Unity Consciousness
The final step of growth of human consciousness comes when the refined value of celestial perception melts into continual awareness of the Ascendant on the outside. This is the highest level of enlightenment and is known as Unified Perpetual Consciousness or Unity.
Unity Consciousness sounds impossible from the perspective of the waking state: How can the Infinite be seen, heard, touched, tasted or smelled? It makes sense only from the standpoint of one who has risen to awareness of Infinite Consciousness on the inside. There is no resolution to my heart's longing until every individual, every object, is experienced as being the same Infinite Self that I am on the inside.
How does this final stage of growth occur? Through an act of intellectual discrimination, the enlightened individual realizes that the infinite light being experienced on the outside is the same infinite light that is being experienced on the inside. The glorious celestial reality melts into Infinity. Said another way, the individual discovers that his Cosmic Beloved is his own Self. Funnily enough, all love ends up directed back at the Self. It is not directed back at the limited self of the waking state, that self cannot love anything or anyone consistently. The love is directed back at the Universal Cosmic Self of the Enlightened Mind. And that gives us the full awareness that each and everyone of us is a spark of the Divine Flame; each and every one of us is the same beneath all our surface differences.
What sparks this ultimate realization? Certain treatises on the subject of Unity were written by individuals in Unity: the Brahma Sutras of Badarayana, the Upanishads, the Maharamayana (Yoga Vasishtha) of Valmiki, A Course in Miracles. The entire Vedanta (literally, End of the Veda) philosophy of ancient India was designed for those in Exalted Consciousness to rise to Unity.
Another catalyst of this transformation can be the direct words of the fully enlightened to the aspirant standing at the last doorway to Unity: "Thou art That," "All this is That," "There is nothing other than That." "That" of course refers to the Ascendant. At the appropriate instant of time, these great words (Mahavakyas) irrevocably crush the last taint of limitation in the mind of the evolving soul. Or this transformation can occur in a countless number of ways; Nature Herself can create the necessary conditions so that it must happen.
'Individual life continues to function in Unity because of leshavidya, the "last remains of ignorance."
Karma (action) is divided into two types: that which is returning, regardless of our present actions, and that which lies as if dormant -- dormant because it has no chance to reach us in this lifetime. The results of our past karma are comparable to seeds. A tiny fraction of these seeds have already sprouted and are going to have effects in our life. It is as if a small amount of our storehouse of karma has gone into building a bridge to this lifetime. Beyond this bridge lies the vast majority of our karma, comparable to mountain ranges of grain, awaiting the appropriate conditions to grow.
Ascending is a divine fire which roasts these seeds so they have no potential to sprout. The bridge burned, there is no longer a connection with the past; the karma no longer has the potential to return. The seeds have been roasted in the fires of wisdom.
The karma that has already sprouted creates leshavidya. This keeps the body and mind functioning in Unity. It is like a thin film of grease on the hand after one picks up a cube of butter and then drops it down again. The life continues on by force of habit; the individual essence is experienced as a thin, almost invisible membrane between two fullnesss: the inner Self is experienced as Infinite, the outer world is experienced as Infinite; what is left of the individuality is the faint, translucent boundary between these two fullnesss. This is what is meant in the Upanishads by, purnam ida, purnam idam: "This is full, that is full." This Infinite, unchanging internal experience of Eternity is not different from the Infinite, unchanging external experi¬ence of Eternity. These two fullnesss are experienced as one. This is what my Teacher meant when he said, "200% of life is the birthright of every human being."
Harmlessness and Surrender
In the relative world of the waking state to be harmless is a monumental task, even the little old grandmother who wouldnt seem harmful to anyone will collide with living objects in the world.
The insecticides she might use on her roses will kill many living insects, the fertilizer for her garden and lawn is toxic to the worms and humans and will affect the groundwater. When she walks she will crush any unsuspecting life form unfortunate enough to be in the way and underfoot and even washing her hands will kill the bacteria on her skin. Of course some of these things seem inconsequential but so do many acts of ignorance in the waking state.
The idea that we are born to die seems normal and hardly worth giving a second thought to us since this has been the way of life for countless generations, but what if it is not the Truth?
How then will we choose to look at the world and our own lives?
King James Version
Ecclesiastes 3
1 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
A time of war and a time of peace .. In the story of the Mahabharata man sets himself against man, brother against brother in a war that represents not only the battle of good verses evil but the struggle between the awareness of Truth in Spirit and the illusions of beliefs and ego.
The hero, Arjuna, is at first torn apart by the conflict that is taking place, not able to rise above the beliefs of right and wrong he cant take any side to support his family in the battle.
Krishna the incarnation of God has come to guide Arjuna through his consciousness and his beliefs in reality. Krishna tells Arjuna of the reality of life and its illusions of belief. He tells him that everyone picks their life and lives out the life they choose according to the way they wish to experience themselves in a projection of belief or according to their desire to experience something. At one point as Arjuna is struggling in disbelief as his family fights one another slowly taking life after life, Krishna starts dancing and singing, God, God, everywhere there is only God! Arjuna who is pretty upset and a bit confused tries to get a hold on the state of affairs but cant quite come to terms with Krishnas jubilation.
Krishna explains that each person he sees on the battle field is an immortal soul that cannot die. Each one has chosen to play a part on the battle field, just as an actor would dress himself accordingly to play a part on a stage.
Each soul has dressed itself in the clothes of human appearance to play the parts of good and evil.
Krishna helps to clear the mind of Arjuna so that he may see truth rather than illusion and that he may align with his purpose and to take a part in the play. Without recognizing the Truth it is impossible for Arjuna to align himself with anything other than his beliefs and attachments to reality and what he has been convinced is real.
Through Krishnas discourse on the Truth of reality and his compassion to help Arjuna through the illusions of appearance, Arjuna finally awakens to the reality of Truth and steps in to play his part in perfect surrender.
In playing his part in perfect surrender to the will of the whole and the will of God in creation Arjuna also achieves the state of perfect harmlessness. Since there is nothing that he does that is not of Gods will there is no conflict of thought feeling or action and so there is no opposing force or will that collides with the nature of all of life in the moment.
Harmlessness in the relative world is almost impossible for there will eventually be a thought feeling or action that will oppose another thought feeling or action. For the enlightened there is no conflict, for every thought feeling and action is surrendered to divine will.
One of the most important steps to learning surrender is through Isvara Pranidhana or surrendering to God on the outside. This is in recognizing God and surrendering everything to that. To begin that process one can lend the awareness to the fact that every experience will give way to another experience and in the process of evolution the cumulative effect is that the changing experiences lead one who desires to grow to greater awareness and experience of themselves.
Just as the awareness of the adult is greater than that of the child through experience so is the enlightened awareness greater than that of the waking state awareness through experience.
To begin one only needs to open themselves to more, to set down the past to experience the now without any preconceived ideas. This sounds easy enough but our habit is to build our points of reference on the past experiences and to project the possibility of reoccurrence into the future. Fear lends itself to paranoia and the habit to control and manipulate the world around us to protect ourselves from the possibility of any reoccurring experience that we didnt like. Seeing as how we have convinced ourselves that death is inevitable the idea that it might happen before we are ready to fully accept the moment of departure scares the hell out of most of us and we will fight for our desire to maintain control.
If we could only see the Truth of the immortal soul we would realize that death is not real, that it is simply another experience, a change in scenery within the Time space continuum of manifest reality.
Once we realize this it is much simpler to accept life for what it is, and when we get out of the way of fear and illusion it is much simpler to align with our purpose of being human. What will follow is the choice to do our very best in expanding our conscious awareness.
