Written by Wes Annac, The Culture of Awareness
The higher realms are primarily revealed to those who embrace purity and divinity, as the Upanishads tell us.
“This Brahman, this Self, deep-hidden in all beings, is not revealed to all; but to the seers, pure in heart, concentrated in mind — to them is he revealed.” (1)
This is because the ‘seers’ who are mentally pure have done a lot of disciplined spiritual work to reach a higher state of consciousness. Like I said above, effort’s certainly required, but it isn’t the kind of effort we’ve convinced ourselves we need.
We don’t need a spiritual self-help course to find enlightenment, but we do need to adopt discipline and learn to go with the flow without breeding mental resistance. Resistance will always hold us back, whereas acceptance and allowing will increase our flow and our quality of life.
As we’re told below, spiritual knowledge alone isn’t enough to find enlightenment.
“By learning, a man cannot know him, if he desist not from evil, if he control not his senses, if he quiet not his mind, and practice not meditation.” (2)
Meditation isn’t completely necessary to find enlightenment, and some spiritual teachers are convinced it’s little more than another form of seeking. I think it’s extremely helpful, however, and if we choose to abstain from it instead of the lower qualities that hold us back, we could block ourselves from Source.
From my perspective, living in love is the absolute best thing we can do. It definitely requires mental discipline and the ability to feel and express the heart over the mind, but when we reach a positive, free-flowing state of mind/heart, we’ll find that it was more than worth it.
I definitely recommend meditation, but we can still find Source if we don’t meditate by living the pure lifestyle that brings us closer to Him/Her.
We’re then told about the importance of truth.
“Those alone attain the world of Brahman who are steadfast in continence, meditation, and truthfulness.” (3)
Notice that this book says ‘those alone’ and nobody else. If we learn about spirit but aren’t pure or truthful, we’ll only raise our vibration to a certain level. We’ll only find a small degree of enlightenment, and if we’re comfortable expressing the lower qualities that keep us shackled to this realm, then this realm is where we’ll stay.
The higher realms aren’t judgmental, and we obviously don’t have to change ourselves or our lifestyle at all. Nobody’s screaming at us to change, but if we want to raise our vibration to match a state of consciousness we haven’t existed in for millennia, we’re going to have to change the manner in which we behave.
Mental, physical, and spiritual purity are required to reach the fifth dimension. If we aren’t willing to orient to the divine qualities and be positive, loving forces for everyone around us to benefit from, we’ll only go so far.
According to the Upanishads, freeing ourselves from pain and pleasure (and thus, duality) is among the best ways to raise our vibration.
“The ancient, effulgent being, in-dwelling Spirit, subtle, deep-hidden in the lotus of the heart, is hard to know. But the wise man, following the path of meditation, knows himself and is freed alike from pleasure and from pain. … When a man is free from desire, his mind and senses purified, he beholds the glory of the Self and is without sorrow.” (4)
I think the idea that we have to be free from the desire for pleasure is very interesting, and I’m still wrapping my head around it. I’m obviously as spiritually imperfect as the rest of you, and there’s a lot I still don’t know.
I’ve been convinced that joy, happiness, and everything else that could be seen as ‘higher’ are developmentally helpful, but it turns out that they comprise the other side of the dualistic pole. Real, pure spiritual joy and bliss come after we transcend the desire to feel them, and only when we’re free from every form of desire can we feel real bliss.
Anything else will be an illusory mask of the real joy and bliss we want to feel. It makes sense that seeking happiness in any form other than through balance and purity is a distortion, and it makes me think about the people who indulge in materiality so they can be ‘happy’.
As we’re told below, letting the mind rest is one of the keys to perceiving the sacred self.
“When [your intellect] can rest, steady and undistracted, in contemplation of the Atman, then you will reach union with the Atman.” (5)
I’m learning that the mind and ego will do everything they can to stop us from developing our heart-centered flow, and letting them rest is definitely one of the best things we can do.
I couldn’t write nearly as much as I do if I was rooted in the mind when I wrote, and I notice that my writing flow is only strong when I let the mind be and express whatever flows through me. I’m not the owner of these words – they’re coming from somewhere deep within.
Similarly, we can all access and benefit from the divine flow of Source energy if we open our minds, close our egos, and live in love as much as we can. This flow feels great to say the least, and I’ve basically dedicated my life to using it to raise awareness about our spiritual nature and the distortions that plague our society.
According to Sri Krishna, who speaks for Source in this quote, unconditional love is the best route to enlightenment.
“To love is to know me, My innermost nature, The truth that I am: Through this knowledge he enters At once to my Being.” (6)
Isn’t it amazing that loving is all we really need to do? I’ve been talking a lot about aligning with the divine qualities, but if we live purely in love, that alignment will naturally follow suit. If we live in love, which is so simple that it becomes complicated for a lot of people, we’ll naturally make every important lifestyle change because we’ll want to make them.
Everything we do will become lighter and more enjoyable. We’ll take far more enjoyment from this existence than we ever did before, and our generosity will naturally and effortlessly make other people’s lives better.
We’ll want to help people who could really use our help, and we might even put ourselves in a position to help them, which’ll increase our sense of satisfaction and wellbeing. All it takes is the decision to constantly live in love, and if we make this decision (and act on it) everything else will follow suit.
Footnotes:
- Swami Prabhavananda and Frederick Manchester, trans., The Upanishads. Breath of the Eternal. New York and Scarborough: New American Library, 1957; c1948, 40.
- Ibid., 19.
- Ibid., 36.
- Ibid., 17-8.
- Ibid., 41.
- Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood, trans., Bhagavad-Gita. The Song of God.New York and Scarborough: New American Library, 1972; c1944, 128.
Photo Credit: Deskarati.com
Concluded in Part 3 tomorrow.
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