We were talking the other day about the soul and the Spirit – the soul and the Spirit are they two or are they one? Then the word Self – so the Spirit, the Self, the soul – what are they?
The soul and the Self are two positions of one Entity – the Spirit. The Spirit and the Self are one – in terms of experience, in terms of position, the difference depending on whether it is individual or transcendent. The soul is also the same Entity – but the soul develops in life, it is in life. So we use the word ‘soul’ for the Self-Spirit in life. In the Indian terminology the soul would equate to Purusha or Antaratma – Being or Inner Self, the Self to Atman and the Spirit to ParamAtman or Supreme Self. The individual in life is soul, Purusha, the individual above life is Atman, the Self, and the individual in its transcendence is the ParamAtman the Supreme Self or Spirit. We can say they are the personal, the impersonal and the Supreme impersonal. Atman (when in ignorance of itself it is Jivatman when in self-knowledge it is Shivatman) in its individual position above soul is Self, while in its universality and ultimate transcendence it is the ParamAtman the Supreme Self, the Spirit, and yet it is all one reality in differing positions, capacities and play. The Atman or Self is transcendent of the soul-in-life while the ParamAtman is transcendent of all creation – all life. The soul is embodied existence and the Atman or Self disembodied even though linked to the same individual and body through life.
I give you an example from the life of Ramakrishna to make it clear. When he is experiencing the Spirit, or the Self above life, he is in Self-bliss and therefore – being stationed in the Self above life – does not feel any emotion when he is told about the passing away of his nephew Akshay who had been so close to him. And this would be for any situation in life: the response that would come from an individual, what would it be? It would depend on the position of that person in terms of his consciousness.
Broadly speaking that person could be in an ‘impersonal’ position; that person could be above life, transcendent to life’s responses – as in the case of Ramakrishna and therefore the response would be accordingly. Ordinarily you do not experience this because ordinarily individuals are very much in the life-levels all the time; they do not have the experience, or the opening to be that position, which is above life.
And therefore people are seeking meditation – to attain to the position of transcendence to the sufferings of life. This is what the Buddhists say, don’t they: life is suffering, so let us have Nirvana, transcend life and its suffering forever – for in your consciousness when you rise above life-levels there is no suffering – you are not in the world of emotions and feelings and sensations and reactions – likes and dislikes, love-and-hate opposites etc.
When Ramakrishna is told about the death of his nephew he is stationed in the Spirit-Self above life, experiencing himself above life as the Self with its nature of bliss. So when the information is given to him he continues to be blissful. He is not in life-situation; he is above life-situation: he is the Self, blissful in any situation, in any condition – therefore transcendence. Therefore his response is different from the regular or the ordinary. He sees differently. He sees the immortality of the Self-Spirit and is untouched.
This is Ramakrishna at that moment – Ramakrishna the Self, blissful and transcendent to any situation in life. But what happens as he descends, the same Ramakrishna, in his consciousness, in his being as he descends into life-levels, starts to feel emotions as a response to the information he has received – and he weeps.
Now this is the soul-in-life, the former the Spirit-Self above life. In both situations it is Ramakrishna – one entity. Different states of consciousness but one being – one Spirit, one soul – but different positions, different aspects.
You cannot say there are two Ramakrishnas; there is only one – one individual, one person. And yet in the Self he may seem an ‘imperson’ if I may say so – he may seem – but at the life-levels he becomes a person experiencing life and its vicissitudes with whom ordinarily one could relate in life.
Now in this instance the response Ramakrishna got to his being in his Spirit-Self above life was one of criticism. This can happen. It happens also here with us, and then all kind of projections can come: ‘He is angry with us… He is not looking at me’… while the fellow is just quiet and above, experiencing the vastness of the Self, transcendent to the immanence in life, transcendent to all life. He may seem like a mountain to you – and so far away.
Look at the Buddha. When you see the image of the Buddha he seems far away. Then look at Krishna: with him you can relate so personally, get so intimate. And the experiences of Buddha and Krishna could belong to one body, one soul, one Spirit, one entity, one individual.
So now with Ramakrishna, his behaviour would be according to his state. He is in the state of Spirit-Self, blissful by its very nature, above life, above the dualities of life – the vagaries, the winds and the typhoons and the storms and the hurricanes of life – the joys and the sufferings of life – above and beyond; above the likes and dislikes; above the attachments and the detachments of life; above the separation of mine-and-yours. He is nonchalant – nonchalantly blissful and for this he invites criticism from his relatives – for they do not have his experience, but he is untouched by even that. And he is total in that; he is complete in that; he is himself in that. But then his process of sadhana includes life also. So he is shown the other side of the reality by The Mother as he then puts it.
Now if one were to be stationed permanently in that position, he would be predictable, in the sense that you could predict that he will always behave in the same way – in transcendence, ‘as a self-realized soul’ – and therefore his philosophy and teaching would be according to that. It could reach the heights of being impersonal – look at the Buddha.
And of course, it does not mean there is no dynamism in that state and condition – and yet it is impersonal: it is in transcendence to all that is life. And as a measure of that, Ramakrishna sees a vision when he is told of the death of his nephew – the eternal soul leaving the finite, the soul leaving the body, while he rejoices in self-bliss – self-existent bliss. See the difference – self-existent bliss.
