Abiding without Concepts
Unlike other yogas popularized today, Kundalini Yoga practice in relatively short order awakens in Mankind the recollection of the True Man, the True Woman, a radical and sudden shift in consciousness in which one goes about their daily life abiding in their natural and True state of undifferentiated non-dual consciousness without the shroud of duality, without concepts. In modern days, gradually, yoga has become popularized to the extent that it is primarily taught as a means to gain better mental and physical wellbeing and flexibility, de-stress and provide some New Age peace of mind, but to a large extent the philosophies and Religions they were created to provide the basis for experiential understanding and belief have become disjointed, so that many of the terms we see used in philosophy and the lives of those around who grew Religions, have become no more than intellectual pursuits based on myths and concepts.
Over time philosophies have evolved around religions, where in lieu of direct experience, and, let's say, in attempts to try to rationalize the recorded words and lives that have expressed the experience, or in any case to keep our minds occupied, while we seek to figure out the experience, philosophers, thinkers, pundits have tried to organize and categorize the original words of Saints, Sages and Saviors, where many issues are discussed in a comparative sense, such as states and aspects of consciousness, and so on, even to the point of the relative positioning of words and phrases in comparison with other words and phrases in sacred texts.
But in Kundalini Yoga, when such questions arise, they are answered from an experiential perspective, such as a recent query seeking to understand the distinction between Detachment and Non-attachment. While this becomes an interesting intellectually comparative exercise, the words depict actual experiences one arrives at / encounters in one's Sadhana. It's like having a roadmap, where some may find it interesting to compare the relative landmarks on the map, and others to actually get on the Path and follow the map, noting the landmarks as they pass them.
When one takes as a vehicle the Sadhana of Kundalini Yoga, the experiences of the roadmap defined by the lives and words of the Saints, Sages and Saviors of the various Religions begin to emerge with clarity. You come to believe the Truth, because you begin to experience the Truth. You come to believe in the lives and words of the Saints, Sages and Saviors, because you experience the recollection of your True Being, as you read about their lives andtheir expression of their experience of non-dual Oneness.
The Experience of Detachment and Non-attachment
Detachment is when you first experience non-objective awareness. You "hear" the Truth that all light, all seeing comes from the seer, the subject "I" and you awaken. It's similar to understanding that the picture on the screen of a movie is made possible by the light that projects through a film and lens, and that without the light there is nothing to see, nothing to know, no being. The film represents the stored impressions of the mind. The lens represents the power of the mind to focus. Realizing that you are the seer and not the images seen, suddenly you awaken, like coming out of a progressive amnesia.
Abiding Without Concepts: The Experience of Detachment and Non-Attachment
The images are still there, you might say in abeyance, but you are "Detached" from them. You no longer use the focusing power of the mind to see or bind images to the sense of identity. With this experience also comes the pulsing of the "I" - the atma-sphurana. This means that instead of "I" recognizing itself in relationship to an image appearing in the mind, the mind has been drawn inward and now reflects the Self, so you have "I - I." By correlation, this is also what yogis call the anahat, the soundless sound that reverberates at the core of ones being and draws the mind inward.
Once this ʺI ‐ Iʺ emerges into oneʹs consciousness, It acts like a graviton, sucking everything inwards, inexorable, relentless, and in the process burns off latent impressions, so that you feel a sense of ever increasing radiance, not just in the para‐nadi between the Hrdayam and Sahasrara, but throughout the nadi system.
To use Christʹs explanation:
"The eye (the seer) is the light of the body. When your eye (that part that sees) is single (non-objective awareness), your whole body will be filled with Light." Luke 11:34
Eventually, the impurities or dross is burned off and the sense of ʺdetachmentʺ dissolves as well, leaving over ʺnon‐attachment.ʺ The feeling of the ʺIʺ pulsing as ʺIʺ is one of detaching or relinquishment of even silence, emptiness and purity. In this sense of being Transfigured, or Grounded in expanse of Radiance, there are subtle recognitions of the Truth of oneʹs Self that emerge, where rising from the core of ones being, full of Wisdom, comes the thought, ʺ...... uncaused,ʺ then ʺ.... unconditioned,ʺ then ʺ.......without time,ʺ then ʺ..... space‐like,ʺ which are the expression of the state of utter purity beyond purity of the True Self, which is who you are, who I am, without distinction, without separation, undifferentiated consciousness.
