The Supreme Stillness

When the master was asked to describe Brahman, he closed his eyes and was silent. When thoughts are transcended, Brahman is realized. When the mind reaches a state of supreme stillness, pure consciousness is what remains.

In our waking and dream states our minds are active and are creating an experience we live in. That experience is a mental appearance superimposed upon consciousness. We believe this is reality. In deep sleep, the mind becomes like an unsprouted seed and, when it awakens, it sprouts its fantasy creating its world of appearances. The mind creates separate thoughts, ideas and appearances. These appearances hide the Source of the mind which is pure consciousness. When this happens, we become deluded that the world is separate and different from us and we believe we are this body.

When pure awareness pulsates as a vibration, an impulse of the creative intelligence of consciousness arises as a thought. When there are thoughts, there is mind. The thoughts hide the One Source and then the individual soul, the world of things and the personal God are seen as separate realities.

In stillness, we can awaken from our dream reality. When the mind is still and no appearances are being created, what remains is pure awareness, the Source of mind. In the supreme stillness, when there is no mind, there are no individuals, differences or other. Then there is only existence, one without a second. It is singular, alone. In the supreme stillness, the impersonal God that is the true Self, is all that exists.

In the supreme stillness, because we have transcended the mind, there is no mind, no beliefs, no doctrines, no followers, no leaders, no religion, no dogma, no thinking and no doing. The true Self shines as pure Being.

Pure Being is overshadowed as the mind’s activities dominate our experience. The egoic mind creates thoughts, ideas and concepts and a delusive dream of differences arises. We believe we are the body, separate individuals, performing actions in a world of things. Thoughts obscure the true Self and ego divides the One.

Humans and animals seek eternal happiness that is pure, without suffering. In true clarity, we realize that this happiness is our real nature. It does not need to be obtained, only revealed. Any bit of joy in life is sourced through receiving the experience of a fraction of the bliss of the true Self. The true Self, shining in the supreme state, pulsates with awareness and ever new bliss. It is in the supreme state alone that the fullness of never-ending happiness resides. Cut off from this state, the ego and thoughts create endless doubts, differences, desires and attachments.

Matrika shakti manifests letters, words, thoughts and ideas in the mind, creating appearances. These projected appearances are superimposed on the Self and seen as reality. The superimposition hides the true Self. In our mind, that which is nameless is given a name. The formless is given form. Object and subject, seer and seen, name and form arise. The seer, the seen and the act of seeing are experienced as separate.

In the supreme state, the ego, who is the doubter, the separator and the grasper, dissolves. The world is experienced as it is – an appearance superimposed by the mind on the true Self. In the supreme stillness, realization reveals God, the world and the individual soul to be the Self, universal consciousness. Brahman is realized as the sole reality.

The Self is supreme Being. It is existence. In ignorance, the rope is seen as a snake, the mirage is seen as a lake and the One is seen as many. The supreme state of the Self reveals the emptiness of attributes, the unity of differences and the witness of actions. The Self shines by the light of its own nature as pure consciousness. The Self illumines itself as pure existence and pure intelligence. The essential nature of existence is known when one knows the Self because existence is the Self. Then what appears outside as the world is realized to be the Self. Then the ignorance and the illumination, the rope and the snake, the mirage and the lake, the actor and the action are realized as the Self. In ignorance, what is judged as real and unreal is only an intellect dissecting appearances. In the state of supreme awareness, the mental constructs that appear as differences, as subjects and objects, as attributes, and as names and forms dissolve into the light of supreme consciousness. Then the apparent reality that we believed to be a separate God, an individual soul and a world of things is realized to be a superimposition of appearances on the formless Self.

Our first experiences occur through the senses. We see a body and we believe we are this body and that the body is the self. We believe reality to be the forms our senses experience. But those forms are never stable, unchanging or absolute. The mind translates what the senses experience and an apparent reality is created in the mind. As we have seen with the snake and the lake, what we see is not a good measure of reality.

Consciousness, in a state of contraction, creates appearances to carry out its play of consciousness within itself. In ignorance, the mind creates a separate world of appearances, names and forms. The senses, by creating mental impressions, create our world filled with attributes. In the supreme stillness, both the individual and the world are realized to be nameless and formless consciousness; the emptiness of pure Being.

In a dream, the dream-world is an unreal mental appearance. In the waking state, the world is also an unreal mental appearance superimposed upon consciousness. The dream and the waking state appear real while we are in it because the mind takes as real all that it creates.

When consciousness pulsates, when it vibrates, it is mind. Mind is the nature of Brahman, the Self. Thought arises within pure consciousness as an impulse of its creative intelligence. It is like the wave arising from the still ocean. The intellect, the mind and the senses arise from the power of the creative intelligence of consciousness. The intellect, senses and mind serve the delusion of appearances. They churn the stillness, cause the appearance of differences and direct awareness outward from its Source through the senses. By contracting, consciousness creates all the appearances within itself and allows itself to appear as other. This is its play.

