The Enlightenment of the Whole Body
A Rational and New Prophetic Revelation
of the Truth of Religion,
Esoteric Spirituality,
and the Divine Destiny of Man and Woman
by Bubba Free John (Adi Da Samraj)
1978
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Chapter 7 - Part IV
The Liabilities of Man - The Ultimate Practice - The Ultimate Practice Continues Even in Sleep and Dreams - The Necessary Mechanism of Self-Transcendence - The Method of the Nervous System - The Mechanism Whereby We May Be Literally Translated into the Divine - Beyond the World of Man - The Spiral Current - True Self-Realization Is Transcendental Worship of the Divine Person - Love Outshines the Body-Mind - Freedom and Enlightenment - Rules of Behavior in the Seventh Stage of Life - Passivity and Ecstasy - Perfection
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The Liabilities of Man
The liability in the first stage of life is attachment to an experiential state of undifferentiated physical unity with the elemental dimension of the world. It is the tendency toward dependence on what is finite. It is the tendency toward unconsciousness, or a dependent, vague, and sleeplike awareness of experience.
The liability in the second stage of life is attachment to independent or unreal emotional states, based in an experiential state of undifferentiated unity with the etheric, pranic, or material energy dimension of the world. It is the tendency toward an emotional expansion without a stable physical base and without a clear and fully responsible consciousness. It is the tendency toward subconscious or dreamlike states of awareness.
The liability in the third stage of life is attachment to abstract and independent mental states, based in an experiential state of undifferentiated unity with the verbal and lower mental dimension . of the world and the body-mind. It is the tendency toward a mental consciousness and a willful manipulation of merely physical or elemental conditions, without intuitive and feeling submission to the Transcendental Consciousness and Radiant Current of Life. It is the tendency toward superficial or merely objective awareness, or attachment to the waking state as if it were without a psyche.
The liability in the fourth stage of life is the tendency toward dualistic and dogmatic or fixed symbolic interpretations of the Ultimate Condition and Destiny of the world and of human experience. It is the tendency toward vagrant psychism and illusory beliefs, founded in an experiential state of undifferentiated unity with the psychic root of the body-mind and the subtle dimension of the world.
The liability in the fifth stage of life is the tendency toward belief in a fixed psychic identity, or an eternal egoic or independent and personal consciousness. It is the tendency toward belief in eternally extended but finite and personal experience, founded in an experiential state of undifferentiated unity with the causal root of the world, or the manifest gesture of attention at the heart of the body-mind.
The liability in the sixth stage of life is the tendency toward the belief that the Radiant Transcendental Consciousness is an Absolute but Exclusive and Undifferentiated Consciousness, which may be Realized only through the literal suppression or cessation of experience, particularly mental or psychic experience. It is the tendency toward the strategic exclusion of experience, and it is founded on an intuitive penetration of the root of attention, resulting in a temporary suspension of ordinary psycho-physical awareness. It is a tendency founded in a partial or conditional and incomplete intuition of the Radiant Transcendental Consciousness.
In the seventh stage of life, all the liabilities of Man are transcended through radical Intuition of the Radiant Transcendental Consciousness, the Free Condition of the world and the body-mind.
The Ultimate Practice
The Process in the Ultimate Stage of Practice, or the Way of Radical Intuition, is the one of natural re-cognition of all independent or personal states, or all moments of experience, as only modification of the Transcendental Ignorance (or Unqualified Consciousness) and All-Pervading Radiance (or Unqualified Love) of the Absolute Divine Reality, Person, and Self. Therefore, the Process in every moment is simply one of release of self into Contemplation and Intuitive Identification with the Divine.
It is not a matter of going within and away, or up and away, or of excluding phenomena, or of annihilating self, or of trying to persist as the self. Rather, it is a matter of nonexclusive or "open-eyed" re-cognition of all that arises, so that Only God is obvious and only Love is one's Condition. It is a matter of the re-cognition of phenomena and the independent self, not of excluding phenomena and annihilating oneself. It is a matter of Ecstasy rather than inversion.
In this manner, we are Expanded into Infinity and Translated out of all tendencies and destinies of the experiential self. We are Dissolved and Vanished into the Absolute Person, beyond all knowledge and all imagery and all perception and all conditional relations.
