(The electrical paradigm introduced)
Introduction Electrical Christianity and the Gospel If Jesus Christ were alive today, I believe he would update the Gospel and teach the “brand” of Christianity that I introduce and elaborate on in this book—Electrical Christianity. Jesus’ updated teachings would likely mirror those of Electrical Christianity because spiritual energy is electrical in nature, and if Jesus, a spiritual genius, knew about electricity, he would almost certainly make it a point to explain the principles of spiritual life via the parallel principles of electricity.
The Practice of True Holy Communion Mainstream Christian churches are guilty of an egregious sin: They do not teach their members how to commune with the Deity and receive His Blessing Power, the Holy Spirit. There can be no true religion, no real spirituality, without contact with and reception of God’s Spirit-power. This book provides clear-cut, in-depth instructions on how to directly “plug into” the Divine Being, the Holy One, and literally “pull down” His Power. Grace is not an abstract principle; it is the palpable experience of God’s Spirit-power—and anyone who religiously (or devotedly and
intensely) practices the discipline of true Holy Communion that I present in this book can experience the descent of Divine Power, the Holy Spirit. The true Eucharist, the practice of Holy Communion (which, in its “awakened” form implies reception of the Holy Spirit), is the very heart of mystical Christianity—and I maintain that it is the foremost method for attaining salvation (spiritual en-Light-enment).
Disciples of the Truth who meditate on the parallels between the Eucharist and Ohm’s Law are sure to increase their understanding of spiritual life and improve their spiritual practice.
Ohm’s Law and Spiritual Energy Ohm’s Law, the mathematical equation or formula for an electrical circuit, was discovered in 1827, and is the key to understanding the relationship between electrical and spiritual energy.
This Ohm’s Law-Eucharist correlation, which I call the “Electrical Spiritual Paradigm,” equates Holy (or Divine) Communion with “plugged-in presence,” reception of the Holy Spirit with “pulled-down power,” and self-surrender with “perfect poverty.” In electrical terms, plugged-in presence is voltage, pulled-down power is amperage, and perfect poverty is ohms (relative absence of resistance).
More importantly, you’ll understand—from a scientific-energetic perspective—how to connect to the Divine and channel its electrical-like Power, the Holy Spirit.
Moreover, once a disciple spiritually realizes, or conducts and feels, the electrical-like nature of Spirit-energy, he can use this realization as a springboard to radically intuiting, and perhaps ultimately achieving, the summum bonum of human existence: God-Realization, eternal abidance in Heaven, the Divine Domain.
Electrical Christianity and the Esoteric Tradition Even though I wrote this book in a matter of months, it has really been forty years in the making, and represents the culmination of my spiritual experience and thinking.
Electrical Jesus and a Radical Disciple Jesus Christ was an electrical individual, a revolutionary in the truest and best sense of the word. He was crucified because he was perceived as a threat to the political and religious establishment of his time. Jesus had no interest in political correctness and no interest in a Dale Carnegie approach of winning friends and influencing people. His overriding interest was in saving souls, in providing the masses with a Way to the Kingdom of Heaven, which isn’t of this world.
Although my polemic is sure to cast me as a polarizing figure and cost me readership, my commitment to truth exceeds my desire for book sales. Hence, my response to the fact that many readers will find some of my points of view “extreme” and objectionable is: so be it.
Thus, it is my hope is that this book will not only inspire people to practice Electrical (or Spirit-full) Christianity, but also provide them with detailed instructions on how to contact, channel, and unite with the Divine Being, the Living God.
The term “Divine Communion” is also a fine synonym, because the term “Divine” refers to the two “vines” of Ultimate Reality—Soul (or Consciousness) and Spirit (or Light-energy), and the act of communion pertains to the disciple’s yogic attempt to unite these within himself.
CHAPTER ONE The “Electrical” Eucharist (The Radical Essence of Jesus’ Teachings)
The Crux of Christianity What does it mean to be a Christian?
(Eucharist as the crux of Christian practice)
Being a true Christian isn’t about believing in Jesus; it’s about realizing your Christ (or Buddha, or Self)-nature. It’s about duplicating Jesus’ realization that “I and the Father are One,” and the way to do this is by practicing the spiritual discipline that Jesus himself recommends: the Eucharist—the sacrament, or act, of Holy Communion.
As the renowned nineteenth-century mystic and occultist Eliphas Levi succinctly put it, “The whole of Christianity is the Eucharist.”
The Eucharist is the sacrament, or act, of Holy (or Divine) Communion in its entirety; in other words, the holy (or spiritually holistic) act of connecting to the Divine Source (or Presence) and channeling, or receiving, its Grace (or Blessing Power), in the form of Light-energy.
Although technical instructions can point the way to the Divine Connection, until you are baptized, or initiated, by the Holy One, and receive His Spirit-power, or Grace, you cannot practice true Holy Communion—Spirit-infused contemplation of the Divine. Technical instructions for connecting to the Divine pertain mainly to the act of putting yourself in psycho-physical position to receive the Benediction, the descent of Divine Power. Once you receive this Divine Blessing Power, this Love-Bliss from above, then instead of you meditating,
God, via His Shakti, or Spirit-power, meditates you. You rest in the descending Spirit-current, Light-energy from on high, and simply allow it to irradiate, or divinize, your bodymind.
Holy Communion is a synonym for conscious relationship, or at-one-ment, with God, as Spirit; therefore, the practice of Holy Communion is simply the discipline of conscious relationship, or at-one-ment, with the Holy Spirit. For a man to awaken as a Son who is one with the Father, he must permanently unite his consciousness (or soul) with Spirit-power, Divine Light-energy from above…
(The posture of plugged-in presence)
Sit upright in a chair with your palms resting on your thighs (or assume a yogic meditation posture on the floor). From your seated position, be whole-bodily present to the empty space in front of you. In other words, consciously inhabit, or “feeling-occupy,” your body, and as the whole body, be present to, or pressing against and gazing into, empty space (the void)—which will become shining Presence (the luminous Void) once your connection to it is strong enough to pull down Divine Power, Light-energy from above. To help you inhabit your body, randomly focus your attention on your hands and “third-eye” area (between, and just above, your brows). Every time, and as soon as, you notice your mind wandering or you feel yourself retracting from the position of being directly present (or in relationship) to the empty space in front of you, simply reassume the whole-bodily asana, or posture, of being present to space. To intensify your efforts to connect to, and stay connected to, space, you can use a verbal enquiry in the form of a question. For example, you can randomly ask yourself: “Avoiding relationship?” This type of self-questioning will focus your attention on your activity of avoiding relationship and instigate your return to the state of connectedness. Alternatively, you can simply pray, intently (and repeatedly, if necessary) asking God to bless you (with His Grace, or Spirit-power). Earnest, focused prayer naturally establishes a disciple in right relationship, which leads to empowered Holy Communion. When your connection to empty space is sufficiently stable, or “locked-in,” it generates conscious force, felt as a palpable energetic pressure. If you utterly yield to this pressure (while maintaining your whole-bodily posture of relationship, or at-one-ment), the Spirit-current, Light-energy from above, can pour into you. When it does, you can either maintain your focused…
The message is that man’s bodymind isn’t intended for sense satisfaction, but rather for sacrificial whole-bodily worship of God. The wine was poured into an empty cup before being given to his disciples, implying that one must empty, or surrender, oneself in order to receive, or to be filled with, the Holy Spirit, the Life-blood of God.
According to most of the Christian sects that accept the mystical meaning of the breaking of bread, when Jesus says, “This is my body,” he is referring to a mystical, or invisible, Church, or Body, a non-physical communion of all true believers. From an esoteric perspective, the Body he is pointing to is the Truth Body (the Dharmakaya in Buddhism). The Bible directs us to worship God in Spirit and in Truth; hence, blood refers to the Spirit, and the broken bread to the Truth Body, the invisible, universal God Space, or “Church,” in which all true, or Spirit-baptized, disciples worship.
Transubstantiation signifies the nth degree of transformation, and the symbolic metamorphosis of bread into the Truth Body (or Dharmakaya) and wine into the Holy Spirit (the Sambhogakaya, or Bliss Body, in Buddhism) is a reminder for us to surrender, or sacrificially offer ourselves, to the Holy One, so that He, the Master Alchemist, can, via the divinization process, transform us into His likeness.
If you religiously (or adamantly) practice the method of Holy Communion that I recommend, and you haven’t been baptized after, say, a few months of intense effort (meaning at least two half-hour sessions a day), then you should experiment with the basic concentration/meditation exercises that I’ll present in our later discussions.
What do I have to do in order to be baptized?
“If thine eye [consciousness] be single, thy whole body will be filled with Light [from above].” The greatest aid to generating conscious force is the practice of celibacy. Although sexual abstinence isn’t fun, if you’re serious about spiritual life and find yourself unable to pull down the Highest Power, the Holy Spirit, then you should experiment with celibacy, or at least with significantly reduced sexual activity.
