Will power (the experience of it) is when you are resisting.
No resistance = No willpower.
Your very existence as an individual is from the action of resistance.
Cease to resist and you will cease to exist as an individual at all.
That is where this saying probably comes from:
You are when god is not,
When god is you are not.
It is possible to relax out of one’s identity itself.
For instance, unconsciously every night,
Our very identity relaxes its inherent resistive action in deep sleep,
Where our individual experience ceases,
And this gives a great deal of rejuvenation.
Description of the realm of ‘dread, trance, and emptiness’
The dark night of the soul is the journey from:
Illusion -> Illumination -> Union.
During the ‘Illumination -> Union’ phase,
There are different bardo realms of experience to be passed through.
Here I’ll describe the bardo I am presently going through,
Which is of ‘Dread-Trance-Emptiness’.
The ‘dread-trance-emptiness’ bardo,
Has a lot of chaos, confusion, and disorganization
There is deep exhaustion,
In my ability to ‘be/become’ anything.
Like the king is unable to act anymore.
He is just a passive witness to his collapsing kingdom,
Which is falling into evermore chaos-confusion-randomness.
He has even lost interest/desire in it to keep it going,
And is simply now a passive spectator,
Of the spectacle of his kingdom falling into chaos,
And getting reabsorbed by all its surrounding forces.
‘Neglect’ and ‘Withdrawal’ of anything causes death of that thing.
So the process is very much like the process of conscious ego death.
This paradoxically feels like a descent and ascent at the same time.
The plunge into the depths is also the ascent to the heights.
To see everything from above is to see everything from below, and vice versa.
There is a process of passive purgation,
Of a journey into the purgatory playing/unfolding itself out.
I abide in this space passively,
In a ‘continuous falling’ into it.
It is like being in a kayak on a river current.
You cannot stop moving,
But you can influence the kayak with your paddles.
There is again a paradox here, that:
It seems deeply personal and yet so deeply impersonal at the same time.
Passions emerge, actions happen,
But the emptiness of all of it pervades my being.
Almost no experience is riveting enough,
To make me lose sight of the emptiness in the background.
I feel if I pass through all this madness,
I might bottom out and emerge on the other side.
This feels more like a time-energy thing,
Rather than a defined spatial thing,
Where there is a definite distance to cover.
The loss of identity,
Causes a fall into the shadows underneath.
Like sinking into the ground of chaos-filth,
From which the trees of identity spawn and return to.
This is a place where will/action are heavily suspended,
(Hanged man tarot archetype),
And one must mostly only abide/allow.
The only freedoms I have are to resist or allow.
And resistance hurts anyways,
So there is no actual freedom at all.
This archetypal chaotic dream madness (which is also the creative ground),
From which identities/egos in the world spawn,
Resembles the ’12th house’ described in astrology.
It is like the state of ‘dreaming and imagination’.
Waking > Dream > Sleep is what we ordinarily think.
But I think in the spiritual ascension path,
It is the reverse.
Being awake in ‘Sleep’ = Prajna (direct insight),
Being awake in ‘Dream’ = Vigyana (special meta knowledge),
Being awake in ‘Waking’ = Gyana (knowledge)
I feel like my awareness of emptiness is me being awake in the dream world/space/bardos.
This underground/underworld,
Feels like falling into a bottomless pit,
Where there is an infinite fall,
And where I am always in the center in spite of the continuously falling.
Only the scenery continuously keeps changing.
Sometimes I fall through clouds of scintillating mist,
Other times I fall through clouds made of acid.
The only way to communicate or share this experience with others,
Is through imaginative symbolic expressions.
A person going through a similar experience would probably instantly relate.
For others it may be a bit of a stretch to imagine/see.
Illusion -> Illumination -> Union.
During the ‘Illumination -> Union’ phase,
There are different bardo realms of experience to be passed through.
Here I’ll describe the bardo I am presently going through,
Which is of ‘Dread-Trance-Emptiness’.
The ‘dread-trance-emptiness’ bardo,
Has a lot of chaos, confusion, and disorganization
There is deep exhaustion,
In my ability to ‘be/become’ anything.