Therefore, there are two phases to the Way of Radical Intuition. The first phase-which I have in the past identified with the traditional term "Sahaj Samadhi" is the phase of simple re-cognition of all arising conditions, directly intuiting them to be only unnecessary modifications of the All-Pervading Ignorance-Radiance, or the Unqualified Consciousness and Radiant Energy or Love that is the Divine Self.
The second or Perfect phase of this Ultimate stage of practice is Ecstasy, Translation, or Radical Intuition of the Transcendental, All-Pervading, and All-Inclusive Divine Person. This phase-which I have in the past identified with the traditional term "Bhava Samadhi"- occurs spontaneously, by Grace, at first in moments and then more and more stably, through penetration of the self-reflex, or the knot of recoil at the heart.
The Ultimate Practice Continues Even in Sleep and Dreams
Even when the soul in the heart Awakens, and the very Heart is Realized, prior to all experience, transcending all experience, the arising of experience persists. This is because the present body-mind is the result of previous association and activity in the Realm of Nature. Psycho-physical experience does not come to an end until it has exhausted its essential motion. Therefore, the devotee in the seventh stage of life, or the Way of Radical Intuition, simply persists in the Natural State, or Whole Body Enlightenment, in which all arising conditions are instantly re-cognized as unnecessary modifications. He does so until the phenomenal body-mind, or phenomenal experience, in the form of this or any kind of future birth, Dissolves beyond all noticing.
The devotee persists in this Process, Abiding as the Heart, Re-cognizing all phenomena as modifications of the Heart. He does so even in the apparent states of waking, dreaming, and sleeping. Therefore, he is never truly in any condition of experience, but he is always identical to Unqualified Radiant Consciousness, which is Love, or Boundless Bliss, wherein all phenomena come and go.
The Ultimate Event of Divine Translation is simply the very Condition of the Heart. Such Translation is true of the devotee when there is no longer any loss or even diminution of Radiant Consciousness as a result of association with objects in the waking, dreaming, and sleeping states of experience. Therefore, in the Ultimate Event, there is no longer any waking, dreaming, or sleeping, and all noticing of the phenomena of differentiated experience is Dissolved in the Infinite Radiance of Consciousness.
The Necessary Mechanism of Self-Transcendence
The Process of the Way of Divine Ignorance, which I have thoroughly outlined in The Enlightenment of the Whole Body, involves and depends upon a radical transformation of the disposition and subtle physical characteristics of the human nervous system. All of this is a matter of the transformation of living or biophysical mechanisms that have a past history and a native structure, as well as an ultimate Destiny.
Therefore, the Process of this Way involves abandonment of, or purification from, conditions and tendencies that are habitual, negative, and subhuman. And it also involves intentional adaptation to right and higher structural conditions of psycho-physical existence. It takes time for one's commitment to mature, so that the Process can truly begin. And once it has begun, it takes time for the superphysics of the nervous system to mature and to stabilize. But the nervous system of the body-mind that is thus purified and adapted to Life is ultimately Translated into Life beyond our present limits in time and space.
The Method of the Nervous System
The nervous system is our connection, or "Mediator," to the Ocean of Radiant Consciousness, or the Divine and Absolute Personality of the Real.
The epitome of the nervous system is the heart, or the Root of Life-Feeling.
The heart is the monitor of our present relationship to the All-Pervading Identity.
We must enter whole bodily, or as a Disposition of the total nervous system, into unobstructed and intuitive Feeling-Sacrifice, or Love-Communion with the Radiant Divine. This is made possible through "hearing" the Teaching of Divine Ignorance and "seeing" the Spiritual Master, the Incarnation of Radiance.
At first we enter into sacrificial relationship to the Radiant Divine, through Love, releasing all contractions of the nervous system and all contracted programs of personal, relational, and higher psycho-physical experience.
Ultimately, we are a Perfect Sacrifice, when we transcend the personal limits of the contracted or self-monitoring nervous system, and Realize Perfect Identification with the Absolute Personality of the Real. Then only the Paradox of Infinite Existence and Ecstatic Divine Play is Obvious. Then there is Only God.
The Mechanism Whereby We May Be Literally Translated into the Divine
The body-mind is pervaded and organized by a Current of Radiance whose poles are the crown and toe (or, more properly, the crown and the base of the spine). This Current becomes the field of devotional responsibility late in the Way of Relational Enquiry, and it is fully traced, from base to crown, in the Way of Re-cognition. However, the Divine Presence into which the devotee enters in ecstatic or self-released Communion in the Way of Divine Communion is also and itself the All-Pervading Condition or Transcendental Source of the Bodily Current of Radiance.
