Devotion III

Devotion in its highest sense refers to worship or oneness with God. There is devotion for devotion sake, where the devotee wants God alone. There is no selfish expectation. There is no fear. The devotee feels, believes, conceives and imagines that God is on ocean of all love in which the devotee resides..

Devotion is the thread or love that binds the heart of the devotee to God. It is a spontaneous outpouring of love to God. It is pure, unselfish, divine love. This type of love is sacred and unites the devotee with the Infinite.

How does this love develop?

First, faith arises, followed by attraction and lastly by adoration. Adoration leads to suppression of mundane desires. This results in single-mindedness and satisfaction that grows to supreme love for God. In the highest form of devotion, one sees God everywhere and feels His power manifest as the entire universe. He sees God as the supreme light, in whose borrowed light the sun, the moon and the stars shine. In this way he sees the transcendental nature of God. He realizes that the hindrance to devotion is egoism and desire and that the adversary of peace is lust, anger, and greed. Anger destroys peace and health.

How to cultivate devotion

It is a mistake to consider devotion as merely a feeling. It is actually a thorough discipline of the mind in a process of developing intuition in order to realize God. To obtain this intuition there are steps we can we can take. Some of them are as follows: Think of God at all times

Doing good to others

Wishing others well

Having compassion for all

Being cheerfulness and optimistic

Being charitable and above all,

Meditate on God.

Can we love a God that we have not seen?

To love God we first have to inquire about God. We do this through scriptures. We can also begin to know God through His manifold expressions and forms in the world

We need to inquire where does everything, including myself come from; what am I, what is my true nature and what is my relationship the whole. Our inquiring mind can lead us a long way in our pursuit to know God, but we must remember, that the mind is finite.

To go from the finite to the infinite, we need to transcend the mind. First we connect with our soul through devotion or meditation, if done correctly we will realize that our soul is a part of God, and ultimately experience oneness beyond time, space and causality.

“Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this Divinity within by controlling nature, external and internal. Do this either by work, or worship, or psychic control, or philosophy — by one, or more, or all of these — and be free. This is the whole of religion. Doctrines, or dogmas, or rituals, or books, or temples, or forms, are but secondary details -- Shankara.

For many people the path of devotion is the one of the most suitable. It is essentially the path where one growth in devotion and forgets himself, that his, he loses his ego or sense of independent existence in his love for God.

In a practical way, one needs to remember God at all times even during activities in and realizing, that He is the source of all life and that we do not have an independent existence apart from God. We offer all our services to God in a process of total surrender. The law of being is to lose our individuality in God.

Devotion softens the heart, removes envy, hatred, lust, egoism, pride and arrogance. It infuses joy, divine ecstasy, bliss, peace and knowledge. All one’s worries, anxieties, fears mental torments and tribulations vanish. Knowledge and wisdom will dawn when we practice devotion. Devotion is a pleasant, smooth and direct path to God. So let us kindle Divine love in our hearts.

Devotion II

It is possible to realize God by devotion alone. For this, one should yearn to know God and renounce all erroneous beliefs and illusions about God so that spiritual growth ca spontaneously occurs.

When we are in a self conscious state, thinking that God is far removed from the soul is a hindrance in facilitating adjustments to states of consciousness toward spiritual growth. There ought to be a complete self surrender so that realization along with knowledge of God can unfold from the innermost core of our being.

Devotion should also be supplemented with the practice of purifying the mind to allow the awakening of super-conscious states to naturally happen.

When we are is a self conscious state, influenced by the illusion that we are independent beings in relation to God, we find it difficult to comprehend God as the field of pure Being without attributes or qualities.

To experience Absolute Reality it helps to inquire who am I and Who or what is God?

Whatever we think we are, we are is not what our true nature is and whatever we think God is, not what God really is.

Every belief must be allowed to drop away so that Self-knowledge and God knowledge can be experienced. This process cannot be forced; it needs to be examined in a gentle and alert way until it is revealed from within, as it is innate to us.