Just as H2O appears in the states of ice, water and vapor, consciousness appears as the waking, dreaming and deep sleep states. There are four bodies in a human being; the physical, the subtle, the causal and the supra-causal. Our intellect, for the purpose of understanding, breaks the one into many. There is only one consciousness appearing in four different states. This one consciousness is not linked to four separate things, four separate bodies. It is the same consciousness that illumines, experiences and functions. It appears to act, dream, sleep and remain the pure Self in the transcendental state. In reality, there aren’t four separate bodies. There is one consciousness appearing in four different states within consciousness.

As the physical body, consciousness experiences the pairs of opposites; pain and pleasure, happiness and sadness, good and evil. It is equipped with the senses, the organs of action and the different pranas. This appearance of consciousness experiences the waking state. As the astral body, consciousness performs the three distinct functions of mind; thinking, ego and intellect. This body holds samskaras, old impressions, that are currently activated. This appearance of consciousness experiences the dream state. As the causal body, consciousness experiences deep, dreamless sleep, a void beyond the senses, thoughts, feelings and desires. This body holds all the inactive impressions of our countless lifetimes. It is called causal because it is these samskaras that hold the karma that determines – that causes – the creation of our subtle and physical bodies. It is the vehicle that allows us to travel to other subtle worlds. From an intellectual standpoint we call the fourth body supra-causal, but in actuality it is not a body. It is turiya, the transcendental state of supreme stillness. If we think of it as a body, it is one of all-pervasive, bliss consciousness. This is the true Self, the ultimate reality. It is Brahman, unmanifest, unmoving, immortal Being. This is the witness, the true Self.

In the supreme stillness of the transcendental state, we witness waking, dreaming and deep sleep. Our pure consciousness shines as the watcher of the three states. In our awakening, in the experience of the transcendental state of pure consciousness, the Self alone shines, illuminating itself and the world superimposed upon it. There is no other.

We misperceive appearances as separate, substantial realities. But they are as reflections of the sun in the still water. Both the sun, the light, the power to shine, the water and the reflection are one within the Self. The existence, intelligence and power are all the one Self. The witness that watches the play of consciousness, as appearances within consciousness, is consciousness. In this realization, the misperception of seeing appearances as substantial and separate realities is dispelled. This realization arrives when we experience the true Self, when we realize we are existence. Then, as the one consciousness, we witness the appearances that the mind has made into a dream, knowing it is all our Self. Then, we witness the appearances the mind has made into our waking-state, knowing our individual body and the world are our Self. We need to fix neither the world nor ourselves. We need only to reveal what was hidden. This supreme state is not an understanding, as an understanding is an appearance in the mind. The supreme state is an experience. It is a realization of what we have always been; Brahman.

It is the mind, in creating the appearance of names and forms, that distinguishes between Self and non-Self. From this misperception arises the delusion, “I am the body”. God, the body, the mind and the world are seen as different. Because we identify with the name and form, we perceive other. The appearance is simply a misperception, like the darkness. Does darkness have a reality? The light of realization dispels the darkness of ignorance which was only a misperception, an appearance. The seer, the seen and the act of seeing are all the supreme Self.

We understand through our mind and the mind breaks the whole into parts in order to facilitate our limited understanding. We understand God through the mind functioning as intellect and feeling. The impersonal aspect of God is pure Being, unmoving consciousness. It is existence and pure intelligence, our True Self. The impersonal aspect of God turns awareness upon itself and pure consciousness becomes conscious. Pure intelligence becomes intelligent. Pure awareness becomes aware as it prepares to assume the role of creative intelligence. The impersonal God takes on a personal appearance as almighty Father or Mother Divine.

The Source of our mind is the pure awareness that is the impersonal God. It creates appearances all the time. It assumes roles all the time. We become a mother or a father, a doctor or a teacher. Foundationally, we have not actually become something different. It is pure consciousness that is the impersonal God who has created this world of appearances within itself. There is no other. The intellect has no access to the supreme state and its grasp cannot hold the supreme state. The mind and its intellect must be transcended to experience the supreme reality. Consciousness is unmanifest Being, impersonal God and its appearances. It is all the true Self, all One.

In ignorance, we know through the intellect and not through the experience of the true Self. Realization is an experience of the true Self revealed in the supreme stillness. Through meditation we can experience the supreme state. Realization happens in meditation by transcending the mind and realizing pure consciousness. In meditation, we follow a thought to subtler levels and transcend the thought, realizing its Source, pure consciousness.