But at life-levels you require situations, conditions to be happy. There you require no condition – it is the nature of the Self, the Spirit. It can be there even at life-level, when you become sufficiently free from the imposition of Nature, Prakriti, when you experience yourself truly as the Being behind the workings of Nature.
It is essentially the same Reality, which is blissfully transcendent above life what becomes self-delight in life – which is Krishna. That does not mean he does not have the transcendence too – he does. He has the sheer joy and delight of Existence and the bliss of transcendence both positions integral and whole.
And for that sheer delight of Existence to be able to express itself in life… Otherwise why would life constantly be seeking for delight, through all its struggles and strives? Because it is there – it needs to be uncovered.
But in life there are so many more emotions and experiences which the soul-in-life experiences. Through those experiences it grows and develops – evolves.
It seems a contradiction, does it not? The eternal nature of the Self, above time, above duality, lives in self-bliss, lives in eternity, infinite, while the same Self as soul-in-life lives in time and suffers the vagaries of life. If you remain in the above-time position permanently you would be permanently eternal – but transcendent to life! And yet the same entity in life experiences time – birth-and-death. It experiences mutation – even though immutable!
In manifestation there is a growth to the soul; above manifestation there is no growth – there is what Is. That growth is in life, of life – soul-life, which the soul acquires through its multiple experiences.
Now coming back to Ramakrishna, – ‘up there’ he does not experience the emotions, the very personal emotions of life-levels. He is transcendent of life. It does not mean he cannot look at life, but he looks at life from that position, from above – therefore the vision of the soul departing. But when he comes down to life-levels what does he experience? He does not experience the transcendence … he experiences the emotions of time – emotions of life.
It is there – that is why we talk about having the transcendental, the cosmic and the immanent all in one individual but here definitely he has descended into life-level and behaves according to that – he sorrows, no, let us say he experiences sorrow, and the tears come.
Up there, there were no tears, there was no sorrow – there was the bliss of the Self. Now the same entity has descended into life-levels where the responses of life are inevitable. And yet there is a difference between one who is free and one who is bound to Nature’s design, or let us say between one who has matured – ripened, and one who is still maturing – ripening, through life-levels.
He sees the sorrow as energy – and yet he lives through it. He is the purusha, the soul. But ordinarily this is not experienced. You become, you are the becoming – he experiences the Being. But he experiences the emotions also! He is not lost to the emotions – he can live those emotions. Therefore he weeps.
And it is very interesting because of how he expresses himself afterwards. He says, ‘The Mother is showing me, teaching me something more of the reality. I was so blissful in that moment untouched, above, feeling no sorrow while the people were weeping. Then when I came down I felt immense sorrow as if somebody was wringing my heart like a towel.’ In that position one would be considered quite easily as being insensitive to the situation. In one’s loftiness one could even end up being patronizing to the other and therefore not be mindful of the feeling and state of the other.
‘Ah, come on, you are the Self. You are awake, you are enlightened – this very moment you have it! What are you crying for? The soul does not die. It is immortal.’ And the other fellow not comprehending would end up quite bewildered and say, ‘this is not my reality! What are you talking about?’
For Ramakrishna it was so, although he is a very sensitive person and compassionate – (there is an event in his life where he repeatedly picks up a scorpion from the waters of the Ganga to save it from being washed away into the ocean and sure death even though being bitten by it each time, and when someone who was watching him from the banks shouted out to him as to how stupid he was being, being bitten time and time again and still trying to save the scorpion – he retorted that the scorpion was behaving according to his nature and he was behaving according to his nature – compassion) – he behaved according to his transcendence and of course he invited criticism from the people. And they left thinking he was as weird as they had heard – he was considered to be crazy by his relatives from the village for he did not behave in the way everybody did. For them this confirmed it– ‘he is not normal. He is abnormal’ they concurred.
Of course somebody who has some understanding of the spiritual would consider him to be supranormal in that moment. But again when he comes down and expresses himself ‘normally’, they would say, ‘what has happened? He has fallen! He is supposed to have transcended. He is enlightened – why should he experience the passions of life, the emotions of the heart, the sorrows of life?’ This is because they do not understand the whole process of sadhana. If they did they would understand. Ramakrishna understood for The Mother was showing it to him, as he said, the nature of the Reality and sadhana in its completeness and immense was his appreciation.
Then again people not comprehending the reality usually rationalize saying that it is only a game for someone like Ramakrishna and that they really do not feel or suffer. This is not exactly true for they feel and they too can sorrow depending on where they are positioned in their consciousness – even though they can play the game of life better because of the freedom they have for they can watch and witness themselves at the same time and have sufficient space between themselves and their feelings and they have a much greater range and field of consciousness open to them then people have ordinarily. When Christ feels the sorrow and pain of the crucifixion and he says to the Father, ‘Why have thee forsaken me?’ – It is a very real experience for him. And at the same time when he says, ‘I and my Father are one’ – it is also a very real experience for him.