Devotion

Devotion or bhakti implies that we respect the sacred nature of all life and recognize the Divine presence in all creatures. We must learn to see our chosen form of divinity indwelling in all of creation.

Our own well-being arises from our contact with the sacred powers of life. Bhakti or devotion is our means of partaking of that. In practical terms bhakti embraces mantra, chanting, ritual, and meditation which add more meaning to our spiritual life experience.

Yoga implies that we take an integral approach to life, bringing unity and harmony into our own nature and our relationships.

Yoga is not just a matter of performing asanas but it is of the breathing in universal life, of speaking with the Divine Word, and of meditate with the Divine Mind. In this sense, yoga is the highest action that we as human beings can perform.

Do we need to worship?

Worship is necessary for the great majority of people, because it is an essential psychological need. No matter how much we try to repress our feelings or religious devotion, we will notice that people in general will always find an object of adoration, or devotion, whether it is the physical body, money, athletes, cars, houses, computers and other gadgets. The list goes on and on.

According to yoga psychology and the laws of the mind, we become our dominant thoughts. We can easily see that the adoration of the mentioned objects will have their corresponding effects to say the least.  

Devotion or bhakti yoga tells us to worship God, to love God, to adore God so that we can assimilate His Divine qualities and eventually experience oneness with Him.

Ways of devotion

Chanting the glory of God

Remembering the presence of God constantly

Service or seva, Service is when we get to blend our practice of karma yoga with bhakti in doing our duty and serving humanity.

Expressing respect and love for God.

Developing the feeling of being God’s servant.

Complete surrender of the personal self. Surrender is the highest form of devotion or bhakti. One's ego is totally offered to God and nothing but the Self (atman) remains and non duality or Oneness is experienced.

Defining our spiritual path

Two Polarities of Esoteric and Exoteric:

Within each of the religions there are polarities of Exoteric and Esoteric, along with shades of gray between those two. The Exoteric is based on belief, while the Esoteric is based on attaining direct experience.

Exoteric religion is the external form of religious practice, and is what most of us are accustomed to seeing in the majority of churches, temples, or other religious organizations or movements. Exoteric religion may sometimes be called either Traditional or Orthodox.

Esoteric is shunned:

The Esoteric practitioners are often shunned by the exoteric religionists because the subtler pursuits and practices are simply not understood. As one progresses along the esoteric path, it is ever more clearly seen how the Esoteric and Exoteric are different degrees of expression and experience within the teachings of the same tradition or religion.

Exoteric misunderstand the Esoteric: However, unaware of these subtleties, the exoteric people are forced to see the esoteric people as either having strayed away from the religion or suffering from some psychopathological malady. In time, they too may grow to see the breadth and depth of their own religion, but in the meantime, the journey of the Mystic and Yogi is neither understood nor accepted.

Two other polarities: Along with the polarities of Esoteric-Exoteric it is extremely useful for the practitioners of Mysticism and Yoga to be aware of two other polarities:

Immanent or Transcendent God:

There are two views of the nature of God, although different religionists or scholars might have vastly different opinions within each of those two. God as Transcendent means God as a separate being that is the overseer of the activities of the world. God as Immanent refers to God as being all-pervasive, permeating the whole of manifest reality.

The Mystic or Yogi seeking inner experience often, though not always, has a greater leaning towards God as Immanent, while the Exoteric religionist often tends exclusively towards God as Transcendent. With some reflection, it is easy to see how the Mystic or Yogi may easily be able to hold both perspectives in his or her spiritual pursuits.

Often, however, the Exoteric practitioner is only able to see the notion of God as Transcendent, as a separate being, and therefore completely rejects the notion of God as Immanent. This is one of the reasons that the Mystic or Yogi may feel quite out of place in a religious culture dominated by those of the Transcendent God view.

