I recently (1-6-14) received a very interesting question about the introductory blog post on the evolution of consciousness (here:
http://www.ipi.org.in/blogs/the-evolution-of-consciousness-introduction/
Here it is: “Reading the following paragraph “Hayward goes even further, speaking from a Vajrayana (Tantric Buddhist) perspective, saying that there is an initial nondual (without the apparently separate “I”) awareness which is the foundation of all the further moments of consciousness unfolding.” Can you please say something more on “there is an initial nondual (without the apparently separate “I”) awareness”… Does this correspond to what Sri Aurobindo refers as knowledge by identity? Thank you, Manoj”
(Manoj, by the way, has a very interesting website dedicated to Sri Aurobindo’s integral yoga psychology: http://www.telos.org.in/telos-model
The simple answer is no. But more on that in a moment.
The first thing this made me think of is how to talk about these subtle yogic realities. I recall having a very interesting discussion on the integral psychology online forum back in the late 90s. I made the following case, and as best as I can recall, there was initial skepticism but eventually ,generally agreement:
*** Traditionally, there has been a general warning against sharing spiritual/inner experiences. This makes perfect sense to me in regard to one’s personal spiritual growth. However, if it is the case (and I know many people disagree) that scientific research is reaching a point where the investigation of subtle realities is becoming a part of basic research and experimentation.
If this is the case (or, to the extent it already is the case – as can be seen in over 125 years of parapsychological research as well as more recent explorations of lucid dreaming and subtle energies, with great methodological sophistication) then it is simply impossible to avoid having researchers discuss the experience of these realms in great depth.
And since the exploration of the inner world is very different from the general method of exploring the outer world. If you and I are chemists, and we’re examining the chemical composition of a particular substance, we don’t need to (or at least, we don’t think we need to – this will change too, I think) pay any attention to what each other is feeling, experiencing, sensing, intuiting, imagining, etc). But if we’re exploring methods for training people to become aware of the kinds of extremely subtle perceptions involved in remote viewing or psychokinesis, well at some point, we’re going to be sharing rather esoteric experiences which are very much the kind that traditional yogis warned should either not be shared or only shared with great caution, sincerity and humility.****
So, keeping the above in mind, I’ll say a bit more about Manoj’s question.
Speaking from a purely intellectual (surface, non experiential) standpoint, my understanding is the English phrase “non dual awareness” has been used by many contemporary meditation teachers – particularly those associated with Advaita Vedanta like many students of Ramana Maharshi – to refer to the timeless, spaceless, non-dual awareness of the Self. One may be, as I understand it, full “Self-realized” and still be functioning with the ordinary reasoning mind – probably with much intuitive influence, at the very least.
The knowledge by identity – at the level of what Sri Aurobindo calls the intuitive mind – may come into play sporadically – very rarely for the non Self realized person, but perhaps not even on a regular basis for someone who has stabilized Self realization. Far, far beyond that, there is the knowledge by identity of the Supramental level of consciousness. Having neither significant intellectual understanding nor experiential realization of that level, I’ll leave it at that as far as the Supramental goes. I could gather any number of quotations, but I’d like to stick either with what I mentally understand, even if only in the dimmest way, or better, with what I have some intuitive appreciation of.
But to get back to the issue of “talking about inner experience” – this really goes to the heart of what I am interested about in regard to Indian psychology in general and Sri Aurobindo’s integral psychology in particular. My dream is to have a few dozen people who are deeply moved by and devoted to this work, who have developed a level of trust, humility, sincerity and openness, who can actually make use of their efforts to understand integral psychology as a means of developing a more and more intuitive consciousness.
When we finish work on our current website – www.remember-to-breathe.org – which we expect to do in about 2 years, we hope to focus on developing another site devoted to this kind of integral psychology project.
So in conclusion, it would be interesting, in the meantime, if we had the opportunity right here on this blog to have a conversation which may involve this kind of deep exploration and sharing of experience, developing the kind of trust, humility, and sincerity that is necessary to do it in a mature, responsible way. I’m very grateful to Manoj for asking this question.
I’ll say more about the details of his question and how it relates to the evolution of consciousness soon, either in another post or in the comments section of this post.
Hi Manoj:
I like that very much – separate sharing of intuition from sharing of (personal) experiences. Excellent guideline.
As for the rest, I’ll do my intuitive best:>)
Starting with your last question, there’s a wonderful conversation between Sri Aurobindo and Kapali Sastry that might help. It was part of instructions in meditation (not just sitting but “active” meditation or karma yoga). I’ve found it very helpful in my own practice:
“There is a background for everything. Every movement moves upon something. And that something is a Silence which upholds everything including your own mental activity. All the thoughts and mental movements come and go, against a base that is ever stable. That is Silence…
Suspend for a moment your thought-activity and you’ll become conscious of this presence… Think of this Silence again and again and try to become aware of it [obviously, Sri Aurobindo doesn’t mean to use the “reasoning mind” when he says “think” but rather, to bring one’s attention to the Silence]. By a steady digging in of this idea [again, not a rational “idea”] in your consciousness, this fact will become a reality to you – not merely for the mind but for the rest of the being. Into this Silence you must learn to relax your self. Instead of trying to get at it, simply relax, call and let yourself lie in the folds o the Silence. That will slowly come over you and claim you.”
If you look at chapter 8 of Sri Aurobindo’s Kena Upanishad commentary, you’ll find a description of the workings of the surface consciousness that is essentially similar to that of contemporary neuroscience.
Say we are looking at a tree. Prior to any kind of conscious recognition of “tree” there is an initial recognition of a stimulus, the most primitive sensing, something we have in common even with one-celled organisms (this is in its essence a reflection of the function of sanjnana in the supermind, but only a pale, limited distorted reflection in our minds).
