Some of the experiences we've looked at — such as the last I quoted, or Angela de Foligno's — are so powerful and revelatory that it's difficult to imagine that there could be anything `higher' than them. Anyone lucky enough to have such an experience would certainly be changed for life and feel that they had seen the `ultimate reality' of the world. Nevertheless, there is level of awakening beyond this.
Yoga philosophy refers to a mystical state of consciousness as samadhi (literally, `ecstasy') and makes a distinction between savikalpa samadhi and nirvikalpa samadhi. The former literally means `ecstasy tied to a particular form' and the latter means `formless ecstasy'. The experience of seeing the world as the manifestation of spirit and realizing that you are a part of the ocean of spirit is savikalpa samadhi, since there's still a self that is perceiving the world and a self that feels a sense of unity with it. But in nirvikalpa samadhi, which Yoga philosophy suggests is the highest possible form of consciousness, there is no consciousness of being a self. We expand beyond the boundaries of our normal self until our awareness of being an `I' completely falls away. We don't just become one with absolute reality, we become it.
Nirvikalpa samadhi means going beyond the world of form altogether. The material world dissolves away; the world of objects and natural phenomena is `drowned' in an ocean of pure spirit-force. It's as if we have entered into the absolute essence of reality, the `ground' of pure spirit, brahman in its pure form, which underlies everything and pervades everything. We realize that this ground of pure spirit is the source of all things, that the world is its manifestation, that its energy `pours out' into the world and that the nature of this energy is bliss and love. There is no time, only an eternal now, and there is no form, only spirit.
Of course, this isn't just an Indian concept. The ancient philosopher Plotinus referred to the pure spiritual essence of reality as `The One' and had four experiences of oneness with it in his life, so his disciple Porphyry tells us. The great medieval German mystic Meister Eckhart called it `the Godhead', the unconditioned source from which the whole world — including God Himself — flows out.
As awakening experiences become more intense, they also become less common. In a 1987 survey of mystical experiences by David Hay and G. Heald, 21 per cent of people said that they had sensed `a sacred presence in nature', while only 5 per cent said they had had a sense of `the unity of all things'.]) This makes sense, since the latter is a characteristic that occurs at high-intensity awakening experiences. And since this experience of becoming one with absolute reality is the highest-intensity awakening experience, it is also the least common.
As it is the highest intensity of awakening, we might call this state `absolute wakefulness'. The second experience I describe in the introduction is the only experience I've had of this state. I found that passage extremely difficult to write, simply because the state is so far beyond our normal experience that it's impossible to describe accurately. Our everyday language of subjects and verbs and objects isn't subtle enough to convey a state in which there are no subjects and objects and no solid `things'.
In fact, some spiritual traditions make no attempt to describe the experience. In the Upanishads this ultimate reality is described as `undefinable, unthinkable, indescribable'." The Kena Upanishad states that spirit is `beyond knowledge'. In Christian mysticism, there is also a recognition that the human mind — and its language — can never understand or capture this absolute reality of God. As Meister Eckhart wrote, `Why dost thou prate of God? Whatever thou sayest of him is untrue.''' Or, in the words of St Augustine, `There is in the mind no knowledge of God except the knowledge that it does not know Him.""
Fortunately, however, some people have attempted to describe their experiences of absolute wakefulness. One of the best descriptions I've come across was given by the English author and mystic Paul Brunton. In the 1920s he travelled around India, searching for spiritual wisdom. After some unsatisfactory experiences, he visited one of the most revered Indian mystics of the last century, Ramana Maharshi. Here he describes what happened when he was meditating with Ramana one evening:
"Finally it happens. Thought is extinguished like a snuffed candle. The intellect withdraws into its real ground, that is, consciousness working unhindered by thoughts. I perceive ... that the mind takes its rise in a transcendental source. The brain has passed into complete suspension, as it does in deep sleep, yet there is not the slightest loss of consciousness... Self still exists, but it is a changed, radiant self. For something that is far superior to the unimportant personality which was I, some deeper diviner being rises into consciousness and becomes me. With it arrives an amazing sense of absolute freedom, for thought is like a loom shuttle, which is always going to and fro, and to be freed from its tyrannical motion is to step out of prison into the open air."
So far Brunton is describing what we could call a medium-intensity ingoing experience which includes some of the characteristics we looked at above, such as a shift to a more genuine identity and a sense of freedom. But the experience intensifies until he reaches a state beyond all form and all concepts, where he merges with the divine `ground' of reality:
"I find myself outside the rim of world consciousness. The planet which has so far harboured me disappears. I am in the midst of an ocean of blazing light. The latter, I feel rather than think, is the primeval stuff out of which worlds are created, the first state of matter. It stretches away into untellable infinite space, incredibly alive."
Although absolute wakefulness might originate from an `ingoing' process such as meditation, at this level the terms `ingoing' and `outgoing' aren't relevant, since the concepts of `inner' and `outer' cease to have any meaning. As Evelyn Underhill noted, although the two types of experience might seem to be different, `In that consummation of love which Ruysbroeck has called "the peace of the summits" they meet.
Absolute wakefulness can certainly arise from `outgoing' situations too. Here, for example, is the experience of the nineteenth-century Indian mystic Ramakrishna. He was depressed and frustrated because, despite all his prayer and meditation, he felt he wasn't getting any nearer to the divine. In a moment of despair he picked up a sword, intending to kill himself, and suddenly experienced a vision of — and became one with — pure spirit:
"Houses, doors, temples and everything else vanished altogether, as if f there was nothing anywhere! And what I saw was an infinite shoreless sea of light, a sea that was consciousness. However far and in whatever direction I looked, I saw shining waves, one after another, coming towards me."
As Paul Brunton's experience shows, at this level the radiance or bright light which we perceive at lower levels can intensify to the point of being blindingly bright or even appearing as fire. This was also the case with the experience of `cosmic consciousness' described by the author of the famous book of that name, Richard M. Bucke. This experience also came from an `outgoing' situation, when he was being driven to his lodging in a hansom cab after spending the evening discussing poetry and philosophy with friends:
"All at once, without warning of any kind, I found myself wrapped in a flame-coloured cloud. For an instant I thought of fire, an immense conflagration somewhere close by in that great city; the next instant I knew that that fire was in myself. Directly afterwards there came upon me a sense of exultation, of immense joyousness, accompanied or immediately followed by an intellectual illumination quite impossible to describe. Among other things, I did not merely come to believe, but I saw that the universe is not composed of dead matter, but is, on the contrary, a living Presence: entirely alive; 1 became conscious in myself of eternal life... I saw that all men are immortal; that the cosmic order is such that without any peradventure all things work together for the good of each and all; that the foundation principle of the world, of all the worlds, is what we call love, and that the happiness of each and all is in the long run absolutely certain.''
At this point of `absolute wakefulness' we make contact with the ultimate reality of the universe and attain our complete fulfilment as human beings.
Waking from Sleep
Steve Taylor
Published by Hay House
2010
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