There seems to be a contradiction here too, no? Two positions of Christ also! On the one hand, ‘I and my Father are one’; on the other when on the cross he feels the pain and says, ‘Why have thee forsaken me Father?’ Two different positions and contradictory – so usually people write it off as if knowledgeably: ‘this is all a game he is playing, this is a drama being played for us…’ This is why Ramakrishna afterwards says, ‘The Mother showed me that I should not be so high and above only’ – he puts it like this…
Up there, there is no suffering because there is no duality – you do see the duality of the world, but you see it like a motion picture – of course the higher you go the world starts to loose its body, form and substance until finally a point is reached when it is gone completely and there is only light, Subjective and Self-existent – behind you see the Infinite and you are situated in transcendence, so your experience of what is happening out there compared to the others is different.
So when he comes down to the emotional level he sorrows and weeps – even more so than others would ordinarily. He says, ‘I felt as if my heart was being wrung like a towel, and I wept.’ That is the descent into life-levels.
So now is he another individual? He is the same Ramakrishna! He is the same Christ; he is the same Rama when he weeps for Sita and turns to every stone and every tree in great sorrow – so much so that it even surprises Laxmana – ‘even you my brother, even you sorrow so much – you who is Rama known to face easily any crises!’
The difference is that in the ignorance one knows not oneself as a Being in Nature – rather one is lost to Nature, enslaved to Nature. That is why I keep insisting repeatedly about being able to experience in freedom – not only to transcend all experiences and therefore live in the Spirit’s self-bliss, but to be able to stand behind and in life and experience all the emotions and feelings and see them for what they are: energies, play of universal forces for interaction in life – and therefore the Master-Being in life, Master soul-life – not only the Master-Transcendent, the Master Self-Spirit.
To have everything: to have the Transcendence and to have the Being-in-freedom in life, so rather than living in bondage you live in freedom. The transcendence is also a freedom, but it is above life. This freedom we talk about is freedom in life, while you yet live the life-levels. This is Krishna both transcendent and free in life.
Therefore the ‘soul’ would be a word describing the same entity in life while the same entity in transcendence would be the Self, the Spirit. And yet the soul is Spirit – you are the Spirit, you are the Self, and you are the soul.
Fiamma: When we leave the body we are above life. What happens to the soul then?
Are you really? This is debatable. It cannot be taken for granted as an automatic consequence. You pass through so many planes after you leave the body – this physical is not the only plane of life! The soul travels through different levels and then returns for the continuation of evolution.
If you were to resolve yourself, your soul – that position – to the Spirit alone, to the absolute transcendence, then there would be no return. But in special cases some can and do return even when they arrive there.
Ordinarily the soul in its evolution will pass through various stages of life-experiences unconscious and unaware of the Transcendental. But it can be done consciously also, and while you still have your Transcendence and your transcendent experience.
This is where the decision also can come from you. If you do not want to return you transcend everything and merge in the Absolute Transcendent. Then you as an individual soul no more exist. You as the Transcendent have yourself agreed to evolve as a soul-in- life – but if you want to give it up you can. However you would have to reach to transcendence. It is not simply a matter of words…
Many want to have it to escape from the suffering and the difficulties of life! So it can become an escape into Transcendence – and Transcendence is such a radical experience that you can feel, ‘this is it’! And then you can remain there permanently, and ultimately there is no more the individuality for you. You would merge in the Absolute Transcendence – you as an individual no more exist. You exist as the Transcendent alone – but ‘you’ is no more there. Neither is the ‘I’ of course or anything like that: only what Is exists.
But so long as there is to be participation in manifestation, the same Transcendent puts forth itself as a soul-in-life – an individual ‘entity’. So the individual entity while yet being in the body can decide to continue evolving in life and yet can have the Transcendence – which is beyond all evolution.
This has to be experienced – it is so radical! That which is beyond all evolution goes through evolution in life in its soul-aspect. Otherwise it would seem that there are two entities in the same body, no?
F: Sometime I get the feeling there are many!
That is the diversity and the multiplicity of the soul’s person and personalities! It is so – because there is the Being in the physical, the Being in the pranic, vital, in the emotional, in the mental and so on. It seems a lot of times so schizophrenic…especially if you have developed strong, opposing and polarized personality.
Kamaal: But by the time one merges the soul it may be undeveloped yet in life.
Really, whatever was the development of the soul at that instant that would be, although development is a relative term and the soul is always in the process of development. But then many do not see it and then there is no-one to consider as the soul-in-life when one merges!! The experience is so radical that many do not want to continue or are not even capable to participate in the manifestation afterwards. Many do not even know it and many do not even see it that such a thing could be. For that to be one has to approach and participate in the complete sadhana.
K: Were they to be in life again they would still be in junior high school instead of the university…
Sure. Junior high school in the sense that they would begin from where they left off… But they decided they did not want to participate, or did not even see that there was something like this – the ascent and the descent, the inner and the outer, the complete process, the complete sadhana – to be able to have the transcendence and yet continue in the march of life, in the march of increasing Manifestation.
K: Is there actually a point of decision?
Yes, there is and it comes from knowing and the approach you take – when you see what is obvious and staring you in the face one would hope you would make that decision and carry on accordingly. ‘Hey what is this? There is more to the reality then what I understood of it before and you decide accordingly.’ But then if you decide otherwise, well, you miss out.
