by
cancelling out the pressures of the outside world. The eruption of the
non-polarized self means that each individual can find a new kind of balance by
developing the less dominant pole. It is not to anybodys advantage to follow
their own inclination either by reinforcing a yin which is already
strong which will make us endure events, or by encouraging a predominant yang
which will become intoxicated with action and initiatives to the detriment of
receptivity, rest and of tolerance of the unforeseen. When you get beyond a
certain degree of imbalance, factual events faithfully reproduce the inner
attitude. Those with excessive yin endure everything at all times and
wander in an unsatisfied manner through changing circumstances, whilst their
spirit becomes diffuse. Excessively yang types plan everything, control
everything with a vengeance and reject any kind of objection to their
tyrannical decision-making, whilst their full schedule becomes their true home.
Like
the ancient Greeks and several Hindu enlightened ones even before that, what we
are creating in this work is a framework within which the intelligence will
operate in full knowledge of what it is taking part in, in order to bring the
parameters into proportion in the renewed spontaneity of each
meditation, after having established their measurements. The infinite nature of
the non-self is worthy of a whole spectrum of representations, a few paintings,
a range of mirrors, all of which would form one of those topographic maps which
enable us to reflect those pieces and materials which interest us. All models
of spiritual doctrines respond to this need to name a few reference points
which will take the place of torches for those who wish to light up the
darkness of their ignorance, but which will be redundant when the day of knowledge
dawns. It is all very well for teachers to emphasize that teaching is
provisional, a mere bridge, but the mind becomes attached to it and turns it to
its advantage so that a bland interpretation replaces words of fire. We end up
by sketching rough maps in order to avoid setting off.
The
intellect, which travels through thought with solar aspiration, cannot be
suppressed on the pretext that feeling and intuition alone would be sufficient
to bring about divine awakening, or at least not without taking major<René Guénon, once again risks. Surrendering deep
intellectual rigour in the so-called spiritual path always leads to the same
imitations: superficial and smug devotion is mistaken for universal love and
envelops the third Mystery with naive, pastel-hued projections, whereas consciousness
in Field 1 remains weak. Or alternatively, following the rules as prescribed
will create an attachment to the letter rather than the spirit and spiritual
acts therefore remain rigid and narrow. The fourth Field does not open for good
onto the shining present and the subjects self-image rules the ecological
field like a tyrannical Freudian superego. Alternatively, incessantly
interpreting canons, sutras and the words of a guru produces idealistic
individuals who are unable to leave behind the mind which they cherish and
which constantly hones their interpretation of the present through subjective
discourse, without being able to stop, thus transforming the fourth Mystery
into their private property.
Even
if they seem conventional (because the map is not the territory), referents,
guide the spirit towards the depths if we make them simple trail markers,
nothing more or nothing less, and thus encourage the intelligence to measure
itself against its own creations, whilst the permanent self becomes more
concentrated. Despite everything which we might hold against the mind, it is
an infinitely supple and flexible fluid which wants nothing more than to
permanently reshape the forms which it creates from ordinary thoughts into
ideas and from ideas into the paradigms which organize them to obtain certain
results. However, this power seems to be strangely overlooked and awakened ones
must stress it constantly to reveal its power to people who cannot discover it
because they attach themselves to a very weak range of projections, without
realizing all the other options at their disposal (unless the route to the
centre appears through meditation). Admittedly, these other possibilities
require a suspension of our desire to act and a love of research which
is independent of the results anticipated - a spiritual attitude which has been
lost in our society of commercialism and complicated number crunching, obsessed
by the fear of waste, i.e. wasting time.
Even
teachers who stubbornly denounce the mind retain a few representations of
Reality as sort of intellectual reference points on the one hand and as tools
for communication on the other. Although Intelligence is sufficiently
mysterious to defy definition and so fast that we can only grasp its wake, we
have absolute trust in it because it is the higher principal of the mind and we
only dispose of thought, without harming its source - the illuminating power of
the Intellect, or Self - through intuition and often also through reasoning and
of course through a combination of the two which is the prerogative of the
sacred arts of divination and to an extent of meditation, in which
introspection raises obscure content up towards the bright light. The art of
thinking via conducive objects (symbols) has always been practised, like a sort
of algebra of ideas, and myths reveal truths through the power of their images
which would be more difficult to obtain without the disguise of
personification. Traditional symbolic arts can be explored afresh, stripped of
prejudice and this can only contribute to our understanding of the diagram of
mysteries.
We
are setting aside for the time being everything to do with prediction,
and concentrating on the links described between the subject and the
vast non-self, which comprises everything which is external to the subject, in
the same way as we embark on a meditation without knowing what will happen. We
do not sacrifice our freedom on the presupposition that what should happen to
us is already determined somewhere and will be revealed to us by some trick or
other. The ordinary mind drags down the philosophical treasures contained in
the fairly large number of divinatory arts of initiates, most of which have
been lost. What is of interests above all, therefore, is the overall structure,
rather than discovering what purpose it can serve and the different ways of
using it. If we accept the theory that these systems can sometimes pre-empt
real events, then this must be because all parent situations are part of their matter,
as matrices with which we can be faced. Our aim is to understand the
distribution of these matrices and to accept their quantity and power, i.e. at
the end of the day to accept that our lives contain highs and lows signified
by symbols, by force of circumstance, because Reality does not have to submit
to our own will. We will draw on the work of ancient writers by exploring the
pieces of the holistic puzzle which they constructed more deeply and we will be
surprised to see that events selected to form a directory of accidents and
opportunities are analogous everywhere and all describe the better approach
which the person seeking a reading must adopt towards them.
It
is possible to have an extraordinary encounter at any time, through the death
of a loved one, receiving unexpected help, the sudden loss of professional or
other support, the consolidation of a friendship, or the growth of a dislike,
the manifestation of a radical realization, the intuition of an important
change, an accident, or an illness which attacks the physical body. There is
permanent potential for changes of direction and since they tear the
homogeneous fabric which binds the self to the non-self through
identification, then the whole of our existence is in fact affected by the
changes of direction represented by new opportunities and unforeseen
challenges, which is something that few people understand. If everything is
coherent, then small, apparently harmless, existential changes can have
repercussions on other domains The butterfly effect in meteorology which currently prevents us from
making relatively accurate forecasts more than three days through their own
channels, and this often escapes us. There are beginnings, middles and ends in
all areas and activities and it is difficult to establish the favourable moment
to begin and end any approach. It is likely that many events which do
not depend on us (and which it is therefore as difficult to produce as to
avoid) can surface in the here and now, calling for a specific and often
completely new type of adjustment. Matrices are therefore particularly
intense moments in which the self is connected to the non-self in an unusual
way (these are the objects represented in the tarot). This implies that all
sorts of answers are possible because it is impossible to retain ones normal
stability when confronted by them and a certain degree of transcendence is
required. The everyday self can in fact be faced with certain events which it
does not expect without coming to harm, provided they remain within the limits
of our emotional tolerance. Beyond this point, turbulence causes damage, even
going so far as destroying self-image, transforming the image of the world, or
overturning the way in which we use time and desire (4), revealing other
aspects of the self with unconscious dross on the one hand and undreamed of
resources on the other. Those who are weak and believers take advantage of a
death which affects them to cancel out God. Strong people, possibly even
atheists or materialists, go through extraordinary suffering to discover an
intense spiritual life.
