Andrew: Peace and love everyone. My name is Andrew Hewson. I’m a spiritual teacher. I’m here with my friend David “Davidya” Buckland. David is the author of a blog and a book, Our Natural Potential. Both David and I have been around the process of spiritual awakening, witnessed cases of realization unfold through various physiologies, including our own. We come together to speak about the process of the awakening of conscious awareness.
This is the second talk of an ongoing series which we are engaging in. And in this talk, we’re going to be covering the, we could say, secondary stages of development in conscious awareness. What David refers to as Unity and Refined Unity, and what I refer to as Source Awareness and Dynamic Subjectivity.
In our first discussion, we covered the initial shift into the recognition of reality in the status of infinity, that which is commonly referred to as awakening. We discussed the various ways in which the awakening can unfold, ways in which it can be spoken about and the variation that shows up in the field of this initial blossoming forth of the reality of consciousness within itself.
And we also explored what that can look like in a refined context. So how the heart begins to blossom forth or can even be present in the initial shift as a guiding or dominating influence.
David, thank you for being with me again.
David: Thank you, Andrew.
A: I’m looking forward to exploring this together.
D: Yes, so if you’re not familiar with the stages, it would be a good idea to take a look at our first conversation, put this into some context, although we’ll talk about it a little bit.
If you kind of think of consciousness as the underlying dynamics of all that we experience. There’s a three-way process involved. There’s the subject or observing aspect of consciousness and the object or observed aspect, which is the world around us and all we’re experiencing and then there’s the process of experiencing between them.
In that first stage we wake up to the observer value sometimes called the witness and there can be a sense of a detached observer observing an outside world and that outside world may take may be perceived in a number of different ways, for example as very solid and real, or as an illusion, or as the divine play depending on the dominant guna we talked about that more in the prior conversation.
The key with Unity is the object side where through, it varies how that process unfolds but in the classic description there’s basically that refinement of perception we talked about in God Consciousness and the awakening heart and a subtler and subtler perception of the mechanics of the world around us until we come to consciousness itself. And then at a certain point in there we recognize that that consciousness we’re experiencing as creating the world around us is the same Self as is observing all that field of experience.
And so the subject and object are recognized to be one and come together into one wholeness. However, the mechanism there, you know, varies quite a bit in how that’s discovered. Sometimes it’s just a matter of the depth of our awareness of consciousness gets deep enough that it’s recognized to be underlying the field of the world. Sometimes people describe it like the world is like on a movie screen and we become conscious of the screen itself as consciousness and then recognize that we are that screen.
A: Beautiful.
D: Yeah.
A: Yeah. So, both David and I use the terms masculine and feminine to describe the primary aspects of conscious awareness. And in our last discussion, we discussed how those will show up in the initial shift.
I have been bringing forward an understanding of a new style of shift, which is predominantly feminine. And in this case, it would be what was revealed or realized first.
So rather than that being what makes Unity or brings Unity forward, it would already be present. And then the masculine side would click in, or the awareness, pure seeing side would click in after conscious awareness had already realized itself as the vibrant fullness that is the essence of form and is appearing as the dynamism of the world.
So these two aspects are extremely important to recognize, not something that is to be grasped and pinned down necessarily, but It’s something that is immediately verifiable for anyone, there’s this aspect of changelessness and then there’s the aspect that appears to be changeful, so the changeful aspect of our conscious awareness is punctuating the changeless aspect of our conscious awareness and there’s this uh, this play that is the play of human life, that is the play of creation itself.
D: Right and there can be the sense sometimes where where, um we become you know from the more masculine orientation where we wake up to the silent consciousness first and then uh become more and more aware of the liveliness in the environment around us that lively consciousness is there.
And then with the Unity shift there can be the sense of like the liveliness swallowing up the silence. Because we’re talking about oneness or unity here. It’s not a two-ness anymore, they become one thing.
Sometimes they talk about the gap between the absolute and relative fields of life, for example, and that gap disappears because they’re one and the same thing.
It’s important to understand here too when we talk about unity or oneness in this context, we’re not talking about interconnectedness or a sense of it, we’re talking about experiencing it right on the level of our very being, right on the level of who we are. And once that shift takes place, then there’s a progression in Unity that’s less obvious in prior stages. In prior stages there is a deepening and integration that takes place, but in Unity, it’s sometimes described as unfolding in stages, because there’s essentially an experience and become kind of a thing, where objects that were part of our regular experience, our daily experience, are progressively realized to be the Self also. We experience the pot we’re cooking with, or the or the pencil we’re holding, or the sky, or the bird, or the tree, whatever like that.
There’s this progressive deepening, um sometimes they talk about it in levels of, layers of experience, so the first layer of our experience and in the background and then the background to that and progressing progressively out. The Upanishads say even to include aspects of the universe that are beyond our perception. So its like this progressive increasing because consciousness is the container of all of it. It gradually grows into progressive stages and one of the models of the stages is like on the level of the, similar to the koshas but on the level of the elements progressively through the elements and then mind, intellect, and ego take on a cosmic value and then we we settle into a sense of a cosmic body as well, where we recognize that even this body is an expression of consciousness, is actually universal and cosmic. It’s the body of all bodies and that is our form. It’s not who we are on that level because we’re who we are in, well it is on the level of consciousness but it’s inclusive of, if I word that properly. It’s not exactly an object in our experience because it’s who we are, but it’s not The thing thats who we are, its just a part of that wholeness, that consciousness contains.
A: Beautiful, yeah so in, if we go back to the masculine and feminine aspects of conscious awareness, when we speak about the um the body being recognized in its infinite value we’re typically referring to the feminine, to the feminine aspect. So as I described the feminine style initial shift, that can also take place prior to the silent pure awareness being realized.
And I know that David and I have kind of spoken about this. This wasn’t something that he had seen, but from my own direct unfoldment and also in cases that I’m observing now, this is also beginning to take place.
And then that changeless silent masculine aspect is coming online. So it’s the same basic movement towards Unity but just what appears to be in a reversal of the typical model that…
D: Yeah and that’s fascinating to me because that requires a level of refinement and an open heart to support.. that has not been typical in the West particularly. But you know, I’m a more typical Westerner that way and you know really strong mind, intellect-oriented, so the masculine was much more obvious to unfold for me first.
But then if you have a full process then the heart becomes a natural part of that of unfolding uh otherwise because it’s it’s a masculine – feminine together that uh is the fullness of it. Otherwise as we’ve discussed, we get end up with a kind of a dry flat experience of it. We can be very clearly awake but still very dry.
A: Exactly, or there can be an absence of stability if the masculine is is lacking as well, so it’s a it’s this, um i work with this concept called the sacred marriage, which is basically the union in conscious awareness between the distinction between the masculine and the feminine. And so I speak about this primary distinction, which can also be recognized as the Pranava mantra.