Esoteric religion, on the other hand, has more to do with the inner experience, the subtler practices, and the pursuits of direct experience of the spiritual principles. It is the path of saints and sages, who have often been considered as deviants or outcasts by their own Traditional, Orthodox, or Exoteric religions.

Material or Efficient Cause:

There are two aspects to the cause of any created object. One is the Material Cause, which refers to the stuff out of which the objects are made. The other is the Efficient Cause, which refers to the question of who caused the creation of the objects. For example, flour is the Material Cause of bread, while the baker is the Efficient Cause. Similarly, clay is the Material Cause of a pot, while the potter is the Efficient Cause.

The emphasis of the exoteric religionist is usually almost exclusively on the Efficient Cause, whereby the separate being, the Transcendent God, is considered to be the creator of the universe and humans, much like the baker and the potter are the creators of bread and pots. The goals of spiritual life are seen to come as a result of the Efficient Cause.

While the individual Mystic or Yogi may or may not emphasize the Efficient Cause called God, following one's own predisposition or religion, there is almost always a focus on the Material Cause, which is an inner journey, through the levels of one's own being, so as to find the core or center, which is underneath all the layers of manifestation. Depending on the perspective of the individual practitioner, this realization may be variously called Self-realization, enlightenment, knowing God, or other terms.

Polarities are well known amongst academicians: It is important to note that these polarities of Esoteric-Exoteric, Immanent-Transcendent, and Material-Efficient are well known to the academic field of religious studies, as they are aspects of each of the more known religions.

However, they are seldom mentioned, much less emphasized by the religionists claiming to lead the public or lay people. Most of the religious leaders promote the Exoteric, Transcendent, and Efficient polarities through their churches or temples, utilizing a vast array of icons and physical paraphernalia, along with external rituals or ceremonies.

The teachers of the Esoteric, Immanent, and Material polarities are naturally less drawn to building churches or temples for external worship rituals, with any physical forms serving as pointers on the journey to the direct experience of the subtler, finer realities. Thus, they are far less visible in our societies and cultures. Although more hidden, the diligent seeker can find these more subtly focused teachings within virtually all of the religions. If you think of yourself as having a Mystic or Yogic orientation, the awareness of these polarities can go a long way to your understanding why you might find yourself to be in a minority, and possibly criticized by others.

Conflict is within the religion, not with Yoga: Thus, what appears to be a difference between two separate paths, such as between a particular religion and either Mysticism or Yoga is actually a conflict within that religion. It is often a conflict wherein the Traditional, Orthodox, or Exoteric followers are criticizing the Mystics, Yogis, and Esoteric practitioners within their own religion, and claiming that the conflict is with some outside source, Yoga.

Labeling the Mystics and Yogis as Neo: It is common for some who have lost touch with the deeper aspects of their traditions to label the Yogis or Mystics in such a way that they appear as deviants. It is common for these people to put words like Neo, New or Modern in front of the religion or other yogic term to try to make the deeper practices sound like newly created distortions, rather than the ancient practices that they often are. The Exoteric people may also use the term New Age in a derogatory tone to describe the esoteric practitioner. So too, some of the recently awakening Mystics and Yogis will adopt these types of terms, thinking that they are inventing something new. It is ironic that those who are most interested in the authentic esoteric roots of various teachings are labeled as Neo or New by the exoteric practitioners who are not interested in the higher, subtler practices of their own traditions.

Remember the Mystics and Yogis of the past: It is useful for the sincere seeker to also keep in mind world history, wherein the Mystics and Yogis have often chosen, or been forced, to move deep into the mountains, forests or deserts to do their practices, so as to avoid the onslaught from others who are focused exclusively on the Exoteric perspective. This is not to say that the modern Mystic and Yogi should retreat from the world, but it can be comforting to recall that others, who have come before, and who have also tread the inner path, have experienced the challenges presented by the Exoteric people.