Oracles
are only really useful in the event of difficulties, because they suggest which
type of (self/non-self) relationship is in place at the time of the reading.
When everything appears to be normal, the idea of relying on a compass simply
does not arise. But when we are disoriented, or in danger of it, the mantic
mirror can offer a database to provide direction and, for our part, we
prefer this careful approach which might seem timid, to the absolute arrogance
of the modern West which has no doubts at all and destroys the Earth with a
clear conscience, intoxicated by action and bereft of intelligence. Matrices
leave an imprint in the psyche. Intense, extraordinary events call for more
consciousness and vigilance by definition and numerous forms of resistance
manifest themselves in this very impulse to decry the loss of the usual path
and to offer phony answers originating from the subconscious. Extraordinary
situations call for deep resources which meditation reveals of its own
accord and prepares us to face harrowing difficulties if need be. A supple
spirit is capable of looking for new ways out in the impersonal reservoirs of
identity behind the biological subject and his experience in which the ordinary
personality does not know where to go. In a certain light, quantum meditation
can act as a form of divination and it is a sort of remnant of the virgin
spirit of the moment itself which draws certain cards from the unconscious by
trawling the Mysteries for valuable information on the present and provisional
form of the relationship between the self and the non-self.
Freud
has already revealed the power of certain obscure matrices, because he
establishes that particularly difficult moments leave information in the
psyche, an imprint which can interfere with the present or even permanently
cause wariness of objects analogous to what provoked the traumatic event. This
has been confirmed in the United States by Vietnam war veterans, who all
presented sometimes different symptoms of the same syndrome, as if the worst
moments had permanently embedded themselves in the psyche to undermine the
present.
However,
there is no reason to suppose that things are any different for gratifying and
luminous matrices. What is favourable is described differently depending on the
system, but the issue is always establishing relationships between the self and
the non-self, so that the self is so satisfied with what happens to it that it
recognizes its true origin in the Whole its real mother and father. (We
always come back to opening up 3 to the other Mysteries). In astrology, Jupiter
only appears in ninth place out of the twelve or so which make up the whole
and he consecrates the self in the Whole after having confronted himself
and others. Jupiter is favourable, he establishes human beings as children of
heaven who do not need to be wary of the environment and can rejoice
unconditionally in their birth. This implies, of course, that the subject will
learn to stand back from his dissatisfactions, tolerate them then accept them
and eventually become responsible for reducing them by submitting to the true order
of things. He will then be helped. He will feel gratitude, even in the midst of
problems. Instead of resisting Reality under the pretext that it doesnt suit
him, he will embrace it, put up with the delay and recognize it as his master,
or even as his Lord, and life will establish itself beyond whims and marvellous
expectations, away from childish fears and higher denials. The great Jupiter
moments which reveal a sort of precise interlocking between the self and the
non-self with a blossoming which transcends the satisfactions of the ego can
also leave positive traces and increase memory of the triumph of life in the
individual brain, while freeing intelligence from some of its prejudices and
narrow rationalism. Similarly, the star in the Tarot, for example,
signifies an ephemeral junction with totality, which is wholly beneficial
and totally unforeseen and there is reason to suppose that magnificent
experiences, even if they do not last, leave a few living imprints of what they
produce, information which can survive if nostalgia is not too strong once the
experience has passed, by dissolving the self into the miraculous memory and
then supporting it subsequently, whatever happens.
Of
course, the two geomantic cards of greater and lesser fortune (an omen in which
we need to give opportunity a helping hand) must have their dark equivalent and
this is precisely the opportunity we need to understand what gives the
Manifestation its status and the fourth Field its supremacy in the world of the
non-self. Although principles are immutable, duration distributes them in
positive or negative forms whose poles are equivalent in a way that escapes us
and these poles are tamed by the qualities advanced by Eastern doctrines:
detachment, equality, sacrifice of the ego and surrender to the Divine. We are
no more the masters of everything which happens to us than we are slaves to
events. Hence the advice of Epictetes: avoid worrying about things which do not
depend on you. Reading between the lines this means: find out what really does
concern you. Sift through things. This is esoteric and is the opposite of the
vague, intense identification between the self and its environment as
experienced by ordinary human beings, or in our jargon prisoners of Mystery 3
and of the appeal of Mystery 4, in which the present moment and desire mingle.
However sifting implies something higher up, possessing criteria for making a
choice.
In the same way that the divinatory arts enable us to draw information
from ourselves while being guided, meditation suspends ordinary, mechanical
time, repeals the normal movement of time, which ceases to flow, and becomes
the mirror of what one really is. The more the self manifests itself, the more
faithful the mirror becomes, the more luminous its silvering and the smoother
its surface.
Difficult
archetypal matrices mix up the areas of influence of our three brains. Anger or
control, resentment or letting go, the desire to pull through or resignation.
And what about when an event generates an intolerable emotion ... And positive
emotions too: success easily flatters our vanity and arrogance, successful
passions can reinforce our lust for an object through a few processes in the
depths of our brain which escape us and in which chemistry plays the main role.
In short, the choices made by the present are not innocuous in
the whole of the person and it sometimes assumes the role of master. It deals
the cards shamelessly, imposes pain and accidents on us, social decline or
sometimes a hurtful rejection perpetrated by another person, by somebody very
close to us. It bewitches us with unsubtle love at first sight, just as it
sometimes lets us experience total and complete ecstasy, mocking us in a sense,
by merely subjecting us to a magnificent sunset or piece of music, or the veil
might even tear inappropriately when we are doing the shopping!
We are connected whether we like it or not.
2 The holistic paradigm
Certain
people strive to prevent the present from manipulating us by comprehensive
control. In order to escape the reactions inflicted by the non-gratifying,
they need ever more power, mastery and authority over others, fuller schedules
and individual freedom. However, they cannot prevent the death of their loved
ones, nor protect themselves form serious somatization in the event of a severe
humiliation which will mock their mastery, because the subconscious will
interpret the shock to suit itself and make a fuss about it. The
opposite attitude works on the principle that the non-self is supreme and that
it is up to us to adapt to what happens, whatever our plans and skill. In this
vision the subject never approaches an apparently harmful event with an air of
detachment, as if he didnt deserve it. He suffers, admittedly, but accepts
that this is what changes everything. This philosophy can easily develop and
produce marvellous results: few events take on a heterogeneous quality, most of
them are absorbed in the fullness of the self which detaches itself from
approbation, from the authority to be imposed or to be followed, thus gaining
inner peace which resists the workings of the fabric of relationships and the
onslaughts of destiny. The nervous system is not always active and clashes no
longer disturb it, but merely evoke reasoned responses.
The
list of great event matrices is not endless (64 for the I-Ching). There is no
reason to suppose that all events even if they appear to be unique on the
outside trigger unpredictable reactions. Just as there are archetypes for
situations, there are archetypes for humours excited by eventsDr
Bachs flower remedies provide a good list of emotional reactions.. What is gratifying has nuances,
but overall, it seems to be beneficial. The non-gratifying can be provoked by
all sorts of factors, but what it triggers internally can be summarized very
succinctly. Anger, resentment, denial, complaints, the sense of being a victim,
rebellion, unease, loss of the will to live, guilt and total carelessness. Even
by doubling or tripling the list as a specialist might do to make it more
nuanced, a unifying factor stands out from the background the need for recovery.
Obstacles are the bulwark of the process of adapting.