Life is ‘ignorance’ only and ‘suffering’ – a lot of philosophies approach the reality in this way. Life is all suffering – Buddhistic – or all ignorance, and mythia, illusion – Advaitic. Then one seeks only to transcend and get quickly to the Absolute Transcendence: I am That! Ultimately there is no ‘you’, there is no ‘me’, there is no world left. Then everything drops – the body drops, everything ends in transcendence… And there is no who’s who!!
That is why people say, ‘We have to go back home’, go back to the origin – implying the earth is not their home and therefore life here is to be given up – for them there is no going forward in life in its evolutionary march. What we are saying though is that one can get to the Origin, but there is also an evolutionary movement of life, which is usually not understood.
Sujan: What does make one want to keep on participating in the evolution?
If one were to see the intention of the reality for which life was put forward then one – if he or she is a sincere and genuine seeker of the truth – understands and participates as a natural course, but then even to understand and see one requires the right approach to sadhana and or Grace. Somehow it seems to be that there have been few pioneering individuals who have been very special in that way, who have seen the nature and completeness of the reality and who have waved the flag and carried on as flagbearers for all life, and therefore seeking and involving themselves in the complete sadhana, while most quite passively seem to have accepted to go back to the Transcendence and consider that alone to be real and the only aspect of Reality to be sought, the life being seen as either suffering or an illusion. They do not give any importance to the descent into manifestation, or they rather not for it requires them to put in more effort more working with themselves. They see and prefer the ascending, which is looked upon as a ‘going back home’. They ascend into this state of bliss and are hooked – ‘Wow, I want to stay here permanently; this is wonderful!’ They are not able to see the descent, too involved and conditioned by the bliss and or not having the required sadhana. They can not see that this whole movement of the Reality has something else and more behind it.
So when you start to see this one would hope you would have the sadhana and courage to decide on the whole truth… In their development it must be like that for some!
People can not reconcile between evolution and with what is beyond evolution – the Infinite! How can the Infinite evolve they ask? How can the Eternal evolve? It is beyond time – it is timeless! It is time that evolves – because they have not had these experiences where they can see the mutation in the immutable. They have not experienced the dynamic side of the Reality – the Absolute Transcendence is seen only as a static experience and a static Reality.
Su: Sometime I get a glimpse of an impersonal state. Then I feel, ‘Let us stay here, let us stay in this state’, because there is no you, no me, no suffering. But then one is compelled to go back to duality.
You must thank existence – God for that, for you have the opportunity for a complete sadhana even though you may not like it and you do not like it because of the flaw in your personality make-up, for your approach to life has been poor and flawed. Compelled because you have no control over it, because when you are descending to life-levels there is an automatic movement into life and the urge to live for it is coded into life to live – work for its evolutionary manifestation, and you personally have not been much inclined to working. Up there in Transcendence you do not experience this urge to live: if there is an urge it is the urge to be. Actually there is no urge finally – it is just ‘Being’ – static. But in life there is an automatic impulse for life to ‘Become’ – dynamic.
Up there the dynamism is resolved in itself. Here you have the duality of life, the multiplicity. You see, this is how it is: because that which is one is also multiple – it can be many-sided. That which is Transcendent can also be Immanent, embodied. But imagine having the experience and realization of Transcendence in you when you deal with life, when you participate in life…! This is how I am looking at it.
Su: I can understand when you speak about the impersonal state because of that I had glimpses – but being free in life…?
The Gita and the Upanishads are very specific on this: there is the Purusha, then there is the Atman and the ParamAtman – these are the aspects of One Reality: you! It is you that is in transcendence; it is also you very much in life, participating. And you can be free in life – not only as a transcendent experience but also as a Master in life, as an embodied Being.
However many radical experiences you may have, the process of manifestation does not stop – there is always more to come. So in your haste you may get carried away with transcendence and say, ‘This is it!’ – And then ‘give up the ghost’, literally, so to speak, therefore denying yourselves the whole Reality. And of course, you are in transcendence – what matters anyway?
Ultimately my last statement is this: that it does not matter one-way or the other if you decide on transcendence… All I am saying is, know the Reality completely – if you want transcendence permanently, yeah, why not – it is part of the Reality! But – know the Reality completely.
I want to know the whole Truth – not a part of the Truth, not a part of the Reality. If I am that Reality, I want to know myself completely, not only in transcendence. If there is something else, I want to know that too – how blissful the Transcendence may be it does not matter…I want the whole Reality
Pb: If every realized soul disappeared into the Absolute then this Creation would simply stay a hell, the Absolute would stay a heaven, and there would be no divine manifestation here. A permanent hell down here, a permanent heaven up there – and a migration of souls from here to there, hopefully!
Yes, that is how it is seen, no? Maybe there is a vested interest of some in making this place a hell so that realized souls continue to escape to heaven so that they may have this place to themselves!!
Pb: If there were no descent it would actually be like that. Looks like the Supreme may have some sort of ‘stake’ in having some souls come back and participate in evolution. For without them there is no manifestation!