Next the stimulus is “shaped” (by past experience, though by much more as well) into a perception, an object. There is still not a verbal recognition of the tree, but something like an image. For the animal experiencing this, there would not be the same kind of sharp subject-object distinction as for the modern human, This is a dim, distorted reflection of Prajnana, a functioning of the supermind.
After this, there is a further development of the object of perception, and it becomes related to the ego-self, as the conscious mind tries to comprehend, to understand the nature of the perceived object (the tree) and at the same time, there is always at least a minimal impulse to act in some way – if nothing else, there is a reaction of like and dislike and perhaps some intention to act in relation to the perceived object (the Mother describes this as a kind of “grabbing” that occurs when we perceive things). This is a dim, highly distorted reflection of the Vijnana and Ajnana of the Supermind.
The Buddhists describe this in terms of the unfolding if the 5 “Skandhas. J C Chatterji has an extraordinary description of this process in his “Wisdom of the Vedas” and makes, I think, an excellent case for a similarity between the Buddhist and Hindu (at least, Vedantic) view of perception. Francisco Varela and Jeremy Hayward have pointed out the similarities between these Indian views and contemporary neuroscientific understanding of perception.
But that is all the surface consciousness. “Behind” everything – every moment of perception – is the Silence. Whether this is the Silence of the individual, universal or transcendental Self, I’m not sure I’m capable of saying – I suppose it is all three, though depending on the awakening of the individual. I do not feel very confident at the moment in regards to my intuitive capacity to say more.
But Sri Aurobindo goes further in his Kena Upanishad commentary, and makes clear, I think, that subliminal awareness – consciousness of the inner mental, inner vital and subtle physical planes – proceeds every moment of perception. And still behind that, is the Silence of the Self.
The initial non dual awareness is simply Jeremy Hayward’s phrase for this Silence which is behind, supporting all.
Stabilized self realization was not in reference to any level. My own current understanding is that these – individual, universal and transcendent – are not essentially separated – there is only one Being. But as one’s realization deepens (I suppose one wouldn’t talk about realization of the Self “progressing” as it is outside time and space and not part of the evolution), I would imagine that it widens and heightens, to use the words of Sri Aurobindo.
I’m sorry, it pretty much takes me to the edge of my intuitive capacity simply to recognize this Silence beyond/behind all – I can’t go farther in terms of distinguishing the individual, universal and transcendent.
As far as timeless and eternal, they’re the same thing. People often take “eternal” to mean endless time, where as it simply means outside time altogether, or timeless.
Finally, this phrase from the Life Divine may help. This gives – at least to me – an intimation of the radical change that occurs as one stabilizes the awareness of this all pervading Silence. Rather than perceiving an objective world, standing against “me” as subject, there is an all embracing, all encompassing Silence out of which, at every “moment” (well, moment is not quite right, as that Silence is outside time altogether) each object of perception, each vibration of evolutionary activity, is emerging, again and again and again and again:
“Those who have thus possessed the calm within can perceive always welling out from its silence the perennial supply of the energies that work in the universe”
Another slightly more mystical way of putting it is from Rumi: “The entire Koran, from beginning to end, is teaching nothing but the abandonment of belief in phenomenal causation.”
in terms of that radical shift that occurs as one is stabilized in awareness of this Silence (or better – stabilized AS this Silence!), there is also this from Sri Aurobindo’s Gita commentary:
once seen in the substance and light of this eternity, the world also becomes other than it seems to the mind and senses; for then we see the universe no longer as a whirl of mind and life and matter or a mass of the determinations of energy and substance, but as no other than this eternal Brahman. A spirit who immeasurably fills and surrounds all this movement with himself—for indeed the movement too is himself—and who throws on all that is finite the splendour of his garment of infinity, a bodiless and million-bodied spirit whose hands of strength and feet of swiftness are on every side of us, whose heads and eyes and faces are those innumerable visages which we see wherever we turn, whose ear is everywhere listening to the silence of eternity and the music of the worlds, is the universal Being in whose embrace we live.
Dear Don,
Thank you for your quick response.
Regarding sharing
I guess we have to separate sharing of intuition from sharing of experience while it is happening. The second is to be avoided as anyone who has done so would know from experience. Here is an interesting passage from Sri Aurobindo.
“The sages of the Veda and Vedanta relied entirely upon intuition and spiritual experience. It is by an error that scholars sometimes speak of great debates or discussions in the Upanishad. Wherever there is the appearance of a controversy, it is not by discussion, by dialectics or the use of logical reasoning that it proceeds, but by a comparison of intuitions and experiences in which the less luminous gives place to the more luminous, the narrower, faultier or less essential to the more comprehensive, more perfect, more essential. The question asked by one sage of another is “What dost thou know?”, not “What dost thou think?” nor “To what conclusion has thy reasoning arrived?” Nowhere in the Upanishads do we find any trace of logical reasoning urged in support of the truths of Vedanta. Intuition, the sages seem to have held, must be corrected by a more perfect intuition; logical reasoning cannot be its judge.”
Volume: 18-19 [SABCL] (The Life Divine), Page: 69
Coming to the main topic.
The phrase “timeless, spaceless, non-dual awareness of the Self” – ok let us keep it as a place holder for an experience. I have trouble in distinguishing – intellectually – the difference between timeless and eternal – if you can say something more on this it will be good.
Another troublesome phrase is – full “Self-realized”. Does this refer to abiding in Transcendental or Universal? ( ok another two big labels
Another term is “stabilized Self realization” – Self at which level? It gets quite tricky with these words.
I am still clueless about “there is an initial nondual (without the apparently separate “I”) awareness” – in terms of what it is and where to place it in IY ladder.
Warm regards,
Manoj