Basically, it’s a primary vibration, the awareness becoming conscious of itself, self-conscious and so that distinction then is sort of resolved through us, we could say, in a certain sense, because at first it appears to be very distinct almost like a layering of ourself in terms of an infinite field but then that layering sort of is resolved or dissipates so that it’s sort of a seamless field of subjectivity. So I move from this layering of subjectivity where there’s a very clear distinction in aspects, both infinite and not separate, non-dual, but still very distinct, into more of a seamless, fluid, flowing wholeness.
And so that’s what I would refer to as the sacred marriage, and I believe that that correlates with what you call Unity or probably Refined Unity.
D: Yeah, more into Refined Unity for that to be fully realized. Another aspect of the Unity process is because when we experience something we recognize ourself to be it. There’s a knowingness value that comes up with it. That the intelligence within the object, the nature of the object in its own nature, depending on our ability to perceive and recognize, how clear we are on those final levels. And again that’s a heart thing because the intuitive level where knowingness is most appreciated is a lot to do with the heart level, the third eye to some degree too, but it has a lot to do with the heart level so it’s important that be developed.
And interestingly enough that also correlates with the intellect and one of the things that takes place is that with the intellect before awakening it’s primarily associated with the mind. So as the mind moves around here and there but you know by different emotions and experiences that are arising and so on, the intellect gets pulled along with it. It’s not as stable or clear.
And some people like academics learn to train their intellect more, but don’t necessarily recognize their own biases. Well, they try to train that, but…
Whereas after we’ve woken up, the intellect can shift from its association with the mind into the association with that inner being, that pure, the masculine side in this case, in this context, that stable inner silence. And that makes it much more stable and clear. And the term used is resolute, so we gain the resolute intellect.
Then the heart has that key value as we talked about earlier. And then as we’re approaching Unity, intellect becomes a key because it’s the the thing that discriminates and recognizes, oh that’s the same Self. That stable solid intellect is ah that is myself and that is myself and that… not in an overt kind of way but in a very subtle discrimination. This subtle discrimination that goes on and that ties again into the knowingness that progressive process.
Another aspect that’s worth touching on too that varies a lot in people’s processes, but there’s this progressive release of these core identifications. There’s a core mind identification that is released, you know, this sense of “me” mind with the initial awakening.
Then there’s a resolution of the emotional contraction to open the heart and then finally there’s a gut contraction that’s associated with Unity stage. Now I’ve seen and there can be because that’s the gut is a fire center there can be a sense of roasting or burning, barbecue of the, what I refer to as the core identity and it has kind of association with our childhood identity, perhaps with our sense of our given name. And one of the… and so that can happen with the with the Unity shift, slightly before it, or in some cases much later. And I’ve seen cases where it’s kind of clear that that hasn’t happened yet, even though they’ve moved into still higher stages. So in an ideal way, any kind of core sense of identity is resolved with the Unity shift to support that.
One of the things too that can happen with the Unity shift itself is there’s a, for some people, there’s a key, like a single recognition. The intellect recognizes the Self and there’s a shift right away, a very clear, distinct shift. For some people, for others like myself, there was several steps in the approach over about a 10-day period. In my case, where there was a, that sense of roasting the core identity and in some ways I might not have recognized it except that I had seen some material, the conversation between Loch Kelly and Adyashanti on the topic and so when it happened, I had some context.
It was fairly short and then I noticed there was no longer a distinction between inside and outside, that there was a kind of a continuum, that there used to be kind of, a bit of, a this was inside my body and, that content is outside my body, no longer a barrier, it was just you know it was just all consciousness essentially.
A: Beautiful. Yeah that’s a great point. How the resolution of those core layers of identification also correlates with the infinite value of the body being recognized or sort of a seamlessness in terms of body and environment. So in the cases where perhaps there have been higher stages that have unfolded without those levels of clearing, I would say that perhaps that also is going to correlate with what appears to be an absence of the recognition of the cosmic value of the body or the infinite value of the body and the depth that that can really shine forth in.
And then of course we also can have this very, very distinct sense of recognizing the projected environment to be our body as well, or to be inside of our body while it appears outside of our body. So there’s all this variation that can shine forth in Refined Unity or what I call Dynamic Subjectivity.
And a lot of it ties back to this kind of basic fundamental healing process or transmutative process, where certain layers of unresolved material are being released and resolved.
D: Yeah, and at first I kind of thought that, oh, I just had a really short, brief release of that core identity, but over time I realized that there was lots of other stuff around that that had to be resolved, but it didn’t take place in a short period of time, it took place over an extended period of time. It’s kind of, it was similar to my experience of the first shift actually, where the core falls out with the shift, with that roasting.
But there was a lot of other accessory attachments that would gradually surface and were cleared over time or have been cleared over time. We’ll see how complete that is. I find it fascinating because of that refinement I’m able to actually look inside my body and see where there’s contractions and look. And I was actually looking and not seeing anything and so I thought that process was done.
And then it turned out there was some little stuff tucked away in shadows. This stuff has a remarkable ability to hide itself from itself.
A: Yeah, that’s a great point. I’m sure you would concur with me in saying that as things continue to really, really refine and shine forth in terms of Divinity, so as the pure Divinity of reality just begins to really reveal itself to itself within its own mind, the apparent increase of the brightness of that light correlates with these pockets of unseen, unresolved material just continually beginning to be brought up into that light.
D: Yes.
A: So it’s really, some may think just on you know a basic sort of assumption that oh yeah well when you move into higher stages there’s going to be less there, that’s why you moved into higher stages and that is true in a certain context but it’s also very helpful to recognize that oftentimes a lot of the darker material, denser material, can’t really be processed out until higher stages. You don’t have enough, there’s not enough stability, there’s not enough, the physiology is not refined enough.
D: Yeah, just to be able to see it, because it resides on a finer level, and also the ability to support the process, to be able to handle what’s in there sometimes, because sometimes it’s pretty, it can be pretty traumatic old stuff because we’re talking about, you know, long histories long before this life that can we can bring forward and carry forward into this one, yeah and so here there was that process of that initial release and then, and then that, the dissolving of the sense of inside and outside and then I went on a retreat. And for me the interesting experience was there was a collapse of history, I guess you could say. So all these sort of inner layers that have unfolded to my experience, you know, the koshas that I talk about, the sheaths or inner layers of, you know, how consciousness becomes the world kind of thing, all those layers of that process, they all disappeared, which I found quite odd.
And I recall, I was sharing a room on the retreat and it was bedtime and lights out and there’s a bit of light leaking in the window so I could still perceive, so I knew that you know, that the world hasn’t disappeared, but all inner references to that had vanished, and then, and then it basically all came back again, but now in this new context, so the whole entire, this whole history had had to be released and let go of so that the shift could take place, the actual, the final shift and then, and then it can be brought back in that new context over a period of time.
A: Yeah that’s a really beautiful point, that there’s sort of, we’re stepping into this new contextual modality as I call it, this new context of seeing ourself or the Self is stepping into itself through this unique expression of its own intelligence. And then after there’s this familiarity with that, we come to a new sort of threshold point where we’re called to let that go. So that an even broader or more inclusive or more expansive recognition can shine forth, which then ends up including what we appear to let go of or surrender.