This
means that the mind is not supreme and that the emotional part of our
being is responsible for dealing with our relationship with the non-self as a
whole, with criteria which may elude us, or which do not correspond to our
beliefs and sometimes to our values. We are therefore confronted with two
different types of interpretation of what happens to us (or simultaneous ones
if we are very vigilant). If happiness and blossoming consist of making the two
interpretations overlap, then life takes responsibility for countering this
with all sorts of powerful stratagems. Desire can be confused with love, but
this is not always the case, or it does not last. What we accomplish sometimes
flows from what we are, but we often have to act without being in full harmony
with ourselves, for example in our careers and families. A permanent threat is
posed by the discrepancy between the best part of us which is fully connected
with the Whole and the parts of our selves struggling with all sorts of
obstacles which emphasize the lack of harmony between the willing and conscious
machine and Field 3 which processes information according to the subconscious
territorial law as soon as a cloud appears in the loving union which connects
us to the Whole. Feeling is not a joke, or simply an attribute of childhood
from which we must free ourselves, as was believed by the confirmed nineteenth
century bourgeois, who took their rejection so far that they enabled
Freud to develop psychoanalysis: they couldnt sweep the dust under the carpet
any more, it was overflowing Freud
to Romain Rolland (1930): I am now trying to penetrate the Hindu jungle from
which a mixture of Greek love of measure, Jewish moderation and philistine
anxiety had kept me away until now. I should have ventured there earlier ...
But it is not easy to go beyond ones limitations. Cited by Raymond de Becker
in La vie tragique de Freud [The tragic Life of Freud].. It is dangerous to
repress feelings and if listening to them can be painful, it is also the
sovereign path to knowledge, because the contingent self, the subject of the
third field, is continually referred back to his central identity, the self of
the first field, and directed towards observing circumstances in the present.
The individual can thus steer a harmonious course which coincides with his
aspirations at the cost of permanent transformations (which become a habit)
without trying to make personal preferences and attachments prevail, as if the
environment, relationships and the future had to surrender.
We
can also turn the problem on its head, make a list of emotions, consider that
they belong to the subject then seek out the range of events which can
trigger them. This psychological grammar is the starting point of modern
psychology, whereas the sacred divinatory arts do the opposite and operate from
the grid of special events. But whether we believe psychological content
(usually emotions) stems from extreme events which actualize it or whether we
list compulsions and ephemeral enthusiasms without taking into account what
triggers them, comes down to the same thing. The self in field three is
extremely vulnerable to otherness. Having forgotten its principles, modern
culture has started from scratch empirically and according to Freud, Jung and
many others, contemporary Western culture collects testimony of negative
psychic imprints which can then simply be matched up with certain symbols in
the divinatory arts. Contrary to rationalist beliefs, it is not fear, but caution
and even a concern for the truth which have enabled us to create these
wonderful systems which reproduce the whole in a relatively simple miniature
puzzle, which in a sense already contained psychology: certain tarot cards
describe events which are likely to arouse fear, others desire, specific
dangers, hidden obstacles, changes which are required as a matter of urgency,
consolidation, or a leap into the unknown. This approach can be transposed into
history which turns up more than its fair share of bad cards: we can refute the
persistent influence of fate in civilizations, the considerable number of
misfortunes caused by errors and mistakes, lies and trickery, and in the final
analysis, our inability to predict and to prevent both what is harmful and
also chaos from manifesting themselves.
Violence
is an accident which can be avoided. Krishnamurti and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
devoted their lives to providing tools to dissolve the compulsions inherent in
individuals possessed by Field 3, anxious to preserve their territory, at
whatever cost, overcoming the permanent moral self on issues which arouse
fear. In both examples the process by which intelligence returns to the roots
of its own power to create thoughts is invoked and encouraged, without out help
in the first case and based on specific practice in the other. This is what we
are demonstrating by placing the self at the centre of the Mysteries and
it is responsible for arbitrating in disagreements arising from the cross and
for balancing ecological tensions and moral imperatives and absorbing
conflicts, whilst always keeping the main priority of the self as its aim
global harmony with the Whole. It may sometimes demand that we suffer a little
in material terms, that we shed a few illusions where feelings are concerned
and that we finally accept that attachments and fossil-like crystallizations
are barriers to the free movement of intelligence and that beliefs are
carbuncles on the face of God.
In
humble recognition of supreme totality, the highest form of intelligence can
wander along the path of its own origins in order to avoid making the same
mistakes and who knows, maybe even avoiding new ones. The most brilliant
spirits who are the keenest to improve the human lot have analyzed possible
lists of essential principles. This concern is found everywhere at the end of
the day in religious and occult structures in cyclical societies and in
philosophical and spiritual doctrines in civilizations with a written
tradition. Why should the mind not take extreme pleasure from discovering
things on which it can only depend, given that it becomes aware in this way in
which the self and the non-self are interwoven? This is the pact on which the
divinatory arts are based: life does not obey us, reversals of fortune exist
(which we can turn to good account) and that all events possess a secret,
timely meaning, if we know how to use the bad as well as the good. Intelligence
is indeed operative and chaos is only provisional for it is a transitional
state, as it were, like an illness which is deemed to restore health, a
paradoxical phase of health. We will thus be able to acknowledge the real locus
of our own freedom, while seeking all the while the means to break down the
boundaries of its territory once it has come up against constraints which seem
immutable. (However which limitations are ever immutable?)
3. The revelatory unforeseen
Everybody hits a
wall sometimes - their own wall.
It is that
situation which makes somebody lose it, which triggers violence, gives rise
to constant brooding and causes them to give up. The walls within which our
freedom patrols are known to the divinatory arts, psychology lists them,
astrology describes them and meditation transcends them. Spiritual knowledge
therefore appears in the light of an extension of the field of consciousness
and as this process is not visible from the outside, spiritualized beings,
whose visions infinitely transgress ordinary perception and the conventional
fields of the mind, can easily pass for ordinary people. We also believe that
they are only expressing opinions when they describe the vastness of the
spiritual realm, the forbidden thresholds which they have crossed and the
quality of their experiences and this error significantly reduces the impact
of their testimony. People endowed with higher vision would even be forced to
conceal it in certain eras, for fear of reprisals. There is even a theory that
tries to establish that the tarot is a kind of Christian Kabbalah in which
initiates from the North revealed their wisdom by adapting and scaling down the
Eastern deck, whilst concealing it behind the strategy of personification.
Unless a human
being can envisage the possibility of higher benefit in exchange for the loss
of tribal and subjective illusions, then why would he surrender to the unknown,
or bend the knee before a divine, invisible, elusive and supreme authority? Lao
Tzu answers this question by saying that what is bland has flavour, that the
invisible can be viewed differently, that the intangible is concrete, and he
discreetly directs us to recognize liberating vastness and to surrender to it
unconditionally. Contrary to a widely held belief, the existential mystery is
reassuring if it is experienced as an absolute and benevolent presence, in its
limitless and irreducible extent. It is then completely irrelevant that it
eludes our intellectual grasp and that all our arguments are shattered by its
supreme silence: inexplicability (or even what has no cause, or the unborn of
Buddha) is not an obstacle to a full and complete relationship with the whole.
Sri Aurobindo states that the spiritual path brings so much satisfaction that
if human beings could imagine it, then they would not hesitate to take up Yoga.
