An Experience in Cosmic Consciousness

AN EXPERIENCE IN COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS Hansa Yogananda. Chapter 14. An Experience in Cosmic Consciousness. I am here, Guruji. My shamefacedness spoke more eloquently for me. Let us go to the kitchen and find something to eat. Sri Yukteswar's manner was as natural as if hours and not days had separated us master i would not use you for my own ends i am having a concrete example in your angelic self in the world without warning. But you show not the slightest vexation, though you must have been put to great inconvenience by the many unfinished tasks I left behind." We looked into each other's eyes, where tears were shining.

A blissful wave engulfed me. I was conscious that the Lord, in the form form of my guru was expanding the small ardours of my heart into the incompressible reaches of cosmic love a few mornings later i made my way to master's empty sitting-room planned to meditate, but my laudable purpose was unshared by disobedient thoughts. They scattered like birds before the hunter. Mukunda, Sri Yukteswar's voice sounded from a distant inner balcony. I felt as rebellious as my thoughts. Master always urges me to meditate, I muttered to myself.

He should not disturb me when he knows why I came into his room. He summoned me again. I remained obstinately silent. The third time his tone held rebuke. Sir, I am meditating, i shouted protestingly i know you are meditating my guru called out with your mind disturbed like leaves in a storm come here to me to his side. Poor boy, the mountains couldn't give you what you wanted. Master spoke caressively, comfortingly. His calm gaze was unfathomable. Your heart's desire shall be fulfilled. Sri Yukteswar seldom indulged in riddles.

I was bewildered. He struck gently on my chest above the heart. My body became immovably rooted. Breath was drawn out of my lungs as if by some huge magnet. Soul and mind instantly lost their physical bondage and streamed out like a fluid piercing light from my every pore the flesh was as though dead yet in my intense awareness i knew that never before had i been fully alive my sense of identity was no longer narrowly confined to a body but embraced these circumambient atoms people on distant streets seemed to be moving gently over my own remote periphery a dim transparency of the soil, I discerned the inward flow of their sap.

The whole vicinity lay bare before me. My ordinary frontal vision was now changed to a vast spherical sight, simultaneously all perceptive. Through the back of my head i saw men strolling far down righart road and noticed also a white cow who was leisurely approaching when she reached the space in front of the open ashram gate i observed her with my two physical eyes as she passed by behind the brick wall, I saw her clearly still. All objects within my panoramic gaze trembled and vibrated like quick-motion pictures.

My body, masters, the pillared courtyard, the furniture and floor, the trees and sunshine occasionally became violently agitated until all melted into a luminescent sea, even as sugar crystals thrown into a glass of water dissolve after being shaken. The unifying light alternated with materializations of form, the metamorphoses revealing the law of cause and effect in creation. An oceanic joy broke upon calm, endless shores of my soul. The Spirit of God, I realized, is exhaustless bliss. His body is countless tissues of light a swelling glory within me began to envelop towns continents the earthitude of my being the sharply etched global outlines faded somewhat at the farthest edges there i could see a mellow radiance ever undiminished it was indescribably subtle the planetary pictures were formed of a grosser light the divine dispersion of rays poured from an eternal source blazing into galaxies transfigured with ineffable auras Again I saw the creative beams condense into constellations, then resolve into sheets of transparent flame.

By rhythmic reversion, sextillion worlds passed into diaphanous luster, fire became firmament i cognized the centre of the empyrean as a point of intuitive perception in my fluidity the creative voice of god i heard resounding as om the vibration of the cosmic motor lungs. With a disappointment almost unbearable, I realized that my infinite immensity was lost. Once more I was limited to the humiliating cage of a body, not easily accommodative to the spirit. Like a prodigal child, I had run away from my macrocosmic home and imprisoned myself in a narrow microcosm.

My guru was standing motionless before me. I started to drop at his holy feet in gratitude for the experience in cosmic consciousness which I had long passionately sought. He held me upright and spoke calmly unpretentiously you must not get over-drunk with ecstasy much work yet remains for you in the world come let us sweep the balcony floor then we shall walk by the Ganges. I fetched a broom. Master, I knew, was teaching me the secret of balanced living. The soul must stretch over the cosmogonic abysses, while the body performs its daily duties.

When we set out later for a stroll, I was still entranced in unspeakable rapture. I saw our bodies as two astral pictures, moving over a road by the river whose essence was sheer light. It is the Spirit of God that actively sustains every form and force in the universe yet he is transcendental and aloof in the flesh know a similar twofold existence. Conscientiously engaging in earthly work, they yet remain immersed in an inward beatitude. The Lord has created all men from the limitless joy of his being though they are painfully cramped by the body god nevertheless expects that souls made in his image shall ultimately rise above all sense identifications and reunite with him The cosmic vision left many permanent lessons.