Cosmic Manifestation – Paramahansa Yogananda

John 1:1-5, 9 – 18

In the beginning ….. With these words start the cosmologies of the Old and New Testament. Beginning refers to the birth of finite creation, for in the Eternal Absolute – Spirit, there is neither beginning nor end.

When no objects of any kind came into being, Spirit existed. This Unmanifest Absolute cannot be described except that it was simultaneously Knower, Knowing and the Known. In It cosmic consciousness and Its omnipotence were without differentiation: ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever new joyous Spirit (Bliss).

In this ever new Bliss, there was no space or time, no duality or law of relativity; everything that was, is or is to be as one undifferentiated Spirit.

Spirit being alone had only Itself with which to create. Creation requires the duality of Creator and created. Thus Spirit first gave rise to a magic delusion, Maya which produces the illusion of dividing a portion of the indivisible Infinite into separate finite objects, just like the calm ocean becomes distorted into individual waves.

All of creation is nothing but Spirit, seemingly and temporarily diversified by Spirit’s creative vibratory activity.

The Word

It is intelligent vibration, intelligent energy going forth from God. It is the beginning and source of all cosmic vibrations imbued with cosmic intelligence. (Official church doctrine has for centuries interpreted “the Word”, Logos in Greek to be a reference to Jesus, although this was not the understanding of early church fathers such as Clement of Alexandria who identified the Word with nous or wisdom).

The Word was with God and the Word was God

Unmanifest Spirit became God the Father, the creator of all creative vibrations. God the Father in the Hindu scriptures is called Ishwara, the cosmic ruler or Sat, the supreme pure essence of cosmic consciousness, the transcendental Intelligence. That is, God the Father existed transcendentally untouched by any vibratory creation as a conscious, separate Cosmic Consciousness.

The vibratory force emanating from Spirit, endowed with Maya, is the Holy Spirit.

Cosmic vibration, the Word Aum (Om) or Amen. All things, all created planets and living beings are said to be frozen images of God.

The Holy Spirit in Hindu scriptures is called the Aum or Maha-Prakriti, great nature, or cosmic mother that gives birth to creation.

The holy cosmic sound of Aum or Amen is the witness of the manifested Divine Presence in all creation.

This thing says the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of creation of God.

                                                                                 Revelation 3:14

A cosmic vibration everywhere present in space could not of itself create or sustain the complex cosmos. The universe is not the result of a mere vibrating force and sub atomic particles, liquids and gases etc. Blind forces cannot organize themselves into intelligently structured objects they are imbued with a hidden intelligence.

Holy Spirit

The transcendent consciousness of God the Father became manifest in the Holy Spirit vibration as the Son, the Christ Consciousness, God’s intelligence in all vibratory creation. This pure reflection of God in the Holy Spirit indirectly guides it to create, re-create, preserve and mold creation according to God’s divine purpose.

One Eternal Spirit became the Trinity: God the Father, the Son (Christ Consciousness) and Holy Spirit. In the Hindu scriptures as Sat, Tat, Aum. Spirit without any vibratory creation is the Umanifested Absolute.

The creative vibrations of the Holy Spirit produce a triune creation: an ideational, or causal world of the finest vibrations of consciousness, an astral world of light and life force, vibratory energy and the material world of the gross atomic vibrations of matter. These worlds are super-imposed on one another, the grosser dependent on the subtler and all three ultimately conditional on the sole support of the will and consciousness of God.

Macrocosm and microcosm

As in the macrocosm, so in the microcosm of man there are three independent bodies. Man’s soul takes on these three coverings that serve as instruments through which the incarnate spirit can perceive, comprehend and interact with God’s creation.

The first covering of the soul, which individualizes it from spirit, is one of pure consciousness, the causal body. The causal body emits a magnetic force of light and intelligent energy that form the astral body. The astral body is the life energy that empowers all senses and functions of the physical body. The physical body is a mere gross materialization.

Cosmic Manifestation

God created the heaven and the earth says the Bible. He said, "Let there be light”.