But it just is something to have an awareness of in terms of attachment to different recognitions or realizations that unfold. Because true spiritual maturity is the willingness to give everything up, continuously to give up what it is that we have realized. And sometimes it can be quite majestic, you know, it becomes sort of normalized after a certain point, I would say. But initially, at least, it’s like this, you know, the splendor of all of creation is, you know, dazzling forth and you see all the mechanics and everything and it’s all, and if you’re cognizing that’s a whole nother ballgame, because you have, you know, everything there at once and you can just kind of flip through it like a book and, but it’s the willingness to give that up, you know and that’s where the grace of that light that i was talking about before, that pure Divinity begins to really shimmer in.
D: Yeah, I remember around that time my teacher made reference to perpetual surrender and i was kind of horrified, because at that point there’s been a series of surrenders but they were brief and short, they were short-lived, the idea of being able to perpetually surrender ooooh, that was a whole other level. Yeah, it’s a remarkable unfolding.
One of the things i mentioned earlier too was that there can be that experience that uh in Self-Realization and that initial awakening that the world is illusory. The Rajas Guna is dominant and if we invest in that as the reality as opposed to a stage in the process, a stage in the refinement process, then it can actually be a barrier to Unity because in order for us to discover that the world is myself also, we can’t be seeing it as an illusion.
A: Sure.
D: Yeah, we have to move past that. If we’re invested in that as a concept that that’s the reality that actually can be a barrier to going further.
A: Yeah, yeah, that’s beautiful. It’s a valid stage. So, you know, many are going to taste that sense of where everything’s just an appearance in awareness and, you know, they are awareness and so, you know, and everything else is just an appearance in awareness. But what you’re pointing to, David, is that, you know, having the understanding that that is not, you know, that that’s just something that’s the subjective recognition at that point.
D: Yes.
A: And that the possibility is that what seems to be sort of this dreamlike appearance and awareness actually can be recognized as the dynamic intelligence of your own Self throbbing within itself. And that’s the pulsation that I was referring to. That’s the primary distinction between the masculine and the feminine in conscious awareness.
D: Yeah, another thing I found really fascinating about the process, referring back though for a moment, from a comment, because one of the things I found about Unity too is because there was that progressive, the Brahma Sutra calls it the aggregate, we’re continuing expanding what is the Self and so it kind of keeps growing and growing and growing, far beyond any sense of what we might think would be included in it. So there’s a sense of what’s new today, because there’s the shift and then there’s the processing of the shift, and where we integrate it and so on.
And so there can be an almost constant sense of reality shifting. So we get very used to that. Whereas before we’re kind of like holding on, you know, this is my reality, you know, we get really, really used to letting it go and seeing where it goes today, kind of a thing.
A: Yeah. Yeah, that’s another thing that I’ve explored actually before in terms of masculine and feminine is the feminine as flexibility and the masculine as stability.
So the stability, if it’s taken to the extreme, becomes rigid and can be a limitation if it’s not balanced out by the flexibility of the feminine. And then again, if the flexibility of the feminine taken to the extreme, it becomes you know loose and wobbly and all over the place. So it’s the it’s the complementary union, reunion of the flexible and the stable that reveals itself as this fullness of Self-Realization which we’re referring to in terms like Unity, Refined Unity or Dynamic Subjectivity.
D: Yes and really it’s when the whole business of non-duality begins to unfold in earnest because prior, in Self-Realization there can be a sense of an inner non-dual state but the world is separate and we can say oh the world is illusory or we can dismiss that but that’s not actually true non-duality because there’s still something that’s separate and that progresses forward past Unity as well.
A: Yeah that’s a great point too because when I’ve talked about the feminine style initial shift, one of the things that can show up there, that is this sort of there’s, there can be this kind of sometimes a very, it’s more of a progressive style of shift whereas with the masculine style shift it it tends to be a little bit more clicky, you know, very much like a razor you know, a razor of awareness. So with the feminine style shift in the initial stage at least which we spoke about in our last talk, it really sometimes can be lacking in a certain degree of certainty. I’ve seen in some cases and this sort of, yeah, it doesn’t have that severed edge to it until the masculine side of things comes online, which provides a great deal of stability.
D: Yeah, it’s interesting too. That was one, another thing I remember noticing at a certain point in there, I mean it keeps evolving, but one of the things I noticed in the initial stage before the refined stage developed was that the world had been very real before and then it had become less, there was a less sense of, there was less sense of reality from the outside world experience and then there would become this sense of the world being a divine play.
But when the world was recognized to be absolute consciousness also, it took on this concreteness again that it hadn’t had, and actually it was greater. It had a greater sense of reality to it. The world appearance had a greater sense of reality to it than it ever had before. And a kind of a solidity, a concreteness, which I found fascinating because I thought that that was long gone.
A: That is interesting. So in terms of that solidity though it had a different qualitative uh you know presentation so it’s not the limited physical type of solidity that before seemed to prevail.
D: Right, it’s an absoluteness.
A: Yes, it’s an infinite solidity. It’s a solidity which is of the nature of the Self itself. Yeah.
D: Yes. Not everybody has that uh from what I’ve seen but it is not uncommon for that step.
A: Yeah now that you mention that I do recall that sort of sense, yes that the value of seeing everything in terms of Self sort of provides this, this new recognition of its reality in a way that could be described as concrete or…
D: And it’s not that the appearance is what’s real, it’s what’s behind the appearance, what’s creating the appearance is the reality behind that. Yeah, it’s a really fascinating process. I mean, I really enjoyed the Unity stage a lot. I learned a lot from it and there’s a whole progression that unfolded.
A: Yeah, it is sort of an enchanting stage, isn’t it? You know, I remember, I think I always qualified it in the Self-refamiliarizing itself with its own dynamic intelligence, you know, and I think that’s kind of what it was really about here and in other cases as well. It’s this adventure of the Self exploring its own intelligence, you know, and sort of remembering, oh wow, this is how I’m appearing as this tree, and this is how this is, you know I’m flowing here and, all of these you know, and a walk through the woods is really a miraculous affair.
D: Yes, it is this constant self-discovery in this whole other level because it’s all Self, so and you can’t, you know, there’s only a certain amount you can do that because it has to all be, you know, recognized and processed and stuff but but there’s, a there’s a kind of a process of oh yes I’m that too and I’m that too and then sometimes you can pause a little bit on it and like you mentioned, what is it to be a tree and what is it to be a cow, or whatever the grass, or whatever like that and go into it. Although I did have to recognize at a certain point in there that even when I was experiencing what it was to be a tree, I was experiencing it from that perspective of Unity consciousness not from the perspective of the tree’s consciousness.
A: Yes, yeah, one of the ways that that became as clear as, in terms of like a human conversation because it’s obvious that you’re conversing with yourself, you know, and you can feel that you’re in the other viewpoint, but obviously their subjective experience is much different than what it is that you’re tasting. So even though there’s that absolute seamless Unity and flowing subjectivity and you see yourself as the speakingness arising from the other person, it’s still not that you know, you’re not tasting exactly what it’s like at that level of consciousness, that level of experiencing is a different level.