It would seem
that parent events, by their truly excessive nature, can open up
breaches in the natural mechanisms of the spirit, symmetrical cracks leading
simultaneously to resurgence of subconscious behaviour and to solar,
detached realizations, beyond the ecological territory, which immediately
gives them an evolutionary impact if the paradigm of permanent transformation
is accepted as being the key to becoming. Hell is the counterpart of
enlightenment and matrices compete with each other to drive the subject into a
corner, from fleeting ecstasy to endless crisis, and then the self finally
awakens, tired of being jostled by what it cannot understand and is ready at
last to see the fourth field not as its servant but as its overlord. The vision
of the open present changes our view of existence and the closed
present, the systematic extension of the past, dies. The follower begins to
look for what can absorb his will in a wider radius and can either thwart it or
encourage it. What happens to us forces us to take a stance and this is
where we find all sorts of unforeseen impulses arising in us, as an
exceptional event forces us to climb out of the rut of our mental processes.
Long before psychology, some people were already interested in the effects of
events on the psyche and had compiled a list of essential situations, with the
natural aim of making them all favourable, whether they be so or not in their
physical circumstances (appearance). Obviously, there is no point in predicting
disaster unless the aim is to avoid it... or to limit the damage.
One way of
reading the facts enables you to see a chain of events forming and to deduce
its consequences. However, in order to do this you have to know how to
interpret signs and collect convergent information, until the whole picture can
enable you to establish the likely probabilities. In this respect we might as
well create the signs ourselves if we can, in order to distribute them in a representative
harmony which is in accordance with the principles, as Guénon would say. There
is no reason to say that the facts are easy if they are difficult or vice
versa. The notion that divination does not cheat is another saying which is
contrary to Reality. It opens itself up to the power of the present moment and
establishes that not all moments are equal. This has been confirmed by
astrology for thousands of years. (The rotation of the moon creates
dispositions, humour and different potentialities, according to which segment
it occupies). Divination, therefore, has to find a system where what is
obviously favourable and what is obviously unfavourable are balanced, now that
they have been recognized as immutable agents, produced by the simple process of
time unfolding. All that is required is to reinforce the favourable if it fails
and to cancel the unfavourable out insofar as possible, by limiting its
manifestation or by attacking its side-on, while identifying its causes.
Nothing could be
easier in the history of divination, if one agrees that everything which lies
to the right is favourable and everything which lies to the left is
unfavourable - an empirical deduction which is unanimous everywhere through a
sort of serial coincidence which may well stem from the direction of the
earths rotation... But other more serious conventions reveal themselves with
regards odd and even numbers and the correspondence between colours and
situations and over the centuries systems are devised, purified and distilled,
approximations are corrected and only the signs which have proved their worth
are retained. Gradually, objects which could have taken the place of factors
for presages have evolved from concrete to abstract. This leads right up to
complete encounters between the fruits of observation and intellectual genius,
with observation serving reason, and reason arranging itself in spirals and
tree diagrams to spread complementary forms or signs around a single hub which
absorbs them all. Signs become more numerous and converge on the centre,
starting from the basis of the probable future points which surround it and
distribute what is favourable and unfavourable by listing its essential forms.
However the present, as always, presides at the centre. The present is surrounded,
as it were by a crowd of rival futures. We simply need to make the hexagram
wheel, or to place the major arcana in a circle and we can understand
straightaway. What can happen has a very clearly defined set of
characteristics - something is bound to happen, just as the ball in the
roulette wheel is bound to land on a number. The present can be considered to
be informal in its essence (Tao), but it assumes forms day and night, difficult
and easy, favourable and unfavourable, because we are incarnate in the present
moment, different from what came before and what will come after, rooted in
matter and responsible for an environment.
4. The identity of the centre and the present
The central
point - the present will see file past it in random order every hexagram,
arcana or geomantic figure. Intelligence is triumphant because it can frame
elusive duration in the permanence of several inexhaustible models which give
access to reality, circumstances and the connection between the self and the
non-self. Time doubtless has some primary forms which enable us to dream that
there is some sort of analogy between the triangle and the beginning, between
the square and the accomplishment and between the circle and the end. Who knows
if we will one day discover the type of thing heralded by poets: reading nature
(and indeed all circumstances) like an open book so that we can draw what has
meaning from it immediately - what connects the eye to the object, the spirit
to what it grasps and the self to the undivided non-self. (This is because it
is invisible and string theory which is evolving does not aim to divide up
Reality. What can be heterogeneous in a galaxy of galaxies?)
Birds of omen
have been replaced by symbols which are human inventions, but the
principle remains the same signs can speak. We just have to establish a
framework and to lay down a few rules when reading, then symbols begin to talk
freely. They cast light on the present, express the highest probabilities and
because they confront us with them, we can intervene to reduce them if they are
unfavourable, or to increase them if they are already of use to us. The idea of
manipulating time itself is therefore a very old one. Preventing the bad seed
from growing and identifying and watering the good seed is what the Chinese
were trying to do with their burnt tortoise shells, long before Fo-Hi had the
idea of referring everything back to a solid and a dotted line in order to
represent everything.
The issue lies
in identifying these famous seeds. This is where the law of analogies comes
into play, along with synchronicity, which anchors it to the concrete world. If
everything is coherent and we draw an element from a truly holistic puzzle,
then this element is bound to correspond to what is happening. This is what
happens. This has the force of law. It is impossible to draw tarot cards which
do not concern us, or an I-Ching which is quirky, although we have to know how
to connect the oracle to our current feelings. What comes up is actual and
all the rest remains virtual it is as simple as that. The quality of
divination depends on the accuracy of the general representation of Reality in
its fundamental characteristics and it would seem that from this point of view
the I-Ching has the edge over other systems. It is the most mathematical, the
most devoid of subjective projections and today we would say that it is the
most scientific. Grasping virtualities on the point of manifesting themselves
in order to influence their course is also the concern of philosophy, which
imagines the different modes of time which we still have to experience, and
describes higher qualities such as Beauty, Justice and Truth, for example,
which we do not yet possess in order to encourage us to discover them, and it
also invents political models. If we push the analysis further, the whole of
Marxism based itself on a sort of prediction of the inevitable failure of
capitalism in order to impose its will.
5. The founding myth of illusion: the future
We are more
worried about the future than we would like to admit and we sometimes try to
make the present depend on the future and whether this is right or wrong is a
very thorny issue. Some people believe that it exists within us, a long way
ahead, but that we can draw it as far as the point of now. The others,
who are far scarcer, are generally awakened ones, teachers and wise men who
know its secret. This is the secret which we have to see, because it cannot be
thought of and which has to be experienced because it cannot be imagined.
The future... is just the present which has not taken place yet.
This is how the
Supermind presents it to us and we refuse to believe in the future. When we
see the extent to which the present can be muddled, rich, unexpected,
intertwined, contrasting and contradictory and the extent to which the now
is full of surprises, meanderings, marching on the spot, jolts and mood swings,
not to mention traps, then we must apply this system of the future because it
is the present in waiting. Nothing more, nothing less. This is what we must
return to when practising meditation. We must love duration to the point where
it becomes supreme. Each moment must be full of something, anything, but it
must teach, nourish or relax us. Time is pure and pared down. Time is connected.
