(Lovebliss requires both Shakti and Self-realization)
The main problem with the first edition of Lovebliss was that simple, or basic, Self-realization (without Shakti) is void and without bliss. It is simply nothing. If you have an awakened kundalinī and habitually merge with bliss in meditation, then Self-realization will be lovebliss, as it was for me.
The center of the eye turned out to be a blue pearl. Finally, I entered the blue pearl and found myself in an infinite cyan-blue space that was Pure Being, consciousness and pure bliss at the same time. I knew I could stop there, but the longing for God exploded in me and filled everything, Then, out of the blue (literally), a Blue Being emerged. I knew this was God appearing to me, so I surrendered to Him and we merged, then I lost consciousness.
When I opened my eyes, I was in love with God in everything. I saw God in everything.
(The dark night before God appears)
“you don’t get rid of it by killing yourself”. It was true, my depression of having lost God, and of being totally different from everybody else, had driven me to a point of wanting to commit suicide. Not that I would ever have done it, but still, the desire to die was strong in me.
I immediately entered nirvikalpa samādhi and lost consciousness. I do not know how long I sat there, but when I opened my eyes, the table was made by someone else. Also, my small self had vanished; I was completely nothing, yet full of extreme bliss and love for my guru. So I staggered to his room with my eyes full of tears.
Then he asked me what my name was. I tell you, I could not say. I tried my best, but no name popped up and the truth is, I found the question supremely ridiculous, since I was Pure Being, and not some personality. I told him I could not remember.
I sat there overwhelmed with my memories, but clearly remembered having been the pupil of a great master in a former life. One that I had tragically left in scorn. Maybe I will reveal the names some day, but not now.
My identification mechanism had broken down and it has never returned. I had become Self-realized, but did not consciously acknowledge it!
Sometimes those who sat in meditation next to me would suddenly burst into tears or into fits of laughter. I have taught a considerable number of people to enter samādhi and experience the bliss of the Self.
I got frustrated that my meditation was going nowhere, even though I was experiencing tremendous bliss. I initiated people with my Shakti. All of that worked very well. One, whom I initiated, even fainted during the initiation and was gone for half an hour.
(Six months of rigorous practice to unite Shakti and Shiva)
I wanted to merge Shakti and Shiva and Jan into bliss. So I set a rigorous program for myself. I meditated on kundalinī for six hours in a single sitting, from nine in the morning until three in the afternoon, and I did so every day for five months not missing a single day.
It was extremely physical – and and like having sex with God! Such ecstasy! I managed to pull it partly into the brain, enough to establish a connection. Then the snake dissolved into blazing white light and merged back into Shiva, into Pure Being in the brain. Words utterly fail so I will refrain from further descriptions of the extreme Lovebliss.
After this, I soon began to get all of kundalinī into my brain when I meditated. Getting it past the joint between the spine and the scull was very hard work, but at times I managed to do so. I kept on meditating regularly and noticed the Lovebliss would fill me more and more frequently outside of meditation. In fact, I would often go into blissful samādhi while watching TV or after drinking a few glasses of wine. I would then just sit in bliss for an hour or more doing nothing.
During the ceremony, my crown chakra opened and a million cells exploded inside my brain. Then the larger part of kundalinī was stuck in my brain and when I opened my eyes, I saw the Self in everything.
Today, I am still in Lovebliss. It goes up and down, but never leaves completely. Where should it go? I am sometimes asked if I lose the Self-realization, but again I reply: “Where should it go”? Also I reply: “There is no one left to get out of it.”
(Lovebliss as a permanent living state)
Point of Departure: Identities and The Self People assume identities. However, the less you identify with an identity, the happier and the freer you will be. An identity is a complex of viewpoints and abilities, behind which lies an intention or a set of values.
It is preferable to be able to shift identities with the same ease one changes one’s clothes, and it is far more preferable to be able to function from Pure Being without any identifications at all. You may have a “meditator identity” or a “yogi identity” that you assume when sitting for meditation. If that is the case, it will take some luck to reach Pure Being. All identifications must go. You may begin meditation while stuck in an identity, and use the meditation to shift to another identity.
identities as long as there is little or no identification with them, and you can freely shift between them. The Self has no identity, it is Pure Being. “No identity” is to be understood in its most radical sense. It means that Self-realization is not a matter of personal growth at all. Only identities can grow and change.
(Self-realization as liberation, not transformation)
Self-realization is letting go, not building up. It is liberation, not transformation. Self-realization is not changing. It is the freedom from that which changes.