Jesus fasted and prayed for forty days. If you’re unable to draw down Divine Power, consider imitating his efforts to a degree. For example, your “imitation of Christ” could be a spiritually intensive, weekend-long or several-day retreat in which you eat sparingly and devote yourself to nearly nonstop prayer, study, and meditation.
Poverty in the Spirit After the Holy Spirit enters you, what should your spiritual practice be? When the Spirit “touches” you, you should yield to its invasive pressure by relaxing your body and letting go of your mind. Be as if dead: empty and effortless.
This holding on to nothing in the face of Spirit’s intrusion is the true meaning of “poverty in the Spirit.” The pressure of the Spirit-current sensitizes you to your resistance, enabling you to palpably feel it. And when you feel it, the only intelligent response is to release it and let the Spirit-current move unimpeded through your bodymind, divinizing, or en-Light-ening, you.
The Dialectical Eucharist Can you explain how to integrate the practice of presence with the practice of poverty? The practices of presence and poverty constitute a dialectic, with presence (or relationship) as the thesis, absence (or inner emptiness) as the antithesis, and the descent of the Holy Spirit as the synthesis. In other words, the pressure of your conscious presence (or relational force) instigates your self-emptying (or surrendering), which “produces,” or pulls down, the Spirit, which deifies you, transforming you into a Self-realized, or Christ-like, being. In engendering the descent of the Spirit, the two dialectical practices of presence (or relationship) and poverty (or absence) give birth to a third, synthesizing practice: the practice of power. The practice of presence is about connecting; the practice of poverty is about surrendering; and the practice of power, which integrates the practices of presence and poverty, is about receiving.
order to instigate the drawing-down of Divine Power, the Holy Spirit, the disciple must sometimes emphasize the “pole of presence” (or relationship), and at other times the “pole of poverty” (or self-emptying). But when the descent of Light-energy is intense, the disciple can dispense with the dialectical spiritual practices (of presence and absence) and effortlessly rest in the Bliss (or Blessing)-current from above.
Yes. The Holy Spirit is the electric current (amperage); Holy Communion is the electromotive force (voltage); and ego-resistance is the resistance to the flow of the current (ohms). Ohm’s Law applied to Eucharistic spirituality tells us that the intensity of the Holy Spirit-current is directly proportional to one’s Holy Communal (or relational) force and inversely proportional to one’s ego-resistance to the inflowing Holy Spirit-current. Once you’ve been baptized by the Holy Spirit, you’ll be able to palpably and viscerally experience the seeming reality of Ohm’s Law in Eucharistic spirituality.
CHAPTER TWO The Holy Trinity (The Triadic “Structure” of Reality) Understanding the Trinity No one I’ve read or talked to seems to understand the Trinity. Do you?
(The Trinity unpacked as Ohm’s Law)
Here’s how I view the Christian Trinity. The Father, the Divine Being-Consciousness, is omnipresent and omnipotent; in other words, all-pervading Presence (or radiant Space) and Power (or Spirit-energy). The Son, the disciple’s Self (or Buddha)-nature, is the same Presence as the Father’s, but the disciple cannot realize his True nature as the Son (or Christ, or Self, or Buddha) until the Father’s Power (or Spirit-energy) blesses him to the degree of full en-Light-enment. The Holy Spirit is the Father’s dynamic Power, or Light-energy. It is deemed a separate or unique Person or Body to differentiate it from the Father’s static nature as Presence (or Source).
Ultimately, Reality is a Monad, but this Monad, the all-subsuming, indivisible Supreme Being, can best be comprehended and apprehended when it is approached from a triadic, or trinitarian, perspective.
The Trinity and the Sacred Heart-center How, exactly, does the Holy Spirit enable you to realize yourself as a Christ, or Son of God?
or Son, functions as a perfect reflector of the Infinite, ceaselessly radiating Light unto the world.
Are you saying that the mind isn’t located in the brain, that it’s really located in the Heart-center? According to Ramana Maharshi (1879-1950), the greatest Hindu guru of the twentieth century, thought-forms exist as psychical seed-tendencies (samskaras in Sanskrit) stored in the Heart-center. These seed tendencies sprout, or rise (via a “subtle,” or non-physical, channel) to the brain, where they crystallize as thoughts. Thus, the brain is the organ or medium through which the mind functions, but immanent consciousness itself (the soul) is located in the Heart-center. Any disciple who can “ride” the Spirit-current into the Heart-center and rest in Heart-felt samadhi (absorptive engrossment) can confirm Ramana’s observations for himself. The Heart-center is where your soul (or composite of psychical seed-tendencies) is divinized (or penetrated and illumined) by the Holy Spirit (the descending Spirit-current). The individual soul is the son (or daughter) of God, and when it is en-Light-ened by the Holy Spirit, it becomes the Son (or Daughter) of God.
the Heart-center results in the disciple’s God-realization, his recognition that “I and the Father are one.” Consequently, the only way to the Father is through the Son—but the spiritual Son does not emerge until the individual son, or soul, is divinized by the Spirit; and the Father cannot be realized until the Son and the Spirit unite in the Sacred Heart-center.
And the union of Siva and Shakti in the Heart-center results in the Self (or Son) realizing its eternal identity with the Divine Being (the Holy Father). Just as Siva-Shakti = Sat (Being), Son-Spirit = Father (Being). The way to the Father is through the Son, but the Son cannot emerge as the Son until the son is awakened by the Holy Spirit. The truth of Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism also mirrors that of mystical Christianity. In Vajrayana Buddhism, the three bodies, or hypostases—the Dharmakaya, Nirmanakaya, and Sambhogakaya—are analogous to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Thus, Buddhahood (the Nirmanakaya’s realization of his eternal identity with the Dharmakaya) cannot occur until the Sambhogakaya, the Light-energy (or Bliss, or “Blessing”) Body, unites with and frees the nirmanakaya (the contracted soul) in the Heart-center. Upon this Nirvanic realization, the awakened Buddha (the now en-Light-ened Nirmanakaya) realizes the three bodies, or dimensions, of Reality (the Trikaya, or “Triple Body”) as an indivisible unity.
Radical Nondual Trinitarian Truth What is the secret to realizing the truth of the Trinity? The Trinity is the Truth itself, the Absolute in three apparently distinct “phases” that are ultimately one; hence, the three Persons of the Trinity are said to be consubstantial, of the same Supreme Substance or Essence.
The Divine Being is infinite, all-pervading Consciousness (or Awareness), eternally shining as radiant Presence-Power. Because the Divine Being is infinite and all-pervading, He can never be reduced to a finite, cognizable object or “Other” that the mind can grasp. Because the Holy One cannot be found through the mind, He is sometimes referred to as the “Hidden God.”
When this Splendor is spiritually contemplated as static, eternal, all-pervading Light (the timeless Now), then we speak of the Supernal Presence; when this radiance is channeled as dynamic Light-energy, which the disciple draws down, then we
speak of Supernal Power. But God’s splendorous and glorious Presence-Power is only His objective side. For God to be fully realized, His subjective (or non-objective) side must also be realized. God’s subjective side is Consciousness (or Awareness). But Consciousness (or Awareness) can never see or know Itself directly as an Object or “Other”; it can only behold Itself in its own radiance or Light. And for this to happen, the Light-energy from above must pierce the disciple’s Heart-knot and unite with his soul (his contracted, or “dark,” individual consciousness). The consummation of this Divine Union of Light-energy and conscious-ness in the disciple’s Sacred Heart-center awakens him to his True nature as en-Light-ened Consciousness (or Conscious Light).
recognizes himself as consubstantial with the Virgin Mother (the Holy Spirit, or pure Light-energy) and the Ineffable Father (the unknowable Divine Being), and thus the Trinity reveals itself to him as a great Unity, a single indivisible Reality or Truth Body.
Can you simplify and summarize what you’ve just said? Yes. The subject (the son, or soul, or individual consciousness) must consciously become one with the Object (the Holy Spirit, or Light-energy) in order to recognize himself as the Subject (the Son, or Self, or Consciousness) who is always already one with the Object. The ever-united Subject-Object is the Divine Being (the Father), and the en-Light-ened Son knows that “I and the Father are One.”
More light will be shed on the Trinity in our further discussions on Electrical Christianity. But the essential point to remember is this: the Holy Spirit is the “missing link” between the Father and the Son, and only when you “find” this link, through the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist, can the Trinity become a living Reality for you.
CHAPTER THREE Holy Baptism (Spirit-Initiation)
(Baptism by fire and the Spirit’s descent)
What does it feel like when the Spirit initiates you? It varies according to one’s karma. In some cases, the “touch” from above is light; in other cases, it is intense, as the Divine Power seems to crash down on the disciple. Usually, it is felt as a distinct pressure in the head, particularly in the third-eye area. One’s head and/or body may jerk or shake in response to the Spirit’s invasion.
