Michael Larkin
Member
Hi Michael
The first rule of spiritual stuff was stated perfectly by Jon Anderson of the band Yes in the song Starship Trooper: "Take what I say in a different way and it's easy to say that this is all confusion". Which, said in different words, everything about spirituality will appear to be a contradiction to the intellect. For example:
Someone brought up solipsism. I said the yogic ideas are not solipsistic because we all interact in the Absolute, i.e. there is more than just me. However, when you cross the bindu to the Absolute, then it is 100% solipsism. There is ONLY the Absolute. Yoga calls this "Kaivalya", which is the yoga term for "Nirvana", itself which means "extinction", i.e. extinction of the individual into the universal. Kaivalya means "alone". In the Absolute, there is no individuality, but there is being, only one being, and this is 100% solipsism. So yoga contains both viewpoints. On this side of the bindu, there is appearance of individuality, which is called "ahamkara" or "constriction" in yoga. On the other side of the (maha) bindu, there is only One, alone, being, that is all that ever was, is or ever will be. When we are on this side of the mahabindu, we simply cannot understand it. We can only recognize we cannot understand it. Taimni calls it the "ever darkness".
Next topic: frightening nature of annihilation. In yoga, this is one of the Kleshas, which I discuss in Yogic View. The fear of death or the fear of annihilation into the Alone. Klesha means "affliction" or "disease" and this fear is an impediment to advanced yogic experience. This too, however, has an ironic quality. We fear dissolving in the One. But if we do dissolve in it, we discover All Things. Dissolving in The One is, in fact, the Great Prize of life. It is the only time being experiences true and permanent satisfaction.
Hindus are generally very open minded. Their teachings are designed like a staircase. The deeper your thought and maturity, the more you will get out of the teachings. The teachings can be understood by simple worldly people as moral myths that give guidance on how to live a good life, or they can be the deepest thoughts humans are capable of having...all in the same teachings. It's quite incredible actually.
Is the Source getting anything out of it? In a sense, no. It just is. "Its being is its justification". That last sentence is directly from van der Leeuw's book, which I suggest you read. I think it would be very meaningful to you. In fact, Yogic View is, in part, my attempt to explain my understanding of van der Leeuw's book. As I said in the interview with Alex, van der Leeuw's book was by far the most influential thing I've ever read.
We are so used to stories that have a build up, a climax, and a resolution, that we superimpose this literary template over our lives and over reality itself. The possibility that there is no climax, no resolution, seems unthinkable to us. To the Hindu/yogic mind, there is the ever-churning of manifestation, including the transformation of the unmanifest (potential) into the manifest (i.e. what we call "reality") and also the eternal unchanging peace of the Absolute. I call it the "triple ontology" in Yogic View. But, as I state there, this is only how it appears to us in Relative manifestation. It's real state is the Absolute. It changes, but does not change. It is all that was, is, or ever will be. Our relative, finite minds cannot understand it. But we have the potential to BE it. That is the silver lining to this whole phantasmagoria we call "our experience". As per your comment above, EVERY road leads to this. It is inevitable. The Rhythm of Creation. The Absolute disguising itself as the Relative, only to rediscover itself...eternally.
All my best wishes, Michael!
Don
Thanks for this, Don. Oh, and before I forget, let me echo dpdownsouth's appreciation of your generosity in making your books available online for free. I've downloaded them all, as well as Leeuw's book, and hope to plough through them in the near future. At the moment, I'm only at the beginning of The Yogic View Of Consciousness and have dipped into van der Leeuw's book, The Conquest Of Illusion. I'm new to this stuff: I've been very much taken by Bernardo Kastrup's version of Idealism over the past few years. Your work -- at first glance anyway -- seems somewhat different and I don't know what to make of it yet, though I am reading it with an open mind.
I suppose we fear the loss of individuality because this side of the bindu, it's all we've ever known and it's very difficult to think in different terms. But thinking about it now, on the other side of the bindu, I suppose in a sense we could actually become God or Brahman; we don't really have anything to lose unless it be the sense of being one amongst many, or a part of that multiplicity that is the overriding impression on this side.
It seems reasonable to assume that most of us don't get to the other side in our (apparent) lives. So then there's the question of whether or not we reincarnate and continue to do so until we do. And what about when we all do? Then one assumes that we are all God/Brahman, and -- what then? Does it all start over again, or what? I can't help getting over the feeling that there's some kind of purpose to it all, but maybe that's all part of the condition of being an apparent sentient entity on this side of the bindu. Maybe there's no purpose, just the fact of being?
I don't know, I'll have to think more about it and maybe something will crystallise out for me...