Call it a ‘stake’ or whatever, but it is inherent to the process of manifestation. Many do not see this – that is the ignorance which too seems to be inherent to the Reality.
It is like the story of the animal that has many colours or aspects – and those who are just passing by or only spend a little time with it, see it in one aspect or the other only, and then they make that to be the absolute, the whole truth, but a person being there all the time with the Reality sees the various aspects – and more.
Or the story of the elephant and the four blind men. Each touching only a part of the elephant and laying claim to it being the whole truth.
And many may have perceived the Reality in its dynamic side, but then they did not participate like you see Krishna participating – actually living through life also while having all that…
And of course, let me underline, that does not mean that life movements and emotions would not continue to change – they would obviously – some things may even drop, some things may get transformed. So there is that growth of life in its evolutionary curve – you may rise above some things and some things may not exist for you any more.
And in that you are your own Master.
You see, Fiamma, as you were saying ‘after leaving the body you are above life’. This is not true unless you have attained to it in the ‘body’. It does not automatically follow after death. Actually most people are not even aware of the existence of such a position leave alone having that experience – how many have that experience? And even those who have the experience can continue – they need not (smiling broadly) ‘give up the ghost’!
Through the experience and realization of transcendence ‘in the body’ you can ‘give up the ghost’ for sure! You can give up the evolution of life, transcend all and arrive at the absolute dissolution of life – so that you as an individual no more exist.
Those who leave the body do not necessarily reach transcendence if they have not the experience and realization of it while they were in the body. There are so many souls, – they die – does that mean that is the end of them and they have arrived at absolute transcendence? No, it cannot be for they have not the experience. So death does not mean that you will automatically rise above life-levels and arrive to transcendence. It is not your experience – you do not know you are the Self, the Spirit – you have not attained to it so how can it be there waiting for you after death as a natural course.
You are that – even in body you are – but you do not have the experience, the realization. So in one way you are and yet you are not.
F: Is it possible to realize the Self at other levels of the Reality after leaving the body?
I mean, the Self is always present, but… whether you can be working towards that, whether you can therefore then arrive at the experience of the Self, the Spirit – that is the question!
Really the earth life, life in the body that is, is the life wherein evolution and the furtherance of the soul’s experience are possible. The other levels, we pass through them and then return – from what you have attained while in body – just as you do even in this, the earth life. In this body you can pass through various states, or you live so many different moments from so many different levels.
Pb: When you say ‘earth life’ do you mean this universe or this planet?
I mean the body. That means the planet and also the universe. I mean this plane of consciousness wherein the life on earth is fully possible.
Of course it is known that the experience and realization of transcendence have also come at the last moment. The work had been done earlier – the meditation, the sadhana, the working with oneself – and the moment of passing from this body brought in the result of the sadhana, the result of meditation.
And more likely such a one then would not return because the experience would be so radical as to fix him forever in that aspect and position negating all else, not giving him the opportunity for much thought on the issue as it were, or may return but now with this experience either present always or in moments. Is it too complicated?
Bina: In samadhi does one go into transcendence?
It depends now – there are so many kinds of samadhi. There is a samadhi, of course, that takes you to the absolute transcendence above; there can also be a samadhi that takes you inward not necessarily upward, where you lose completely the outer consciousness that too of course is a kind of transcendence.
Like Ramakrishna used to have samadhi where Vivekananda would test him by putting hot burning coals in the palms of his hands. He had no outer awareness at those times so he would not feel anything. For him the outside does not exist any more, the physical awareness is not there. But when he would come out of the samadhi into outer awareness then he would experience whatever one experiences when you have the outer awareness.
So there can be a reaching to samadhi turning completely inward and there can be a samadhi – sam-adhi – where you reach to a motionless state of being, in the sense that you transcend everything, you transcend time, duality, everything – and yet you may see the whole creation. This is also a samadhi.
Ramakrishna did not see anything; he used to go inward – he used to of course also go upward – in samadhi and transcend but you can have your eyes open and see the duality of life and still be in a state of transcendence to whatever degree – this is also a kind of samadhi.
It just depends: if you go inward, deep inward you can attain to a state of samadhi where you have no concern with the outside, there is no more the outside for you, no more the objective world for you until you come back to outer consciousness. And in another form you can perceive the objective world, but you are totally free of it in a state of intoxication but here you may still have the sense of body.
Broadly speaking there is the nirvikalpa samadhi and the savikalpa samadhi. You can say nirvikalpa is the transcendence wherein there is no movement, no manifestation involved. Savikalpa on the other hand means samadhi of a kind wherein you have the form, the object also in the perception. In nirvikalpa there is pure subjectivity while in savikalpa there is subjectivity and also the objectivity. Nirvikalpa is given a higher position by exponents because in savikalpa there is duality while in nirvikalpa there is no duality, only what is.
Then there is Bhava samadhi, where through an emotion, a deeper emotion – the devotees through the bhava – emotion – go into samadhi. There is intense bhava, intense feeling, like Mira and Chaitanya used to experience, very intense emotion…It is a samadhi with emotional content, intense emotional content turned to God.
