OBSERVATION IS THE ESSENCE OF ALL EXPERIENCE
Self-integration brings about the equilibrium that, as the Gita says, “You do not become too elated with joy, and you do not become deflated with sorrow.” To preserve that equilibrium, it necessarily requires the quality in man to be able to stand apart, and the easiest way I have found, through experiences of so many kinds of practices, is our form of meditation and this self-help programme, through which we attract the Law of Grace unto us, giving us the strength to be the observer.
This brings us equilibrium and tranquillity, but that is not where the story ends. After achieving this equilibrium and tranquillity, you will find that you yourself are part and parcel of this very friction. So the process is that you start being mixed up in the friction that composes nature, then you start standing apart from this very friction, and then you get drawn into the friction again. Ah! But this time, you get drawn into it with an understanding.
With the peace that you passeth all understanding, because your mind could never comprehend it, but your heart can feel it, your heart can experience it. So, after acquiring the ability of non-attachment, of standing apart, you start experiencing that very friction that composes nature. But it is like sound; sound at a very low pitch cannot be heard, and sound at a very high pitch cannot be heard. You are on a different level of the spiral, and after achieving that state of non-attachment, which is the result of total self-integration, you become part and parcel of all existence. When you become part and parcel of all existence, you have the realisation, the knowingness, that the friction that used to hurt me before is none other than I. I am the friction, I am the creation, I am the observer, I am the observed, and then the distinction between observer and observed ceases.
What remains is observation. Then you realise that I am the observation; the observed and the observer have no permanent value, forever, ever and ever changing, but observation itself has all the value, for observation is that which is achieved. Observation is the purpose of the observer and the observed. Otherwise, the observer and the observed have no existence whatsoever; their truth, their value, their existence lies in the observation itself.
EVEN OBSERVATION IS ULTIMATELY TRANSCENDED, LEAVING ONLY THE ETERNAL NOW
When we reach the stage of becoming the observation, duality ceases between the observer and the observed, between the Christ and the anti-Christ. Observation remains while you are still in the human body. The mind will start to understand what observation is. The object is gone, the subject is gone. Observation remains, and you will find that, to some degree, it is limited while we have this limited mind and body. We will find, appreciate, and know that it is an idea. Observation is an idea, and that idea is “I.” Then the mind starts analysing which “I”? The “I” that created all the friction, the “I” that observed all the friction, the “I” that got involved in all this friction, the “I” that became non-attached to the friction, the “I” that, knowing this, knows all. The idea, observation, is an idea. Then even the idea ceases. So the object of observation is gone, the subject-observer is gone. Observation itself is gone. What remains? That primal pure unity consciousness.
So, when man reaches the stage of Christ consciousness, he will understand all this as a man. He will understand the futility of the friction, the futility of the fact of the friction that was first observed. You will understand the futility of the fact, and further on, even the non-attachment to the fact. That too becomes futile, and all that ceases in the concept of a dream. Ah, then we say, I have been dreaming, look at this terrible nightmare I have been going through. But while in the nightmare you have suffering, you have been sobbing your tears and everything was so real, but from that vantage point, it becomes all unreal, and yet you know you experienced what reality is. And knowing this, as I have said before, you have known all.
That is the aim and goal of man. It is a long path, yet it is round the corner. For it is all here and now. Yesterday has ceased, tomorrow has ceased; it is only now, now, now, and this now is eternity. This eternal now can only be appreciated when you even transcend attachment. So, first being conscious of the object and the subject is part of the path. Becoming the non-attached person would bring about the equilibrium that could be maintained in all circumstances. And then you do not even need non-attachment.
THE FREEDOM BEYOND NON-ATTACHMENT
Many philosophers teach that once you have achieved non-attachment, you have achieved it all. No, you go beyond non-attachment to become attached to everything again, but from a different level of the spiral. Where everything, every atom, is enjoyed, because you are the master of nature. After that, not even that is needed anymore, because when you are the master of nature and understand the force of non-attachment, you are still involved in duality. What am I non-attached from? It is still I and you. This and that; that too has to cease. So Christ ceases, anti-Christ ceases, but only the spirit of Christ, the Divinity, remains, and you become one with the Divinity.
This might sound like a new concept to you. Most theologies and philosophies reach the point of non-attachment. I say that you go beyond non-attachment to attachment until you realise that attachment is non-existent; it was a nightmare dream. Then you are totally free and merged away in Unity Consciousness. Then you have become the divine. You started worshipping the divine. Then you started knowing the divine, and later you become the divine. All this is possible; all this is within the range of man’s ability, because the tree exists in the seed. The entirety of the tree, every leaf and every branch, is there within the seed, and it is these very forces of nature that cause friction, making the seed explode in the ground for the tree to grow.
You see how necessary all this is. But when troubles loom, what do we do? We start analysing it, we start assessing its importance, we start remembering the old saying, “For all this too must pass.” When we realise the true import of that phrase, we automatically become non-attached to it. We can be in the world, yet not of the world. And that is how all suffering and all joy reach an equilibrium. A balance in our lives. When that balance is reached, one would say, “Why must I lose all the joy of living?” Aha! You have lost the joy of living, but you have found the bliss of living.
BLISS HAS NO OPPOSITES, BLISS IS NON-DEPENDENT ON ANY EXTERNAL QUALITY
There is a difference. Bliss has a permanent quality and has no opposite, whereas pleasure has an opposite. Pleasure has pain; there is no opposite to bliss, for bliss is simply non-dependent on any external quality. Bliss is the flame that does not require fuel from the environment to keep it burning or alive.
So, look at the great game. You sacrifice pleasure, and pain goes with it at the same time. You feel bliss, and after feeling this bliss, as I explained, there is still some distance to go. When that total unity is reached, is there bliss? For if there is bliss, then who is the experiencer? Bliss cannot exist without the experiencer. Then you go into the realm of that void, where there is that beautiful nothingness. A deep sleep enjoyed for its own sake.
What did you experience in deep sleep? You lost all consciousness of pain, pleasure, joy, or sorrow. There is no bliss in that deep sleep. You are non-existent in that deep sleep, yet you were existing, so you experience existence for its own sake. That is the eternal moment, the eternal now, and then this entire span of the universe, of millions of years, is nothing but a blink of the eyelid, nothing more, and on and on and on, and on and on it goes, and that is eternity, and because it is eternity, it is also infinity. It is all. So is it not beautiful to know that man has the ability within himself to become an eternal being, where all relativity ceases, where all these opposing factors of Christ and anti-Christ cease, and you are above it all.
I have given you the whole range of man’s experience and where you go beyond it.
… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: SA 1978 – 73