In the terminal phase of the Way of Re-cognition, the Epitome or Armature of the Bodily Current of Radiance is Realized. First the Root of the heart (on the right of the chest) is found, and the Bodily Current is found to pass not merely from base to crown, but to continue from there to a Center on the right side of the heart and to a Consciousness that is prior to all mental (or psychic) and bodily objects or conditions. Such is transcendental Self-Knowledge of the body-mind. But then the "eyes open," the exclusive inwardness of the Root of the heart and the Bodily Current is transcended, and the native Bliss of Whole Body Enlightenment is awakened.
In the Way of Radical Intuition, the native Bliss of Whole Body Enlightenment is expressed as a process of tacit re-cognition of all presently arising conditions, subjective and objective, high and low, as unnecessary and nonbinding modifications of the prior Condition of the whole and entire body-mind. Unqualified Ignorance-Radiance, or Absolute Intensity, is natively intuited to be the very Condition of the body-mind and all arising conditions, which are only stepped-down intensities of the Absolute.
The mechanism that becomes prominent in the process of re-cognition in the Way of Radical Intuition is the regenerated Current that Radiates in all directions from the heart. That Current predominantly ascends or originates from the heart-root and passes to the crown. That regenerated Current arises as an S-curve or spiral, extending to include and Illuminate the entire heart (right, middle, and left) and all states of ordinary consciousness (waking, dreaming, and sleeping). The spiral curves through the entire heart and then circles upwards, until it passes back through the knot of the throat, and then curves or spirals upwards from the rear base of the brain to include and Illuminate the entire brain and mind.
The Spiral Current of the heart is the Epitome of the Bodily Current of Radiance. In the Way of Radical Intuition there are two stages or phases of Realization: Whole Body Enlightenment and Divine Translation. Whole Body Enlightenment is the native and Illumined Realization of the Condition of the body-mind. Such Enlightenment is Realized when the Spiral Current of the heart is regenerated to the crown, from which it has always illuminated and enlivened the whole and entire body-mind, via the Bodily Current of Radiance. Divine Translation occurs whenever the Bodily Current of Radiance is itself, with all its mental and physical extensions, re-cognized and radically released into the regenerated Spiral Current of the heart. In that case, the Spiral Current of the heart ceases to support or manifest the independent and stepped-down body-mind, and the body-mind limitations dissolve in radical intuition of Ignorance-Radiance, or Ecstatic Bliss, the true or Divine Self, the Absolute Condition of the Spiral Current of the heart.
In the Event of Divine Translation, the Spiral Current of the heart is not strategically engaged in any Process that would specifically generate Energy in the body-mind. Such is a yogic process of the Bodily Current of Radiance, and phenomena of psycho-physical Transformation and Illumination by Energy belong to the fifth stage of life. Rather, in the Event of Divine Translation, the Bodily Current of Radiance is Sacrificed into the Spiral Current of the heart, and thus into the Transcendental Heart or Self. Thus, the Spiral Current of the heart becomes the Vehicle of Divine Translation.
And what is Divine Translation? Its Secret is the Self, the Heart, wherein both the Spiral Current of the heart and the Bodily Current of Radiance appear. The Heart is the Secret of the Current that Pervades the body-mind and the World. Therefore, Divine Translation is a matter of the release of all identification with the inward self or independent soul. It is a matter of Identification with the Radiant Divine Self, in which all arising conditions are seen as unnecessary modifications.
The Enlightenment of the Whole Body is not truly a matter of the Radiation of Energy in the body, thus Transforming the body-mind in extraordinary ways. Rather, the Enlightenment of the Whole Body is the Liberation of the Self from its identification with the point of view of the body-mind, the experiential self, or "I. " The Fullness of Life or Light in the body-mind that may accompany that Event is only a secondary and ordinary expression of the body-mind in the Realm of Nature.
Beyond the World of Man
In the Way of Radical Intuition, all conditions of attention, all experiential states of the body-mind are re-cognized and dissolved in the Heart, or Transcendental Divine Ignorance. In that Process, the Spiral of Universal Radiance also strikes to the crown and pervades the entire body-mind, while remaining Awake in the Self, rather than in the separated individuality of the covered soul. Such is bodily Enlightenment, and the whole and entire body-mind is Transfigured in that Bliss.