Through devotion and surrender to a personal form of God we can also experience the supreme state. Devotion tethers us to God and his power of grace. Surrender releases the ego to God who bestows grace and ends the ego sense. Grace dissolves the ego that created differences and then reveals the true Self as God. God’s grace, the power of revelation, assures that all appearances will dissolve in the supreme awareness. The aspirant’s grace is their effort. Effort is engaging in practices to realize the true Self; especially meditation, devotion and surrender.

The personal God is the highest relative aspect of the Self. Names and forms of the personal God reveal the formless, impersonal God. Devotion to the name and form of the personal God takes us to the boarder of the absolute and finest relative. At that point, surrender allows name and form to dissolve into the nameless and formless. All names and forms of God are the appearance of formless God, both being true Self. God, Guru and Self are one. As devotion dissolve the ego, surrender and grace dissolve the mind, allowing for the experience of the true Self as supreme Being. In truth, the Self is devoted to the Self, the Self surrenders to the Self and the Self dissolves into the Self. The only thing happening is realization.

We become what we surrender to. One who surrenders to God realizes he is God. By turning the individual burden of life over to the will of God through devotion and surrender, the individual realizes the true Self. Knowing God, Guru and Self is beyond mind. When the mental appearances of mind dissolve, what remains is the true Self as existence; the One. Subject and object, devotee and object of devotion dissolve and the supreme state reveals God, Guru and Self as the One. There is no awareness apart from the One, so there is no other – no subject that worships and no object that is worshipped.

All appearances exist in the mind and are mental, including space, causality, name, form, individuality, attributes, differences, birth, death and time. A separate body, an individual mind, a personal soul, and a world of differences are only reflected images on the True Self that appear, change and disappear. When the mind is pacified, it becomes still and all mental appearances dissolve into the One. The mind, as pulsations of consciousness, veils pure consciousness. When the mind dissolves into its source of pure consciousness, the One is revealed as Self.

If there is One, how can there be birth or death, time or space, name or form? How can there exist questions about who created the world, who am I, do I have free will, am I enlightened, what will the future hold? The creator, the world, the individual, the past and future are appearances mind creates – superimpositions of appearances upon the screen of consciousness. The Self neither acts nor receives the fruits of action. The superimposition of the appearances of a separate God, an individual soul and a world of things is the play of consciousness within consciousness.

As the mind hides the One consciousness, we become overwhelmed with believing that our bodies and minds are the true Self, that we are individuals and that we act. We forget the true Self and believe we are the body and individual seers as the mind. The mind binds together a sense of true Self with the ignorance that I am the body and creates an idea that I am an individual soul. Even as we say the light of God is inside me, or my individual soul is eternal, or the Father in heaven is the supreme Being, it is the mind creating the appearance of differences. How can there be a path to know God when there is no actor or action, no God different from Self, no awareness that is separate from the One consciousness.

Yoga of action that honors other as self, yoga of devotion that eliminates separateness from God, yoga of mind control that dissolves differences and yoga of correct awareness that sees unity in diversity all bring the mind to the brink of the finest relative. But it is the experience of the transcendental Self in the supreme stillness that eliminates forgetfulness and reveals the supreme state of the Absolute. In the supreme state, the one, infinite consciousness shines and the darkness of appearances vanish. In the experience of the transcendental state of supreme stillness, pure Being shines undivided, omnipresent and whole. Then, what the mind thinks and what words describe dissolve into the stillness of Brahman. Thinking dissolves into silence. Mind dissolves into consciousness. Vibration dissolves into emptiness. Other dissolves into Self. Doing dissolves into Being. Misperception dissolves into realization.

Fear, desire and doubt cannot arise for one who experiences no differences. They are the offspring of duality. When there is no other, there is nothing but Self, and so no other to fear. Even death is no longer feared when the One is realized to be deathless and the misperception that we are the body vanishes. Belief that other can cause pain or negative outcomes vanishes when other is dissolved in the supreme stillness of the One. In that state, it is not even that we no longer see differences. Beyond the senses, beyond individual mind, there is no seeing, only Being. Who is there to see and what is there to be seen when there are no pairs of opposites?

When there exists only the One, what is it that is not possessed. Established in the supreme stillness, the One Self is alone and there is no ego existing that could desire. What could be desired when other is dissolved. All desires have but one goal; the experience of supreme bliss. Bliss is the nature of the true Self and in the supreme state, the One is realized to be the goal. What could be obtained, what could be won, what could be desired when Self is all that is.

In doubt, we are filled with uncertainty and lack of conviction. We question the Truth. When we are existence and pure intelligence, there is no other Truth. In the realization that there exists only the one Self, stances, philosophies, questions, affirmations and inquiry end because the mind has vanished into the supreme stillness. Nothing is left to doubt because there is no outside or inside, no this way or that way.