Like the king is unable to act anymore.
He is just a passive witness to his collapsing kingdom,
Which is falling into evermore chaos-confusion-randomness.
He has even lost interest/desire in it to keep it going,
And is simply now a passive spectator,
Of the spectacle of his kingdom falling into chaos,
And getting reabsorbed by all its surrounding forces.
‘Neglect’ and ‘Withdrawal’ of anything causes death of that thing.
So the process is very much like the process of conscious ego death.
This paradoxically feels like a descent and ascent at the same time.
The plunge into the depths is also the ascent to the heights.
To see everything from above is to see everything from below, and vice versa.
There is a process of passive purgation,
Of a journey into the purgatory playing/unfolding itself out.
I abide in this space passively,
In a ‘continuous falling’ into it.
It is like being in a kayak on a river current.
You cannot stop moving,
But you can influence the kayak with your paddles.
There is again a paradox here, that:
It seems deeply personal and yet so deeply impersonal at the same time.
Passions emerge, actions happen,
But the emptiness of all of it pervades my being.
Almost no experience is riveting enough,
To make me lose sight of the emptiness in the background.
I feel if I pass through all this madness,
I might bottom out and emerge on the other side.
This feels more like a time-energy thing,
Rather than a defined spatial thing,
Where there is a definite distance to cover.
The loss of identity,
Causes a fall into the shadows underneath.
Like sinking into the ground of chaos-filth,
From which the trees of identity spawn and return to.
This is a place where will/action are heavily suspended,
(Hanged man tarot archetype),
And one must mostly only abide/allow.
The only freedoms I have are to resist or allow.
And resistance hurts anyways,
So there is no actual freedom at all.
This archetypal chaotic dream madness (which is also the creative ground),
From which identities/egos in the world spawn,
Resembles the ’12th house’ described in astrology.
It is like the state of ‘dreaming and imagination’.
Waking > Dream > Sleep is what we ordinarily think.
But I think in the spiritual ascension path,
It is the reverse.
Being awake in ‘Sleep’ = Prajna (direct insight),
Being awake in ‘Dream’ = Vigyana (special meta knowledge),
Being awake in ‘Waking’ = Gyana (knowledge)
I feel like my awareness of emptiness is me being awake in the dream world/space/bardos.
This underground/underworld,
Feels like falling into a bottomless pit,
Where there is an infinite fall,
And where I am always in the center in spite of the continuously falling.
Only the scenery continuously keeps changing.
Sometimes I fall through clouds of scintillating mist,
Other times I fall through clouds made of acid.
The only way to communicate or share this experience with others,
Is through imaginative symbolic expressions.
A person going through a similar experience would probably instantly relate.
For others it may be a bit of a stretch to imagine/see.
Ajna Vision: There is only light and darkness
Life = Agni(Fire) = Spirit = Consciousness.
This is the only treasure, the first and the last, the one and only, the ultimate gift.
The world is infinite,
There are infinite worlds,
Infinite other beings/people/animals/life forms,
Infinite planes with infinite activities,
Infinite content springing forth all the time.
But only what you perceive is your experience,
And what you perceive is from your Agni/Life/Spirit.
It feels like so much complexity is happening,
But when I really see the essence piercingly,
I see that really it is only my dream,
That “appears and vanishes”,
Depending on the “infux and deflux” of life/spirit/agni into me,
Happening everyday in me taking the appearance of wake and sleep.
There is just an alternation of light and darkness, nothing else.
The complexities of each day are a play of the projector-light like a movie.
Either the projector is on or off, creating light and darkness,
That’s all I see from this depth.
This is the only treasure, the first and the last, the one and only, the ultimate gift.
The world is infinite,
There are infinite worlds,
Infinite other beings/people/animals/life forms,
Infinite planes with infinite activities,
Infinite content springing forth all the time.
But only what you perceive is your experience,
And what you perceive is from your Agni/Life/Spirit.