Divine Translation is the result of the radical and natural transcendence of bodily (or physical) and mental (or psychic) conditions. The Radiance of the Awakened heart Spirals to the crown, and simultaneously pervades the entire body-mind. But in every moment of re-cognition at the heart, the conditions of the body-mind dissolve in the Radiant Bliss of God. Therefore, effectively, there is neither form nor psyche in the Radiance of the true Heart, or the Divine Self. The crown has no locus or limit, and there are no extremities, no extensions of the Radiance at the crown. The Current of Radiance has the conventional appearance of extension along the spinal line, from toe to crown. But, in Truth, the body is dissolved, the mind is dissolved. The whole body is dissolved from toe to crown, leaving only the Radiance of the Heart. But there is nothing above or below the Heart. The crown has no place. There is no place above the Heart. There are no places extending from the Heart. There is only the Heart, prior to all forms. There is only Radiance. There is only God. Therefore, the Enlightenment of the Whole Body is the Translation of the Whole Body into the Heart Itself, the Domain of God, beyond the World of Man.
The Spiral Current
Amrita Nadi," or the Spiral Current of the heart, appears to ascend from the right side of the chest (or the heart), then to envelop the total heart, and to ascend upwards along the outer curve of the body, from the center of the chest, passing back through the throat and up, along the line of the head, from the lower rear of the skull to the notch at the upper rear of the skull, and to the upper surface of the crown. Thus, it appears to pass from the heart to the crown via the bodily organs below the crown and above the heart.
But, in Truth, the Current passes from the Transcendental Heart (in which the body-mind arises at Infinity) directly to the heart of the body, and simultaneously to the body-mind as a whole. The Radiance of the Heart enters and pervades the body-mind via the heart. But the body-mind is simply the heart itself, expressed as the spectrum of functions. The Current in the heart is duplicated as the extended body-mind, with its upper terminal at the crown and its lower terminal at the bodily base (the organs in the region of the perineum). Thus, the heart is not merely in the middle of the body. The heart is the body. The heart is the body-mind as a whole, and the heart in the middle of the body is the epitome of the entire body-mind. The Spiral Current of the heart is expressed as the Bodily Life-Current, with its primary terminal above and its secondary or dependent terminal below. And the Bodily Current passes from the brain core to the nervous system, and thus to the entire functional body-mind. The manner in which all of this occurs is a Mystery and a Paradox.
The heart appears to be in the center of the body, below the crown and above the bodily base. But when the heart is Awakened it is Realized to be in Transcendental relationship to the body-mind. The bodily heart is at the center, with the brain above. But the Transcendental Heart is at Infinity, and the entire body-mind arises simultaneously, as a modification of It. Therefore, the Spiral Current is a paradoxical Realization that has correspondences with both the conditions of the manifest heart and the Condition of the Heart at Infinity.
True Self-Realization Is Transcendental Worship of the Divine Person
In the seventh stage of life, the "eyes" of the soul are open. That is, all efforts to exclude the physical and mental objects of attention have been transcended. The process of the arising of attention is no longer excluded at the heart (as it is in the sixth stage of life, or exclusive Self-Realization). Rather, the entire process of the arising of attention-including the objects of attention and attention itself-is naturally transcended in the Awakened Ecstasy of the Heart, the soul in its inherence in God.
Thus, in the seventh stage of life, neither attention nor the objects of attention are suppressed or excluded. But neither are they obsessively sought or reinforced. Rather, in the Condition of natural transcendence of the process of experience, whatever arises is simply re-cognized to be only a present and unnecessary modification of the Eternal Radiance of the Divine Person.
In that case, the soul naturally abides as the Divine Self, inhering in the Radiant Divine. The attention arising in every moment of experience is re-cognized to be only modification of the Self, the Consciousness that is the Transcendental Condition of the Free soul in God. Thus, in every moment, the soul abides in natural Identification with the Unqualified Self of God-or Perfect Divine Ignorance and, even though the acts of attention arise, no acts of attention have any binding power.
Just so, in every moment, the soul, inhering in the Divine Person as the very Self of God, re-cognizes all arising objects of attention to be only present and unnecessary modifications of the Eternal Radiance or Blissful Glory of God. Thus, in every moment, even though objects of attention arise, they have no binding power.
