Happy Yoga Day!

a place of infinite silence...

I thought it would be useful to touch on how it begins. Before there is a person. I’ve covered this before in places like Deepest Being, but it can be useful to explore it with a different language.

Essentially, there is silence. The silence has 2 qualities:
– alertness, which becomes what we call consciousness or the observer
– liveliness, which becomes what we call experiences and the world

The liveliness stirs the alertness into awareness. Awareness becomes aware of itself, creating a process of observation. This process creates qualities we may call intelligence – direction, attention, and so forth. And that creates existence or the sense of being. (you’ll note from experience there is no sense of being unless there is also an observing)

In the primary reality, there is no space or time. Just this lively alert intelligence. Everything is experienced concurrently.

All those separate events you experience, indeed all lifetimes are just layers of attention in a timeless moment. Words are of course inadequate. To say layers implies space and time. They are not separate but rather interlaced shifts in liveliness.

In a similar way, all beings in a universe are just slight shifts in attention. And we’re not just talking about people, but all life forms. Like moving your eyes from one word to the next as you read this.

A slight phase shift and you have another universe of beings with a whole different set of experiences. Yes, a literal another universe.

Everything, everywhere, everyone, all in a moment.

We might think this is how God sees the world, but God also sees all possible ways of seeing concurrently.

For you and I, attention collapses to a point, a focus. Infinity becomes focused on a single wave or event. This attention on a point causes time and space to, as if, unfold from a point. The play of life appears on the screen of awareness.

Another way to see it is that when the observer steps in to see the observed, a  “space” is created. When the attention is focused on events in space, we experience time. This awareness can go into detail and experience it fully. Know and feel what it is.

Some then get “caught” by this experience by forgetting how to disengage. How to step out of the focus. So we journey into the detail, then journey back out into the boundless. This is the evolutionary cycle.

Some physicists suggest there are other dimensions, rolled up very small. While I don’t agree with this, it is true that space and time themselves are both unfolded and rolled up, which may give the impression of alternate dimensions. The rolled up dimensions are not other dimensions but rather the same ones, seen from a different perspective. Or, seen another way, we are experiencing our current space-time, but all other non-current space-time is rolled up.

We can also see that people experience overlapping realities or a shared sense of the world because there is only one world. Indeed, there is only one ‘me’.

One can, of course, explore this from many angles and go into much more detail.

One interesting one is the idea of subtle memory, Smriti. We are essentially remembering by unfolding what is rolled up. Evolution, even life itself is a process of remembering.

It’s very fascinating to see that reality isn’t really there. In any way. The mind doesn’t like this much though. (laughs)

Davidya

Vajra Mudra

Is it true that yoga will awaken deeper energy, which is called kundalin...

Hip Stretch

Kundalini Yoga -- as Envisioned by the Ancient Yogis

Awakening.

The Soul

One of the things you hear less about is the second thread. There is the white sutra coming in the top of the head, connecting you with the divine. And then there is a second, the more direct thread that enters the heart and joins the Sushumna there in a kind of T. That plexus or meeting of threads is a sort of super chakra, a spirit-driven one we call the soul. Where Shakti meets Shiva, Prakriti meets Purusha.

This is why devotional and other heart-based practices are so potent. They take advantage of the direct connection through the heart. It is also why the awakening heart is such a profound point on the journey, both the ascending opening of Love and the descending awakening of divine love.

Compassion dawns from the upper energy flowing into the heart, higher passion from the lower energy flowing up into the heart. Again, these are not practices but experiences when the flow opens.

Many other practices are mental or sensory (Gyan or karma yogi) or physical.(Hatha) Each has their best use and best times on the journey as the Purushas table illustrates, but don’t neglect that heart.  

Awakening

The awakening process includes a number of components. The increasing connection with transcendent spirit, the clearing of those energy knots, the refinement of the energy system to support finer values of energy (higher resolutions), and the movement of energy into higher levels.

Some describe the energy moving up systematically, but for most, different parts open at different times. “Spiritual experiences” may be related to opening and movement of the upper 3 chakras, especially the third eye and crown.

The third eye brings us celestial and divine sight. The talents of seers and visionaries. The crown is our connection to the divine. Often prior to or with awakening, the upper 2 make a major connection. If this is sudden, it’s characterized by a brilliant flash of white light that absorbs everything.