Even the one who is in nirvikalpa is very conscious. It is not that he loses consciousness; he just loses the perception of the outside, the world and everything – or, everything – the world, the duality is resolved into total subjectivity. He is very conscious of Self – which is the Reality subjectified. Like if you were to travel inwards only and then close yourself to the outside, you would not have the perception of the outside. And it is a very conscious state, but it is an internal state or a state resolved into total subjectivity.
You can say that the nirvikalpa is a samadhi state where there is no more any form; there is no more any manifestation, while savikalpa has manifestation – form, object still present. It is not a double-mind state; it is still a samadhi. It is sa-vikalpa, meaning there can be a certain content to it – content of manifestation, creation, or feeling, or an emotion. Usually the devotees have savikalpa, but they can arrive at nirvikalpa also from thereon when they resolve everything into Self. This was how it was with Ramakrishna. From savilapa he arrived to nrvikalpa.
In savikalpa you would have a sense of the outside – the other; in nirvikalpa there is no sense of manifestation – of the outside – the other.
Samadhi, I would describe as to be in complete harmony. In savikalpa the harmony includes the outside – the manifestation, let us put it this way; in nirvikalpa it does not include the outside in terms of creation and the dual presence. They are both states of harmony of the Being – therefore sam-adhi. They are both states of being complete in oneself.
Savikalpa by its very translation means ‘with modification’; nirvikalpa means ‘without modification’. Sa-vikalpa: vikalpa means ‘modification’. Sa means ‘with’; nir means ‘without’. So people give nirvikalpa a higher position because it is total subjectivity, but to me they are just two different states experienced in sadhana – I would not rate them higher or lower. They are just two experiences.
So you could be in an intense state of harmony in yourself – which is samadhi – while you are still aware of the outside – all the duality. In nirvikalpa there is no modification, no object left, no other, no outside – no duality left anymore. It is a totally subjective state.
Visitor: When can I say there is duality and when can I say that there is no more duality?
Coming back to Ramakrishna’s example, he is in the Self above life but he still sees the other, he still sees two – there is still the duality for him, okay? He listens to the message, the information, but he is very much in self. He is not in the duality of life at that moment for he does not experience the responses that should naturally follow ordinarily – say an emotion or a sorrow. He is in transcendence and yet he sees two – do you understand? There is the one, the relative, who gives him the information and himself – two – duality, and yet he does not feel or experience any emotion as a natural response to that information. He is not in life, in life-levels, where the duality becomes very, very marked. He sees two – he sees the duality – he is in duality and yet he is not.
So he is in transcendence even though still in duality. But if he were to carry on further he will no more see two but experience what is pure subjectivity – there will not be any duality left for him anymore; all will be resolved into the unmanifest Self. This would be termed nirvikalpa samadhi. When he used to go into this kind of samadhi there was just What Is.
The position he was in when he received the message is one of transcendence although he is still in the I-and-thou of manifestation – it is transcendence but there is still him and the other. So therefore the receiving of the message, but not the behaviour of the being which is in life through living and participating at the life-levels – emotions, feelings, passions, thoughts…
And if you were from that position to go higher – which he used to do also – then all this gets resolved, even the you.
V: So one could say, for egolessness there must be transcendence.
Yes of one kind or the other. But then what is the ego; let us define the ego – what is ego? The ‘sense of I’ – is that what you mean by ‘ego’? How would one define ego?
V: Being separate.
Yes, that is the ‘sense of I’ and therefore the ‘sense of the other’. Now in the absolute transcendence there is no ‘sense of I’ – whenever you say ‘I’ it means that there is ‘thou’ also, there is ‘you’, the other.
In fact in the statement, ‘I am That’ – I used to say, “There too, there is the ‘I’ and there is ‘That’”. There is still duality. Ultimately there is no word, no sound – who is to say ‘I am That’? So long as there is, the duality exists. They are two words, ‘I’ and ‘That’ – there would be no word then; there would be no you to even define, describe the state but then you would not return.
That is why in the Upanishads it is said, ‘The mind reaches it not and returns’! There are all these seemingly paradoxical statements explaining the subtleties of the Reality.
And in between there are so many in-between experiences one can have… That is why I gave the example. Here Ramakrishna still has the perception of ‘the other’: he receives the message but still he does not behave in a way which is considered ‘normal’ to life. He seems to have no emotions.
Of course it does not mean that people without emotions are all like Ramakrishna! They may be just indifferent at that moment or plain callous emotionless people while his is a totally different state. At that moment Ramakrishna was the blissful Self. But we term the ego as ‘I’ – right? And it is only when there is no more even the ‘sense of I’ in its most absolute condition, then one would say finally the ego is gone!
Pb: If the sense of ‘I’ is the ego, why is the Self called ‘the Self’?
What else would the Self be if not the Self?? To differentiate between the unenlightened condition and the enlightened one, between the unenlightened sense of I and the enlightened sense of I. The ego is Self but unenlightened or one can say in the process of enlightenment – hopefully! Ramakrishna used to call them the unripe ego and the ripe ego. The unripe ego is one of Ignorance; the ripe ego is one of Knowledge.