Why is the Spirit sometimes referred to as the Baptist Fire? Our sins are not just “washed away” by the Spirit; they are also “fried” in the Baptist Fire, the flaming heat of the Light-energy from above. God is an all-consuming Fire, and unless you submit to His white-hot Energy, and are transformed into a
living Flame, a single, radiant Intensity, you cannot become spiritually en-Light-ened. Ultimately, the Spirit is experienced as a Bliss-current—but before you can rest in the Ambrosia from above, you must first suffer the heat of the purgatorial Fire.
The force of your Plugged-in Presence must pull down the Highest Power, the Upper Force, and this Force, or Spirit-power, must “violently,” or intensely and energetically, purify your bodymind, transforming you into a fit vehicle for the Divine.
So we need to take the red pill, not the blue. Take the Shakti pill, and wash it down with Holy Water from above. For if you want to ascend above the Matrix, you must first allow the Holy Spirit to crash down through it, so it can liberate you, allowing you, like the phoenix, to rise above the “Network of Madness.”
CHAPTER FOUR Holy Communion (Plugged-in Presence) Communion = Presence + Oneness
(Plugged-in presence vs. mere presence)
First, real spirituality isn’t about the practice of mere presence; it’s about the practice of plugged-in presence. Plugged-in presence means presence + oneness. Presence + oneness = communion, or relationship, or unity consciousness, or conscious at-one-ment. The pop New Age gurus, like Tolle, emphasize mere presence because the idea of connecting to and channeling Divine Power is anathema to their emphasis on personal presence and power.
The only en-Light-ening Power that stems, or emanates, from the Now, timeless Presence, is Spirit-power, the Holy Spirit.
The New Age gurus don’t talk about Spirit’s role in the en-Light-enment process because they lack expertise on the subject and know that by emphasizing simplistic, popular themes such as self-awareness, living in the moment, and saving the planet, they can make a mint.
Radical Obedience: Non-Avoidance of God How does plugged-in presence differ from just presence? If you turn on a lamp that isn’t plugged in, nothing happens. Similarly, your mere awareness, or presence, will lack conscious-relational force if it’s not connected to the Divine Source (or Presence). Plugged-in presence = communion, or conscious relationship. In every moment, you sin by avoiding relationship with the Divine. In other words, the root sin of humans is to “fall” (or retract) from Grace, God’s Holy Spirit, or Blessing Power. You can atone for your sinful activity of retracting from the Divine by assuming, or reassuming, the holistic asana (or holy psycho-physical “posture”) of at-one-ment with the Holy One.
The human ego, from a psycho-spiritual perspective, is simply the moment-to-moment activity of ignoring, or avoiding, at-one-ment with the Spirit. A Christian mystic takes three sacred vows: obedience, chastity, and poverty. Obedience simply means being present to and at-one with the…
standing, that is, “standing” (or being directly present) under the Spirit, and allowing its Power to pour down upon you. The Secret Book of John, the foremost Christian Gnostic text, beautifully summarizes radical obedience (or “under-standing”) thus: “…
Chastity, the second sacred vow, pertains to living, or abiding, in the poured-down Spirit, the unborn, pure, or “virgin,” Light-energy from above. Whenever you allow the Blessed Virgin to grace you with her Benediction, you are a pure, or chaste, soul. But the moment you retract from the Light, you become impure, a “sinner.” Poverty simply means self-emptying, letting go of all clinging and grasping. In the context of being present to the Spirit,…
You practice Holy Communion (or radical obedience) by plugging into the Spirit, and you allow the Spirit to bless you (with its chaste Light) by…
Break on Through (to the Other Side) The idea of obedience to an invisible Being is not my idea of enlightenment. I’m a non-conformist, and I want to be free, not tethered to a Deity. I’ve got bad news for you: There is nothing you can do to free yourself.…
The other 999 out of 1,000 imagine themselves as non-conformists, doing their own thing, but in reality, they are brainwashed conformists, buying into the myth of soul independence. If you want to be a true free soul, then you will turn to the Holy One and allow Him, via his Shakti, to untie your knots of bondage. Then, instead of swimming in the tiny “fishbowl” of your form-grasping mind, playing the same…
the all-pervading, luminous Void-Awareness. You have two choices: You can remain a conformist and grasp after volitional formations, or you can become a…
Consciously “positioning” yourself naturally generates all the conscious force or “voltage” you need to pull down the Spirit. Consciously “positioning” yourself is simply assuming, or attempting to assume, the holistic asana, or whole-bodily “posture,” of relationship. Relationship = presence + oneness. When relationship is direct and unqualified, it generates maximal conscious force. Hence, relationship, which is a synonym for communion, spontaneously morphs into empowered Divine (or Holy) Communion once relationship becomes “Divine”—meaning that the “vine” of your consciousness (the Son) directly interfaces with the “vine” of the Spirit (the Virgin Mother).
His aim is to penetrate through them, so he can “break on through” to the Other Side: the luminous, “dancing” Void. But in reality, there is nothing to cut through. Simply by assuming the “posture of plugged-in presence,” he has already “leapt over” all psychical obstructions to the “Objective Face of Reality.” If he simply maintains his position of direct and immediate presence, the Spirit will eventually show its Face.
In other words, when you are in direct, unobstructed relationship to existence, the whole, then you are ready for your face-to-Face “meeting” with the Holy One.
In reality, if you simply maintain the asana of relationship (or universal communion), you will spontaneously live in the Presence of the Lord and break on through to the Other Side. The Esoteric Meaning of “Waiting” Can you cite a parable from the Bible that supports your vision of real spirituality and real Christianity versus Eckhart Tolle’s? Most of the Bible is exoteric, consisting of Jesus’ teachings for the general public. But there are parables which make it clear that the practice of presence, or “watching,” or “witnessing,” will not save you unless the Spirit graces you.
Through-out the Bible oil continues to be an important symbol of the Holy Spirit. It speaks of the real anointing, the “unction from the Holy One” (1 John 2:20) which in the New Testament is extended to every believer. Second, the bridegroom is not the Now; it’s the Son of Man, and this is clearly stated by Matthew himself. The Son of Man, from an esoteric point of view, is the second Person of the Holy Trinity, the human soul (in the Sacred Heart-center), which, upon uniting with the third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, awakens to its Sonship, its oneness with the Father, who represents the Now, the timeless divine Presence.
In other words, the reason we do not know when the Son of Man is coming is that the human soul cannot morph into the Son of Man until the Holy Spirit enters the sacred Heart-center and anoints it with its “oil.” Third, Tolle equates the wedding feast with enlightenment. There is no wedding feast in this parable; there is only a wedding, and this wedding signifies the union of the virgin (or Holy) Spirit and the Son. The Now cannot be fully realized until the Holy union between the virgin Spirit and the Son (who dwells in the Sacred Heart) is consummated, but it is not possible for us to know when our spiritual “wedding” is scheduled.
Your problem is hardly unique. In fact, it is the same one that every un-en-Light-ened being suffers from, to one degree or another. We are all prodigal sons, wandering souls in self-imposed exile from the Promised Land, the Kingdom of Heaven. The term “soul” is synonymous with “psyche, or “mind,” and until you achieve God-union, your mind, or soul, will not be at rest.
He says to Arjuna, “Set your mind on me and fight.” In other words, as soon as you become aware that your mind has wandered, resolutely reassume, or attempt to reassume, the whole-bodily asana of direct and immediate relationship. Be organismically present to the empty space in front of you, and as soon as you feel yourself retracting from at-one-ment with it, reestablish your connection. When the empty space in front of you begins to “dance,” when it comes alive as a living Presence, then instead of being present to a mere void, you will be present to the shimmering Void, the shining Presence.
So the Holy Spirit is the Elixir that cures the drunken monkey mind? Exactly. “Sober Intoxication” from above naturally supplants drunken, or toxic, mind-forms from below.
(The dialectic of presence and poverty)
CHAPTER FIVE Holy Spirit Reception (Pulled-down Power) Reception = Presence + Poverty When the Spirit “touches” us, what should we do? Just yield to its pressure? You can either passively yield to Spirit’s “Invasion” or actively seek to unite with its Energy. In other words, like a vagina, you can allow yourself to be penetrated by the inpouring Power, or, like a phallus, you can seek to penetrate it. Totally yielding, or emptying yourself, to receive the Spirit is termed poverty in Christian mysticism, and seeking to unite with It is referred to as the practice of (plugged-in) presence.
From a dialectical perspective, presence is the thesis, poverty is the antithesis, and reception of the Spirit is the synthesis. In other words, the pressure of your (plugged-in) presence “awakens” the Spirit, and your self-emptying provides the opening for its descent.
Real spirituality is primarily about the dialectical practices of presence and poverty, because the synthesis of these two is what enables you to receive, or conduct, Spirit-power. The “art” of spiritual practice is the “skillful means” of integrating the practices of presence and poverty to enable you to receive, or conduct, maximal Spirit-power.
