Competitive or cooperative spirituality

There is a very simple analogy of the spiritual journey. Think of an always glowing lamp. Covered by layers of dirt. When all layers of dirt are removed, its light spreads limitlessly. Removing the layers of dirt is the entirety of the spiritual path.

(This analogy, of a hurricane lamp and dirt on its glass, is from Chariji)

Analogies are obviously limited. Depending on how you like to think of Reality, that lamp, its light, and everything around it are one, in space. Or there is no real distinction at one level of vibration. The layers of dirt are not all the same vibratory levels either. E.g., there is physical dirt and mental dirt. Mental dirt is described variously as veils, impurities, complexities. There is also energetic dirt when the physical body functions abnormally. And so on. Babuji terms all dirt as grossness.

All authentic spiritual paths try to get every human to understand that the light is their own and they also created that dirt. So there is nothing I can do for spreading the light, except cleaning, or better, letting go of my own dirt.

How the cleaning is done varies across paths.

Once the light shines as it can, and should, the real evolution of life, especially of human life, can happen.

Sahaj Marg is aimed from the very beginning to be something very simple and effective for all humanity. Babuji said that very little of his work was on abhyasis. Its prayer says ... goal of human life ... 

Still, very few humans seem to appreciate the self-discipline, spareness, and lack of colour or rituals in Sahaj Marg. Even the immense peace and tranquil love felt occasionally, or often, slips away into the subconscious. And of those who do appreciate, many cannot look inwards all the time, especially in the midst of outward activities. And so they look for succour outside.

Babuji called Sahaj Marg "civilized madness"! This was in comparison to avadhutas who get lost in Divine madness and also lose normal behaviour.

Daaji has been working to bring all spiritual paths to work together. He has succeeded to a great extent with Indian yoga schools, at least the authentic spiritual ones. Like Chariji said earlier, and Daaji says now, black marketeers and criminal gangs seem to work together more harmoniously than spiritual organisations.  Each spiritual organisation fights to prove it is more effective. Or worse, the only effective one! When viewed from the perspective of human evolution, it is such a waste of time, money, and other resources.

Babuji said about Mahesh Yogi (of TM fame) that he is also working to bring peace of mind to people. And why should he stop him from working?!

What I have understood so far is that once one understands one's own internal progress at removing one's own dirt or grossness, there is no need for outside validation. Even from the Guru or seemingly more experienced travellers. It's nice to be validated or appreciated once in a while. But it's not necessary when one does one's practice. After all, how difficult is it to understand an increasing lightness and peace? Or since temporary troubles result in greater lightness and peace afterwards, that they are meant to remove some specific grossness?

Some tools or techniques do have to be learnt for immediate use - how to become calm after being disturbed, how to prepare for a disturbance ahead, how to avoid hurting others, how to help others effectively, how to stay positive, how to avoid adding more grossness or heaviness, how to remove freshly added dirt, and so on. Basically, how to stay light-hearted. Sincere and serious spiritual teachers offer a version of some or all of these techniques.

Understanding all this is crucial to getting past spiritual politics - natural, or at least endemic, - to organisations, and focusing on one's own spiritual practice and its useful context.

Levels in Towards Infinity

Introduction

The spiritual journey is difficult to describe in words, especially those usually used for outward journeys. Still many mystics have tried their best to explain, their own, or the ones on which they guide others. They need not be alike.

Babuji wrote or dictated Towards Infinity, a travelogue/map of the Sahaj Marg/Heartfulness Way journey, in a superconscious state. So he didn't repeatedly describe all the details as one goes to or from each point or levels. But it is possible to come up with a general "algorithm" from going through all the descriptions and give an explanatory perspective on going from level to level.

(Daaji has given an exegesis of the yatra in Towards Infinity in a series of articles, collected in the December 2017 edition of Heartfulness Magazine)

General algorithm

At each point or level [1]:

1. sālokya-ta - "getting the air of the place" per Babuji
2. sāmīpya-ta - becoming roughly like that, near that level, start merger 
3. sārūpya-ta - taking on form of that level, continue merger
4. sāyujya-ta - merger completed, digested, assimilated

These make up increasing laya in or at that level. Babuji terms it laya-avastha in general.

Then living like that level/point and its characteristics, until that level has been sufficiently experienced. [2]

Then negativating those characteristics, that level and its vibrations, to leave for the next subtler level. Negativating means transforming the grosser level vibrations into their subtler cause.

(How? This can be done simply by reaching the next level. Or someone - whose mind-field has merged with that level - can go to that level and raise your own mind-field to that level by physical and mental proximity. Or by pranahuti - subtlest possible level - along with a sankalpa, by Master.)

Repeat...

Another perspective

In Towards Infinity, Babuji talks about sāyujya-ta or refined identicality and then about going to a subtler level to get to the next point. sāyujya-ta of two things is at the same vibratory level. Compare water in water against water in water vapour. Or, food is matter and when it is in sāyujya-ta with us, it has been digested in our material body such that we don't feel it any more. (In our spiritual yatra, we are food and we are also digesting ourselves in the Divine at different levels!)