The future has
much less substance than the past, which leaves a memory trace, but by
definition we can expect of it what is lacking in the past, without any
certainty of filling the void. Personally, if the best fortune teller in the
world predicted a future which did not suit me, then I would try to intervene
in it, using the Supermind to change it. There is no need whatsoever to
submit to fate. This is also the aim of meditation, because fate is nothing
more than a series of rough edges in motion, on which the inflexible spirit
cannot get a grip, heterogeneous psychological rough edges which mechanically
trigger their own harmful consequences. The open, agile, connected spirit goes
astray less often, changes direction in time and falls into fewer traps,
or pulls itself out of them better. It is cleverer to learn how to break ones
fall than to dream of being infallible. In any case, the territory of life is
very different from the map of happiness which we are pursuing in the wake of
our ancestors. At the risk of repeating myself it is more useful to know how
to fall than to try to avoid a fall or a stumble. Life is not all smooth, but
is a universe with different surfaces amidst various slopes, some of them
slippery, others thorny or too steep. Life offers paths hindered by junctions
which are both seductive but are also bounded by precipices hidden in the mist,
and learning how to find ones way back to oneself, wherever you might
go, and to abolish the directions of the solar self centre whatever the
event or path followed is an art and a science.
6. Freeing oneself from the past
Given that all
eras seem to create their own method for interpreting Reality, with their own
particular guiding principles, it becomes obvious that mental exertion is false
per se if it strays too far from the present, or rather that it is so dependent
on ambient conditions that we cannot trust it beyond its immediate
functioning. In this respect, science and philosophy react to contingent
ignorance rather than provide a basis for knowledge, just as our opinions
merely oppose other opinions, without being based on total, non-mental and
immutable feeling. Otherwise certain knowledge would have become definitive a
long time ago, or our personal ideas would have destined us for happiness, but
happiness runs out if we are not attentive. This never happens: speed carries
us along, we let go of crystallizations as soon as they become fossils, i.e.
very quickly and we renew mental structures, our approach to relationships and
our vision of the world, and also recognize fluctuations in our image of
ourselves, which we nurture and which is exposed to major forms of
turbulence. The chaos of external time catches up with those who live in a
closed inner order and grinds them, and thus meditation can be a practice
designed to extract us from the unforeseen turns taken by history in
order to confront it with a cosmic approach. The more Field 3 is transformed,
the less dependent we are on place, possessions, ties and contingent roots.
Victims of their own narrowness, closed egos imagine that they are the prey
whereas they have in fact all they have done is to think that they could live
without attention, care and depth, with the pride of the buried self which
views any reappraisal as an admission of weakness and which does not see danger
coming.
We must love
without barricading ourselves in our predilections, because today is sovereign.
Plato does not stand the test of history. Newton had to bow to Einstein who
corrected rather than contradicted, and we have now gone way beyond that
long-haired Jewish thinker who famously stuck his tongue out, against a
backdrop of strings, bosons, quarks, gluons and weightless neutrinos, whereas
the big bang is rather too naive a theory to have much mileage left in it
before it falls victim to the brickbats of outraged student geniuses. Even in
religious matters, Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism can no longer claim
supremacy, even at a local level, since the Supermind has brought a new
dimension to human potential (although this does not detract from what they
have each brought in their own way). Guatama (Buddha) was fed up with
contemporary devotion and preached lightening, Christ saw in the law of an eye
for an eye the senseless perpetuation of clan and territorial law, and preached
a message of love. Priestly Hinduism exhausted itself trying to maintain a
vision of knowledge which is accessible during our lifetime, as opposed to the
salvation of the soul bought on credit (at a derisory rate) by perpetuating
rites spread by dint of moral threats from smug sectarians. Freudianism was
prolonged in constructs which almost seem to reject it by Jung, Adler, Rank,
Maslow, Rogers, Laing, Grof, Assagioli, Dolto, Erickson, right through to
Watzlawick, who would seem to have been secretly taught by a Zen patriarch or
to have picnicked with Alan Watts amongst the sequoias. However, in all these
circles which were labelling psychology, the same concern for intelligence has
been thrown to the winds in order to approach the issue of the elevator between
the conscious and the subconscious, as avatars were already doing with fear and
desire, guilt and self-surrender, bearing a grudge and forgiveness. Each phase
is necessary and wrongly appropriates an amount of absolute which can only be
contradicted in the next phase. When using the mind it is enough not to expect
the impossible, but we must also make it to yield what is urgent, so
that the actual moment can create immediate interpretations. If
everything is coherent and the past unravels and the future is anticipated,
then these are all that is necessary. (When we consult the I-Ching or the tarot
deck, we must choose the present moment which does not offer its own
interpretation and which requires a helping hand).
Present meanings are there. The
fact that they have no long-term impact proves that the future does not exist,
otherwise we would eventually have unearthed it since we have been searching
for it for such a long time. It has never conformed at any time with individual
or collective expectations. Aristocrats did not expect the storming of the
Bastille and the revolutionaries were taken aback as they were not expecting
the rule of the Terror (as school textbooks call it) so soon. Everything
is created and dismantled in an instant and any prediction which claims to be
accurate is a wound inflicted on the sovereignty of the present. Heraclitus was
totally right whatever the spirit grasps, it is true at the very moment at
which it is grasped, in pure connectivity, in the actual instant.
Sooner or later on conditions will have changed and the water from the same
stream will be different, so it is therefore no longer the same stream.
Separating truths derived by mental effort in whatever field from their context
is a process which yields unreliable results. Plato will always be more
meaningful to his own times than to us today, just as Marx cast a spell on the
intelligentsia of a certain era, before being consigned to oblivion. Philosophy
cannot, therefore, be separated from history unless we want to assassinate and
turn it into a dead form. If we apply this principle to religions we have to
admit that one follows on from another, that they reflect their era and that at
the end of the day they are all large-scale reforms of the one, universal
religion of which the Rishis were aware and which continues today over and
above any one specific form.
If we separate
the mind from the actual moment of its workings, then we grant it sovereignty
which it only possesses in a very small number of purely timeless areas,
such as mathematics and the esotericism of the principles i.e. whatever
enumerates and defines absolute invariants, free from temporal and physicalRené
Guénon is the champion of all categories of invariants, which he has
discovered, listed and defended in all the cultures which he has explored. His
work is homogeneous when viewed in this light.
corruption. (The binary alphabet of the I-Ching, which is in line with that
used in computing, seems to have a rosy future). When grasping a specific
moment fully and totally, the intelligence is functioning at full capacity,
taking all the materials at its disposal into account, and from this point of
view, deep thought without emotion and meditation are the only accurate
processes, leading the intelligence to the locus of the moment itself, without
concealing the presence of the physical body which enables total alignment and
must participate without any rupture between the flights of our spirit and the
integration of the subject in the moment itself. Because the spirit knows how
to make duration virtual, it tries endlessly to project into the future or to
return to the past when the present hides and it does so constantly, because it
refers us to our dreams and hopes, and to our failures and memories. Embedding
the mind in the present is a legitimate aim, which numerous psychological
aggregates spread across the first three mysteries reject.
A truth can fade, as it were, as happens constantly in scientific and medical fields
and in the social sciences, where we still do not know how an anthropologist
can see anything other than what suits him in a society which is fundamentally
alien to him, as works accumulate based on the same folklore without exhausting
the potential connections between psychology and culture. Everything is just
perspectives, information and contracts in the present moment. It may appear to
be a caricature, but it is not entirely false that we can only understand an
authors aim if we are his contemporary and affiliated to the same culture and
present at the very moment he expresses it. Being present at one of Socrates
improvisations or at a lecture by Plato is worth twenty years of complex study.