The ego causes us to see appearances and believe we are the body. When we misperceive that we are the body, then there is other than the body. In that experience of separation and difference, fear, desire and doubt breed endlessly. In the state of misperception, we feel the pleasure of a taste of happiness and we feel the pain of a taste of misery. We live in the pairs of opposites, attached to the fleeting pleasures and averse to the fleeting miseries.

The supreme state is the dissolution of ego and its sense of difference. In the supreme stillness, we realize our true Self as bliss, as absolute and as pure consciousness. The bliss is Self-arising. The other person, the other place and the other thing are Self. There is no other to have a relationship with. There is no other thing to possess. There is no circumstance because there is no action, no actor, no time, no space, and no change in Being. There is no enlightenment or realization because the Self is Presence and never lost. The first guru, the last guru, God and man, the world and the soul are Self. The One is absolute even as the mind’s appearances imagine difference. The One is pure consciousness even as the mind’s appearances imagine ignorance. The One is bliss even as the mind’s appearances imagine pleasure and misery.

The ego has created a separate self that believes it is the body. The egoic mind believes the relationship will deliver love, the place will deliver security and the thing will deliver satisfaction. Some fear the supreme state when they hear the ego will be dissolved. Then the trace of love, the moment of security and the touch of satisfaction might also dissolve. The conditioning of mind is so intense that a state of emptiness, without attributes, feels lacking, a free-fall without a safety net. Desire, grasping at outcomes and the struggle to succeed are imagined to be the highest achievements even as they are the ego’s creation. The goal of desires, attachments and outcomes is bliss, Bliss is the nature of Self. We desire a tiny thing when the Self is all-pervasive existence. We desire a trace of sufficiency and love when the Self is divine bliss that pulsates as universal love. We desire to fix an outward condition when the Self is the perfection of impersonal God.

Our realization is awakening. We fall asleep when we hide the true Self. We wander in a dream that is our mind’s appearances. We think we are traveling the world about to get something, about to find something. The dream is consumed with desires, fears and doubts. In the dream we feel pleasure and misery. Then we awaken and realize we were always home. We hadn’t gone anywhere. We hadn’t become anything. We hadn’t acted in any way. We were in bed, in stillness.

The impersonal God is pure Being. As it shines in its own self-awareness, as its intelligence becomes intelligent, as its pure consciousness become conscious, it becomes personal God. In Self-awareness, God prepares to assume the role of creator, the supreme creative intelligence. The supreme Being is assuming the role of Father/Mother, the creator.

Prana is the tendency of the unmanifested, impersonal God to vibrate and become manifest. The impersonal God, in a pure subjective state of unmoving consciousness, now assumes an objective state as Cosmic Mind. When impersonal God assumes the role of personal God as Cosmic Mind, He assumes a subject-object relationship. To expand its bliss, the impersonal God generates prana within Itself and assumes the role of prana to create. The Absolute assumes the role of the relative. Unity appears within Itself as multiplicity.

Creativity lies in the nature of the Impersonal God. Creation is Its role and evolution is Its expansion. Prana, the nature of pure Being, is the motive force of creation and the basic force of the mind. Reflected upon by karma, prana gains individuality and appears as individual mind. The individual mind is a limited reflection of the infinite unmanifested pure consciousness of Being. Mind is the reflection of cosmic intelligence on karma. Where Being becomes mind, the appearance of creation arises.

Just as the still ocean, stimulated by the wind, appears as a wave, pure consciousness, stimulated by its own nature as prana, appears as mind. Prana, stimulated by karma becomes mind. Mind creates karma and karma creates mind in an eternal cycle of cosmic creation and destruction. The seed creates the tree and the tree creates the seed in an eternal interdependence.

Being, the True Self, does not actually manifest. Karma accepts the reflection of Being and becomes the tendency to create gaining the attribute of prana. With the reflection as its foundation, with the true Self always remaining the immovable, unmanifest pure Being, creation begins to appear to separate. The appearance of multiplicity is pervaded by the true Self. Everything is Self. Mind, even as it is appearing different from Being, is the essential nature of Being. Karma has assumed the role of prana to begin creation within Being. The entire relative creation has no status in itself because it appears and disappears within the Cosmic mind, as the personal God dreams his dream of creating, maintaining and destroying. The true Self, the impersonal God, by virtue of its own nature, within itself, appears as relative creation. Impersonal God, remaining in the supreme stillness, assumes the role of creator, Cosmic Mind, and appears as relative names and forms of creation. The H2O appears as water, ice and vapor. The One appears as many.

Life is the radiation of the true Self and, as such, the apparent individual is the light of God. Realization is coming out of the personal, egoic, individual appearance and realizing the true Self, impersonal Being. By transcending thoughts and the individual mind, we realize impersonal God as Self. Realization is experience. In the supreme stillness, we experience true Self.