Modern science, such as astronomy, physics and biology, is concerned with cosmological arrangements of the universe. When speaking of molecules, atoms, electrons and electromagnetic forces in scientific language, we are talking of cosmology. When astronomers tell us that the Big Bang took place at the origin of things and nebular dust of the cosmos spread itself into the Milky Way, the galaxies, the many stars of which the Sun is one, and so the planets came about and there was a gradual arising of life on Earth from a state of bacteria, amphibians, etc., to animals, to the human state, etc. we are speaking of cosmology. Any theory, any doctrine or system of thinking which discusses the rising of evolutes from original causes, in any manner whatsoever, either by way of descent or ascent, is called cosmology. The doctrine of the arrangement, the coming and the going of things in the universe, is cosmology.

Sankhya

According to the Sankhya, the supreme intelligent principle is Purusha. It is infinite in its nature, all-pervading; everywhere present. It is Consciousness. This consciousness, this supreme Purusha is absolutely independent, it is also called Kaivalya, liberation, freedom, moksha, infinite all-pervading, omnipresent in its being. It is the true nature of pure Being, which is the true nature of every one of us also.

We are the Purusha. The Purusha does not mean a male or a female; it has no gender, no sex, no form, and no shape. It is not in space, not in time, and it is not anything we or anyone can think of or conceive. It is radiance which is spread out everywhere. It is the essence of everyone and everything.

The Sankhya postulates the beginning of an objective universe. This marks the beginning of creation.

In theological or religious language, we may say it is the will of God operating.

What is meant by the will of God? It is God intensely thinking the potentiality of an objective creation.

This is described in a dramatic manner in certain other scriptures such as the Upanishads, and in larger concrete details in the epics and the puranas of India.

Now we are concerned with the basic factors involved in Sankhya and Vedanta.

It is a cosmic will, cosmic thought, and cosmic idea with the potentiality of the future form that the creation has to take. This can be made clearer by looking at an artist who paints a picture. What does he do? He has an idea in his mind about the way in which the picture should appear. This idea of the form of the painting, which is to take a concrete shape afterwards, is the beginning of the creation of the picture.

God, the supreme Purusha, the ultimate Reality, is said to be associated with the material universe. When we use the word ‘material’, we have to be very cautious. It does not mean matter such as brick, stone and wood. It means pure possibility of being, objectively aware, just as when modern physicists speak of a material universe they do not mean the universe of brick and mortar, they mean an indescribable, inconceivable potentiality of what they call the space-time continuum.

Much more subtle is this state where we try to understand the pure ideation in the mind of the Supreme Being of the possible future manifestation of the universe.

First the artist conceives the pattern of the picture, and in the second stage this idea is projected on the canvas in the form of drawing outlines with a pencil. Then the artist touches these outlines with the necessary paint, making it more visible; and finally, in the end, he fills it with diverse colors. Then we say, here is the beautiful painting, but it originated in the thought of the artist; it was already there.

As for the creation of the universe, it is said that the process took place in a similar manner. In the beginning it was only an idea, but that idea was superior to the material content. We should not be under the impression that ideas or abstractions are unreal. We are accustomed to think in terms of hard substances so much that we find it difficult to imagine that there can be a non-material existence.

When modern science tells us that the universe is not material, we do not understand what they are saying. They say that the so-called imperceptible mathematical universe is the original universe of which what we perceive with our senses is just a shadow. The mathematical point-events, the abstract space-time continuum, which is not space and time, but something more than that, is the original archetype which casts a shadow, as it were, in the form of this concrete universe.

Can we imagine that concrete things are shadows of ideas? Our mind cannot understand this, and will not accept it, because we are prone to think in concrete objective forms only.