Then we go to the next subtler level by changing the vibratory level. Babuji calls this negation sometimes. "I negativated it!" he said when light came to him in meditation.

The present layer is the effect of a subtler causal layer. By negation or laya or merger of the sāyujya-ta itself, we go from effect level vibration to cause level vibration.

Thus, our spiritual journey may be understood very simply as going from grossest to subtlest vibration levels.

Background 

A few background ideas, from Sāṁkhya-yoga, may be helpful to understand the logic and implications.

• There is a transformation - pariṇāma - from subtler to grosser levels (of vibration). [3]
• This transformation is real, actual. [4] A grosser level is always the effect of a subtler level. That is, a cause is transformed into an effect, but is still retrievable or achievable.
• The transformation can be reversed, i.e., from a grosser to a subtler level. [5]
• These transformations are not in physical space. [6] 

NOTES

[1] From what I have read till now, the idea of recurrence of these stages is entirely original to Babuji. In other paths, these or slightly different stages cover the entire spiritual journey, they occur only once. E.g., the vaiṣṇavites. Their analysis is obviously much more coarse-grained and so less helpful in daily sadhana or understanding one's journey across its many ups and downs. Sufism has a similar set - fanaa - dissolution - and baqaa - subsistence, which is supposed to occur only once. Again much more coarse-grained.

[2] To be determined (TBD) by one's Guide.

(Or, very rarely, by one's memories of past sadhana, perhaps from previous lives. Alternatively, by the Divine itself.)

[3] Another word for transformation is manifestation. Creation is a misleading word because it implies a creator separate from creation.

[4] advaitins want sadhaks to regard transformation as unreal. At least, until one is settled in a highly subtle stage. While a commendable intention, this confuses sadhaks and novices completely!

[5] Mentally, or better, in the non-physical inside the body. This reversal is not permanent, so one can go up and down the levels at will.

[6] There are physical effects, on the physical body, but physical space is not a factor. Simple example - one has subtle transcendental ideas and gross individualistic ideas using the same brain in the same head. While sāṁkhya-yoga does discuss transformation of physical elements [7], they are not necessary for a spiritual practice initially. Since physical space is not important, neither is time.

[7] Babuji, paraphrased - 

"matter to energy" says science, "matter to energy to absolute", I say.

AEIOU and balancing techniques

Daaji asks abhyasis to do the AEIOU and balancing techniques after meditation to hold on to their condition, or lead a meditative life. I have extended them a bit with some specific details in a few steps, as well as expanding on Daaji's balancing technique to return from a purely inward meditative awareness to "normal" active awareness. [0]

The AEIOU exercise:

Awareness

Become aware of the condition of your heart, the chest area. It's OK if you can't put words around it, just feel the condition there for a few seconds. Next, your mind - the head area. Lastly, your physical condition - scan all the joints from jaws to toes. Remember to scan your spine and arm joints. [1]

Expansion

Think or imagine that your condition is expanding outward, with you as the centre. Like a sphere or balloon. As it expands, let it suffuse everything around- both living and non-living things (air particles, furniture, microorganisms, people, the space, everything). [2], [3]

IOU - Imbibe, become One, Unite.

Next, come back to yourself. Imbibe the condition. Let it go deeper inside your system. Let it unite, become one with you, assimilate and digest it.

As it goes deeper and digests, you can no longer hold on to it, it will go out of your conscious awareness. Let it go. It will slide into your subconscious and continue to steep there. [4]

That was the AEIOU. Next, the balancing technique.

Balancing inside and outside

To come back to normal, yet a more spiritualised, awareness, become aware of your inside and your outside. The space inside and outside the body.

Just a simple feeling awareness, there's no need to think.

Try to become aware of both inside and outside at the same level, simultaneously.

One way is to go deep into the centre of your body and then look outwards. See both the inside and outside from that vantage point. [5]

Summary

Please do both the AEIOU and balancing exercise after every meditation and cleaning session. Or after any other dedicated spiritual exercise. It should take only a minute or two, max. The benefits unfold very palpably in time.

NOTES

General

From this abhyāsa comes vairāgya - in a way. First change negative or indifferent attitude to positive attitude naturally, through meditation/cleaning/prayer. Then, let go or stop working with the conscious positive attitude. It continues within, subconsciously. And you no longer have to work at doing the right thing. It happens naturally. A different meaning of vairāgya :-D

[0]  Daaji's explanations in 1) a Nov 2023 article: Remembrance made simple, 2) a May 2022 video:
      Things to do after meditation, and 3) a 23 Oct 2017 video: AEIOU - States of Consciousness

[1] On Awareness:

This is awareness of your condition. Do it any way you like, though. These three elements - heart, mind, body - make sense to me.

Also try to compare how you feel now against how you felt at the start.

