Toward the Light that is Myself?

Enlightenment Part 8

Tony Crisp

After his initial years of meditation, Gopi Krishna came to see that ‘Contrary to the belief which attributes spiritual growth to purely psychic causes, to extreme self denial and renunciation or to an extraordinary degree of religious fervour, I found that a man can rise from the normal to a higher level or consciousness by a continuous biological process as regular as any other activity of the body.’ (See his book)

The energies of this higher consciousness in man and woman is a natural process. It is as natural as the arrival of teeth in the child, or sexuality in adolescence. In fact it is a continuation of the same process. But it seems as if this natural process of growth that extrudes the body, brings about human consciousness and personality, does not take us to enlightenment without our conscious cooperation. For this further growth, it appears that we must agree to go along with life – must decide that this is what we want. We must co-operate with the process or else be stranded. See Life

The first step is to recognise that your personality did not arise out of your own efforts. Then you offer yourself to be acted upon by whatever underlies your existence. And this offering means some measure of becoming empty, of becoming receptive or surrendered to an action other than that of your own mind, your own emotions, anxieties and habits.

What acts upon you when you do this has been given unccountable names. Sri Aurobindo says: ‘One commences in a method, but the work is taken up by a Grace from above, from that to which one aspires. It was in this last way that I myself came by the mind’s absolute silence, unimaginable to me before I had its actual experience’.

How do we do this? First recognise clearly that some process, some force, causes you to exist. You can call this what you wish, it does not matter. It remains what it is. Next recognise that this process that you are, causes changes in your life, and its action is apparent as growth. Next, decide to go along with this process. Offer yourself as you are to it. Let things happen – allow changes to take place. You will be shown the way. This path does not attempt to crush the ego, the appetites, the instincts. Rather, you hand them over living so that they can be transformed to higher levels of expression, and reach towards fuller self-realisation in everyday life.

Rudyard Kipling, in his book Kim, describes one of the simplest and effective meditations we can use toward enlightenment. He says:

“Who is Kim- Kim- Kim?” He squatted in a corner of the clanging waiting-room, rapt from all other thoughts; hands folded in lap, and pupils contracted to pin-points. In a minute- in another half second- he felt he would arrive at the solution of the tremendous puzzle; but here, as always happens, his mind dropped away from those heights with the rush of a wounded bird, and passing his hand before his eyes, he shook his head. A long-haired Hindu bairagi (holy man), who had just bought a ticket, halted before him at that moment and stared intently. “I also have lost it,” he said sadly. “It is one of the Gates to the Way, but for me it has been shut many years.”

The technique is to daily sit and ask that question for at least twenty minutes – Who am I? You can use your name like a mantra, repeating it over and over. Use it as a focal point, not to think about but to take awareness away from everything else to the quietness beyond thinking and feeling. Look silently into that darkness and silence. Drop all effort. Let go of desire to get anywhere or find anything.

An Experience of Enlightenment

Many years ago I had an experience that assured me the wrongness of believing the scientific view of human life. At the time I had an unforgettable experience of lucidity that after all these years remains a fount of inspiration and guidance. I also began to realise that enlightenment was a process of growth – not a one time experience.

I had let go of any other motives and deeply entered a state of lucidity in which I felt like I was falling down a very deep hole. This wasn’t frightening, but reminded me of Alice in the rabbit hole. As I fell I passed through memories of things that had hurt me during my life, like the time I broke my nose.

Then I hit the bottom, experiencing a womblike feeling of great peace. I realised as I observed, that it wasn’t the womb, but the very basic level of my personal awareness. But there was still a current carrying me back further, and I resisted, fearing I would lose my identity. Then I suddenly realised there was nothing to fear. After all, I did this every time I went to sleep – trusting myself to the bosom of the deep. So I slipped into what I have called the ocean of consciousness, and it caught me and started growing me as if from a tiny seed. This is what we experience when we go to sleep. The difference is that I maintained awareness during the descent into sleep. It felt as if I had no body, and that I had spread out, like a drop of water in the ocean. I knew as this happened that at the core of me was this power that had grown me in the first place, and that there was so much more of me to discover than I presently knew. Then the immense Life spoke to me. “Come to me each day like this (with an open heart to the power that had grown me) and I will know myself in you”. See Life’s Little Secrets

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