Both before and after you experience the descent of Spirit-power, you can, as a spiritual exercise, alternate the practices of presence (or consciousness + oneness) and poverty (or absence). This is tantamount to alternating between increasing voltage (force) and decreasing ohms (resistance) to intensify current flow in an electrical circuit. If you haven’t been baptized by the Spirit, you won’t experience the Spirit-current, but this practice still will stimulate the movement of energy in your body.
Whenever your attempt at letting go (or self-emptying) becomes burdensome, simply revert to the practice of (Plugged-in) Presence.
(Devotion as a complement to gnostic communion)
You’ll be able to remain tacitly present and connected while simultaneously releasing resistance to the inflow of Power from above.
So we can dispense with the electrical spiritual exercise once we are rested in the Divine? The need for spiritual exercise comes to an end when you achieve samadhi, locked-in engrossment in the Divine. Once you are fully absorbed in the Spirit-current, there is no need to practice exclusive presence or poverty, because unimpeded reception represents the synthesis of these two “poles.”
Devotional love, ardent feeling-attachment, can help a disciple connect to, and maintain his connection to, the Divine. When a disciple of the Truth becomes a devotee of the Lord, it becomes easier for him to lock into the Spirit and allow It to en-Light-en him. Devotion facilitates both communion and surrender and, as such, is an ideal complementary practice. Purely gnostic communion can be dry, but devotional communion—communion practiced in conjunction with love and feeling—imbues one’s spiritual life with warmth and vitality. Devotees of the Divine often find that gazing at uplifting religious art (such as statues or pictures of Jesus or Buddha), listening to inspiring spiritual music (such as Pachelbel’s Canon or Paul Horn’s Inside the Taj Mahal), or reading from a holy book (such as the Bible or the Bhagavad Gita) can serve as a devotional catalyst. Feel free to use whatever spiritual “enzymes” open your heart and turn your attention to the Lord.
I have experimented with virtually every form of yogic pranayama, and in my opinion, the most efficacious and natural one is what I call electrical pranayama. Here is the practice: After you assume your whole-bodily asana of relationship, simply be in direct relationship to your breathing cycle. Direct relationship (awareness + oneness) = maximal consciousness-force (pure consciousness plugged directly into life). And because pranayama is simply (and only) conscious breathing, the result of combining maximal conscious force—via relationship—with the breath is the most powerful form of pranayama possible.
When you consciously breathe in, you effectively charge (or infuse) your organism with prana, and when you consciously breathe out, you discharge (or circulate and radiate) prana. Charge and discharge are akin to voltage (force) and amperage (flow) in an electrical circuit; therefore, if (in the context of conscious whole-body relationship) you practice full inbreathing (all the way down to your navel) and full outbreathing (utterly emptying your lungs, and your mind, too), you will maximize the force (+) and flow (-) of prana in your “body electric.” Pranayama, the conscious exercise of charging and circulating subtle life-energy, is a wonderful discipline that should be practiced by all yogis. But, again, pranic energy should not be equated with the Holy Spirit, the divine Spirit-current.
The Spirit, in reality, is neither mother nor lover; it is simply God’s Energy, and we are free to conceive of this Energy in whatever way best serves our spiritual practice. Female and homosexual spiritual practitioners, for instance, are welcome to think of the Energy in male terms.
The fact that the grammatical gender of the word “Spirit” is masculine in Latin (“Spiritus”), feminine in Hebrew (“Ruach HaKodesh”), and neuter in Greek (“Pneuma”) tells us that God’s Energy can be thought of as male, female, or neither.
(Purgatorial fire before the light)
Before a disciple can experience pure spiritual Light, he must first experience spiritual Fire, the purifying “flames” of the inpouring divine Power. When the Divine contacts you, It does so as an impersonal living Force. This Force “wants” to flow through you and en-Light-en you with Its radiant Energy, but what It encounters in, and as, you, is a body of psycho-physical resistance. Before the Light can shine through you, the Fire must first “burn” through your psycho-physical resistance, your karma. This amalgam of resistance(s) that you are includes knots (chakras) in your “inner,” or subtle-body, energy field, as well as deeply buried or strongly suppressed psychic content. The fiery Energy must burn through these resistances before It can express Itself as pure Light; and this process of being organismically exposed to the divine Fire is termed purgatory in Christian mysticism and tapas (heat) in Hindu yoga. In India, a perfectly en-Light-ened master i s said to be “fully cooked.”
The more spiritually evolved the disciple is, the greater is his capacity to channel Grace, the downpoured Spirit. If Grace wasn’t measured out by God, via His universal Law, then yogis would be fried alive in the divine Fire. The path to the Immeasurable must be gradual, so that one’s psycho-physical vehicle can, by degrees, adapt to the Holy Invasion. Although the Shakti can seem overwhelmingly intense and violent at times, God never gives you more than you’re karmically constituted to handle.
It sounds as if “Grace” is not always Graceful. Au contraire: Grace is always graceful. What’s not graceful is your resistance to Its “Work.” If you utterly yield to Its Will, Its Power, then even your “painful” psycho-physical experiences will be recognized as a Gift, or Blessing, from above. You must understand that spiritual salvation is not possible without divinization, the process of whole-bodily en-Light-enment that is performed on you by the Spirit. If you view the fiery action of the Divine in this light, then you will understand that the Benediction is always benign.
In other words, a fully en-Light-ened being, such as Jesus, does receive the Spirit sans measure, but for the rest of us, it is measured out in accordance with our karma and ability to access the Spirit. By practicing Plugged-in Presence, Holy Communion, you maximize your Spirit-conductivity potential.
As the spiritual adept Adi Da (1939-2008) put it, “The dark night of the soul is just Narcissus.” In other words, if you relinquish your egoic point of view and depersonalize your psychic pain, your suffering disappears. Darkness is simply the absence of Light, and Narcissus, a metaphor for the ego, is simply the soul’s activity of avoiding the Light (and its purifying Fire). Therefore, whenever you experience the “dark night of the soul,” recognize it as a reminder to return to the Light and to accept its fiery action as a Blessing.
But I don’t experience the Light or Its purifying Fire. I just experience my suffering. Your suffering is your own psychical activity, which contracts consciousness into successive, limited, and hence “painful,” states (of consciousness). You can blunt your suffering to a degree by living integrally and learning how to think positively, but the fact is, there is no desirable state. Every state or condition, whether “positive” or “negative,” is a contraction, a “knotting” of consciousness. The only radical (or gone-to-the-root) way out of suffering is through Grace, the Light-energy that outshines the mind and renders the self-contraction temporarily (and eventually permanently) defunct. Every other “solution” is remedial. Consequently, the only radical, or non-remedial, thing you can do regarding your suffering is to intensify your efforts to awaken to the Holy Spirit, so you can receive Its Blessing (and Healing) Power.
I feel uncomfortable pressure in my head, particularly in my third-eye area, when I pray or meditate. What do you recommend that I do? The pressure in your head probably signifies that the Spirit is pressing down on you, trying to pass through your ajna (or third-eye) “door.” Try consciously relaxing your head region when you meditate. If the pressure increases when you relax, you’ll know it’s the Spirit opening up, or moving through, the chakras in your head. Pressure or tightness in the head and neck area is common when the Shakti invades a yogi. This pressure can even cause one’s head to jerk and body to shake. These jerking and shaking movements, or kriyas, can continue even after full en-Light-enment.
Light-enment.
Adi Da had a great line regarding the invasive power of the Shakti: “When the Lord makes contact with you, he doesn’t send down a grinning photograph; he takes you by the neck.”
CHAPTER SIX Holy Surrender (Perfect Poverty) Surrender and Communion It seems to me that thinking about spiritual life in terms of an electrical circuit is unnecessarily complicated. As I see it, spiritual life can reduced to a single principle: surrendering, or letting go. You’re right, and wrong. Yes, spiritual life can be reduced to a single principle, but that principle is not surrender, that principle is: consciously abiding in the Spirit—and you can only consciously abide in the Spirit when you integrate the disciplines of Divine Communion and surrender (or letting go).
If you seriously, exclusively practice surrendering, or letting go of your thoughts from moment to moment, you’ll find that it is an arduous task that never ends (even if you’ve been baptized by the Holy Spirit). This is because self-emptying (or spiritual poverty) when practiced outside the context of Divine Communion is not an integral, or holistic, practice.
Divine Communion has primacy over surrender, because without the conscious force engendered by Divine Communion, letting go has little spiritual significance. But once you plug into the Source, then letting go is equal in importance to Divine Communion, because if you don’t let go, the Spirit-current can’t flow. Ohm’s Law provides us with a perfect analogy in this matter. If you plug a switched-on electrical device into a socket (source) and generate voltage (force), the amperage (current energy) of the circuit is directly proportional to the voltage and inversely proportional to the ohms (resistance).