[2] On Expansion:

Let this expansion happen as effortlessly as possible.

Gently.

Also try to expand a bit more every day, without strain.

Try variants on different days - I use two:

1. Expansion in time - think of the places you are going to visit that day. Let your condition suffuse those spaces. Again, let all living and non-living things in those spaces share in your condition.

2. Expansion to people - think of a few people, whoever comes to mind immediately, within a second or two. Share your condition with them and their surroundings.

If you come up with other variants, please do share with me. My three are space, time, and people.

[3] Why Expansion in AEIOU:

This has a direct effect on how your condition changes your view of others - the world around and everything in it. Indirectly, it affects others because your attitude towards them changes and they, in turn, are free to respond positively.

[4] As you feel subtler conditions, you find yourself able to describe those grosser than them. Remember - this is an infinite journey!

[5] Keep in mind that you keep going deeper inside. So the inner vantage point should do the same.

Spiritual practice - a factory reset

TL;DR: Every so often, at least once a year, do a 100 hours of practice as if for the very first time. Then assess. C.f.:  Spirituality for Children

Often, self-driven or self-directed activities lose their original focus, motivation, and enthusiasm. This is especially true for spiritual practitioners who join an organisation and find they have become comfortable only in certain groups and activities within the organisation. Even if they stay out of the sadly inevitable groupism, they have difficulty taking the extreme solution of going solitary and meeting people as if for the first time. Emotional memory along with hurts and guilt at hurting others slowly starts to build up and joy in the practice often diminishes.

The foundation of the inward journey is lack of memory, especially emotional memory. This allows the internal non-physical organs to function at maximum efficiency. Put differently, without expectations to compare against. Chariji used to quote this phrase from the Gita: āścaryavat paśyati. Like a wide-eyed infant who is wonderstruck and joyously gurgles at everything. Joy is a beautiful characteristic of a bhakti margi.

Every so often, every six months or every year, it is helpful to go back to the basics, the introductory literature or videos. You then remember why you started and what led you to this particular path. You can also check - am I doing the practice correctly? Or has it morphed away from the instructions? Is what I am seeing or hearing or thinking or otherwise experiencing matching what generally happens? Or is it completely different?

In many contexts, a reboot is done. Essentially this is what you do to reset a machine when it behaves improperly - slowly or incorrectly. A factory reboot or reset is done when you want to dump everything and set up a machine the way it was manufactured. All personal and custom data are removed.

Here we reboot or reset ourselves. A partial or full reboot of some sort is an ancient technique used generally to drop the ego. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is said to have thrown away one of his intellectual works. Shams is reported to have either dumped Rumi's books in water or asked him to throw them in the water.

Chewing the cud of one's own experiences or knowledge of the experiences of others or the theories and explanations based on experiences are useless. A spiritual life is inherently memoryless. It's like riding a vehicle without a reverse gear or even a brake. Your experience can keep changing moment by moment.

Now, how to go about this reset?

Do a 100 hours of practice as if for the first time, as in Spirituality for Children.

(Heartfulness practitioners may skip the introductory or Masterclasses step, though it won't hurt, and you will appreciate them more with your increased sensitivity from years of practice, even irregular or wrong practice.)

Spirituality for children

An exact approach based on traditional pramāṇa [1] for children, at least 15 years or older:

1. Understand that just as you can pay attention to the physical world - the body and outside the body, you can also pay attention inwards. Systematically.

2. For at least 100 hours, follow a light, regular, daily practice [2] that takes you inwards, away from physical sensations, memories of sensations, and away from anything or anyone outside you. In other words, away from the outside world and ideas or thoughts about it.

3. Make a map of your own personal inner world, especially how you turn inward; emotions, thoughts, and/or sensations at different levels; how you go deeper inward; how you return to outward attention.

4. After 100 hours, compare your map with that of others. Good ones to compare against may be those of mystics or of Gurus from your chosen path [2].

The 100 hours will give enough experience to understand the experiences behind the words of others. [3] Reading the words without practice merely builds imaginary frameworks without any validating experience.

NOTES

[1] In India, the traditional ways to validate knowledge or understanding are called pramāṇa. Three ways are
a) pratyakṣa or direct experience (from my own practice),
b) anumāna or conceptual framework (my own understanding) based on pratyakṣa, and
c) āgama - validating my own experience and understanding against reports or teachings of trusted others.
(Respectively 2, 3, and 4, of the approach above)

[2] The Heartfulness Way practices are an effective inward approach. To start, take a set of guided introductory sessions first. Available online through the Masterclasses at heartfulness.org. Or through a nearby trainer or centre via heartspots.heartfulness.org.

[3] For Heartfulness practitioners, Daaji's March to Freedom articles in the Heartfulness magazine, Babuji's Towards Infinity and Efficacy of Raja Yoga. Also, Babuji's Autobiography or the 1944 Whispers vol. 1, or Chariji's In His Footsteps, vol. 1. Please do not read before practising for at least 100 hours.