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.