I… With this word you define the state of your Being. For example, ‘I am angry’. Anger is a state; to be angry is a state. You define that state as yourself at that moment: ‘I am angry’. Say, if you were in a blissful state you would say, ‘I am blissful’. ‘I am the Blissful Self’ – Shankara sings – ‘Shivoham, Shivoham – I am Shiva the Absolute.’ There also is the ‘I’! So the ‘I’ remains until… until it does not remain!!! Then who is left to define what is! Any takers! Speak up or forever remain silent!!
So should we condemn the ego, or should we not?
Usually ego is condemned. For example when people say, ‘This fellow is egoistic’, they mean he is intensely assertive. But these are also just states. Somebody is conceited or assertive, you do not like it so you say, ‘He’s egoistic’, or ‘She is egoistic’. It is just the vitality: asserting your individuality is termed as ‘ego’. When we transcend the individuality we say there is no more the ego.
V: To be in life you need to have ego.
Of course! The ‘sense of I’ – obviously! That is why we do not say no to the ego, or let us say: we say yes to the Being in life.
What we are saying is, the unripe ego is ignorant of the truth of its Being; ego is ignorant and a slave to Nature – this is how we differentiate. When you open out from the ego into the truth of your Being, then you have ripened, matured – in life too. You still have your individuality, but it is different now. Before there was the ego, the ego-individual, but that was slave to Nature in the sense that Nature ruled over that individuality, while ultimately you are the Master of Nature! So you step from the ego to your true individuality, to your true Being – though it is only a matter of identification.
Now, for example you live your daily life with the idea ‘I am body’ – for you identify with the body as yourself most times, right? This is termed as the ego. But when you discover that you are an embodied Being and the body is only an instrument of expression, you would still be an individual, but it is no more the ignorant idea of your identity as the ‘bodily ego’ – it is now the true thing the Being an enlightened individual. It is only a matter of identification.
So the ego exists on all planes – it can be a mental ego, it can be an emotional ego, and it can be a physical ego. The ego is only a false, transitional and temporary front to your true Being. And the Being also exists on every plane. It can be a physical Being in the sense of the Being that has embodied itself in the physical, or it can be an emotional Being, the Being that experiences emotions – experiences emotions, it is not lost to the identity that it is the emotions.
Pb: So in the state of the Absolute the word ‘Self’ would not apply any more, for the word Self implies subjectivity…
It implies non-Self…The Absolute in its Transcendence is subjectivity and it is through your ‘sense of subjective Self’ that you arrive there so the word Self seems to be the closest we can get to defining it.
Pb: It implies subjectivity, does it not?
Of course.
Pb: So Self is not then the right word for it, the Absolute state.
What word would you use?
Pb: ‘That’ or ‘Absolute’.
There are no words to define it for there no-one is left to describe it and ‘That’ implies the other, an object which is still far away implying you are yet to make the journey – you haven’t got to the ‘I’ yet which is total subjectivity – so how can ‘That’ be used to describe subjectivity. Subjective means ‘Self’ not ‘That’ which means objective. So Self it is – Quod Erat Demonstrandum! Absolute of course but Absolute Self or Self Absolute not surely Absolute That or That Absolute – it sounds as if you will never get there besides it sounds so funny unless you want it to join some travelling soap opera!!
Pb: It must be one of the two – either subjectivity implies an object, or it does not.
Even ‘That’ implies the other in fact in this case the subjective. Surely you will agree Self is closer to defining the subjective than ‘That’ or do you have some more brain waves – maybe some more script for the soap opera!!
Pb: So – which of these two?
There you go again. Self of course is better. So long as you are going to use a word to describe it the word Self comes the closest than all other words. Although the two-word What Is is even better. No words can describe that state, the Absolute Transcendence. Even ‘absolute’ can be misunderstood because absolute is then taken as an end – so it is to be experienced. That is the best way – so why do you not experience it (laughter)??
And, through yourself you would experience it.
You are the Reality and all that is the Reality is yourself! This is one of the most profound statements of the rishis in the Upanishads and I give it great value – it is the only mantra you require and the only book you need to study is yourself. So, ‘Know thyself and all will be known’ say the Upanishads. That is all; it is the only mantra you require.
‘Do not know yourself in part’ – this is all I add. Do not take to one part alone – even though it may be very radical and beautiful – do not be in a hurry to deny the rest of yourself. There is yet more to be known.
That is why the Upanishads say, one who says ‘I am knowing it’ is wise while someone who says they know it is still ignorant. So we are knowing ourselves all the time, at whatever level we may be.
Aditya: You said there are two types of samadhi. Which type do you belong to?
(Laughing) Here we go with belongings again – longings and belongings!
Ad: Is it inside samadhi, outside samadhi, or a new type of samadhi?
It is the inside-out outside-in downside-up upside-down Samadhi!!
You want to go into samadhi or what?
Ad: I experience that when I am in the meditation room there is this inside samadhi…
…and when you are outside there is this outside samadhi! (Laughing 🙂 This is it – you have both! Wow!
Ad: No, when I go out of the room there is life, normal life. So it is a struggle.
No connection between the inner and the outer, this is how it is.
For that of course you have to make the opening, which is the joining of the lower and the higher, the inner and the outer. You have to awaken to the process where it joins you from the lower to the higher, the higher to the lower, the inner to the outer, the outer to the inner – it is a process. So we are hoping that that process may happen to you – whenever you are ready. At least now you are aware of it.