It may therefore be more appropriate to illustrate Shiva-Shakti as an infinitely small dot (Bindu) out of which everything else arises.
Shakti is not passive. It is active and it creates and upholds everything, such as your thoughts, and your ego. Your urge to transcend limited existence
reach the Self is also of Shakti and is an expression of Shakti.
Here you think you are your personality; hence it is shown as a black blob with the word “ME” in it. The inner world is largely unconscious and there is certainly no sense of The Self. The only self this person knows is that which is associated with the “me”.
The first spiritual goal one gets sight of is the idea of living in the present moment, the “now”. The first goal can also be that one gets a sense of a state where one simply “is” and this is usually known as “I AM”-consciousness. One is still unconscious of the Self, though. It is likely that the “I AM” is mistakenly taken to be the Self, but it is not. “I AM”-consciousness and “Now”-consciousness are the same.
This “I AM-ness” can be the pure and true “I AM” of the primal I-ness, or it can be any sense of being at the limit of one’s transcendental realization.
Self-realization Here, one’s sense of self has been extracted from the “I AM-ness” and has merged with the Self. When this happens, the sense of “ME” vanishes.
One is Pure Being. The residual personality is not seen as the Self, but as an illusion, a game. Here one has realized the Shiva aspect of the Absolute. Some call this state “Cosmic Consciousness”.
The bliss of bliss-consciousness can aptly be called “Lovebliss”. Lovebliss is your true nature. If you don’t feel it and live it fully, you are either identified with the small self or you have reached the “nothingness-being” kind of Self-realization.
It throbs, or vibrates. This throb is also known as Spanda or the interaction of Shiva and Shakti. But understand that the throb is no different from the nothingness-being. The Self simply is Lovebliss and it is Pure Being at the same time.
(Lovebliss is not a state — it is Pure Being itself)
Not a state of consciousness, but Pure Being Lovebliss is not a state of consciousness or an experience, although it will seem so in the beginning when you only receive it in glimpses. In the beginning, because you think of it as a state of consciousness or an inflow, you will think in terms of change. “How to change your consciousness from one state to the state of Lovebliss.” But the truth is, Lovebliss is not a state. It is the nature of Pure Being, the Self. No matter how much you change consciousness, you will not get it that way. You have to transcend all states of consciousness entirely.
Finally it is Pure Being and Shakti all in one. It is a fierce force (Shakti), yet incredibly gentle. It is unmanifest, yet love, bliss and consciousness.
You will stop thinking and every act will be a spontaneous expression of Lovebliss. Even the body becomes Lovebliss. You will realize nothingness-being is not nothingness, but is Lovebliss. Moreover, in that nothingness there is no ecstasy, only complete stillness, which is Lovebliss.
is Lovebliss, and then merge with Her. She is one with Pure Being and is the Self.
“Basic Self-realization” is characterized by a peculiarly full emptiness where there are no identifications at all, nor any qualities at all. No bliss, no Shakti, just pure, empty being.
Plain Self-realization is the death of the small self. The small self is produced by identification with something that is not the Self. In basic Self-realization the personality does not vanish, it’s just not you anymore. Some say the ego has to go away. That is a matter of definition. If you maintain that the ego is the personality with which you function in the world, then the ego will remain. If you maintain that the ego is the sense of I (I-ness), then yes, ego will vanish.
J: Many meditators don’t understand bliss. They think Pure Being is a still nothingness, but in truth it is vibrant with bliss and love. It is not love of objects or things as in the old days, but it is a state and it is inseparable from Pure Being.
Question: What is the jīva? Jan: Jīva is really the same as I AM, including the structures built upon it. It is the basic I-ness, including all the garbage that builds upon it that you normally identify with.
Jīva is the basic I-ness,while ego is a western concept describing the superstructure built upon this I-ness. Yet, in the Eastern perspective, you cannot separate I-ness and ego; both are jīva.
(Enlightenment as implosion, not ascension)
J: People have these silly ideas of spirituality, thinking that it is a matter of ascension in one form or another. If anything, you “implode”. Ascension means that you go from one level to another (higher), but in enlightenment you don’t go from one place or state to another. Identification implodes into your own Self, and that’s all. So what implodes? The jīva? No, not right away. What implodes is I AM. In inferior realization jīva temporarily implodes into I AM, but in real Self-realization I AM imploded into the Absolute, the Self. When I AM implodes into the Self, the jīva becomes totally empty; a shell. It is still there, but it is empty.