Under the portico of his academy one can live and breathe the need for this new
vision to take wing, in its very own setting with the scent of the sea in ones
nostrils, but you need to be able to travel backwards in time and read ancient
Greek. At the Sorbonne, Plato is just one set of signs framed by titles out of
so many equally similar or totally different signs: Aristotle, Pythagoras,
Protagoras.... studying them is a form of necrophilia or a naive illusion!
7. The supremacy of the present moment
Practising
meditation releases its true nature, which cannot be understood from the
outside any more than we can taste a grilled lobster by glancing at a menu.
Words are deceptive. The same signifier can change meaning from one
moment to the next. The word death, for example, seems harmless, but when you
utter it in connection with the death of a person close to you, it will have a
different resonance. Only the content is alive. The moment is real and its wake
is dead and nobody knows what it will think in three minutes time. It is
therefore natural to be surprised by our own thoughts: one thought can
form in 3, another in 4 and another in 1 or even 2 for the same situation, or
their outcome can even be quirky. It is quantum in a sense: in the face
of danger, thought in 3 stemming from the body advocates violence and
defensiveness, thought in 4 concentrates itself and waits for the adversarys
flaw with all its sense on the alert, thought in 1 steps back from emotion and
prevaricates, and thought in 2 eventually surrenders. This example is helpful
for practising the four Mysteries to demonstrate that our three brains work
simultaneously and that, depending on the circumstances, one or other will
naturally try to take control or, to put it another way, each guna offers
its services. DanielGoleman, Emotional Intelligencethe author of a wonderful book, Emotional Intelligence,
quotes the example of a father who shot his fourteen year-old daughter in the
back of the head in her own room. She had wanted to give her parents a fright
and had claimed to have gone out... Who fired the gun? It was not the father of
Field 1, but the overwhelmed animal of Field 3.
In his excellent
work Quantum Healing (which is a parallel form of preparation to
practising the four Mysteries), Deepak ChopraQuantum
Healing recalls the well-known legend of
the snake and the rope. A man frightened his entire village at nightfall by
claiming that a cobra was guarding the entrance to it. It was only a coil of
rope. The spirit does not tolerate every situation with the same elegance or
objectivity. Fear which is available on the one hand (3) and desire on the
other (4) both wait in a state of quantum uncertainty until opposing
circumstances favourable to embellishing dramas occur. Conflicting opinions can
suddenly come between friends and thwarted hope which becomes emotional
disappointment contaminates the self, which will then take steps. A pleasant
surprise can boost neurotransmitters and produce a specific chemistry
which enhances the moment or strips it of projections. I am convinced that
nobody can adopt values unless he has discovered them for himself and true
values stem from the centre - the self - and not from allegiance or imitation,
i.e. from any kind of influence. Pseudo vegetarians take advantage of the
Easter family lunch to stuff themselves with roast lamb, until they feel guilty
but replete and pseudo Christians are unable to love their enemy (death to the
infidel!). Obedient ascetics wait for higher love, without admitting it to
themselves, and rationalist atheists wait for God to appear round the corner in
spite of themselves, greedy for proof of his existence. Everything which the
mind grasps (and let us allow it to grasp the Ideal, as that is its job) must
be proof against fact. Being proof against facts is where the junction between
the four mysteries establishes itself in a much more flexible way, whilst a
larger area forms in the centre without expectations and fears, a space with an
imperial presence for which the fourth field is a fruit, a source and a
divinity.
The mind is the
tool of our species. Let us use it without imitating anybody and especially not
those teachers who have lost the use of it. Letting the spirit become
autonomous always yields the same disastrous results, but referring it back to
the centre - the self - makes it the personal representative of universal
intelligence. Let us prevent the self from drowning in its own thoughts only to
declare a hidden war between the emotional brain and our sense of personal
identity in times of crisis. The self only has to cling to what is already lost
if it listens to the body. It no longer seeks to circumvent the emotional
brain, which is already further away, by acknowledging a new situation, as the
senses have notified it of the changes which have been carried out. It is
simply a case of letting go instead of letting the two brains confront each
other in a form of denial of the conflict, which leads to pure suffering. Those
who say That should never have happened will never go back through time.
Part Five
TECHNICAL PROCEDURES
MYSTERY 1
MEDITATION ON DISTANCEPreferably in a quiet, locked room, with the telephone switched off and the doorbell disabled. Carry out the exercise seriously, but in a light manner and take every precaution to avoid being disturbed.
CROSS-LEGGED OR IN THE LOTUS POSITON, PLACE YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE THIRD EYE, AND LET THE EXTERNAL WORLD GRADUALLY DISSOLVE. CLOSE YOUR EYES UNTIL YOU CAN ONLY PERCEIVE
YOUR OWN PRESENCE.
SCONCENTRATE ON WHAT YOU ARE, OUTSIDE ANY ERA, BEYOND THE PAST, WITHOUT MEMORY, BEYOND THE FUTURE,
WITHOUT IMAGINING ANY PARTICUAR FUTURE.
LET QUESTIONS SURFACE, CHANGE MYSTERY, THEN COME BACK, PLACING THE CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE THIRD EYE
LET THE QUESTION OF WHAT WE REPRESENT FOR
OURSELVES RISE TO THE SURFACE IF IT OCCURS. WHEN YOU
FEEL THAT CONSCIOUSNESS HAS MOVED,
PLACE YOURSELF AS A BEING IN THE THIRD EYE.
MYSTERY 2
MEDITATION ON ASPIRATIONWhether indoors or outside, dawn and dusk are good times. In the mountains.
IN ANY POSITION,
FOCUS CONSCIOUSNESS
IN THE SOLAR PLEXUS,
FEEL THE POWER OF THE TAO, GOD, ABSOLUTE MYSTERY,
FEEL AN IMPERSONAL FLAME BURNING, WHICH LOVES UNCONDITIONALLY,WHICH ACCEPTS THE TRUTH UNCONDITIONALLY
AND THE PRESENCE OF THE WHOLE,
FEEL THE SOLAR POTENTIAL,
THE CALL OF THE DIVINE WITHIN US,
POSSIBLY TURN TOWARDS THE DIVINE MOTHER, THE CREATIVE ENERGY,
RETAIN THE PRESENCE
IN THE CHAKRA OF THE HEART
MYSTERY 3
MEDITATION ON TAKING ROOTOutdoors in the sunshine in winter, in a quiet setting, perhaps lying down, but
holding onto the feeling of being pressed against the earth. Forest, fields..
CROSS-LEGGED OR IN THE LOTUS POSITION,
FEEL CONTACT WITH THE EARTH
WITH ALL PARTS OF THE BODY
IN CONTACT WITH THE GROUND
HOLD ONTO THIS FEELING
LET THE PREOCCUPATIONS OF THE FACTUAL WORLD SURFACE
WITHOUT SEEKING THEM OUT
HOLD ONTO THE TERRITORY
WORK
RELATIONSHIPS ACROSS THE GENERATIONS
DIET AND HEALTH
FEEL YOUR BODILY STATE
RELAX YOUR FACE AND BREATH SLOWLY OCCASIONALLY
RELAX GENTLY
MYSTERY 4
CROSS-LEGGED OR IN THE LOTUS POSITION,
BUT IF EFFORT IS REQUIRED LIE DOWN AND RELAX
FREEWHEELINGVary between indoors and outdoors. Outdoors, there is nothing better than a
waterfall, torrent or stream. Identify with the rapid flow. Possibly the coast.