It feels like so much complexity is happening,
But when I really see the essence piercingly,
I see that really it is only my dream,
That “appears and vanishes”,
Depending on the “infux and deflux” of life/spirit/agni into me,
Happening everyday in me taking the appearance of wake and sleep.
There is just an alternation of light and darkness, nothing else.
The complexities of each day are a play of the projector-light like a movie.
Either the projector is on or off, creating light and darkness,
That’s all I see from this depth.
Sleep and Time
Sleep is the ultimate rejuvenator.
Every day you get around 7 hours (+-),
And it is non-negotiable.
If you use up 2 hours in the afternoon,
Then you get 2 less in the night.
Sleep is not something you can do.
You fall into it,
So there is no control.
It is like a gas station,
That allows only 1 refill per day for your vehicle.
Or like an ATM machine,
That dispenses a fixed amount to you everyday.
Or like your phone data plan,
Where you get 1gb/day and if you use it up early,
Then you would have extremely low speed until the next refill.
Sleep-Wake is a cycle.
It just goes round and round.
Time is all about cycles.
To be free from cyclic existence is to be free of time.
Look at your analog watch/clock,
Isn’t it a circle, with the hands going round and round?
The earth’s rotation gives day and night.
The moon’s phasing gives you a month
The cycles of the solar system give you your lifetime (84-120 years?)
The solar system, the arrangement of the sun, moon, and earth,
Work like a potters wheel,
Structuring life energy here into forms.
Time is an aspect/dimension of existence.
There are dimensions of existence beyond time.
When your vision has not grasped these cycles,
You think you are going somewhere,
But actually you are going round and round.
Like driving a car along a mobius strip.
Transcendence is when one rides the cycles of time,
Vs. being trapped in the cycles of time.
Every day you get around 7 hours (+-),
And it is non-negotiable.
If you use up 2 hours in the afternoon,
Then you get 2 less in the night.
Sleep is not something you can do.
You fall into it,
So there is no control.
It is like a gas station,
That allows only 1 refill per day for your vehicle.
Or like an ATM machine,
That dispenses a fixed amount to you everyday.
Or like your phone data plan,
Where you get 1gb/day and if you use it up early,
Then you would have extremely low speed until the next refill.
Sleep-Wake is a cycle.
It just goes round and round.
Time is all about cycles.
To be free from cyclic existence is to be free of time.
Look at your analog watch/clock,
Isn’t it a circle, with the hands going round and round?
The earth’s rotation gives day and night.
The moon’s phasing gives you a month
The cycles of the solar system give you your lifetime (84-120 years?)
The solar system, the arrangement of the sun, moon, and earth,
Work like a potters wheel,
Structuring life energy here into forms.
Time is an aspect/dimension of existence.
There are dimensions of existence beyond time.
When your vision has not grasped these cycles,
You think you are going somewhere,
But actually you are going round and round.
Like driving a car along a mobius strip.
Transcendence is when one rides the cycles of time,
Vs. being trapped in the cycles of time.
Our body is of the earth and belongs to the earth
The body has various cycles:
Input cycles:
# Hunger cycles = EARTH ELEMENT
# Thirst cycles = WATER ELEMENT
# Sleep cycles = ETHER ELEMENT
# [Sights, Sounds] consumption cycles = FIRE ELEMENT
# In-breath cycling = AIR ELEMENT
Output cycles:
# Poop cycles = EARTH ELEMENT
# Urine, Sexual cycles = WATER ELEMENT
# Exercise/Activity cycles = FIRE ELEMENT
# Out-breath cycling = AIR ELEMENT
# Waking state awareness cycles = ETHER ELEMENT
The elements part may not be exact, but I used my intuitive feel to arrive at them.
The body belongs to the earth, and is made up of the earth.
It is an organic machine, built from the elements of the earth, and on death, this entire body machine will be returned to the earth (which will cycle the elements back into itself).
The body emerges from the earth, gathers earth elements onto itself and grows, maintains and renews itself periodically from various elemental transactions with the earth, and then once its time is over, the earth reabsorbs the body back into itself.