D: Yeah, because they’re in there identified with various things that that you may not be and you identify with other things and the laws of nature are a little bit different but you do, you do have a get a sense of the laws of nature functioning there, it’s it’s pretty fascinating.
Of course there’s you know, there’s also respect for people’s privacy and so on like that, there are appropriate boundaries in there. But it is, you know, the sort of the idea that there’s something secret or there’s anything that can’t be known, it’s a bit…
A: Right, I’ll just say something about that privacy as well because it’s really what, you know, I would say that it’s not really a volitional decisioning, you know, it’s more like a spontaneous recognition. It’s the Self that is flowing like that and seeing itself like that.
So it’s not like there’s a me here invading someone’s privacy. That’s like, that would be something that was going on like prior initial shift with some type of refined perception. I don’t know a lot about that kind of stuff, but you know, from the value of infinity, it’s not like that. It’s very simple and pure and innocent and not.
D: Yeah. I mean, I did at a certain point, especially in the Refined Unity stage, spend a little bit of time, you know, what is it to be a tree and spending, you know, taking the focus into a tree, in consciousness, just to be clear that we’re talking about, in consciousness.
A: Yes.
D: And experiencing that aspect of it. But I found with people, I didn’t find it pleasant, particularly, because then you were stepping into their karma and their contractions and stuff like that. So it was like, okay, I’ve dealt with that stuff in myself. That’s enough.
A: Okay. Yeah. All right. Great. You make a great point. And so maybe that’s why I need to clarify. I’m talking more in terms of the experiencing. So it’s more like pure experiencing. Yes. So instead of really going into the body, you know, in that way, it’s the dynamism that’s bubbling as the experiencing. Yeah. And Self in terms of the pure experiencing of what appears as the other and what is of that, which is…
D: We’re talking about in consciousness not, it’s not like we’re astral traveling and…
A: We’re already everywhere, right, yeah there’s no where to travel because we are, we’ve got all the bases covered on that.
D: Kind of moving the focus of attention around a little bit
A: yeah yeah
D: and it’s also, that also points to another key detail about Unity that’s quite, it’s worth noting, and that is of intimacy. Because when we are it, you know, it’s intimate, it’s who we are. So everything is a part of myself. So there’s a profound intimacy in the experience of, you know, what we might feel is intimate within ourselves, our thoughts and our emotions, is now the world is part of that as well. And in a sense, the cosmic thoughts and the cosmic emotions are part of the collective consciousness around us, which we’re also aware of and involved in.
We’ve been sharing notes a little bit about the dynamics in the collective around the American election, for example, that’s going on. And it’s like this…
A: roller coaster
D: yes, going on in the collective. So it’s just, it’s part of the environment, and it’s part of or we process some of that now as it comes up in the experience. But there’s kind of like a balance point you have to manage because you know you gotta be functional and not try to take stuff on just but just process what’s arising naturally and and you know, so we assist but in what ways we’re good at but yeah, not getting caught up in the drama
A: yeah yeah beautiful point beautiful point.
D: Yeah there’s another key idea they talk about in the Vedic tradition called leisha avidya, which basically means remains of ignorance and it has several contexts but as we become everything sort of the all the various aspects of ignorance fall away. But we still require some areas of ourselves to be human to function in the world. If we were just became completely absolute, you know, we’d drop the body and go. The key here is living these stages in a human life.
And so there’s some value of a person needed to be in the world and to recognize that, that you know this is the edge of my body and and this is the you know here’s the keyboard i can touch or whatever like that, that’s not, that’s not the body. You know some of those little values of surface individuality are still required to function and so they call that the remains of ignorance and in a kind of a way that resolves more and more and more over time, partly as these old things we were talking about earlier comes to the surface to be seen and processed, old karmas and old incomplete experiences and so forth that are, that arise in our experience and are processed. Each of those basically releases a bit more energy, a bit more more shadow is cleared, a bit more, you know, clarity, a little less ignorance, all through this process. But there’s always going to be some value of it to live in a human form.
That’s kind of the, yeah, I heard somebody mentioned something just a few days ago that it was, you get to be about 75 percent absolute, 25 percent relative, but I don’t know, that’s just a number. I’m sure it varies extremely widely.
A: Sure, yeah and I think we’re still you know in terms of the exploration of that collectively and how that’s going to show up in the West and how higher stages like, post-consciousness stages are going to reflect more clearly in physiologies. I mean a lot of that’s still unseen you know we’re in the we’re in the midst of the flowering of that so we don’t want to create any limitations around it. because I think that certainly the possibility is for there to be very very very very very clear refined reflections of Divinity walking around and that’s what we want collectively, we don’t want to say oh no you can’t, you always have to have, you know, you always have to be really…
D: It’s pretty amazing, actually, there are you know, so many people now who are living some value of pure Divinity it’s astonishing. I don’t think it was very common, I mean it certainly wasn’t common but I think it was very very rare for a long time.
A: Yeah, scripturally you can’t, you know there’s not a lot available that you know points to that value I don’t think I’m sure, I mean it’s there but it’s sort of hidden and you know there’s a lot of words that are kind of mixed up and things like that, which we’ll talk about when we get to Brahman. That one’s a big one but, one thing I was going to say I can’t remember, about cosmic personality and just going back to sort of the body and everything like that, so this value of Leisha avidya which is just the remains of the personality structure, the intelligence, the laws of nature operative in the world, sort of on a daily level is is extremely important and I think that one of the things that you and I both talk about a lot is kind of, you know, being in higher stages in daily life, you know, at the grocery store, you know, at the dentist’s office or whatever, and just, you know, living life and that not being conflictual with being in what previously would have been deemed to be exalted, you know, stages of awareness, and I think that they are on some level.
D: Yeah, it’s a good point because Unity isn’t a goal, it’s a way of living, a perspective of life that allows a much fuller value of life to be lived. The whole point of it is to live it.
A: Yeah, and I mean, you do end up in the doctor’s office where everything’s just a flowing mass of subjectivity and you see yourself as the dynamism of everybody walking around and and all of that, but it’s not, it becomes something that’s so, it’s so at home and so familiar and so immediate and that nobody really knows that that’s going on. Nobody else knows that it’s going on.
D: Although it can trigger other people, not very often, but occasionally I find somebody starts to purify and sometimes they seem to associate it with you and that, but they don’t know why whatever it is, get grumpy with you in some way and that’s like okay.
A: Yeah that’s a great point. Yeah you could do a whole subject study on how you know someone in you know awakened consciousness or in higher stages, how that sort of correlates with the environmental context of different points and things like that because I’ve also seen it in the direction of there being sort of this joyful wanting to sort of serve like spontaneously like oh let me open the door for you like you know Like the soul senses something, you know, and those kinds of things, but it can go either way.
D: Yeah. Good point. Yes. I just find the one I mentioned is more, a little more obvious in some ways. You have to deal with it.
The other part of it of course is integrating what we’re talking about. It becomes quite normal. I mean, it sounds kind of crazy sometimes, but what we’re saying, but it actually becomes very normal.