Once you lock in to the Spirit-current and can channel Grace, then Divine Communion and surrender essentially merge into the single, fundamental principle of conscious resting in Light-energy.
It’s hardly unique at all. For example, in Christianity, a monastic takes three sacred vows: obedience, chastity, and poverty. Obedience is a synonym for communion, chastity for living in the Spirit, and poverty for surrender. The obedient disciple atones for his sin (of disobedient separateness) from the Divine by practicing conscious at-one-ment with the virgin Spirit, the clear, or chaste, Light-energy from on high. In order to receive the inflow of Light-energy, he must “impoverish,” or empty, himself. Like the Holy Chalice, he must be an empty cup, ready to be filled with Divine Elixir.
Nothingness, non-existence, is a zero, and as such, it has no ontological status. Its value is purely as a derivative concept to indicate the absence of something. All things can be reduced to energy, but not to nothingness, and the fact that scientists cannot create a vacuum devoid of subatomic particles and energy proves this. Mystics sometimes refer to the Divine as the Vacuum-Plenum, because if an initiate empties his mind, he is flooded with spiritual energy.
Presence is the absolute Context; emptiness is merely the relative lack of content. The more the initiate empties his mind, the more the Divine shines through him, as the dissolved mind-forms transmute into spiritual Energy. In other words, the Divine Being-Consciousness is Energy, not an ineffable Nothingness. The great mystic Meister Eckhart summarizes poverty of the spirit as “wanting nothing, knowing nothing, and having nothing.” In other words, the “Ohms pole” of spiritual practice is about self-emptying on every level of life. But self-emptying is not an end unto itself. It is simply the means to create an open receptacle, a Eucharistic chalice, for the Spirit to pour into and fill.
fundamental practice in Tibetan Dzogchen, and it leads to empowered Holy Communion. The “void” is not void, and once you’ve been baptized by the Holy One, emptiness “dances” as bliss-full Light-energy.
Emptiness serves two functions in spiritual life: as an ideal object of meditation, and as the voiding of one’s mind in order to provide inner “space” for the invasion of the Spirit. In other words, the void is a gateway to the Absolute, not the Absolute itself.
Jesus isn’t the only Avatar to preach poverty in the Spirit as the way to mankind’s earthly salvation. Lao Tzu, the legendary Taoist sage, in the Tao Te Ching, says, “By his non-action the sage governs the world.”
One could argue that Lao Tzu means the unattached sage “governs” the world by not being involved in its machinations, that even though he is in the world, he is not of it; and by virtue of his above-ness, he is the true master, or governor, of worldly reality. Likewise, one could claim that Jesus means almost the same: that the spiritually “impoverished” are really rich in Grace, and thus the inheritors of the only true or permanent wealth available on the planet.
Spiritually speaking, the “strength” brought under control or “horse tamed” by an accomplished yogi, or completely impoverished disciple, is the wild and violent Shakti, the flaming Baptist Fire. Moreover, when the Shakti is tamed, so is the mind; therefore, “meek” disciples are really powerful Spirit-full ones possessing the integral mind-spirit combination to righteously “rule” or “inherit” the Earth.
What you’re saying about the New World Order is very interesting. Can you recommend any material on the subject? Watch Stefan Molyneux’s video The Story of Your Enslavement at Youtube.com; Google and read the essay The Anatomy of the State, by Murray Rothbard; get the books The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve, by G. Edward Griffin, and The True Story of the Bilderberg Group, by Daniel Estulin.
CHAPTER SEVEN The Essence of the Sermon on the Mount The Electrical Basis of Jesus’ Message
(The Sermon on the Mount read electrically)
In Matthew 6:22, Jesus says, “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.” Although this statement is baffling to the esoterically challenged, its meaning is clear to mystics: If one’s eye (awareness) is single (one-pointedly focused on the Divine), then Divine Light-energy (the Holy Spirit) will infill one’s body. In other words, en-Light-enment of the whole body naturally follows Divine (or Holy) Communion. From an electrical perspective, the conscious force that the disciple generates by plugging into the Divine Presence (or “Socket”) is analogous to voltage, and the en-Light-ening Spirit-current that this single-eyed focusing pulls down is akin to amperage.
Once sufficient spiritual voltage has been generated by the disciple’s plugged-in presence, all he has to do is to reduce ohms (resistance) by letting go and opening to the inflowing
Light-energy from on high. Jesus alludes to this effortlessness in Matthew 6:28, when he says, “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: yet they neither toil nor spin.” This “poverty of the spirit,” when practiced in the context of empowered Holy Communion, leads the baptized disciple to eternal rest in God. And Jesus makes this clear in Matthew 5:3, when he says, “Blessed be the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
But once you are established in pure presence, then judgment no longer binds you. Jesus makes this clear in Matthew 7:5: “Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote of thy brother’s eye.”
In other words, it’s okay to dish out shit, if you don’t mind having it thrown back at you. The key point regarding your question about judgment is this: What Jesus or any guru says should be considered in the light of your own experience. Begin to live real spiritual life yourself, and see if judgment obstructs your practice. If it does, strive to relinquish it. If it doesn’t, continue to sagaciously exercise it. Real spiritual life should translate into the awakening of real intelligence, and this intelligence, which stems from your own experience of the Spirit, will tell you what helps and what hinders your discipleship.
The Truth will set you free, not Jesus or Buddha. Jesus and Buddha were avataric masters who realized Truth and originated great teachings (or en-Light-enment maps) for their disciples. But the map is not the “Territory,” so if you find Jesus’ “directions” in some way counter to your own experience, then by all means feel free to follow your own “spiritual compass.” Just be sure that your compass points in the direction of Truth and not in the direction of your subjective whims.
What do you mean by “Truth”? Truth is the recognition of Reality. Genuine spiritual life is simply, and only, a life devoted to Truth, a life devoted to recognizing, and abiding in, the Real—Consciousness-Power (the Father-Holy Spirit). When you perfectly abide in the Father-Holy Spirit, then you spontaneously abide as a Christ (the True Self). Jesus was the man, and the Christ is the Consciousness that he realized.
Build your Spiritual Life on the Rock In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says that those who hear and do his sayings are building their spiritual life on the rock. It sounds like that “rock” is essentially the Eucharist.
In other words, if you turn the other cheek, love your enemies, do charitable deeds in secret, and so forth, your moral purity can serve to intensify your connection to the Divine. But in reality, many saintly people who do Jesus’ sayings do not awaken to the Holy Spirit, while innumerable “sinners” do. For example, in India, “left-handed” tantric practitioners often flout conventional religious morality and intentionally engage in lewd, socially unacceptable behavior in order to awaken or intensify the flow of Shakti, the Spirit-current. Thus, the real rock of spiritual life is simply Spirit Communion itself, exclusive of the normative behavior prescribed by Jesus or anyone else.
CHAPTER EIGHT Prayer and Meditation (Aligning Yourself with the Divine) Light on the Practice of Plugged-in Presence
(Prayer, meditation, and positioning for grace)
Therefore the Model Prayer, in essence, is simply to say: “Thy Will be done,” and then to allow the supernal Light-energy to irradiate your whole bodily-being. Until your prayer bears Fruit (Grace), you must continue to beseech God to bless you. When His Spirit-power descends into and through you, you can relax your efforts and simply channel the Divine Blessing. Real meditation, like true prayer, is all about “positioning” yourself to receive Grace. It is simply the practice of (directly and immediately) aligning your whole person with the Divine, so you can commune with and channel the Higher Power. In a word, it is Relationship—whole-bodily oneness with the Holy One. When, in your practice of real meditation, you become aware that you have retracted from at-one-ment with the Divine (and into mental reverie and/or disturbing emotions), simply reassume, or attempt to reassume, the asana (or psycho-physical “position”) of relationship.
Do you have any specific instructions for establishing this Divine connection? Yes, and they all pertain to consciously “positioning” yourself to receive the Benediction.
When the void begins to “shine,” it is experienced as Divine Presence; and when the Power of the Presence pours down upon you, then “emptiness” has morphed into Spirit, and your “gaze into space” has transmuted into empowered Holy Communion.
Truly speaking, no spiritual practice, in and of itself, is holy or sacred. The only “Thing” holy or sacred is the Holy One Himself (including His Holy Spirit). Therefore, whatever practices bring you into communion with the Holy One are the ones you should employ. The practice of real (or divine) meditation is identical to the practice of real (or divine) Christianity, which is identical to the practice of real (or divine) yoga. Real (or divine) yoga is simply, and only, the practice of uniting one’s individual soul (or consciousness) with universal Spirit (or Light-energy).
inheres in the Absolute, and his Spirit-full Soul is eternally one with the Divine Being (or “Father”). And this immutable “State” (really a non-state) of Divine Union is called Enlightenment (or Self-realization) by Hindu yogis, Nirvana (or Buddhahood) by Buddhists, and Heaven (or Christ-Conscious-ness) by Christian mystics.
