Beyond Meditation

We use meditation as a medicine to heal the disease of ignorance. When its curative function as a remedy has been fulfilled, both the disease and the medicine should be forgotten. To ‘practice’ medita­tion past the point of our recovery from ignorance defeats its entire purpose — to be.

One should not remain forever dependent on meditation as a means to reach further expansion. Unless we go beyond meditation and become one with the inner realm, there will always be a split between the act of meditation and our continual abidance in the now. Only through the power of surrender to the now can we transcend the dichotomy of doing and being and see meditation as not existing apart from reality as it is.

Although meditation points directly to the heart of the now, the practice of meditation beclouds the perfection of being. The very need for exertion that practice implies reconfirms our split from the whole. To reach completion, we need to arrive at a point in our evo­lution where all effort can be dropped and absorbed by reality. To go beyond meditation is to dissolve practice in the exalted realization of the natural state.

beyond practice

Although meditation is the means and the goal, meditation as ‘prac­tice’ represents only the means. Correct practice does carry the seed of the essence, but the full realization of the essence eliminates any need for practice. Hence, dropping practice is a natural outcome of completing the inner path.

There are two extreme views regarding the subject of practice: one claims that there is no need for practice at all, as one can reach self-realization directly, the other maintains that not only is practice necessary, but that there can be no end to it, for even after enlighten­ment one still needs to meditate in order to perfect the inner state. Neither of these views reflects the whole truth. It may be true that one can experience awakening without meditation, but one can never arrive at complete self-realization in this way. As for the belief in the need for never-ending cultivation, it is a false conviction based on confusion over the difference between partial awakening and complete realization. Partial awakening does indeed demand the continuation of practice for the sake of the stabilization, integration, and deepening of the states to which one has awakened. Complete enlightenment, however, by definition, eliminates the need for any additional practice. The state beyond practice does exist, and repre­sents the essence of freedom.

In some cases, the decision to drop practice reflects one’s inner potential and the desire of the soul; in others, it is resistance coming from the mind. Unfortunately, meditators generally lack sufficient knowledge of the inner realm to sense the difference. They either give up their practice prematurely or insist on continuing with it when it is no longer relevant. As an example, one should not stop cultivating self-remembrance prior to stabilizing awareness, or con­tinue practice with being when the absolute state is already estab­lished and integrated. Prior to reaching complete enlightenment, the decision to drop a specific practice should be based on a clear view of one’s potential and the expansiveness of one’s spiritual aspirations. As we progress, we pass through many different levels of the relative states beyond practice. At these signposts of inner expansion, we can simply relax, enjoying what we have attained. As time goes by, how­ever, we consciously dive back into the adventure of the inner work, responding to the call for further evolution. A true seeker never gives up the inner work before becoming unconditionally free.

sudden and gradual enlightenment

As long as the science of enlightenment has existed there has been dis­agreement between different traditions as to whether self-realization is the outcome of a sudden awakening or a gradual process. There is no confusion though, if we are able to see this issue from a higher per­spective. Awakening is always sudden, for it is a breakthrough in our experience of reality. Complete enlightenment, however, cannot hap­pen suddenly — the chasm between ignorance and self-realization is simply too wide to cross in a single instant. A gigantic leap of this sort would defy the laws of nature, consciousness and energy.

We need to understand that enlightenment is not a mere shift in perception and consciousness. It is an existential metamorphosis on all levels that radically transforms the frequency of our energy system and the delicate balance of our brain and subtle bodies. A sudden and complete enlightenment that bypassed all intermediate stages of awakening would undoubtedly result in a mental and emotional breakdown, or even physical death. The body and mind require time to adjust to the dramatic change in our energy and sense of identity that the radical transfiguration of enlightenment engenders.

The generally accepted models of sudden and gradual enlighten­ment are based on the false assumption that ignorance and enlighten­ment are strict opposites, having no intermediate reality. However, the matter is much more complex and fluid, for there are many transi­tional stages between forgetfulness and awakening. One can be more or less ignorant, just as one can be more or less awakened.

Awakening is sudden by nature, but rarely instantaneously com­plete. A post-awakening period of cultivation of the state that has been awakened is almost always necessary for the sake of its stabiliza­tion and integration. Only when a particular awakening has matured into relative completion can one then initiate the process that leads to the subsequent awakening. In this way, one journeys step by step towards becoming more whole and complete. The concept of gradual enlightenment is valid provided we accept that it is a gradual process composed of sudden awakenings. It is gradual in the sense that one’s inner state progressively expands as one awakening follows another in tandem with the cultivation of the inner state as a whole.