But you also have to learn how to talk to people who are experiencing life in a traditional way, in the common way, because you know if they ask you how you’re doing, we can’t go into this kind of sub-topic without a lot of backstories.
It’s like, oh yeah, this thing just happened and wow, isn’t this amazing? Yeah, yeah, more normal.
A: Yeah, and I mean that’s an adjustment I think with every shift, you know, in terms of conversation at least, because, you know, you can be, someone can ask you, “Hey, how are you doing this morning?” And that question doesn’t really make any sense, you know, especially if it’s sort of fresh, like, you know, it’s like, “Oh, oh yeah, yeah, I’m doing great,” you know, “Oh, it takes a while to come around.” But that’s one of the values of being in the midst of life, you know, being in the midst of the world is that we’re kind of constantly brought into the dynamism of experience.
D: And integrating it.
A: And integrating it. So that’s the, you know, sometimes I feel like what is presented as an integrated shift is sort of like where someone goes up into, you know, recognizing their reality and then they sort of leave it behind and they return to a space that they were before. And that’s not integration. Integration means that that you don’t come down from where you were, the experiencing rises to that and is a seamless wholeness with that.
D: And then it integrates back into the physiology as well.
A: Into the physiology, but you don’t leave behind the reality of the field because that’s where you are.
D: Yeah, and sometimes it can be more background or more foreground, there’s a normalcy to it when it becomes more, it’s just kind of there. And then it happens like, oh, is it there? oh yeah it’s there
A: yeah yeah that’s a great point as well. Yes so it’s it there’s going to be like degrees of you know, varying degrees of clarity and i think that that correlates as well with the process of surfacing and healing and you know transmutation.
D: I’ve also been really pleased with how well, i mean in retrospect i didn’t see it so much at the time, but in retrospect i can look back and see how well my life supported this process. Things that weren’t going to support the process fell away and circumstances came up that supported the arising to take place when it was time. So we can get frustrated with our seeming lack of progress and that sometimes.
But when the time comes, when grace is going to descend, grace also organizes the circumstances for it. And it can seem like things are kind of falling apart and sometimes we’re getting this amazing support, either way or both. But it is kind of just the way that nature kind of organizes stuff. And you, I mean for myself, I found a much deeper trust in nature and in the world that was going to support me. And not necessarily how I wanted it to come or how I expected it to come, but in ways that were quite remarkable in another way.
A: Yeah that’s a great point that kind of ties into this stage as well. Because that value of Self is sort of supremely realized in both the masculine and feminine aspects, and there’s a, there’s a real deep union of that, a resolution of the sort of prominence of the distinction, what can begin to take place is this degree of knowingness that’s arising from that oneness, that sense of oneness. So you talked about knowingness before and I guess I’m linking it now to the word trust. So there’s this sort of sense of knowing where to go, what to do, what step to take, so on and so forth. It could be seen as like a sort of semi-omniscience or a sense of sort of uh you know really, really feeling attuned to the intelligence of life and uh and…
D: it’ll, and you get signals sometimes where it says oh you need to go there now or you do this now and it’s like what, that doesn’t make any sense.
A: exactly
D: Then you learn to trust that and you do it and then it’s like, you know, that’s kind of part of why i got my grad degree. It was like, “Go there!” and it was like, “No, that doesn’t make any sense.” And it’s like, you know, and then I got another reminder and another reminder and it’s like, “Okay, okay, okay.” And I, you know, left the life I was trying to make and went off to the States and ended up in a grad degree program and it just kind of all fell in my lap and it all went click, click, click. And the admissions office said it would take a miracle for it all to come together in time, but it all just went click, click, click. I was very late applying but yeah…
A: Sometimes I reflect on, in that ,space where seeing someone speaking is seeing yourself speaking and you can actually, you know, the words can really very much seem custom fit like coming out of someone else’s mouth, that you’re speaking to yourself, you’re telling yourself to go here, to do this, to whatever.
D: I’ve even had literally people stop on the sidewalk and say, “I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but I feel like I’m supposed to tell you this.”
A: Yeah, I’ve also had similar.
D: Yeah, it’s like, and they’re really mystified and I’m kind of like, “Oh, okay.” All right…
A: yeah, that makes sense.
D: Yeah, and that kind of leads us into what I call Refined Unity. And essentially, if there’s been a God Consciousness process, the refinement and the opening heart and that going, on the feminine side. Previously, then that essentially continues into Unity. But there can be a kind of a break in there, like I mentioned, all the previous stuff falling away, and then the shift happening, and then the shift becoming established and kind of growing a little bit, and then gradually the refined aspects that had been there before, were reintegrated and then that continued.
Some people may not have much of the feminine early on and they can have the Unity shift a little bit drier perhaps and then the refinement starts to unfold after Unity or even after Brahman, you know, it kind of depends on when that kicks in or it can just be a really, a very slow process where as you mentioned earlier where the the stages in consciousness are distinct shifts where the shift is at the start of the process, whereas the feminine is more climactic shifts where we build up to a flowering at the climax.
And so essentially that refinement kicks in. You refer to it as Dynamic Subjectivity because the the subject is alive, moving, it’s not silent anymore, the same way. And what highlights, you know, I talked about at the beginning about the subject and object, but the process of experience between them, the subject and object become one.
And so what dominates the Refined Unity process is the the devata value, that process of experience in the middle, the liveliness. And so there was that concreteness before I talked about, but now everything becomes flow. So even though we’re looking at solid objects, there’s a recognition that they’re constantly being recreated in every moment. And there’s a flow, everything’s full of moving consciousness, basically, flowing and moving and vibrating. And the vibration has sounds and, you know, depending on which senses we’re more attuned to and so on like that.
There may be visual stuff, there may be more feeling values, it may be more sound values. We hear things or we feel vibrations or we see vibrations or like waves or whatever and there’s this whole, the world becomes kind of alive and sort of like rich with life in a new kind of way.
Now in the God Consciousness stage we can recognize that the world is full of life forms, of various styles depending on how that our unfolding is going on. And so all these different levels of you know we’ve got the physical world and the sort of emotional energy layer and the mental layer and so on, and all these layers can have different kinds of life forms you could say on them, each of them becomes progressively more abstract and you know comes down to basically they’re just essentially a point of light. They don’t have a physical form even.
But there is that value of the laws of nature of the the devatta value, the core qualities or principles that are functioning, become much more prominent.
And it’s one of the reasons actually, I was reflecting recently, that karma is unfathomable, not just because it’s so complex and the field of creation is so vast, but also because the doers, the actual intelligence that’s creating this, behind all the doing and the support and the experiences we’re having and everything, they’re in that value and it’s the most subtle dynamic in consciousness and so we kind of come to it last and that’s when things you know can make a lot more sense, when we actually understand the mechanism itself. I mean we can see parts of it before that, but to see the actual intelligence and the way that it plays out is, you know, really brings a much greater fullness to that.