The mothers womb provides the initial body as a template, that then separates from the mother, gathers on the elements (what we call growth), and then stabilizes itself in transaction with the elements of the earth.
“On death, the earth will take back the body, atom by atom” – Sadhguru
I have heard Sadhguru(Jaggi Vasudev) on Youtube speak about this topic many times, but only now I feel like I understand it more deeply.
So from the body’s perspective:
It cares about: food, water, sleep, sex, breathing, preservation.
Each of these activities give pleasure, but only as per the cycles.
The pleasure from the body is limited to the cycles only.
When you are hungry you can only eat until the hunger is satisfied, only till then will you get pleasure.
The same holds true for thirst, sex, and even the breath.
Breathing in is pleasure until you get full, breathing out is pleasure until you get empty.
Since all of the elemental transactions are in a cycle, neither can you preserve, nor can you indulge.
It is like your breath.
You can’t endlessly breathe in, neither can you endlessly breathe out.
In terms of source energy, the highest tangible conception of that for us, is the “Sun”.
But we can use only a fraction of that energy directly, and we need all its other stored forms available on earth to survive/thrive.
Sun -> Plants
Sun -> Plants -> Animals
Water -> stores the heat energy of the sun (else without the sun it would turn into ice).
And then we further cook the plant/animal material in fire, and then we have “energy and elements” in a form that we can easily consume.
The earth itself maintains its temperature from the sun.
The core of the earth is almost like a micro sun.
Human bodies are like the most developed neurons(brain nerve cells) of the earth.
Also with only one half of the earth facing the sun at any given point of time, and with the earth constantly rotating, it is always cycling through duality.
Though the sun(source) is ever present, ever radiant, it is eclipsed from influence and view during the night.
So I would think that is why, in the microcosm of our bodies too, we have the sleep and waking cycles which is a correlate to this macrocosmic duality.
Input cycles:
# Hunger cycles = EARTH ELEMENT
# Thirst cycles = WATER ELEMENT
# Sleep cycles = ETHER ELEMENT
# [Sights, Sounds] consumption cycles = FIRE ELEMENT
# In-breath cycling = AIR ELEMENT
Output cycles:
# Poop cycles = EARTH ELEMENT
# Urine, Sexual cycles = WATER ELEMENT
# Exercise/Activity cycles = FIRE ELEMENT
# Out-breath cycling = AIR ELEMENT
# Waking state awareness cycles = ETHER ELEMENT
The elements part may not be exact, but I used my intuitive feel to arrive at them.
The body belongs to the earth, and is made up of the earth.
It is an organic machine, built from the elements of the earth, and on death, this entire body machine will be returned to the earth (which will cycle the elements back into itself).
The body emerges from the earth, gathers earth elements onto itself and grows, maintains and renews itself periodically from various elemental transactions with the earth, and then once its time is over, the earth reabsorbs the body back into itself.
The mothers womb provides the initial body as a template, that then separates from the mother, gathers on the elements (what we call growth), and then stabilizes itself in transaction with the elements of the earth.
“On death, the earth will take back the body, atom by atom” – Sadhguru
I have heard Sadhguru(Jaggi Vasudev) on Youtube speak about this topic many times, but only now I feel like I understand it more deeply.
So from the body’s perspective:
It cares about: food, water, sleep, sex, breathing, preservation.
Each of these activities give pleasure, but only as per the cycles.
The pleasure from the body is limited to the cycles only.
When you are hungry you can only eat until the hunger is satisfied, only till then will you get pleasure.
The same holds true for thirst, sex, and even the breath.
Breathing in is pleasure until you get full, breathing out is pleasure until you get empty.
Since all of the elemental transactions are in a cycle, neither can you preserve, nor can you indulge.
It is like your breath.
You can’t endlessly breathe in, neither can you endlessly breathe out.
In terms of source energy, the highest tangible conception of that for us, is the “Sun”.
But we can use only a fraction of that energy directly, and we need all its other stored forms available on earth to survive/thrive.