Change position to avoid any tension. Improvise. MEDITATION
LET ALL YOUR THOUGHTS DRIFT BY
WITHOUT HOLDING ONTO ANYTHING
ACCEPT EVERYTHING WHICH OCCURS
THEN COME BACK TO THE PURE PRESENT
AND WITHOUT EXPECTATON
FEEL ALL THE SENSATIONS
RELAX THE MUSCLES AGAIN
DO NOT FORCE THE LOTUS POSTION
FOCUS YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS ON YOUR SKIN,
EARS AND LUNGS
LISTEN TO YOUR BRAIN
IF QUESTIONS RECUR
GO INTO THE APPRPORIATE MYSTERY
AND BECOME RECEPTIVE TO INFORMATION
DECIDE PASSIVELY TO FIND A MEANING
IN THE LEAST
SENSATON
EMOTION
THOUGHT
DECIDE THAT EVENTS (BOTH EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL) WHICH APPEAR TO BE UNFAVOURABLE ARE AS FAVOURABLE TO YOUR EVOLUTION AS EASY EVENTS WHICH ARE IN KEEPING WITH WHAT YOU DESIRE
SEEK THE MEANING OF THE OBSTACLE
ACCEPT THAT FRICTIONS WILL ARISE
BETWEEN THE MYSTERIES
DO NOT EXPECT TO FIND IMMEDIATE SOLUTIONS
(IMMEDIATE SOLUTIONS CAN BE FALSE OR MERELY REACTIONS)
ACCEPT THE LEGITIMACY OF EACH OF THE FOUR MYSTERIES
I.E. ITS UNCONDITIONAL PRESENCE
DESPITE THE DIFFIULTIES
ENCOUNTERED IN RELATION WITH ONE OR ANOTHER OF THEM
PLAYING WITH TIME.
"There is meaning in every turn of fate
1 Divinatory meditation
Cardinal
meditation, aside from its pure use, is also a new divinatory art, which is as
deep as the I-Ching and the Chinese would readily consider it to be equivalent
to a feng shui of consciousness itself. In fact, you can actually choose
a meditation at random by dealing one of the four aces, for example, and by
using dealing in the way in which will now be described. It is a natural
alternative to cardinal meditation in which you instinctively choose to spend
time exploring and deepening your awareness of one of the four Mysteries by
making a choice which does not require any effort. This constitutes a
recreational exercise for the intelligence of the present moment , by
channelling it towards whichever primordial field is dealt, whilst getting the
brain used to keeping its attention focused in one sector. Because
synchronicity is operational, we can also claim that it is the ideal moment to
face up to exploring this field, from which we will return armed with
practical clues, because fate has decided that it is urgent.
By analogy,
hearts refer to Mystery 2, diamonds to 4 (the lower point of the diamond
indicates the way in which we must surf on the crest of the moment), spades
refer to 3 and obviously clubs to 1, as the three semi-circular branches
represent the past/present/future synthesis which the permanent self integrates
into its own structure represented by the stem.
Synchronous
meditation (with the drawing of cards) therefore offers itself as a means of
deepening ones feeling by reflecting on the content of the field designated by
fate which deserves particular care during this phase, because it has been
actualized, whereas all the other trumps remain virtual. By keeping attention
focused on the single field represented by the card which has been drawn we are
training the spirit to collect itself and this is an interesting experience in
different respects. If we stay wrapped up in one single Mystery for a long
time, it is possible to discover what it represents in the depth of our being by
the work which takes place to distinguish it totally from the others. Some
people will find that it is difficult for them to separate 1 from 3, 3 from 4,
or 1 from 4, for example, and they can invite their intelligence to come back
to that field until it identifies with it alone, without any amalgamation or
confusion with any of the others.
The following
options are available:
Firstly: demystification (of the backdrop) of
Mystery 3 through distance and standing back is desirable, whilst we assess the
position held by this zone by watching the sectors which constitute it as they
file past. Relationships, work, family, the self in its environment and what is
undergone by the body through these structures. Drawing
the ace of Spades.
Secondly: the virginity of the pure moment, a
channel towards the self. Drawing the ace of Diamonds, represents something - a goal, a
blessing, a need. What are we ready to call into question in order to better
define time which has not necessarily been orchestrated? Can we experience it
first hand?
Thirdly: The quality of the permanent Self and
the plastic transformation of our self-image take pride of place. Drawing the ace of Clubs. Is what we represent for ourselves dependent on controlling events,
on the role of desire, time and spiritual expectations? Can we clarify what is
related only to our being, without identifying with our environment or without
being influenced by affects or prestige?
Fourthly: the growth of the subliminal self
(Chakras, energies, the voice of the soul). Drawing the ace of Hearts, refers us
back to our overall commitment to deepest reality, which eludes us, but from
which we originate the Divine, the cosmos, Earth and life.
2. Meditating to open ourselves to the NON-SELF
The modern
philosophical vision of a superior man who does not have to account to God or
nature is a new phenomenon in historyRupert Sheldrake, The Rebirth of Nature and few people born in the West in the
current era have fully liberated themselves from this cultural enchantment
which deprives us of heavenly and earthly roots. The work which I am suggesting
offers a quick way of taking stock of the dross of superficial beliefs
inherited from childhood which can still define an approach to the potential
intelligence of the non-self which is too narrow. Three centuries have passed
in this same self-destructive vein, which wanted man to be the master of
everything and to be able to transform all the circumstances of his existence
to suit him, with the West dragging the rest of the world along in its mad
stampede. We now know that the consequences of this approach are catastrophic,
that living conditions have only improved for a minority, more or less, and
that our climate gets more erratic every year. We now understand that we have
usurped our freedom by basing ourselves on science and asking the impossible of
it: a sort of abstract decoding of the laws of the universe which would allow
us to continuously improve our society in a ready-made fashion. Human beings
have, in a sense, imprisoned themselves in their dreams of independence, whilst
imagining that they can subordinate nature and the cosmos to their own will by
surrendering their hearts.
It is,
therefore, always by turning back to the old truths which are almost forgotten
that we will find the exact paradigm for the Manifestation: human beings are
not free at all and must respond at all times to the pressure which
totality puts on them, which is symbolized by the fact of death, which can
strike at any moment, the demands of dead spirits, or even the commandments of
God or lastly transcendental Unity. Wise beings from ancient civilizations did
not try to free themselves by conscious feats from the fundamental constraints
of existence, nor did they try to forget them through the obsessive cult of
work and productivity. On the contrary, by trying to understand energies far
stronger than the human will which they located both in the past and in the
future, they submitted to them on the one hand and found their own degree of
room for manoeuvre on the other. The present was experienced under a mysterious
dome, which projected on either side. Although superstition finally defeated
the philosophy of the EmeraldWhat is above is the same as what is
below by the magical power of one single thing table, just as it also defeated the higher spirit
of religions, certain intelligent civilizations from China to Greece and in Africa
and the Celtic kingdoms knew perfectly well how to use oracles in a sacred way.
But it is a difficult, secret art which, like the transformation of the Self by
teachers, saw its traditions die out or become corrupted because it is often
difficult and erratic to ensure continuity within a framework of political
change. The authority of cosmic laws is difficult to find and even harder to
feel.