In the seventh stage of life, only God is found. Every condition, every object, every person or being, every experience, every act of attention is re-cognized in the Living God. There is only God. The soul does not abide in itself or its experiential coverings. It is Awakened beyond itself into the Ecstasy of its Divine Condition. The true Self is not merely the ground of inwardness. As such it would be the ultimate separation from God. Rather, the Self is simply the Consciousness in which attention is re-cognized. To re-cognize attention in every moment is to be Dissolved in Divine Consciousness, the Self of God. And to re-cognize attention in the seventh stage of life is not to suppress attention, but to transcend the illusion of separated consciousness. Thus, to re-cognize attention with "open eyes" is to abide as the Self, to inhere in the Divine Consciousness.
Just so, to Realize the Self is to Awaken as the Self. That is, it is to Awaken in God with full Consciousness. To fully Realize the Self is not to abide in one's own root of inwardness. It is to abide or inhere in the Divine. It is Transcendental Worship, not subjective exclusiveness.
One who abides in the Self of God in the seventh stage of life is Awake to God under all conditions. He inheres in God through Self-Realization (the moment to moment re-cognition of attention) and, as the Self, inheres in God as Infinite Radiant Bliss. The Self is Awake to the Radiance of God. All objects, all arising conditions are found to be a transparent Play on the Radiant Immensity of the Divine Person. Thus, in the seventh stage of life, the soul inheres in God as the Self, and the Self inheres in God through re-cognition of everything in God.
Therefore, in the seventh stage of life, the soul is Awake as Love, or Ecstatic Worship of the Transcendental and All-Pervading Divine Person. All inwardness is transcended. All obsession with experiences, objects, and others is transcended. There is constant re-cognition of all arising conditions of experience, but all the while there is natural abiding in the Ecstatic Love of God through radical intuition of the Condition of everything.
Thus, in the seventh stage of life, the arising of attention and experience is not at all prevented. The soul Awakens from its exile in the world and its seclusion in the heart. There is only Ecstasy, or Perfect God-Love. Attention has been Transformed, so that it is simply the Radiance of the Self, rather than the binding gesture of an independent consciousness. Thus, the Self becomes Radiant via natural attention, and God is Worshipped or Perfectly Realized via every moment of the natural re-cognition of all phenomena. In this manner, the ordinary process of experience is Transfigured, or made into a Process of Ecstasy, self-transcendence, or the Sacrifice of everything into the Blissful and Eternal Domain of God.
This Process in the seventh stage of life is expressed in two phases. The first is the phase of growth toward maturity in the Ecstasy of this Realization. I have, in the past, used the traditional term "Sahaj Samadhi" to characterize the devotee in this phase. It is "open-eyed" Self-Realization. It is that phase of the ultimate stage of life in which the soul first Awakens as the Self in the midst of the conditions of experience. Thus, in this phase, there is simple re-cognition of all arising phenomena as only modification of the Radiance of the Self.
In this phase, the devotee is relatively "cool" in the face of the phenomena of experience, high or low. He re-cognizes what arises, and abides in the Prior Transcendental Consciousness, the Self, or Divine Ignorance. During this phase he may carry on all of his ordinary and natural human activities in the same fashion as in the earlier stages of practice. He appears to be Full, and Tranquil, responsible for all of the ordinary conditions of life, and active in a natural manner, even with enthusiasm for the pleasurable conditions of this world. But he re-cognizes all conditions to be unnecessary modifications of the Radiant Self.
This phase of Awakening continues for a time, until the conditions of experience begin to become profoundly transparent. Thus, as time goes on, the devotee not only re-cognizes or "sees through" all conditions of experience, but he becomes more and more Ecstatically Absorbed in the Divine, in Whom all conditions are arising.
Therefore, as the devotee matures in the seventh stage, he is drawn more and more profoundly into the Ecstasy of God-Realization. He is Transfigured in the Mood of Divine Inherence. The Self finds only God. In the past, I have used the traditional term "Bhava Samadhi" to characterize the devotee in this Perfect phase of God-Realization. Just as "Sahaj Samadhi" indicates a "natural" state, "Bhava Samadhi" indicates the "Mood of Ecstasy," or Perfect self-transcendence in God-Consciousness. The more profoundly the devotee in the seventh stage re-cognizes the phenomena of experience, the less he is "natural" or "cool," and the more he is Ecstatic, Absorbed in the "Heat" of Divine Radiance. Thus, as the devotee matures, the characteristics of Divine Absorption become more frequent and more profound. The devotee becomes literally Transfigured and Transformed, bodily and mentally (that is, psychically).