For us, money means currency notes, a coin, a metal piece which we can touch with our hands. But money does not mean that which we touch with our hands; it is a value of purchase which is in the idea of people only. Money is in the heads of people, it is not outside. If the ideas of give and take, commercial valuation and mutual agreement among people do not exist, paper notes and coins will have no value. Likewise, there are many things in this world which are apparently concrete and substantial, but are really ideas only. Organizations are ideas, governments are ideas, monetary systems are ideas, our loves and hatreds are also ideas, our satisfactions are ideas, our sorrows are ideas; finally, we will find there is nothing anywhere except ideas. Yet we believe that the world is nothing but concrete bricks, cement, iron, wood, etc., which it is not.

Again coming to the point of the origin of the universe, the substantial super-substantial ideation seems to be the beginning of all things. This potency, latency, or the hidden condition of a future universe is, according to Sankhya, called mahat, the great being filled with the idea of the universe, cosmically aware.

For all practical purposes, this is the God we are thinking of in religion. What Sankhya calls mahat is cosmic existence, which assumes such an intensive self-awareness of its own universal being that, in the Sankhya terminology, it is further designated as Ahamkara (ego).

Vedanta uses another set of terms altogether, the series is described in a similar manner as Brahman and Ishvara. Though the Supreme Being that Sankhya calls Purusha cannot be classically identified with the Brahman of Vedanta, it virtually means the same thing. And the objective content of this supreme Brahman as a potentiality of future creation is Ishvara, almost identical with what the Sankhya calls the mahat and ahamkara.

Let God do anything, we are concerned with our difficulties only. Now, what is our problem? God has created the universe, they say. The Vedas say this, the Upanishad says this, and the Bible says this. Let it be so, but what does it matter to us now?

Our difficulties are real to us. What has happened to us actually, now? Why are we in this condition, if God created this world in this manner? We will have to study this further on.

Our observation of things, our understanding of anything in this world, is restricted to our state of consciousness. Often we see things the way we want to see them and in accordance with our conditioned mind

If we like something very much, we are disturbed when something happens to it. The object that we love deeply can upset our mind or raise our mind to heights of joy, as the case may be.

My son, my daughter, my wife, my husband, my property and so many my-things, which are dear to me whatever circumstance these dear objects are placed, may react upon us so powerfully that it would appear that we ourselves are experiencing these conditions. If the person is happy, I am happy; if it dies, I also die. This happens even in a psychological attachment of what we call intense longing, love, affection, craving, and so on.

Deeper is the mistake that has taken place in us in our attachment to this body and the inner constituents. We do not merely love our body and these layers of ours as we love anything in this world, but this attachment of our true being to this body-mind complex has become so intense, that it is not possible to regard it as something outside us. It is not that we merely love the body and the mind and our personality, we are the body and the mind and everything that it is.

We can imagine the difficulty that we may have to face in freeing ourselves from this misconceived relationship with what we really are not. This will also explain how difficult yoga practice is. We are dealing with your own self, the only thing which we can never understand fully.

These conditioning layers of our personality compel us to visualize the whole of creation also in a corresponding series of gradations. Whether or not the universe is made up of layers or planes, it matters little to us, because for us they are made in that way because the world of perception is real and meaningful to the extent to which it becomes a content of our consciousness; otherwise, we are not concerned with it in any manner.

Therefore, in the practice of yoga or, for the matter, in our dealings of anything, we are concerned with our own world, not the world as it is in itself. Nobody knows what the world is, as it is in itself; but there is a world with which we are connected, which we have wound around ourselves as a silkworm winds a cocoon around itself, and we are very much concerned with it. This world is the subject of our study. Our bondage is that entanglement which is a part of our conscious experience. That which is not a part of our experience does not become a part of our study or concern in any manner.

Thus, a psychological necessity arisen on account of the conjunction of our consciousness with this psychophysical personality makes it also necessary for us to conceive a corresponding cosmic series of layers of being. The world which is the macrocosm is organically related to us as the microcosm, as a specimen of the cosmos. Each individual, each organism, each particle of sand or atom is a symbol of the whole cosmos. Everything that is in the universe can be found in one sand particle, in one particle of anything, even in an atom.

