 49. Enlightenment |
Franklin Jones States:
The ancient mystics were seeking to attain a "divine" and "imperishable" body. The Way was a psychophysical discipline, represented by the "caduceus," the ancient heraldic and medical staff or wand of power and authority, symbol of the spinal cord and the brain core or the central nervous system. The head, or "anjna chakra," epitomized by the thalamus (with its two parts or "petals") and the single pole of the pineal body, shines in the midst of the "winged" cerebrum (which is the "sahastaar," epitomized by the lateral ventricles and the corona radiata). The central of cerebrospinal nervous system, when in a state of release from the ascending (sensory) and descending (motor) or bipolar motions of the autonomic nervous system (symbolized by two intertwined serpents), resonates as a single Current in the brain core. There the Current of Transcendental Life-Light that Pervades all forms Radiates in the midst of the two lateral ventricles, which are likened to the two wings of a bird or angel. (The cerebrospinal core of the body-mind, when permitted to transcend, to master, or simply to witness the gross movements of the autonomic nervous system, is the vehicle of the "astral body" or subtle mind, capable of psychic flight, dreamlike tour, or intuitive reflections of all realms of experience with and without the individual. Thus, the universal inner mechanism, or caduceus, has also been traditionally and fancifully symbolized by the winged angels and otherwise identified with superior beings, such as Krishna, Jesus, or Gautama, or states of experience that are subtler than the gross physical). At the center is white brightness. Surrounding it is a blue sphere. And the vision is rounded with a golden yellow light. Sounds also surround and permeate the place, in an ascending scale, from deep humming vibrations as the medulla to tiny flute-like sounds in the upper extremities of the temporal lobe. Is this Heaven? Or is it simply the body in its primary mode, wherein the play of awareness and the senses begins, and where the heart may remain at rest, undisturbed, attuned to the Current of Life? The answer should now be obvious to your thinking mind, but you must also submit to it bodily, by literal inspection and growth into the states of contemplation. Mere mentalizing about the limitations or the excellences of mystical vision is itself the sign of a state below or less tan mystical vision, habitually fixed in the lower mental and grosser bodily states. Therefore, enter the Way and ascent to contemplation in the brain core. Then trace the movement of attention back to the heart. Then awaken at last beyond all the limits of the body-mind into Transcendental Identification with the Radiant Current and Consciousness in which the body-mind is floating. Only then will the Life-Current penetrate beyond the brain core and even the brain itself, to Shine in transcendental Glory as Bliss, love and the Being of Consciousness. Only This is Enlightenment. All the rest is mere experience, the puny occupation of Narcissus, or the body-mind itself, intent on the survival of its own illusions of independence and the endless enumeration of differentiated objects, never surrendered, never floated in the Real, never transcended, the Bliss of the Eternal never Realized.
Therefore, before the ultimate Sacrifice, or Divine translation, may be Realized, the illusion of independent existence must be dissolved at the heart. Mere upward contemplation is not sufficient for Divine Translation. The heart must break in radical intuition of the Condition of consciousness. Thus, in the forth stage of practice, the Way of Radical Intuition, the Awakened Heart, or the Divine Self, rather than the awakened "soul," or the purified but independent self, is the foundation of the Process of the Way. And the Radiance of the Heart penetrates the brain core to its Root, Brightening the total brain and the entire body-mind, and releasing all of it, beyond sound and sight and form, into the Radiant Divine Consciousness and Absolute Bliss of Transcendental Love. By this means, the Sacrifice is fulfilled in the Dissolution and Translation of the psycho-physical individual into the All-Pervading and Transcendental Radiance of Divine Existence.