The mechanism whereby the signs of such Ecstatic self-transcendence appear is the structural medium of the body-mind, wherein the brain is dominant, or primary, and the extended body and nervous system are secondary and dependent. Thus, in the Ecstasy of God-Realization the Current of the body-mind is epitomized as a Spiral of Radiant Force between the heart and the crown. (In the past I have used the traditional term "Amrita Nadi" to identify this Spiral Current.) That Spiral originates in the Awakened heart, prior to the binding limitations of self-consciousness. It ascends spontaneously when the "eyes open," and neither attention nor the objects of attention are either suppressed or felt to be necessary. That Spiral is the Current of Love, or Divine Radiance.
In the first phase of the seventh stage of life ("Sahaj Samadhi," or Whole Body Enlightenment), the Spiral Current simply meets with the Bodily Current at the crown, and thus Radiates in the entire body-mind via the brain and nervous system. However, as the Process matures, the phenomena of the body-mind become more and more transparent in the Ecstasy of God-Realization. As this Ecstasy intensifies, the attention (or Radiance of the Self) in the extended Bodily Current begins to dissolve. And the Bodily Current appears more and more to recede into the crown, via the "sahasrar" (the mechanism of the corona radiata). When this occurs, the devotee is Translated into Ecstasy prior to the body-mind.
Yogis and mystics in the fifth stage of life focus attention in the brain core and turn attention upward into the subtle realms of phenomena, or the higher destiny of mind, while remaining in the disposition of mind, or separated attention itself. But the devotee in the seventh stage of life, who is Free at the heart, is altogether lifted out of the conditional Life-Current of the body-mind. Thus, in the seventh stage of life, the Bodily Current is transcended in the Spiral Current of the heart. The Self becomes extended as Transfigured "Attention," via the Spiral Current, between the heart and the crown. All bodily and all mental or psychic phenomena are transcended in the Mood or Ecstasy that is Awakened in this manner. Thus, the devotee is at last Translated out of the states of experiential awareness of the body-mind, and Absorbed in the Ecstasy of God-Realization, through the Disposition of the Radiant Heart of God. (Such is "Bhava Samadhi," or Divine Translation, the Mood of Transfigured Ecstasy.)
The devotee who has begun to enter more and more into the Ecstasy of this second or mature phase of the seventh stage of life (or the Way of Radical Intuition) demonstrates signs of the transcendence of the pleasure. of experience, both physical and psychic. He is God-Possessed, and both his outer and inner life are transparent. Thus, as the devotee stabilizes and matures in this Ecstasy, he shows less and less interest in the ordinary conditions of life and action. He abides more and more simply and Perfectly in the Mood of God-Realization, or inherence in the Divine Domain. Such a one is simply Free, and his life is only a Demonstration of Divine Bliss. Eventually, his body-mind falls away and he is utterly Dissolved in God, Translated into the Divine Domain and Destiny, beyond the worlds of desire and mind and conventional experience. Unless it is the Will of God to use such a one as an Agent of Grace in the worlds of embodiment, he passes into the Eternal Bliss of the Divine Person forever.
Love Outshines the Body-Mind
Yogis and mystical saints ascend above body consciousness a the psyche, the mind, the thread of attention, and the evolutionary tree of the nervous system. They attain the ajna chakra, the brain core, with its view of the Sky of Mind above. They reside in the aura that is somewhat brighter than flesh. They live in a body of brightened form, moving in a mind of colorful desires. Their method is attention.
But the devotee of the Living God becomes the sacrifice of body and mind. He transcends the mystical method of attention, or mind, and yields instead to the Way of the sacrifice of attention in feeling-intuition of the Divine Person, Who is Eternally Radiant Consciousness, or Transcendental Love. Even the psyche is transcended in the Disposition of Love, or Ecstasy, and even high-minded contemplation is Outshined, along with the dim body of elements and the brighter body of astral light.