Sun -> Plants
Sun -> Plants -> Animals
Water -> stores the heat energy of the sun (else without the sun it would turn into ice).
And then we further cook the plant/animal material in fire, and then we have “energy and elements” in a form that we can easily consume.
The earth itself maintains its temperature from the sun.
The core of the earth is almost like a micro sun.
Human bodies are like the most developed neurons(brain nerve cells) of the earth.
Also with only one half of the earth facing the sun at any given point of time, and with the earth constantly rotating, it is always cycling through duality.
Though the sun(source) is ever present, ever radiant, it is eclipsed from influence and view during the night.
So I would think that is why, in the microcosm of our bodies too, we have the sleep and waking cycles which is a correlate to this macrocosmic duality.
My experience of reality nowadays
I experience reality nowadays as a “changing/shifting ocean of sensation”.
In this ocean, various waves arise, from various apparent centers of consciousness that get formed, and various potentials are then available for various thoughts/feelings/emotions from these centers.
Another way to put it would be, my experience is like the movie “waking life”, i.e. like an endless moving lucid dream.
Another analogy would be, my experience is like a movie that is playing all the time, and I alternately engage with it in various ways, and then disengage in various ways, to come back and engage with…and so on.
I do not have much enduring identity day to day.
And my sadhana/effort is to return whatever remnant identity is there to the ocean.
I feel like I am a witness, that witnesses the whole changing ocean of relationship, where an “apparent I” and an “apparent world” appears and keeps shifting.
It always feels real in the moment, just like a dream feels real, but I also know that everything can change from my own memory of that happening a zillion times.
My experience is like the mantra AUM along with the pause.
Inbreath:
Pause = the recharge of inspiration/energy.
Drawing the formless/unmanifest to form/manifest potential.
Outbreath:
Expression in form/manifest.
Aaaaaa = Waking
Uuuuuu = Dreaming
mmmmmm = Sleep
Inbreath:
Pause = the recharge of energy.
…and so on.
In this ocean, various waves arise, from various apparent centers of consciousness that get formed, and various potentials are then available for various thoughts/feelings/emotions from these centers.
Another way to put it would be, my experience is like the movie “waking life”, i.e. like an endless moving lucid dream.
Another analogy would be, my experience is like a movie that is playing all the time, and I alternately engage with it in various ways, and then disengage in various ways, to come back and engage with…and so on.
I do not have much enduring identity day to day.
And my sadhana/effort is to return whatever remnant identity is there to the ocean.
I feel like I am a witness, that witnesses the whole changing ocean of relationship, where an “apparent I” and an “apparent world” appears and keeps shifting.
It always feels real in the moment, just like a dream feels real, but I also know that everything can change from my own memory of that happening a zillion times.
My experience is like the mantra AUM along with the pause.
Inbreath:
Pause = the recharge of inspiration/energy.
Drawing the formless/unmanifest to form/manifest potential.
Outbreath:
Expression in form/manifest.
Aaaaaa = Waking
Uuuuuu = Dreaming
mmmmmm = Sleep
Inbreath:
Pause = the recharge of energy.
…and so on.
Sympathetic and Parasympathetic Nervous system
There is downward energy flow = para-sympathetic nervous system(psns) = sleep(surrender, rest, relaxation)
And upward energy flow = sympathetic nervous system(sns) = doing (includes all attention, consciousness, thinking, moving)
These are 2 energy flow directions.
The self/ego (conventional) = sns (it is an identification with a certain activity of ‘doing’/verb).
When satisfied or exhausted – psns takes over and sleep happens.
Highest sns/Lowest psns = highest waking point(waking)
Low sns/High psns = dreaming
Highest psns/Lowest sns = deepest sleep point(deep sleep)
sns = pingala = male = doing = solar = order = anti-entropy = motivation = seeking = waking/dreaming = left brain
psns = ida = female = relaxing = moon = chaos = entropy = de-pression = assimilating = sleep = right brain
sushumna = harmonizing = transparent = transcendent pov = neither wake nor sleep = turiya = corpus callosum(brain)
Journey to the Abstract 