Spontaneous (or direct and immediate) presence plus oneness equaled plugged-in presence
(or voltage); openness equated with poverty (or ohms reduction); and ineffability referred to the unspeakable, indefinable nature of all phenomena, including the “dynamic energy” (Rabjam’s term), or power (or amperage), that naturally accompanies awakened awareness or presence. Moreover, in the other Rabjam text I was simultaneously reading, A Treasure Trove of Spiritual Transmission, he described the togal practice of relaxing in the continuum of radiance, which is akin to resting in the Spirit and receiving, or channeling, its Light-energy. Togal is one of the two fundamental meditation practices in Dzogchen; the other is trekcho, the practice of cutting or breaking through one’s resistance to get to the continuum of radiance (the Other Side).
Once you have “self-possessed” yourself (which can be done in a “feeling” flash) and “positioned” yourself (in direct, immediate relationship to the open space in front of you), all you have to “do” is to remain present (and plugged-in), silently ask God to bless you, and wait to receive the Gift from on high. Once the Holy Spirit invades your being, you can either searchlessly behold Its Splendor and Glory, intensely merge with It, or utterly empty yourself, which will serve to magnify the Heavenly Downpour.
However you want. I just periodically, silently say, “Bless me.” God doesn’t need a speech from you; he just needs to know what you want. But if you’re not properly, or “prayerfully,” positioned, you won’t be a fit receptacle for the Benediction. To properly position myself, I periodically enquire in the form: “Avoiding relationship?” This enables me to maintain, and also serves to intensify, my Divine connection. It could be said that the “Bless Me” prayer and the “Relationship” enquiry constitute a yin and a yang, with the prayer serving as a “receptive” portal to the Divine, and the enquiry as a “connective” one.
Anyone who decides to practice repetitive prayer or mantra meditation (japa) should experiment with prayer beads as an adjunct. Prayer beads involve conscious use of the hands, which helps integrate the body into the practice. (If you Google prayer beads, you’ll find a wide variety of beads available.) There are two keys to successful practice of repetitive prayer and japa: one-pointed focus on repetition of the phrase or mantra, and a devotional mindset. If you are a true devotee of the Lord, you’ll find that your love of God will translate into a natural focus on repetition of the sacred phrase or mantra. A final point regarding ceaseless prayer or japa: It’s not really “ceaseless.” In other words, when the practice leads you into the Spirit or just becomes oppressive, that is a signal to surrender, to totally let go and let be. Constant repetitive prayer or japa is an intense spiritual practice, and it is important to periodically relax and let go to in order to release bodily tension and allow the Spirit a chance to move into and through you.
Can we practice both mantra meditation and real (or divine) meditation? Of course you can. Again, I repeat my “mantra”: Whatever awakens you to the Spirit is what you should practice. Repetitive prayer and japa lead to contact with Spirit, and once that contact occurs, you have made the leap from acquired contemplation to infused contemplation and are then able to practice empowered Holy Communion.
Vanishing the Mind I am constantly troubled by disturbing thoughts. What do you recommend to stop them? Holy Communion. Once you awaken to, and receive, the Holy Spirit, you’ll find that its influx of Light-energy will outshine your mind, literally vanishing thoughts. The problem, of course, is that you can’t remain in that state of Grace, and as soon as you lose your Divine connection, you again suffer from disturbing mind-forms, which can seem worse than before because now you are now more sensitive to them. The radical (or gone-to-the-root) spiritual solution is simply to reconnect to the Spirit and allow its Power to “heal” you by irradiating your discordant…
But for a more advanced yogi, there are more direct ways to vanish the mind. He can dispassionately watch it, which tends to dissolve it, because one cannot be both the watcher and the thinker at the same time; he can willfully disidentify from thoughts, rejecting them as they arise; or, if he is a tantric yogi, he can neither accept nor…
The truth is, the only way to be free of the mind for sustained periods of time is to be able to rest in the Grace (or Spirit)-current—and the only way to do that is…
Exactly. The point of real spirituality isn’t to permanently get rid of the mind; it’s to awaken to the Spirit. Temporary emptying of the mind is an essential component of spiritual life, but once you are established in the Spirit, you can rest in the Light-energy continuum, and allow the radiant Downpour to outshine your mind, rendering your discordant thoughts impotent. When you are permanently, effortlessly able to abide in this Grace from on high, then you…
Cutting out or down on stimulating spices, such as garlic, onions, and pepper, will also help quiet both the passions and the mind. Caffeine should also be discontinued or curtailed, since it makes the mind hyper and harder to control. Alcohol should be avoided, because it dulls the mind; and pot is far worse than booze because it fogs the brain for up to a month after it’s smoked. Regarding sex, the less you indulge, the better off spiritually you will be. And masturbation should be discontinued. It might not give you pimples or stunt your growth, as old-time Christian moralists used to claim, but it will drain your subtle life-force and negatively—psychically as well as energetically—impact your spiritual life.
That sounds like quite a commitment. I doubt if I’m ready for it. No “commitment” is necessary. And God isn’t going to punish you if you’re a “bad boy” and, say, get drunk and jerk off. All that will happen is that your spiritual life will temporarily suffer because you won’t have the free attention and subtle life-energy to deeply commune with God. Thus, rather than God punishing you, you will be punishing yourself. Moreover, you don’t have to adopt all the recommended disciplines, and you don’t have to adopt the ones you do all at once. What you may find is that once you get a hit of God Intoxication, you’ll want to do whatever you can to maximize your capacity to connect to the Divine, and if that means a strict lifestyle, so be it. But even if you decide to be an unrepentant hedonist, that is no excuse for not continuing to practice Plugged-in Presence.
In other words, it’s not that you must purify yourself via the salutary disciplines, and then you can
The word contemplate means to receive the Spirit via the bodily temple; therefore, my advice to you is to make your psycho-physical temple a clean and empty “space” that attracts, or draws down, the Deity. After a disciple develops a strong, consistent spiritual practice, he may find that the disciplines hardly matter, that virtually nothing obstructs his communion practice. For example, I chug down a couple of double espressos daily and periodically sample fine scotch, but my practice is unaffected. Real spiritual life isn’t about becoming a dry puritan; it’s only about living in the Spirit. And the extent to which salutary disciplines help you commune with God is the extent to which they need to be practiced.
After a disciple develops a strong, consistent spiritual practice, he may find that the disciplines hardly matter, that virtually nothing obstructs his communion practice. For example, I chug down a couple of double espressos daily and periodically sample fine scotch, but my practice is unaffected. Real spiritual life isn’t about becoming a dry puritan; it’s only about living in the Spirit. And the extent to which salutary disciplines help you commune with God is the extent to which they need to be practiced.
The Homegrown Temple Is it a good idea to create a special, holy meditation space? Or is that just a form of spiritual materialism? Most disciples find that a personal sacred meditation space or room elevates their spiritual practice. Such a “divine milieu” not only serves to quiet the mind and open one to the Holy One, but also can become a veritable hotbed for the Shakti. Mother Shakti, the Blessed Virgin Spirit, is drawn to holy environs, and by “building” your own mini-temple and reverently serving it with worshipful care, prayer, and meditation, you, in effect, create a bodhimandala, an “en-Light-enment circle,” or sanctum, that functions to attract, or pull down, Divine Power. Swami Sivananda, the late, great Indian guru, exhorted his devotees to dedicate a room exclusively to meditation. He insisted that the room should be kept under lock and key, so as to prevent it from being polluted by gross, worldly vibrations. It is up to you if you want to follow the Swami’s advice or just establish a sacred space in the midst of your regular living environment.
That’s spiritual life, a veritable roller coaster. And the ups and downs can occur within a very short time frame. That’s why I recommend several shorter meditation sessions a day rather than, say, two long ones. For instance, if your first meditation session on a particular morning is going poorly, cut it short and try again a little later. Often times, the difference between two separate, consecutive sessions can be like night and day. And those times when you’re Blessed with/by intense, downpouring Shakti, you should extend your sessions.
Do lunar cycles affect meditation? Absolutely. And full moons are a particularly auspicious time for spiritual practice (or sadhana). The Shakti flows freely when the moon is full, so it is a good idea to ratchet up your sadhana on those days. When a full moon occurs, the sun and moon are 180 degrees opposite from each other, which results in maximum cosmic polarization relative to the earth plane, and thus maximum potential spiritual “electricity,” or Shakti, for those who have been baptized.
What can you say about the gunas? The Hindu yoga traditions describe life as the “play of the gunas.” The interplay, or cycling, of the gunas, the three essential “qualities,” or energy modes, of existence—Sattva (balanced and clear), Rajas (active and restless), and Tamas (inert and dull)—results in a constantly changing psycho-physical “environment” for living organisms.