The individual setup is what we are. It has been somehow given the position of an observer of the external universe. In a highly metaphysical sense, we may say, in considering ourselves as observers of the universe. The object, so-called, has managed to remain outside the subjective consciousness. The Purusha has become mixed up with Prakriti; consciousness is entangled in matter, and according to one system of yoga at least, freedom or liberation consists in the extrication of the consciousness from its involvement in matter, Purusha freeing himself from Prakriti-consciousness, not feeling the necessity to see things only through the prism of individuality.

When we understand things from a higher perspective, we know through the Self, the Atman, we have intuitional knowledge. Intuition is direct apprehension of Reality, and that is the act of the soul, the Atman, the Self, the True Being – Pure Consciousness. But in ordinary circumstances of our life, this does not happen. We have no intuition because the Soul, the Atman, Consciousness, the true Being of ours beholds the fact of the universe through the medium of our psychophysical individuality – this body, this mind, and anything that we are made of.

In the description of the universe, Sankhya and the Vedanta are in agreement, except in their terminology. They have different ways of describing conditions and stages of experience, but the fact remains the same.

When we refer to the bible, we say God is the creator. Yoga gives a more detailed explanation of the Cosmic Process. It states:

One Power, Life and Being is responsible for the manifestation, maintenance and transformation of nature. This Reality is referred to variously by sages and seers. A term commonly used is Consciousness – as self existent, self aware and self referring. Consciousness requires no object to support its existence; it is simultaneously the knower, and the known. Consciousness can be known about by objective and subjective analysis, but it cannot be fully comprehended by direct perception.

Control of Life Force according to Swami Yogananda

The yogi in meditation withdraws his life force from the body and from the nerves and intentionally brings it into the spinal cord. All the currents thus withdrawn into the spine then pass , successively into and through the three luminous nadis (subtle tubes or channels of life force) of the astral spine (the sushumna, the vajra and the chittra) and become one current as it passes through the innermost channel, the brahmanadi, the spine of the causal body.*

The brahmanadi is so called because it is the primary channel through which Brahma – the spirit as soul, life and consciousness descend.

In dissension, the spirit or Brahma present in the soul of man come down through the brahmanadi and later enter the three astral tubes, and finally passing through their openings into the grosser channels of nerves and cells of the entire physical body.

An advanced yogi who experiences the retirement, or ascension, into the brahmanadi of all the activities of the life force and of the processes of consciousness is spoken of as one who has surrendered his actions to the Infinite.

The Spirit or Cosmic Consciousness present in the brahmanadi.

When the yogi retires his life force and processes of consciousness through the brahmanadi, he sees from that point of Divine origin, wondrous astral phenomena. He is however warned, not to become attached to them as any form of attachment forces the yogi to come down again to the sensory surface of the body. He should bypass the miraculous phenomena until he reaches the Universal Essence.

The advanced yogi takes his ego, life force and processes of consciousness up through the brahmanadi, the causal spine, to its opening Brahmarandhra at the top of the head, in order to enable his transformed ego, the soul, life energy and mind to pass beyond bodily confinement and attachment and be united with the Omnipresent God.

When the yogi is thus able to unite his soul with the infinite, this union destroys all past karma, and he is known as one who has ascended from the flesh. Burning all his past karma in the fire of ecstasy, savikalpa samadhi, he perceives God without creation. He then learns by the highest ecstasy, nirvikalpa samadhi, to manifest his God consciousness in the flesh and to perform all actions without being entangled by their good or evil effects. In this highest state, the yogi perceives God, creation and his body perceptions, existing and working together in harmony. The yogi performs all activities of body and mind without attachment, beholding then equally as waves of Cosmic Consciousness.

*The astral tubes are composed of the finest or most subtle forms of life energy, prana. The causal brahmanadi is a still finer channel of vibratory consciousness, the pattern on which the universe and man’s being are imprinted.