Ad: Is there no type of samadhi that can work in the middle? You said there are many types – I would prefer something easier…
(Everybody laughs)
I thought you would help me in that (laughing) – at least in the inner samadhi since you have it!!
I am talking about the Reality that you are: samadhi is only one of the realities that is yourself.
Ad: And what about satori? What is that?
Satori is samadhi. We have talked about it before. Just different words – one Japanese and the other Sanskrit? Harmony – that is why as a modern term I use the word Harmony. Now you have no harmony between the inner and the outer. There are inner moments or there are moments of being in the outer life and you can lose yourself to one or the other and the inner to the outer, the outer to the inner. Now you play a double role! In Hindi films they are playing double roles all the time! You can easily take to Bollywood acting!
That is why I say – when you are working, when you are interacting be conscious of the inner too – take a moment and come into yourself and remind yourself all the time to do so – normally you are immediately lost to the outside – then from there you can come into the outside. You can practice to join the inner and outer in this way – then they join up. The opening has to be made between the inner and the outer, so also the lower and the higher.
There is this knot in the middle of your torso in the solar plexus region – when that opens then you join up with the higher levels of your consciousness and Being, which you do not experience now. Really there are three knots – first at the base of your spine at the first centre called the Brahma Granthi or the Moola Granthi – Knot of Brahma or the Root Knot, the second at the solar plexus called the Vishnu Granthi or the Madhya Granthi – Knot of Vishnu or the Middle Knot and third at the sixth centre called the Shiva Granthi or the Chandra Granthi – Knot of Shiva or the Moon Knot (the waxing moon on the forehead of Shiva is indicative of just that – the crowning glory of Yoga with all the knots open – so he is Yogeshwara, Lord of Yoga) each one opening you out to greater experience and realization and to more of the reality, consciousness and Being.
Somebody can give you the experience, but it is not yours permanently until you start to work with yourself and awaken – then it becomes yours. Of course it is all thanks to the Guru!
Ad: ‘Yours’ means personally mine?
Yes, very much – your personal belonging, (laughing) your possession – you can carry, you can wear, you can experience any time, you can give from it to others also without feeling that you have lost something …
It is your very Being! In this moment one can say you have to become it, but actually it is always there waiting for you. Then it becomes your experience, your realization. Realization of whatever was always there!
But you are not open to it…
Ad: How can I not be open to it if it is that which I want the most in life?
Do you? It doesn’t seem so because firstly you do not spend enough time working for it and leave alone that many times you even work against it. Just to want it is not enough you should be ready to work for it completely and totally however long it takes – nothing else should matter. It is the way it is.
The flower takes awhile to open out; it is only a seed at first. Then through all its nurturing, nourishing, gardening, whatever it may be – working with it – the plant, the seed opens out – and becomes the flower.
In the seed the flower was there. Did it come from the outside? No. Then the seed could never become a flower!
And therefore it is also termed ‘manifestation’? What is already present and potential starts to manifest in time. So when you meditate, do sadhana – when you are working with yourself, what you are doing is trying to bring about that manifestation.
You are making it happen. When it is done consciously you can speed up the process just like a gardener? In nature you have all these plants growing and they flower. But the gardener can help to increase the speed of growth by working with it consciously. It is one example.
Ad: But meditation is not a natural state, no? It is like the gardener is adding something to the plant growth.
Do you mean to say to actively participate is not natural? Why do you then go about working to make other things happen – then you don’t say it is unnatural. Why should meditation and working for it alone be unnatural?
Ad: Is meditation not something invented?
There is no such thing as inventions; there are only discoveries.
Ultimately you see this: that which is never there you can never invent. What the scientists call invention is always potential in the Reality – they discover it.
So meditation was also a discovery – because life evolved to that position and discovered this ‘activity’ to speed up the evolution.
Like fire? The humans discovered the fire – then they could cook pasta with it! Otherwise imagine you would have no pasta to eat which you like so much – you would be eating only raw uncooked things like the monkeys and you would be so cold without the heating in your home in Sweden. Life would not be getting anywhere without it time to time making discoveries for its growth – it would continue to remain in one position without evolving. Throughout life evolution there has been a dynamic side to life, from where it can then participate actively to further itself.
Up to a point in evolution it is Nature that works – what you call ‘spontaneous’… than at the level of humans it can have conscious participation. And even the dynamic side can be spontaneous, taking to spontaneous action.
Otherwise you become passive – let things happen by themselves: it can also mean that you end up doing nothing. And anyway can you stay without doing anything? Usually what one likes one does and what one doesn’t like one doesn’t do. You do not want to do something that you dislike. So do that much that you like.
There are so many activities life participates in, no? You have so many activities – make meditation also one of them. You have already added so much; it has not always been spontaneous, has it? (Everybody laughs) Of course the more spontaneous it becomes the better it is.
That is why I said the important thing is to awaken the process. Then you help the process to increase, and then the revelations and realizations come.
And when we talk about it, just listen to it from your Being.

Arya Vihar
24 April 1998