A: Beautiful, yeah. So just, I’m just going to do a quick recap for those that are listening that, so that we can kind of bring together both of our models. In Unity, I referred to something called source awareness. So this is where the masculine pure changeless awareness, the feminine dynamic conscious presence have both been recognized, but also a little bit different from the way that you point to it. I typically see that some degree of beyondness has also been recognized. So some, some degree of beyond awareness has been recognized, but it’s not dominant. So the stealth, the Self is still dominant, even though there’s a degree of the recognition of that out of which the Self is arising or shining.
D: Oh interesting, okay.
A: Yeah, so this is, and here this is where the distinction is very prominent in terms of masculine, feminine, and then beyond. So there’s like a layering almost like, you know, there’s that, then there’s the is-ness of awareness, and then there’s the presence of conscious presence, yeah, the feminine aspect. So that’s source awareness and then in terms of Refined Unity I’m looking more like dynamic subjectivity.
This is what I would compare it to and that’s where that sacred marriage takes place that I was referring to earlier. So the distinction between the masculine changeless silent awareness and the feminine conscious presence is resolved or collapses into this seamless unity, seamless wholeness, where as you have just been describing, the flow of the Self experiencing itself comes into the foreground. So there’s a prominence of that flow, there’s a prominence of the aliveness and the dynamism of the Self within itself, and seeing oneself as the dynamism. So the Self is actually seeing itself as the dynamism in a new and fresh way.
D: Yes, the consciousness is you know it started off with consciousness being this silent, still, absolute, you know, and then it’s like just flow and and movement and aliveness. Yeah it’s a whole different thing and it’s all lit up. It’s not a dark silence.
A: No, no, not at all. This becomes relevant later in in pure Divinity as well so we can sort of… That’s recontextualized. And if there was a degree of beyondness present in source awareness, which typically there will be in what I’ve seen, that is going to sort of fall deeply into the background in dynamic subjectivity. If dynamic subjectivity comes after source awareness, it can go either way. Dynamic subjectivity can come first or source awxxareness can come first. So it just depends.
D: Oh, that’s interesting. Yeah, because you know most of the people that I’ve talked to were oblivious to actual Brahman, you know, that beyondness, because consciousness was such a dominant part of their reality. And it didn’t seem to me possible that people would become truly aware of the beyondness prior to essentially consciousness becoming aware of its totality. And when it becomes aware of its totality, then it’s able to take this step back and and get a sense of beyond. because it’s always been looking in on itself and then it can take a step back and and see more.
I mean there’s nothing that would restrict us to that but i hadn’t seen examples of that so that’s really…
A: yes yes, I have seen examples of that, and that’s the way that it unfolded here as well and I’ve also seen other examples and in that, in that it’s different from the actual like the void or Brahman in the sense that the Self is still dominant and, it’s more that, it’s like the Self looking back through its own light and recognizing the thatness, the beyondness
D: yes but my first, there was kind of like a stepping out of consciousness and seeing it from the outside and then there was the turning and recognizing Brahman but it was called, there was still, it was still dominant in the awareness. That’s really interesting though, that possibility that they could come in either sequence, and that would make some sense if the refinement and the feminine is the dominant process.
A: Yes.
D: Then the refinement would be more dominant, even after a Unity shift and then the union would become more obvious. Because the refinement part could overshadow to some degree the actual unification process. And then the unification process takes place as a result. That’s interesting, yeah.
A: Yeah, and then also that kind of becomes relevant too in terms of, there’s a similar process with recognizing that dark beyondness in pure Divinity which you wrote about recently in an article you titled Krishna Consciousness. So it sort of ties back into what I’m saying in reference to source awareness but in a totally new context from from pure Divinity.
Yeah, okay there’s a little bit more of an equilibrium between the Self and the source in source awareness uh and then in what you qualify as Brahman or describe as Brahman and what I call the void, that the Self appears to disappear or sort of
D: yeah yeah and that’s interesting too because what I did with, for me when the Krishna value unfolded, I went back and recognized previous things as that. It was like, oh that’s what that was, you know, because Krishna means black in Sanskrit.
And so there’s this kind of areas that are still black, that aren’t lit up, and then realizing that it wasn’t just, you know, nothing, it was actually fully alive. So that was the revelation here.
Another detail, again referencing the consciousness dynamics, there’s the observer, the observed, and the process. In Sanskrit they have the name rishi, devata, and chhandas. Chhandas is the observed, the world itself, and it has a value of covering. That’s kind of what it means. The word means, and so at first like there’s that sense of the world being real and there’s a sense of the world being illusory. But it’s all, it’s like being in a movie theater. Are we absorbed in the movie and think it’s real? Or are we aware that there’s a movie playing on and we’re enjoying the movie but we recognize that it’s a movie? Or are we thinking, oh this is divine stage play being prepared right now for us live and you know there’s kind of these layers of that experience.
But with the Chhandas value, what happens with the refinement is that the the movie itself becomes more transparent, so to speak. We start to recognize the screen on which the movie is playing and then recognizing that’s consciousness and as part of that process we talked about earlier with consciousness unifying, the object value being recognized as consciousness. But there’s a further value that takes place in Refined Unity where there’s further refinement where the screen itself starts to become transparent. Oh, that’s when we then, there’s that value of seeing beyond the screen, which is what you were just referring to a short time ago, seeing the beyondness that’s behind that. That tends not to unfold, you know, the way, you know, my process has gone, people with my kind of path, but that tends not to unfold until shortly before Brahman but essentially there’s just this gradual, everything becomes more and more transparent, you know so, even solid objects are just flows of consciousness and yeah and then and then it’s you know what’s actually consciousness and so on like that.
A: yeah it’s beautiful. So it is possible though that the beyondness can actually be recognized first, but there’s still this, there’s a still a very defined sense of the primary distinction between the masculine and the feminine aspects of the Self or conscious awareness. So in that sense, you still have this triple layering of, of reality. And then after that beyondness has been recognized in source awareness, if it precedes dynamic subjectivity, then that union takes place, then that sacred marriage takes place, and so the beyond is sort of forgotten about in a certain sense, which is interesting, and the fullness of the Self is revealed and then it’s let go of into the void. So that’s when it’s, you know, then…
D: Yeah, I don’t use the word void there for Brahman because void implies a space, and space is part of expression, whereas the more common way it’s described in the tradition I’m in is a no thing or a nothing.
A: Yeah or nothingness. I like nothingness.
D: Yeah because like words like emptiness and void imply a space.
A: Hey, if you don’t, if you’re not, if you don’t very clearly.
D: If you’re not clear about definitions.
A: Right. So I try to be as clear as possible about it.
D: Yes, yes. There’s also a progression that’s worth mentioning in here. We talked a little bit about the cosmic body, there’s actually a few precursors that can happen in, the Upanishads talk about.
The first one is the sense that I am the universe and that my body is the universe. Now in the larger context, that dynamic of consciousness being aware of itself creates a subtle space, not yet the space element, but a kind of a subtle space that I refer to as creation. And there’s this initial play of consciousness playing out with itself and then that kind of goes through several stages until it starts creating universes. So the first stage in that is the recognition that I am the universe and it’s essentially the experience, the universe is experienced as what’s known as hiranya garbha or the golden egg.
