Nirvana is difficult to write about because it is only ever experienced by individuals. It is not a public performance, or a moment that can be shared socially. It doesn’t make news. No one understands someone else’s Nirvanic experience. At the same time, Nirvana is the field of gold we all share — the very ground and basis of our existence.

As if that weren’t enough, many people think of Nirvana as a rock band. Even those who have some inkling that it has vaguely to do with spirituality believe it to be a kind of spaced-out condominium in the sky, an Eldorado or Pure Land for the mystical. Few understand its central position in the lives of all of us.

It is certainly true that Nirvana has not been explained with any precision in the West: the terms “extinction” and “blown out” do little justice to the reality. It has also been regarded as a protected realm by a small clique of initiates, and by the high priests of the ancient mystery religions who regarded it as a proof of life after death.

Despite too the dismissive attitudes of orthodox science, “Nirvanic” experience is part of our empirical knowledge. It is not, however, observed by the five familiar physical senses, or by the mind, but by another means of knowing which I once called Nirvanoception.

Currently, this is a dark region for science, though near-death experiences and the theory of morphogenic fields are opening up this whole area to fresh inquiry.

The notion of a single “substance”, or ground, underlying all things is not new. The presocratic Greek philosopher, Thales, thought that all matter was composed of water. His later colleague, Anaximenes, suggested that air was a more likely candidate. In a purely material reality this seems absurd. But if we were able to see the world in the manner of extended still-frame photography, one picture every ten years, say, over a period of several million, even the most solid mountain range would appear to move and flow. In fact it would be indistinguishable from the sea.

Any being living at that frequency of thought would see rocks as water. It is a sobering idea that such beings would drink mountains. Water itself would be too volatile to register in such a slow-coach consciousness.

Next : The three modes of knowing.

A short biography by John M Evans. Part 4

Now Shankara turns to the central technique of his philosophy, the action of burrowing beneath the mind’s mental contents by the practice of intelligent enquiry. There is no blankness here, but a determined assault on the citadel of the ego using all of man’s faculties.

“Who is your wife? Who is your son? Supremely wonderful indeed is this (world). Of whom are you? From where have you come? O brother, think of that truth here.”

There is a method much used in India whereby the meditator deals with various aspects of himself, the mind, the feelings &c, and realizes that they are not actually HIM (or her). It is sometimes called neti neti, or ‘not this, not this.’ In some form it has also been used in Hua Yen Buddhism and elsewhere. However, a modern advocate of Advaita, Ramana Maharshi, believed that the system merely played around within the mind, creating more and more imaginings at the psychological level. He recommended the method of ’self-enquiry’ which aimed at focusing awareness directly at the ‘point’ where thoughts of ‘I’, and hence the ego, begin. The answer then comes from beyond the mind and not, as in the case of neti neti, from the intellect.

Nevertheless, as Ramana was always prepared to point out, most concentrative methods would, in the end, come round to a form of self-enquiry - it just took longer, that was all. The difference then is in the answer. More particularly, from whence that answer comes!

Most sages will advise students to keep good company. The presence of a master, or at least other committed path-seekers, is held to be essential, especially for beginners. Shankara was no exception.

Through the company of the good, there arises non-
attachment..
.
It is with higher minds around you, that you can persist in your efforts to rise above samsara, the world of birth and death. Scriptures and good books are of great value, but the greatest aid of all is the presence of a living, enlightened master.

O Distracted one!…Is there not for you the One who
commands?…it is the association-with-good-people
alone that can serve as a boat to cross the sea of
change.

This stanza sometimes includes the query, ‘Why dissipate mentally over the lips of your lady?’ When we look outwards, we leave the Reality. When we look inwards, we leave the world. This is the paradox of the Advaitins.

Dressing up, playing the holy man, working on our very Western neuroses about Identity, are not the answers to our suffering. They are mere psychological fixes, a patchwork of cheap darns to keep us functioning in a way never intended.

One ascetic with matted locks, one with a shaven
head, one with hairs pulled out one by one, another
parading in his ochre robes - these are fools who,
though seeing, do not see. Indeed, these different
disguises or apparels are only for their belly’s sake.

Strong stuff for a teacher in India, the land of wandering sadhus and ash-smeared fakirs. Again Shankara reminds us of the Buddha, with his ‘Middle Way’ between asceticism and sensuousness. ‘All is vanity, all is vanity.’

True renunciation is not the sacrifice of all the things of the world, but the rejection of the ego-mind which projects its fancies on such things.

The song then returns to the contemplator’s enquiry into the subject in himself.

Who are you? Who am I? From where did I come? Who
is my mother? Who is my father?…

Again we are asked to delve into the depths and examine our consciousness and the space within it and the objects it contains. Who are they? What relationship have I to them? Who on earth am I?

…Thus enquire, leaving aside the entire world-of-
experience, which is essenceless (empty) and a mere
dreamland, born of imagination.

This enquiry prompts an equanimity of mind, an even-temperedness which in itself is necessary for spiritual accomplishments. Hence self-enquiry and stillness go hand in hand. Indeed, they cannot exist without each other.

Strive not, waste not your energy to fight against
or to make friends with your enemy, friend, son, or
relative. Seek the Self everywhere…

And, in the words of the Gita, ‘Who sees all beings in his own Self, and his own Self in all beings, loses all fear.’

Leaving desire, anger, greed, and delusion,
the seeker sees in the Self, ‘He am I.’

This is the famous ‘That Thou Art’ of the Upanishads. Not the mantra ‘I am Brahman’ practised at the psychological level by many, but the deeper realization of the true sage.

Once again we find an echo of Buddhism here as the verse uses the ‘Three Fires’ as its obstacles to emancipation. In his commentary, Sri Chinmayananda quotes a saying generally attributed to Shankara, ‘Desire, anger, greed are looters that stand within the body, ready to plunder the Knowledge-Gem - therefore, be vigilant! Be vigilant!’

Shankara ends his poem/hymn with a prayer for the enlightenment of his hearers.

O Devotee of the lotus-feet of the teacher! may you
become liberated soon from samsara. Through the
discipline of the sense-organs and the mind, you will
come to experience the Lord that dwells in your
own heart.

From the English Victorian novelist George Eliot :

We walk about “well-wadded with stupidity. … If we had but keen vision and feeling … it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence”.

A very happy New Year to all our readers.

We occasionally reprint Andrew Cohen’s weekly email quote if it touches on a matter that particularly interests us. This week’s excerpt is titled, “The Evolution of Gender”.

The question posed concerns gender in the postmodern age — which may now have passed — and especially in the state of consciousness beyond ego, which we term “enlightenment”.

If you would like to receive Andrew’s weekly emails, click on the link below the quote.

The Evolution of Gender
If enlightenment is the experience of consciousness beyond ego, then what does that consciousness look like, expressed through postmodern men and women? What happens to our identity, to fundamental self-structures like gender, when we take that leap beyond ego? This has always been a confusing matter, but it is even more so in a time and cultural context when so many of us are unclear about what the contours of a male or female identity should be. As both men and women evolve from traditional to post-traditional roles in culture, religion, and society, the roadmap for what it means to be a man or a woman, beyond some very basic distinctions, has become less and less clearly defined. And for those of us who are endeavoring to pioneer new stages in the evolution of consciousness and culture, this uncharted terrain is the very place in which we choose to live. So what does it mean to be a man or a woman as we develop beyond conventional structures and post-conventional confusion to post-postconventional clarity?

Andrew Cohen