This is the gateway to cognitions and profound knowledge not available through the lower centers. Some equate it with enlightenment, but again, awakening is not experienced. This is secondary to the process. Some people don’t get this stuff clear until much later, long after waking. Also, as a master once said, everybody can realize, not everyone will cognize.

Once the connection to the divine is established, the divine begins to descend through the centers. Adyashanti talks of Self-moving forward and absorbing the head, heart, and gut. As these are related to the ego, divine, and identity, they are also related to the 3 main higher states of consciousness.

Thus the evolution of enlightenment runs parallel to the descent of the divine.

“This direct relationship with God is first established on the level of Being and then comes to be on the level of feeling; from there it enters the field of thinking and then finds its way on to the sensory level of experience.”
— Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

The upper three are the spiritual centers. However, when the energy descends, it spiritualizes all of them.

One important detail here that I’ve seen presented a number of ways. Some describe chakras above the head, post crown. When this is first experienced, the divine can seem above the head, like more layers. But when this opens after awakening, the perspective shifts, and the upper chakras as if flip over and turn out to be another mirroring. (see below) The same 7 chakras are mirrored with divine versions, descending. Remember this is non-linear non-physical – it’s all about perspective and perception. How you’re looking.

So they’re not really separate chakras, but the divine energy is quite different and quite a bit higher resolution. In a way, they’re kind of concurrent spiritual chakras, overlaying the existing ones, like the bodies do above. If you had good experiences with the ascending openings, wait until you see what descending brings. Far more profound.

This little table illustrates how they might be numbered and how it folds. So we might count 7 or 12, depending on how we wish to look.

7 >	/	Crown	Divine
6 /	/ 8	Third eye	Divine sight
5 /	/ 9	Throat	Divine voice
4 /	/ 10	Heart	Divine heart
3 /	/ 11	Gut	Divine power
2 /	/ 12	Gonad	Divine passion
1 /	<	Root	Grounded

Devata

As this process deepens, the whole perception changes several times. The intelligence and intention inherent in anything or event happening becomes increasingly obvious. Events no longer appear as random but rather an orchestrated dance of astonishing complexity and perfection.

If one perceives this from a personalized perspective, these intelligent laws are perceived as ‘devata’, essentially what a westerner would call angels and fairies. Complete with personalities. (laughs)

When consciousness evolves, perception evolves with it. The perception of conscious intention shifts from an energy system into the flow or movement of consciousness.

“From the cosmic perspective, they are seen for what they are. The whole body is seen differently. Energy centers are seen as a flow of consciousness. It’s not even energy anymore.”
— Lorne Hoff

Becoming – Why Seven?

From a place of infinite silence, alertness and liveliness arise. The liveliness stirs alertness into awareness and awareness becomes aware of itself.  The observation of Self by itself causes the one to step into Itself, creating an apparent duality and the trinity of the observer, observation, and process of experience. This is the trinity you hear of in many faiths.

We could call them the first 3 ‘chakras’ of God. There are 2 further principles at work here. As above, so below, and mirroring. In other words, what arises within God is mirrored and repeated at successive levels of resolution.

This takes place within divinity, within creation, within the universe and within you. Thus when the sutra or intention descends, a bubble of awareness forms we call the universe, the 1 unfolds into 3.

The 3 are joined by the second thread connection at the heart, creating a fulcrum. The upper 3 principles mirror over the fulcrum into 7.

The 7 then found the various resolutions of our physicality described above. As mentioned before, the 7 chakras pre-exist the rest of the energy system and are the same ones shared by all life in the universe.

Again, the layers interpenetrate rather than them being stacked in a physical way. Like electrons, they are areas of probability, or rather a possibility. As they are mirrors, they are not separate either.

Closing

This is a brief overview of a very large subject. There are a number of ways of seeing this, dictated by where you are standing and what quality of energy you bring. I cannot say my vision is complete or perfect in any way. But this is how I understand it now. I hope it’s shed a bit of light on the nature of your presence in the world.

Even the description itself here is of several ways of seeing what is not separate. There is only one of us, completely inclusive but expressing always.

Davidya