Essentially it’s experienced like you’re sitting inside this golden egg and you and the egg are one and your body is one with that, with that egg and again that’s a very perceptual kind of experience so that has to be going on
A: Now that’s different from feeling that you’re the creator of the universe, right.
D: yeah
A: so it’s not like a Maha Jiva recognition but it’s the universe itself.
D: Yeah. And then there’s a layer that’s, kind of in-between layer. There’s a what I refer to as the Devata body and it’s kind of like a template of the human form that contains only Devata on the level of points of light. So there’s essentially, it kind of doesn’t make a lot of sense, but essentially it’s a form, like an outline or whatever you want to call it, a template, that’s full of points of light that are interacting with themselves and they’re basically managing the bodies of all bodies and in all time in all universes simultaneously.
And it’s because time, this is before space and time, so it’s kind of a mind blower in that kind of sense. And then that is an expression of the cosmic body which we talked about earlier is the body of all bodies. So all those you know bodies that the devatas are managing are kind of there’s a step back further. I think you you mentioned in your notes a body as non-linear infinity.
A: Yes yeah non-linear infinity exactly, so the body is it’s hard to you can’t the mind cannot fathom nor imagine the body not having a defined linearity because perceptually it seemed to be an outline of a certain region. But actually we can taste this actual experiential recognition where the body is infinite and it’s pervasive, containing. There can be not only one universe recognized within it but multiple universes and, so it just depends on the degree of refinement now there’s also…
D: so what’s refined, because there are, just to clarify on that, because there are people who have very refined perception of say the emotional body or the or the geometry, the subtle geometry behind form or whatever like that, but not so much deeper down, where somebody else might have some refined perception deeper down but not so much there you know…
A: Thank you. That’s a great point, David, like our friend Dorothy Rowe, she has much more clarity about lots of different levels that I don’t have a lot of clarity about. So I find it very beneficial to watch her material and tune in because it kind of helps me to explore different areas that I really weren’t a part of the exploration and the unfoldment here. It was more on a different level as you mentioned in our last talk.
D: you can get a sense too, what we’re talking about, how vast creation is and so there’s only so much, you know, time you have to, so we kind of become, we tend to become specialists in a certain kind of way where you know, what we’re most interested in, that’s where we put our attention and that’s what unfolds in terms of refinement and what we’re perceiving.
A: yeah and we’re all going to bring out a different part of the, it’s this, we all bring forward this unique recognition of reality within itself and a unique exploration of reality within itself.
D: And that’s a key point actually and that’s essentially why we’re here. Each of us has a unique perspective of the whole and consciousness knows itself globally but, it’s kind of like at the cosmic level, this is one of the things that unfolds in this process as we become aware of consciousness knowing itself globally and at every point. And each one of those points can express forward as a being or an experiencer of some kind. And so each of those points is a specific perspective of that one whole.
And it’s essentially, it’s a way to bring out all the detail. Because the consciousness knows itself globally, but by experiencing itself from every point, it brings out all the detail. And so that’s what we, our role we have as an individual, a current individual is to unfold the details of our perspective. So we all have a role.
And you know, in the broader perspective of the cycles of nature and creation and so on like that, it takes all of us to go through this process we’re describing in some way for the process to complete.
The fourth level after comic body is I am the Veda. Veda is a word that means knowledge and essentially embedded in the divine mind is kind of the word I use for it. It’s kind of this field at the top of creation, that’s, but slightly beyond creation that has these templates, blueprints.
Blueprint is sometimes the word I use and there’s kind of the pattern for, that particular, there’s this series of different creations as well that are very different from ours and each of them has their own kind of blueprint and And then within that blueprint, there’s also a kind of a schedule. It’s kind of hard to describe exactly, but it’s essentially there is a person who is going to be born, whose job it is to cognize a law of nature that’s not currently expressed, which basically causes it to express and it evolves creation to the next point. That law of nature comes alive, it integrates with other laws of nature, and then the rules of the game change a little bit. And in the higher ages, there’s more laws of nature that are functionally active, and that’s a whole other topic. You know, getting into the types of cognition and all this kind of thing. But, you know, there’s this kind of process through, even though essentially it all happens at once, there’s also, again to experience the detail, it’s drawn out over apparent time, so there’s a kind of a sequence of evolution and unfolding and so you know we all we come up and we have our experiences and add to the whole.
A: Yes, yeah beautiful and so just going back to what you said about that template or schedule or however you want to contextualize it, the capacity is to cognize it or to taste it in terms of its simultaneity and its completion and see it from that perspective.
And then you can also zoom out and see it in terms of its unfolding or its outstretching in what appears to be our experience of sequence.
D: Yes, yeah, so it’s kind of like…
A: It with the unfoldment, you know the unfoldment of creation and the thing that you were talking about before with the body how all bodies are essentially this bifurcation of a basic blueprint for a body and so on and so forth.
D: Exactly. Yeah, I ended up writing an article a bit ago on the eight different ways you can experience time because it’s essentially, time is an effect of the process of experience.
Space is an effect of that consciousness becoming aware of itself and that initial dynamic. It kind of creates this subtle space, kind of a container. And then in that process of experience and our relationship to that process of experience gives us an experience of time. So we might experience, you know, there’s a past and a future in kind of the usual way, or we might experience everything is in the current now, where there’s only the current in the present moment, or we might experience all the past and the future are all in the present moment, or there’s time as eternal and so on. Time is not existing, not expressed. I can’t
remember now, but there’s like eight different ways that it can unfold, and it all relates to to our perspective of process of experience.
A: And there can also be great flexibility with that too. So this sort of sense of being able to shift how that’s being related to so on and so forth and in terms of our experience and yeah.
D: Yeah, and essentially what happens at a certain point, now it kind of varies a little bit, But if there is an unfolding of Refined Unity or that process, the feminine process is continuing through the Unity process.
There comes to be some kind of point where essentially it knows itself fully. It knows itself globally, as I mentioned, and at every point within itself. There’s that experiential process. Again, this is a very intimate process. Everything we’re talking about, We’re not just experiencing it, we’re recognizing it as ourselves because it’s part of that Unity process and it reaches a point where it kind of knows itself fully and in the experience here as I referenced earlier there’s a sense of like consciousness realizing it’s been looking in on itself this whole time and it kind of goes up and turns and looks beyond itself. So then then there’s a shift, the next shift into Brahman.
But if there’s also a process of, the referred to as God consciousness before, where there’s an unfolding value of the personal God, this isn’t necessarily experiencing forms of God like the Vedic culture and I kind of relate to that. There’s a sense there’s one divine, but it takes many forms.
A: Yes.
D: Fundamental principles essentially, like love and power and so on. And they can be experienced as laws of nature, as kind of an objective or masculine kind of way, sort of through the intellect or through the heart as embodied with forms. And you kind of have your choice of how you want to experience that depending on how the refinement is. So if there’s that kind of process unfolding then the climax of that in Unity is recognizing that that form of God is also the Self, is also myself. Emerging and this is where we get into one of those climactic stages of the refinement, the feminine process is the unification with our highest ideal or the expressed God as myself. So it kind of climaxes that stage and like in my case for example there was that and then there was the recognition essentially that everything had become known within consciousness at that point in the broader sense and then the Brahman stage could unfold.