In this process of the pulsing of the ʺIʺ comes occasional total de‐linking of the images from the ʺIʺ wherein one experiences non‐attachment. At these times, the view of the body might be one of seeing the Spiritual Heart (Hrdayam) and crown (Sahasrara) radiating, along with the atma nadi between incandescently, while a multicolored flame rises up through the spine and through the top of the head.
There are thoughts but no thinker, actions but no doer, everything just happens. Ideas such as attachment, detachment and non‐attachment, have no meaning whatsoever.
Third Zen Patriarch: "Everything is empty clear, self-illuminating, with no exertion of the mind's power."
In the practice of Kundalini Yoga, this process is called One Star Spirituality, referencing the One Star in the Heart that acts like a graviton while outshining everything. In this Sadhana, postures and movements are combined with various kinds of powerful breathing techniques and amplified sound techniques to gradually fill the entire nadi system with increasing life force or voltage.
In the process, the nadis, like filaments in a light bulb, begin to radiate, and a sense of pervading de‐contraction spreads through the body, dissolving the encoding of latent impressions that bind the mindʹs images and impressions to the body.
Awareness shifts from being focuses on varied images to single and pervasive. Suddenly, the deepening radiance ʺimpactsʺ with the absorbing de‐ contracting irradiance of the Self, and you abide as transfigured single pervasive consciousness.
Every Kundalini Yoga exercise has an active and passive aspect, the active aspect to generate voltage, the passive to release the secretion of the glands to support that voltage. In the process the vibratory frequency of the body rises above the frequency of thoughts and a penetrating electromagnetic force pervades through the body stilling the mind. Gradually, the mind detaches from focused awareness, and experiences pervasiveness in and around the body. As time passes, the voltage deepens and penetrates and you experience a sense of pervading penetrating radiance that de‐ contracts tensions and pressures you never knew existed, unraveling the knots that bind the mind in patterns of thoughts and projected images.
As awareness becomes electric pervasive, you experience the radiance of the nadis in the same way as one experiences the body if one were to fall asleep. This means that you see with your consciousness, i.e., without subject‐object dichotomy. Manʹs consciousness passes through and illumines the mind and in turn illumines the senses, so that we seem to see and know through the senses, which give a notion of a subject versus an object. But as we begin to experience electric radiance throughout the body, we begin to discover that seeing actually originates from Consciousness Itself, and not through the senses or even the mind. Thus, as the nadis of the body become brighter, they begin to illumine the space in and around the body, which emerges into direct awareness without the senses. With this emergence comes the discovery that who I am is pervasive awareness, not localized to the body and mind. Again, this process continues to deepen until onesʹ individual unit of consciousness ʺimpactsʺ with the Universal Consciousness, which entirely reveals the Truth. At that moment, the ʺIʺ pulses as ʺI.ʺ
The impacting of the individual unit of Consciousness (Atman ‐ Son) with the Universal Consciousness (Brahman ‐ Father) usually happens when the mind reaches this level of purity that when one is read a story about the life and teachings of a Self‐Realized being, oneʹs True Self ʺhearsʺ Itself described and recognizing Itself in the Words, awakens, shrugs off the previously felt dim sense of identity to thoughts, images and sensations, and abides in Itʹs original undifferentiated state.
The core teachings and systems advocated by all the religions and yogas are essentially the same, only from the limited perspective of the practitioner, other yogas and religions seem to be inadequate. Nevertheless, once one ʺhearsʺ the Truth and experiences oneʹs Self as That Truth, all distinctions between these religions dissolve, and one realizes that it is the One Self that has brought forth all these in order to draw the minds inward. Then the True meaning of the Words of the seemingly different Religions, yoga systems, languages and cultures is discovered to be expressing the same one Truth.
Pieter Schoonheim Samara
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