The Self-realized being is above the gunas, the cyclic play of nature and its energies. Although his body is affected by the gunas, his consciousness isn’t, as he is permanently rested in the Absolute, beyond conditional flux. But until one is en-Light-ened, it is a good idea to pay attention to the gunas, and act accordingly.
CHAPTER NINE “See Me, Feel Me, Touch Me, Heal Me”
(Seeing, feeling, and touching the Divine)
But Jesus said that the Way was through Him. When Jesus Christ said, “The Way to the Father is through Me,” he meant that Salvation is only possible through the Christ—the Self (or Buddha)-nature. The Christ (the Son, Soul, or Self) can be realized by any man who renounces his root-ego (his moment-to-moment psychical retraction from the Divine) and allows the Holy Spirit to en-Light-en (or divinize) him. Therefore, the Way (to Heaven, the Divine Domain) is not through Jesus, the mortal man, it is through the Christ, the immortal Soul (or Son), which, upon union with the Holy Spirit, realizes its (or his) oneness with God (the Father).
“Sensing” God What do you mean by “touching, feeling, and seeing God directly”? “Touching God” means to directly contact, or commune with, the Spirit, God’s living Energy. Once you’ve been baptized, initiated by the Holy One, you can, at times, freely plug into the Spirit and feel its presence (as radiant stillness), pressure (as an invasive, expansive force, particularly in the head region), and power (as a polarized “pulling” down the frontal line of the body). When you gaze upon, or consciously behold, God’s radiant Splendor, that is called “seeing the Light.”
the radical nondual mystics, “seeing God” occurs when the pulled-down Power, the descending Spirit-current, reaches the Sacred (or Mystic) Heart-center, just to the right of the center of one’s chest. In that “space,” the Holy Spirit (the “Bride”) unites with the Son (the “Bridegroom”), and the yogi spontaneously realizes that his now free Soul (the yoked Bridegroom, or awakened Christ Consciousness) is forever inseparable from and coincident with the Divine Being. This radical nondual realization is sometimes called “seeing God,” even though there is no Divine “Thing” or Being to be seen. Rather, the illumined yogi simply inheres as the transcendental Seer, or Self, the Christ-Consciousness that is coessential with God, the Divine Being-Consciousness. When the illumined yogi inheres as the Seer, he not only “sees” (or “knows”) himself as coincident with the Divine Being, he also “feels” (or bliss-fully enjoys) himself as That. In Hindu yoga, this spontaneous, nondual (or purely Subjective) enjoyment of one’s Beingness is called the “Feeling of Being.”
the union of immanent Siva (the embodied Soul, or Christ) and transcendent Shakti (the divine Spirit, or Virgin Mother)—he eternally rests in heavenly Beatitude, forever enjoying unalloyed Bliss, the perfect and permanent feeling of nondual Beingness.
Although the soul functions temporally and spatially through the senses, it exists outside of time and space, and as such, was never born, and never dies. The soul (consciousness) is sometimes referred to by mystics as the “sixth sense,” because the five senses are always dependent on it. In reality, it is consciousness, the soul, that sees, hears, smells,…
The un-en-Light-ened person (or soul) experiences one limited (or contracted) feeling (or emotional reaction) after another in response to life, whereas the en-Light-ened being always enjoys the illimitable (or uncontracted) feeling of Being. And in Christian…
In practical terms, how does one get to this blissful feeling of Being? As the great mystic J. Krishnamurti says, “To be [unqualifiedly] related is to be.” Therefore, when you are in unobstructed relationship, or communion, with the Holy Spirit, the Blessing/ Blissing Power from above, then your blessed relationship will naturally morph into the blissful, nondual feeling of Being. But until one’s Heart-knot is cut by Mother Shakti, the Holy Spirit, permanent abidance in Beatitude is not possible. From a technical standpoint, the way to Beatitude is simple: Be directly and immediately whole-bodily present to the empty space in front of you. This direct awareness + oneness relative to the void is called the “gaze into space.” At some point, the emptiness will begin to “dance,” or “move,” as Shakti, and your “gaze into space” will transmute into a “gaze upon the dynamic Splendor.” When that occurs, just maintain your Holy connection and allow the radiant Energy, the Bliss-current, to penetrate you. At some point, the “boundary”…
Bliss-current, to penetrate you. At some point, the “boundary” between your consciousness (or soul) and the Light-energy (or Spirit) will dissolve, and as your dualistic contemplation of Spirit transmutes into nondual beingness, your feeling of blissful…
CHAPTER TEN The Essence of Christian Mysticism A Brief Summary of the Heavenly Way Can you summarize the way of a Christian mystic?
(Stages of the mystical path: purification to union)
Purification, or purgation, is the painful psychophysical cleansing that that the disciple undergoes in the divinization process. The invasion of radiant Light-energy into a sensitive human container is an intense ordeal; hence it is sometimes described as one of “blood, sweat, and tears.” Illumination, the literal en-Light-enment of his whole person, or bodily being, is what the disciple experiences as he becomes progressively able to channel greater “measures” of Grace, the Blessing Power, or Gift, from above. As the illumination stage progresses, the disciple finds himself enjoying more and more experiences of ecstatic communion with the Deity. The term “ecstasy” means to stand outside oneself, and the free-standing devotee of the Divine simply rests in the Bliss-current from on high, the Supernal Influx, and allows God’s eternal-life-giving “Blood” to be poured upon him. When the Holy Blood, the Ambrosial Flow from above, pours into the disciple’s Sacred Heart-center, he experiences Divine Union, as his soul merges with the Grace-full Nectar.
The term “ecstasy” means to stand outside oneself, and the free-standing devotee of the Divine simply rests in the Bliss-current from on high, the Supernal Influx, and allows God’s eternal-life-giving “Blood” to be poured upon him.
Some mystics have recognized additional phases or stages in the divinization process. Although most of these seem superfluous to me, I do agree that identity should be recognized as a fourth stage, spontaneously following union. In reality, identity does not represent a higher stage than union; it is simply the spontaneous realization of one’s identity as the Self (or Christ) that naturally accompanies it. Identity was not included as a fourth stage in Christian mysticism for fear of the Orthodox Church.
Spiritual alchemy inaugurates with the “drinking” of Holy Water from above. As the Hermeticist grows in the Spirit, the “Water” turns into intoxicating “Wine,” and then, finally, Holy Blood, mystical Elixir from on high. Thanks to the luminous Power of the Elixir, the Hermeticist is able to attain gnosis (high and deep spiritual knowledge) and master philosophy (the study of Reality and man’s relation to it). This fusion of mysticism, gnosis, and philosophy equates to finding the fabled philosopher’s stone. The Hermeticist not only employs the Power of the mystical Elixir to attain spiritual knowledge, he also utilizes it to practice sacred magic, the skillful blending of the Divine Will or Energy with his personal will and life-energy. This application of Divine Energy (the Power of the Elixir) toward the transformation and healing of self and others is akin to the practice of Indian tantra yoga. And
When the Christian‘s Sacred Heart-center is “cracked open” by the poured-down Spirit, and the Sanctifying Grace Flow becomes constant, he spontaneously realizes himself as a Christ, and like Jesus, his soul’s Destiny is to dwell forever more in Heaven, the Divine Domain. If your friend is a God-fearing, true-believer type, consider escalating the “Bad News”/”Good News” argument. First, tell him that unless he is truly converted—that is, willing to unconditionally submit, or at least attempt to submit, his whole person to God—then his destiny will be a cursed passage to perdition (Satan’s infernal “outhouse”). If, on the other hand, he confesses his personal deformation and willingly undergoes reformation by literally, not figuratively, conforming himself to God’s Will, the Holy Spirit, then the Kingdom of Heaven (the Lord’s perpetual “Penthouse”) awaits him.
Tell him that real Christianity goes beyond pleasure (mindless physical enjoyment) and joy (uplifting mental association) and is about pure bliss (spontaneous Spirit-full happiness), which stems from a direct connection to
the Holy Spirit, the Blessing/Blissing Power from on high. And when Divine Union, henosis, is attained and bliss is realized as the very nature of one’s own Christ Self, or Beingness, then, spontaneously, it morphs into Beatitude.
Although all the great mystical traditions, directly or indirectly, recommend the same spiritual practice—communion with Ultimate Reality, the Great Mystery—the degree to which each school succeeds in creating a clear and detailed “map” to the true “Holy Land,” the Divine Domain, is debatable among spiritual pundits—and, as you’ll see, I’m not the least bit shy about throwing my two cents in the ring and participating in the brouhaha.
I seldom read a spiritual book more than once, but I’ve read Bernard McGinn’s The Foundations of Mysticism: Origins to the Fifth Century three times, and I plan to read it again.