Not everybody has that kind of process going on, there has to be that kind of know, God consciousness process.
A: And it also has to do with the context because, I know, you know, if you’ve, if you come from a more traditional setup like yourself, where you were exposed to, you know, the possibility of that and sort of had scriptural backing and then also, had more of a, yeah, had more of a traditional Vedic understanding of different laws of nature and those kinds of things that’s supportive of sort of a more modeled unfoldment taking place in that direction.
You could say, not that it’s always going to be like that.
D: Yeah. But it’s also the ideal and there’s lots of people I know that are following a general Vedic line who are not necessarily unfolding those things.
A: Yes. Yeah.
D: Don’t know why I specifically or why that’s showing up here. Maybe because I’m supposed to talk about it or write about it and stuff and so it’s shown up so that I can help people with the process.
A: Yeah, no, that’s really beautiful. I’m glad you made that point. And now I’m reflecting back on the way that it unfolded here. And in those terms, I encountered what I refer to as avataric bodies, which basically that just means like Krishna’s Krishnik body, Buddhic body, and a Christ body, which is very similar to what you’re talking about emerging with an ideal.
So in terms of like Jesus, Shakyamuni Buddha and Lord Bhagavan Sri Krishna, these were sort of primary pillars in the unfoldment here. They were present. And so at that point what happened was that there was a this total unification of their cosmic body, realizing that that was myself. So…
D: Yeah, just to be clear though, because it’s kind of differentiating to go in here, I mentioned earlier how there’s kind of like the ideal, there’s kind of like the form we most identify with, I guess you could say, our highest ideal, and that’s kind of what is described in my tradition as the personal God, and for some that’s the heart opening is quite closely associated with it, and then there’s other forms of God that we can experience that we may not necessarily relate to that way.
And in the Unity process we become one with those various forms, but the key with God Realization is becoming one with the personal God. The istha devata it’s referred to in Sanskrit.
A: Yeah, and then there’s also some possibility for variation in pure Divinity with a lot of what what we’re talking about now in a different way.
D: Yeah, I find it a little bit eye-rolling when I hear some spiritual teachers say that they’re Kalki or they’re Krishna or something like that because that’s essentially an experience that’s going to unfold for everybody at a certain point.
A: Exactly.
D: It’s nothing special there [to them].
A: And it’s distinctly, even though it’s a personality, it’s distinctly impersonal. So unless there’s some serious unresolved identification issues that are still present. It’s not something that is taking you aback where you’re like sitting you’re you’re like standing there like oh I’m you know I’m Krishna or something. So it’s like I’m, you know I’m at the supermarket and my body is Krishna’s body and there’s all of these world systems unfolding within this body which is Krishna’s body and that is what I is.
D: So yeah it’s fascinating too because it could be like I’m walking down the street or I’m in the supermarket or whatever like that you kind of the body, the physical body is doing something and then there’s kind of like the cosmic body, which can be doing some different things simultaneously and you are all of that also and it’s you know, doing these things and then there’s the some value of divine body or other body, other forms which are also part of myself and the attention can go there and say oh they’re over in that part of the universe doing something or they’re over here but it’s all the Self, it’s all myself
A: yeah it’s so important to recognize this has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with the glorification of an individual. Any, it always is about the glorification of Divinity. Divinity is the reality that is, there’s only Divinity and Divinity is revealing itself to itself within its own mind and you know any individual that we see as an embodiment of that, that’s what we see in them that is admirable. That’s what we see in them that we desire or hold as an ideal. It’s there, it’s the reflection of Divinity as that embodiment. And it’s not the particularity necessarily, although it is expressed in the particularity, but the value that pervades and shines as that particularized expression.
D: Beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. It’s, yeah, and it’s so easy at any given point… I remember a friend of mine coming over one time and we got together and he basically said, “I’m God and you’re not.” And he was kidding, but, you know, he was going through this process of experiencing himself as God and you know and he recognized you know, the play that was going on but it was, it was pretty funny but I see people actually you know, invest in that a little more than they should and that’s when it gets to be a little tricky. You always have to keep all this stuff in proportion because you’re still a human going through this this unfolding, there’s still that leisha avidya, remains of ignorance going on.
A: yeah and that’s also where I as you know, value the devotion, the flow of devotion as well. It comes in very handy in that context.
D: And that really supports the surrender process to allow this kind of thing to unfold as well, because you can get so, you know, because each of these stages we’re discussing, they feel real and they can feel at a certain point complete. They feel like there’s this fullness beyond anything we’ve ever experienced before and this is amazing and this is, this has got to be the ultimate and you know, that kind of thing, and you can get invested in that and that can become a bit of a barrier. But you know if you… that’s part of the reason why we talk about this this kind of stuff, that there’s more.
A: Exactly.
D: Yeah partly to support people for whom it’s unfolding but also to put it all in context so you don’t get too carried away with, oh yeah God, i had the experience of God, that’s pretty amazing, eh. I’m really special. yeah well…
A: Right and yeah and that you know there can be a lot of trickiness in terms of that being a barrier to certain levels of purification taking place as well, because if the if there’s this sort of false level of owning whatever recognition of reality is present and something arises that seems to be conflictual with that, then the likelihood of you saying no to that or projecting it as being out there is increased greatly. Yeah.
D: it’s much less likely for people to unfold a God Consciousness process after they wake up if that’s suppressed and it’s like, oh that’s just experiential or that’s you know, the heart’s not relevant or any of that kind of thing as part of of their teaching.
A: Yeah.
D: And one other little detail to mention, you know, I talked about the kosha model I mentioned earlier too, there’s kind of these series of sheaths where we have our physical body, and our energy body, and mental body and so on like that. In the Self-Realization through Unity process, the dominant reality is that consciousness. And there’s some variations on that as you mentioned as well. But broadly speaking, consciousness is the dominant player in the Unity and Self-Realization process. And it’s when we step back beyond that, in however way that unfolds. I mean, I gave an example or two, but there’s a gazillion ways you may subjectively experience this process. But that’s when you recognize that consciousness itself is also a sheath. It’s also a, it’s also a, I mean it’s infinite and eternal in that kind of sense, but you know as mathematics, you know, does describe that there is infinities within infinities and spaces within spaces and
A: fields within fields and that’s the, next, in our next discussion I do want to explore that sort of, what I call the field-field contrast or the field point contrast and how that shows up and as things continue to unfold.
D: Great, okay.
A: Yeah. All right, well, thank you all so much for joining us. It’s always a pleasure to sit back and watch how these conversations flow and unfold. And I think that this one has been a real, is going to be a real treat for anyone that views it. And I’ve certainly enjoyed myself.
D: Myself also.
A: Thank you so much and we just always give all glory to pure Divinity.
D: Glory to pure Divinity, yes.