We can find the
direction of our being in everything which allows us to recognize the authority
of the non-self over us, or its right of veto at least, for the more stubborn
amongst us, and each meditation therefore wants to be a window open to infinite
possibilities, whose potential authority or timely invitation we no longer
challenge. We can enumerate the faces of this huge non-self towards which we
turn, ranging from the supramental Divine to the whole of the physical (and
indivisible) universe to which we belong heaven, earth, life, time, other
people, family, the environment and work, for example. Whatever our chosen
aspect or the actual perspective, it comes to the same thing: Reality is
stronger than us because it surrounds us on all sides and the idea of
recognizing and understanding it before setting ourselves up as masters of our
own existence must prevail over our beliefs and habits to enable us to stand on
an equal footing and to coincide. We must interlock with Reality.
Obviously, the
symbols of the mysterious dome reveal the very fragile equilibrium to be
found between events which happen to us through force of circumstance and those
which we can create ourselves through the power of our own qualities and
aspirations. This is one of the applications of meditation. The I-Ching,
inspired tarot or transpersonal astrology and first and foremost opening up the
Self, free us from the obscene nature of modern life our belief that we can
treat nature with casual scorn, rejecting the Divine as an inconvenient
hypothesis and appropriate the future purely for the purposes of the individual
ego. There is, therefore, a means of testing whether we are meshed with the
non-self through the whole of Reality in a way which reduces the likelihood of
breaches before they occur and lead to all manner of ills, including
somatization which take place above consciousness of what we are and our own
malaise. In this way, a fundamental return to terrestrial nature which is pure
and sovereign can take place and promote ecological healing. As for ascension
towards transcendence, it enables us to accept this difficult passage in history
in which we are bogged down without judgement or scorn, whilst the seeker
develops unconditional love for the Divine which is still hidden.
3. Meditation and therapy
Events do not
have any intrinsic meaning and it is the way in which they are interpreted
which gives them their significance. Therefore, if we become aware that the
same fact already has three or four virtual interpretations in relation
to the part of us to which it addresses itself, we are making considerable
progress towards choosing a method of interpretation and it can be an enriching
exercise to feel the impulses which take place in all directions. Many people,
for example, feel humiliated in their personality (1) when purely behavioural
or contingent criticisms are applied to them, which do not call them into
question, but merely their knowledge or means of communication (Field 3). They
have interpreted in Field 1 what takes places in Field 3. Oversensitivity is a
sign that Fields 3 and 1 have not really been separated and that circumstances
are constantly swamping the self. Others experience an ephemeral and intense
situation in a sparkling 4 and if this experience is cut short they become
affected in the self itself and are unable to separate the external sequence -
the film as it were which belongs to the past - from their individuality
which stands back from events, because nostalgia for lost pleasures (4) takes
the upper hand over the new actual moment, which becomes more moderate. The
ultimate aim is not to interpret anything, but to see the true impact of things
directly with out placing any construction on it or ornamenting it, but only
the Self can do this hence the need for either quantum or traditional
meditation.
Difficult events
are generally hijacked in the emotions and transferred to Field 1 in the form
of humiliating traces, disappointments and loss, requiring a period of
mourning. This is a phase which we have to go through to overcome narcissistic
wounds, whilst preparing ourselves in the integrity of the first Mystery to
repel contamination from 3 , or by abandoning the wish for the Divine in 2. The
two processes enable us to avoid feeling like victims, because the person
who is suffering is located in 3 and 4, but the Self does not suffer in
Field 1 if it leans on Field 2. It suffers through 3, with which it
identifies, and it can either repel emotional attacks or absorb and dissolve
them. Narcissistic wounds which are denied can suddenly liberate consciousness
of Field 4 and then the subject will allow himself do anything to avenge his
humiliation and lose himself. This path leads to what we call bad karma and
produces arrogant people who think that they can do what they want and make
other peoples lives a misery when the only reality of interest to them is
themselves. It is likely that certain mental diseases are simply the fruit of
chronic struggles between the four Fields, and the self changes depending on
the Mystery speaking within it at any given time.
For the
spiritual seeker, meditation is simply what enables mental processes operating
on different strata to combine until the central self can adopt a stance to
accept the situation as it presents itself instead of replying too quickly
before having grasped all the possible options, or avoiding emotional suggestions
until the body calls us seriously back into line. In our supramental optic, it
is always possible for the self in Field 1 connected to the self in Field 2 to
accept the most difficult events. The simplified approach to opening of
cardinal meditation, an offshoot of synchronicity, therefore consists of
putting oneself at the centre of the Mysteries, without thinking, and taking
part in the choice of direction adopted by thoughts which arise. Once we get
used to it, we realize that there is a permanent shuttling between fields 4, 3
and 1. The first field synthesizes data which surfaces from all over, trivial
preoccupations (late payment of a bill) (3), inner feelings (taking stock of a
relationship, navigating between expectations and disappointments), clearly-defined
or structural problems, untimely memories, questions concerning the origins of
actions and a return to the image of the self (1). Automatic chemical processes
which elude us can sometimes be modified by faith, positive visualization or
even (in difficult cases) by the addition of a physical process during letting
go in 4.
The cardinal
meditation which we are presenting does not try to play games with events and
to make them say what suits us depending on philosophy or ideal. It is a method
based a on supramental knowledge of the of the workings of the supreme
intelligence in the brain, nervous system and cells, which frees us from all
forms of dogmatic bias. Mental intelligence operates in several different
registers. It summons up information, i.e. thoughts, which are different and
contradictory, in accordance with the spirit of the single field which they
represent, and which is therefore alien to the other fields. One layer of the
spirit tries to ignore the promptings of the body and vital being when
something non-gratifying presents itself, but the signals which are being
ignored also stem from another form of radical, powerful and physical
intelligence which processes the impact of events in chemical terms through
neurotransmitters, endorphins and neuropeptides and can produce all sorts of
feelings, some of which are so subtle that they are undetectable without
sustained practice. The less the subject listens, the more physical
intelligence perseveres, accentuating imbalances until the self is forced to
take note when a physical, nervous or psychosomatic illness appears.
The more clearly
defined and vibrant the relationship between the Self and the Whole, the less
suffering persists.
4. From divinatory arts to meditation
Whilst the
divinatory arts limit themselves to defining parent-events - matrices in which
we are especially manipulated by circumstances - meditation, by contrast,
views all events as being important and it is not a case of avoiding accidents
or promoting opportunities. It is a case of listening and feeling with such
awareness at all times that there will no longer be any mechanical events,
routine feelings and moments in which sensations will be dictated by memory.
Recognizing the
supremacy of totality is not the same as submitting blindly to it, but it is a
case of looking for the best fit between it and ourselves. Nature has to be
accepted as an awkward partner, but as a partner nevertheless and desire can be
viewed in different ways until it finds a homogeneous place in the self. In a
similar fashion, the mind can be viewed as a power which we have at our
disposal, like a trainer. Meditation, whatever form it may take, enables us to
distinguish between reason dimmed by unconscious dross and pure, objective,
calm arguments, which offer different solutions to those stemming from anxiety,
fears or violent desires. The self will increase its field of consciousness and
the spirit will branch out into the most subtle and radiant universes on the
wavelength of the boundless Self. The cosmos itself will be viewed as a
powerful partner which entertains itself by enabling us to test our freedom in
a wide range of experiences, all of which nourish us with non-self and
collectively bring us back to the self in its mysterious integrity. Finally,
the Divine will become a particularly active partner, because It plays at
hiding and at manifesting Itself directly, then withdrawing in a cycle which
eludes us and to which we do not possess the keys.
There is freedom in every aspect of destiny."
Sri Aurobindo, Savitri.
Natarajan, May 2006.