Because the central spiritual practice of Kashmir Shavism—Divine Communion and conductivity of the Shakti (Spirit)—is virtually identical to the esoteric Eucharist, I believe Christian mystics can glean more insights from this tradition than any other Indian one. My suggestion is to start with The Philosophy of Sadhana, by Deba Brata SenSharma, and if you find Kashmir Shaivism to your liking, then consider the other books in this category on my Spiritual List (in the Appendix).
starting with Be As You Are: The Teachings of Ramana Maharshi, by David Godman. Every spiritual aspirant should also at least familiarize himself with Raja Yoga (in order to understand the basic principles of meditation), and a good introductory book to begin with is How to Know God: The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali, by Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood. If you find Patanjali to your liking, upgrade to Swami Hariharananda Aranya’s The Yoga Philosophy of Patanjali, a superb esoteric exegesis of the Yoga Sutras.
Beyond the esoteric core of the three major spiritual traditions—Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism—the Dharma that stands out is that of Adi Da Samraj (Adi Da, or Da, for short). Da, who founded his own religious organization, Adidam, was a fully en-Light-ened spiritual master and a great writer. His teachings, though somewhat derivative, are incredibly profound, and any spiritual seeker who ignores them does so to his own detriment. I personally have been greatly influenced by Da’s teachings, and my writings clearly bear his “stamp.” Because Da’s teachings are all about Satsang (Divine Communion, or Relationship) and reflect his appreciation of Christian mysticism, they are particularly apropos for disciples of the Eucharist. I suggest starting with Da’s autobiography, The Knee of Listening, moving on to The Hridaya Rosary, and then “graduating” with The Pneumaton.
CHAPTER TWELVE Electrical Flesh, Electrical Bones The Zen of Electrical Spirituality
(Zen’s blind spot and electrical religion)
Neither Rinzai nor Soto accounts for the electrical-like Energy (or Power) of spiritual life. Therefore, the door is wide open for a sharp Zen teacher to integrate the Holy Spirit into Zen. In reality, the Holy Spirit, the Sambhogakaya in Mahayana Buddhism, is already one-third of the Buddhist Trinity—Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, and Nirmanakaya—but Zen, a reductionist, void-worshipping religious tradition, doesn’t bother to acknowledge it. I speak knowledgeably about this, because I studied and practiced Zen for years.
The word religion is derived from the Latin word religare, which means to bind back to the Source. In reality, there is only one true religion or religious practice—Divine Communion. Divine Communion (called Ati Yoga or Dzogchen in Tibetan Buddhism) is simply the yogic practice of yoking one’s soul (or Nirmanakaya) with the Spirit (or Sambhogakaya) in order to realize the timeless, spaceless God (or Dharmakaya).
And if Zen wants to promulgate the highest form of meditation, then it must acknowledge the practice of Electrical Spirituality (or Plugged-in Presence) as the direct, definitive way to the unborn, luminous Now.
What about the practice of koans (intense meditative focus on confounding, paradoxical questions)? Original Zen meditation was all about letting go and detaching. If you read the early Chinese Ch’an Classics, such as The Sutra of Hui Neng and The Zen Teaching of Huang Po, all you encounter are endless directives to empty your mind, to cease grasping hold of concepts. But just surrendering or letting go, as I often point out, is an exclusive, reductive, low-energy practice, lacking the conscious force, or spiritual voltage, that a disciple needs to “break through” to the Other Side.
Plugged-in Presence, Holy Communion, generates maximal conscious force because it is consciousness itself plugged directly into the Source. Consciousness (or presence) + oneness = maximal conscious force. If Zen didn’t devote itself to denigrating man’s conceptual faculty, it would have figured out this en-Light-ening formula a long time ago.
This anti-mind approach precludes Zen practitioners from understanding the trinitarian basis of spirituality and the role of Spirit in the en-Light-enment process. Bodhicitta, which means en-Light-ened Consciousness (or Conscious Light), is an important Mahayana Buddhist term, but Zen aficionados stare blankly at you when you mention Light-energy, or Spirit-force, as half of the Buddhahood project. The Mahayana Buddhist Trinity (Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, Nirmanakaya) mirrors the Christian one (Father, Holy Spirit, Son), but Zennists steadfastly ignore the Sambhogakaya, which would be like Christian mystics dismissing the Holy Spirit.
How about the thirty-two marks of a Buddha? The thirty-two marks pertain to the physical characteristics caused by the Sambhogakaya, the Holy Spirit. The pressure, or force-flow, of the Divine Power literally transfigures the body, leaving common, recognizable effects. It’s as if you start out spiritual life as a block of stone, and God, via his Shakti, “carves” you into a masterpiece with specific, identifiable characteristics.
Flesh represents the Sambhogakayha, the fullness or richness of the drawn-down Supernal Efflux. Bones represent emptiness. When a Zen disciple’s self-emptying pulls down the Sambogakaya, suffusing his “bones” with Light-energy, then the union of Flesh and Bones produces Marrow, the penetrating realization of the Dharmakaya, the integral Truth Body that is God.
It sounds very intense. It is. It’s as if you’re being cooked alive in the purgatorial Fire of God. In the Divine Cauldron, all distinctions melt into a single Intensity, and that Intensity is the very Force of Being. Once you’re sufficiently “cooked,” you “cool down” and rest in “the Bright,” the blissful, radiant Light of Being. There’s no way to bypass the Fire? As Adi Da put it, “The Fire must have its way. There is no Light without Fire…That is the Law.”
Electrical Religion Can you elaborate more on electrical religion and explain the energetic process of en-Light-enment? First, a disclaimer: I have not cut the Sacred (or Mystic) Heart-knot, and thus I am not fully en-Light-ened. Consequently, my explanation will be provisional, not definitive. Nonetheless, I am a very advanced meditator, and I regularly rest in, and as, the Heart (or Christ Self) for protracted periods, and constantly channel intense Shakti, or Spirit Power. Furthermore, I am blessed/cursed with an ultra-sensitive psycho-physical vehicle that deeply feels, and enjoys/suffers, the effects of this electrical-like spiritual, or Kundalini, Energy.
(Kundalini as the circuit of divine energy)
Now for the elaboration. When a yogi’s conscious (plugged-in) presence is sufficiently intense (or unobstructed), the force (or pressure) that it generates awakens Kundalini (the dynamic power of the Divine). The “lower Kundalini” is initially experienced as intense energy rising up from the base of the spine to the crown. Eventually, this uncoiling, upward-rushing energy becomes permanently “polarized” toward the crown, and the periodic experiences of “rising ascent” subside. The yogi then experiences the energy as a constant upward force, as a current flow whose intensity varies according to his state of consciousness (meaning the conscious force, or voltage, he is generating, or the resistance he is releasing by self-emptying). The current’s upward, “outward’ pressure is particularly felt in the neck and the back of the head. It’s as if the energy is seeking to escape from the “cage” of the physical. The ascended spinal Kundalini leads a yogi to intense, absorptive samadhis (states of blissful, locked-in engrossment), but it cannot free him; only the “higher Kundalini” can. The higher Kundalini, the Holy Spirit, is the descending half of the Great Circuit, or Current, of the Divine.
When the Spirit-current reaches the Heart-center, the yogi experiences radiant warmth in the area just to the right of the center of his chest, and for a time, he abides in the blissful feeling of Being, as Shakti and Siva “dance” together in his irradiated Soul.
How does Kundalini relate to Self-Realization? Kundalini is the Self—in its dynamic phase or dimension. When the Kundalini is utterly free (or unconstricted), so is the Self. Ramana Maharshi, the great Hindu sage, said Kundalini is just another name for the Self. Just as the flames of a fire cannot be separated from the fire, the Kundalini action of the Self cannot be separated from the Self, one’s Divine Beingness.
When I view the body from an electrical spiritual perspective, I think of the Heart-center (or Soul-locus) as the source, or “battery,” of a circuit, with the ascending and descending currents passing through, and infinitely beyond, the brain. The brain/mind functions as a “load” (a psycho-physical mechanism of resistance) that obstructs the circuit’s current flow, causing the buildup of tension or pressure in the head and neck that advanced meditators typically experience. In an en-Light-ened being, the brain/mind “load” has been sufficiently altered or reduced,
so as to allow the brain to function like a super light bulb, which emits a nimbus of light, or halo, which “hovers” above the crown.
When you talk about the brain/mind being a “mechanism of resistance,” are you saying that thoughts impede the flow of the current through the brain? That is correct. Thoughts modify and “shrink” consciousness, contracting it into a series of limited and bound states of consciousness. When consciousness (or voltage) is contracted, so is the current (or amperage). But you’re barking up the wrong tree if you try to stop thinking. The point of real spiritual life is to outshine thoughts, not suppress them. The Light irradiates them before they can “shrink” your consciousness.
The Spirit-current, like an electric current, produces a magnetic force field encircling it. In the case of the Spirit-current, the magnetic force field is called Presence or Light. The ancients knew about this Spirit-current and its correlation with the radiant, magnetic force field surrounding it, but because electricity had not yet been discovered, they had no way to explain it from a scientific perspective.