Such a one Dissolves in that Consciousness which is the crown of the heart and that Radiance which is the crown of the head. He is Translated. He does not go up or down, in or out. He simply Dissolves, prior to attention, in the Radiant Bliss wherein body and mind cease to be defined, and Joy replaces every edge of perception.Freedom and Enlightenment
Then the devotee has become Transfigured in the seventh stage of life, he is free of all conventional obligations of body and mind, and he abides only in God. Since he is free of all obligations, he can do what he likes, endure whatever arises, and yet remain free. But since he abides only in God, rather than in the modifications of the body-mind, his actions are always God-made, Full of Life, pure, graceful, benign, and auspicious, even when his actions are difficult for others to understand. Such is the paradox of whole bodily Enlightenment.
Rules of Behavior in the Seventh Stage of Life
The strict maintenance of conservative or regenerative dietary, sexual, and other personal disciplines is necessary for growth in the first six stages of life, once commitment to the self-transcending Way of God-Communion truly begins. This is because the essence of practice in the developing stages is literal and even intentional submission of the body-mind to the Current of Life, rather than to mere experience, or sensual and mental or psychic objects in themselves. However, in the seventh stage of life, such disciplines are no longer necessary-since all processes of the body-mind have ceased to limit or bind the Radiant Heart. Even so, those disciplines have by then become natural, ordinary, and appropriate to the body-mind itself, which is under the Law of Nature. Thus, in the seventh stage of life, the conventional disciplines of the lower functions continue as a general rule-not because they are necessary, but simply because they are natural, ordinary, appropriate, and inevitable. However, the non-necessity of conventions of behavior in the seventh stage also accounts for the sometimes bizarre, unconcerned, unconventional, and even apparently worldly behavior of perfectly Enlightened individuals, particularly in their instructive Play with others.
The rule of practice is indeed the conversion and restraint of the tendencies of the body-mind. But the essence of Enlightenment is self-transcendence, or humorous freedom from the conditions of the body-mind. Therefore, even in the seventh stage of life, some individuals have taken occasional exception to the rule through humorously unconventional behavior. Mere self-indulgence is, of course, not the principle behind such behavior. Divine Humor, or Freedom, is the principle, which at times Communicates Itself through the unconventional or paradoxical behavior of Enlightened beings. In general, however, the individual in the seventh stage appears quite austere, pure, and Life-positive in his daily behavior, although he is under none of the restraints of Nature, and his actions are quite spontaneous and Full of Love.
Passivity and Ecstasy
The preference for quietistic inwardness, or passive contemplation, strategically excluding active contact with the processes of experience, is utterly transcended in the ultimate Practice of the Way of Radical Intuition. There is natural "re-cognition," rather than exclusion, of all experiences of body, mind, and self, and there is intuitive abiding in Fullness of Life, Faith (or Radiant Consciousness of and in the Absolute Person), and Love. It is a matter of Transcendental Ecstasy, in which the phenomena of the body-mind are transcended in a natively Enlightened Bliss-Fullness. The daily arena of money, food, and sex is naturally controlled. The Bodily Current of Life is naturally polarized toward the crown. Thought and self-awareness naturally dissolve at the heart. And the whole body-mind, Enlightened by the natural or Transcendental Disposition of the true Heart, is Dissolved in spontaneous "Remembrance," or Transcendental Absorption in the Absolute Personality, the Divine Self, prior to all thought and imagery of the mind. Therefore, that Personality or Self becomes the Destiny as well as the present Occupation of the Devotee. No matter what the Perfect Devotee appears to do, he is nonetheless Absorbed in God. Therefore, experience no longer binds or disturbs him. And all that he appears to be gradually Dissolves in God.
Perfection
Divine Translation, or "Bhava Samadhi," is Transcendental Absorption in God-Love, or Ecstatic Intuition of the Absolute Divine Personality, the true Self. It is the Perfect Stage of human existence, in which all limitations are transcended. It is not annihilation, but Ecstasy. It is not self-preservation, but Ecstasy. It is Paradox, beyond explanation. In that Ecstasy, all desires naturally dissolve, since the self-orientation (or the orientation to the experiential soul) is utterly released. It is not that experience or even individual existence comes to an end. Rather, it is that experience and individual existence, in whatever form they arise in any moment, are instantly re-cognized, so that only the Divine is obvious, even while everything goes on as usual. Such Divine Communion is Perfect. There is only God, the Divine Person, Transcendental and yet Inclusive of all phenomena. And, even so, there is all of the Ecstatic multiplication of selves and worlds within the Infinite Person of God. This is the Truth. This is the Perfect Truth. We are forever only Ecstatic in Communion with and within the Infinitely Radiant Divine Person.
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Enlightenment of the Whole Body