Cultivation is both the polishing and perfecting of an already awakened state, and preparation for the awakening to follow. However, although necessary to assure the ensuing awakening, cul­tivation is never its complete cause. The correlation between cultiva­tion and awakening is in fact extremely subtle: awakening is never the direct result of our effort, yet without our effort, no awakening can take place. Through cultivation we prepare our existence for the influence of the higher intelligence that alone can shift our conscious­ness to a more elevated state of light.

In the earthly dimension, it is most often a human guide who initiates the inner awakening of a seeker. This initiation takes the form of an energetic transmission of the states beyond the mind, and requires the medium of a self-realized being who embodies the awakened reality. To make himself as receptive as possible, the seeker has to prepare for the initiation through practice. He must bring his energy and consciousness as close as he can to the verge of the state that is to be awakened so that he can be reached by the transmission. A transmission of this type is not the simple transfer­ence of a state. It is the planting of a seed of higher consciousness that, in order to result in complete awakening, must be nurtured through cultivation into maturity. Whether realization happens spontaneously or through grace, the principles of sudden awakening and gradual cultivation apply.

the natural state

The natural state of meditation is the true goal of all meditators. Beyond the polarities of inner and outer, activity and non-activity, thinking and non-thinking, doing and being, the natural state is unaffected, unconditional immersion in reality. Through the realiza­tion of this state we move completely into the dimension of pure sub­jectivity, the domain of the self. We continue to exist in the world, but are no longer of the world; our essence is rooted in the beyond. By the power of our expansion into the realm of pure being we return to our original state, yet still maintain a life on earth. This secret domain of immaculate peace is the abiding place of all beings who have yielded their existence to the eternal light of I am.

non-being

Non-being is the deepest experience of meditation. It is not the oppo­site of being, but the absence of the checker within the state of pure being. That which we perceive as ‘being’ in fact exists only in refer­ence to an experiencer. Without a knower, there is no one to relate to being as something to dwell upon, no one to be. When the knower merges with being, he is no longer external to where he abides — he disappears into existence.

Non-being is an experience without an experiencer, knowledge without a knower, freedom without anyone being free. It is the state in which the division between the inner state and the observer is dis­solved into one reality. This supreme experience-non-experience of reality can be revealed only to no one. In the absence of oneself, the universal self is all-that-is.

the state of bliss

It is a common error to cling to superficially blissful experiences in meditation. Most so-called meditative experiences are external to our real nature and possess no existential value. The mind, lacking in true depth, is totally captivated by stimulating experiences and des­perately strives to relive them. However, because these experiences are not anchored in the essence of pure subjectivity, the experiencer is separated from the experience. The illusive bliss that a beginner sometimes accidentally accesses can never become permanent, for it is still confined to the mind. A meditator must guard himself against addiction to blissful experiences for they can easily divert his atten­tion from the real work of diving into the trans-experiential dimen­sion of pure being.

There is an unspoken law of meditation that before one can enter the state of real bliss one has to pass the gate of neutrality, absorbing and integrating the essence of unqualified emptiness: disidentifica­tion from experiencing, non-evaluation of experiences, non-doing of being, non-dwelling upon phenomena and non-abidance upon the beyond. To enter reality, a meditator has to establish himself in a state beyond pleasant or unpleasant, blissful or boring. He has to be unconcerned with that which he is experiencing to truly become one with it. Only then is he granted the impersonal bliss of existence.

A neutral quality experienced in meditation shows that one abides in reality, for one has moved beyond the mind; yet it also indicates that the experiencer is still separated from the space of his abidance. Neutrality can be said to be the closest experience to reality for a separate experiencer; beyond it, the experiencer is no more. The moment the gap between the experiencer and the inner realm is bridged by his absorption, the true nature of reality divulges itself as pure bliss. We are not speaking of the kind of bliss that one can relate to, or get used to and become bored with, for it is not experienced through our presence, but through our absence. In the absence of a meditator, the hidden depth of meditation opens as the homogeneous consciousness of divine absorption. Once we have crossed over the neutral dimension of meditation, we begin to disap­pear into reality and merge with the supreme bliss of the self. The bliss of meditation is innate to the divine realm of the source — it is uncaused, unoriginated, unbecome — it just is. To taste the timeless bliss of being through the consciousness of the soul is to merge with the unborn heart of the beloved.