By daily stilling my thoughts, I could win release from the delusive conviction that my body was a mass of flesh and bones traversing the hard soil of matter. and the restless mind i saw were like storms which lashed the ocean of light into waves of material forms earth sky human beings animals birds trees except by calming those storms. As often as I silence the two natural tumults, I beheld the multitudinous waves of creation melt into one lucent sea, even as the waves of the ocean, their tempests subsiding, serenely dissolve into unity.

A master bestows the divine experience of cosmic consciousness when his disciple, by meditation, has strengthened his mind to a degree where the vast vistas would not overwhelm him. The experience can never be given through one's mere intellectual willingness or open-mindedness. Only adequate enlargement by yoga practice and devotional bhakti can prepare the mind to absorb the liberating shock of omnipresence. It comes with a natural inevitability to the sincere devotee. His intense craving begins to pull at God with an irresistible force. The Lord, as the cosmic vision, is drawn by the seeker's magnetic ardour into his range of consciousness i wrote in my later years the following poem samadhi endeavouring to convey the glory of its cosmic state lifted every vapor of sorrow sailed away all dawns of fleeting joy gone the dim sensory mirage love hate health disease life death perished these false shadows on the screen of duality waves of laughter sillas of sarcasm melancholic whirlpools melting in the vast sea of bliss the storm of mire stilled Forgotten dream subconsciously lurks Ready to invade my newly wakened memory divine I live without a cosmic shadow But it is not bereft of me As the sea exists without the waves But they breathe not without the waves, but they breathe not without the sea.

Dreams, wakings, states of deep Turia sleep, present, past, future, no more for me. But ever-present, all-flowing, I, I everywhere, planets, stars, stardust earth, volcanic bursts of doomsday cataclysms, creation's molding furnace, glaciers of silent x-rays, burning electron floods, thoughts of all men past present to come every blade of grass myself mankind each particle of universal dust anger greed good bad salvation lust I swallowed transmuted all into a vast ocean of blood of my own being smouldering joy oft puffed by meditation consumed by tears my frame my all thou art i i am thou knowing knower known as one peace enjoyable beyond imagination of expectancy samadhi bliss not an unconscious state or mental chloroform without willful return samadhi but extends my conscious realm beyond limits of the mortal frame to farthest boundary of eternity where i the cosmic sea watch the little ego floating in me sight all space floats like an iceberg in my mental sea colossal container i of all things made by deeper longer thirsty guru given meditation Samadhi.

Mobile murmurs of atoms are heard, the dark earth, mountains, veils, low, molten liquid. Flowing seas changed into vapors of nebulae. Aum blows upon vapors, opening wondrously their veils, Oceans stand revealed, shining electrons, Till at last sound of the cosmic drum Vanished the grosser lights into eternal rays Of all-pervading bliss. From joy I came, for joy I live, In sacred joy i melt ocean of mind i drink all creation's waves four veils of solid liquid vapor light in everything enters the great myself gone forever fitful flickering shadows of mortal memory spotless is my mental sky below ahead and high above one united ray, a tiny bubble of laughter, I, and become the sea of mirth itself.

Sri Yukteswar taught me how to summon the blessed experience at will, and also how to transmit it to others if their intuitive channels were developed. For months I entered the ecstatic union, comprehending why the Upanishads say God is Rasha, the most relishable. One day, however, I took a problem to master. I want to know, sir, when shall I find God? You have found him. Oh, no, sir, I don't think so. My guru was smiling. I am sure you aren't expecting a venerable personage adorning a throne in some antiseptic corner of the cosmos.

I see, however, that you are imagining that the possession of miraculous powers is knowledge of god one might have the whole universe and find the lord elusive still spiritual advancement is not measured by one's outward powers but only by the depth of his bliss in meditation. Ever new joy is God. He is inexhaustible. As you continue your meditations during the years, he will beguile you with an infinite ingenuity. Devotees like yourself who have found the way to God never dream of exchanging him for any other happiness.

He is seductive beyond thought of competition. How quickly we weary of earthly pleasures! Desire for material things is endless. Man is never satisfied completely, and pursues one goal after another the something else he seeks is the Lord who alone can grant lasting joy outward longings drive us from the Eden within they offer false pleasures which only impersonate soul happiness. The lost paradise is quickly regained through divine meditation. As God is unanticipatory ever newness, we never tire of him. Can we be surfeited with bliss, delightfully varied throughout eternity? understand now sir why saints call the lord unfathomable even everlasting life could not suffice to appraise him After the mind has been cleared by Kriya Yoga of sensory obstacles, meditation furnishes a two-fold proof of God.

Ever-new joy is evidence of His existence, convincing to our very atoms. Also, in meditation, one finds His instant guidance, His adequate response to every difficulty. I see, Guruji, you have solved my problem. I smiled gratefully. I do realize now that I have found God, for whenever the joy of meditation has returned subconsciously during my active hours, I have been subtly directed to adopt the right course in everything, even details. Human life is beset with sorrow until we know how to tune in with the divine will, whose right course is often baffling to the egoistic intelligence.

God bears the burden of the cosmos. He alone can give unerring counsel.