In the surrender of the surface mind to its own depths, a richer realm of psychic energies and insights becomes palpable. A feeling of profound love emerges spontaneously from within. One is lifted into higher dimensions, more subtle frequencies of greater coherence and universality, until one transcends the limits of symbolic thought. Nothing beyond that point can be described in words. This is the threshold of the mystical. Once beyond that threshold, the ego dissolves. It will not return the same as it went. There will be a transformation. Ultimately, the ego will melt into the Source, and only the Source will remain.
This deepening of meditation usually requires time and ripening. That is accelerated by ever more refined self-understanding—through the consistent exploration (optimally, with the help of a spiritual guide) of the hidden dimensions of one’s existence, as fragments of unconscious psychic elements and knots emerge in the course of life—in dreams, karmic clashes, psychosomatic symptoms, synchronicities, visions, paranormal occurrences, and other non-ordinary events. The practice of self-analysis and the understanding of the meaning of what irrupts from the depth dimension of our surface lives are essential facets of the process of purification and surrender to the highest intelligence that is within us, allowing wisdom and love to guide all our decisions.
The ability to reframe our experience according to a higher and more coherent paradigm of reality is the third crucial pillar. By translating the chaotic data of our existence into a profound matrix of psycho-spiritual comprehension, every event will provide an essential key to the attainment of union with the Absolute.
It is this recognition that makes life ultimately interesting: that our lives are mazes in which we have been set down, like rats in a laboratory, and in which we are given only indirectly the assignment of discovering the door of liberation. Beyond that door lies eternity, truth and ecstasy, the Supreme Reality. Once we understand that we are inhabitants of a dream, and that everything that happens is non-accidental, that everything is a clue in the ultimate mystery, then, at last, we can begin to really enjoy the process.
One of the clues that we receive time and again, but always seem to misread, is that our first task is to relax. Inner serenity is essential to the solution of the great mystery of existence. This is because the false ego identity is wrapped around the trauma of insecurity. We are born helpless in a terrifying world. Our traumas have caused us to build massive defenses around our heart.
We live in fear, and create a strategy and a personality system geared to overcoming what we consider our greatest dangers. To some the danger is ridicule, of being found inferior; to others the peril is abandonment; to still others it is engulfment, being taken over by another. To some it is all the above. To some the danger is actual physical violation and even destruction. To others, the greater danger is going mad. To everyone there is the constant horror of falling into an abyss of loss and lack in some form. The collective social system uses those fears to control its members.
So, if we are honest, few of us can say we are truly in a state of relaxation. This is the art we must learn, on a mental as well as a cellular level. The unconscious mind holds our terrifying phantasies and our repressed memories. The muscles and the inner organs hold our unarticulated stress. If this stress is not released, it will eventually cause failure of one or more organic systems.
Once we recognize that life is a dream, a cosmic game, with liberation as the ultimate prize, our aim becomes winning the game. Paradoxically, to win that highest game, we must let go of the drive to win the lesser games, the false games that promote egocentricity and therefore stress and suffering. All the lesser games are mechanisms to deal with our fears, but they lead only to more fear and deeper darkness of ignorance. This understanding leads us to realize the importance of the fourth pillar of Sat Yoga: egoless action.
When we act without ego, it means we are fully present, that we intuitively respond to the needs of the moment, and that on a deep level, we recognize that we are the Whole, rather than simply a part-object in a world of forms. There is recognition that the Self is the Intelligence behind and within the universe, and that all beings are aspects of the One Self. That implies that there is nothing to fear, nothing to lose. There is no lack, only fullness. When the light goes on and we can say with complete understanding, “I am the Self of all,” then we are liberated from the limited ego, and consciousness becomes filled with divine love. At that moment, the door of liberation opens.
It is all a result of learning to relax and enjoy. Try it.
Namaste,
Shunyamurti