The Outer Space of the Mind: Exploring the Far Reaches of the Interior Universe

Spiritual practice is like a science. You start with a hypothesis: "This is where I think I'm heading." In the same way, if you were going into outer space you would know your mission and would have what you need to survive. Space flights are just another manifestation of our desire to break through previously accepted limitations. We explore outer space to find our place in the universe. But what is the outer space of the mind? To discover this unknown territory, our senses must be trained for greater perception. And only courageous people who passionately want to know will venture into this vastness. For some, the outer space of the mind is too intriguing to ignore. How can the mind extend beyond its present limitations? Through concentration. The concentrated mind can extend much further than the undirected mind. When you try to direct your thoughts and other thoughts intrude, energy is divided: "Here is what I want to think, and here is what actually comes through." If you can stop the influx of "other" thoughts, energy can be directed.

When you chant a mantra, for example, the sounds are vibrations. But unless you maintain your focus, the vibrations will not take you where they could. If your focus is on the physical-trying to make your voice sound just right-thoughts of self-criticism can slip in and steal part of the energy. If having a great voice was all it takes, every opera singer would have attained higher consciousness. So there is something else involved-the right focus and the ability to prevent intruding thoughts from diverting attention away from the goal.

What can be described is only the processthe practices set out by those who have achieved their goal. When you become aware that others have attained extraordinary results, you may be inspired to try the same methods. Can you get the same results? When you want to duplicate an experiment, you need to observe all of the intricate single steps and take them. You can't skip some or change the order to suit yourself. Once you have attained results, you may discover a way to speed up the process. Speeding up is only possible when there is no more resistance. When resistance is dissipated that energy becomes available to you.

What this really means, in terms of spiritual practice, is to persist. Keep a close record and you will see many repeating patterns. In time you will learn to master your states of mind, just as you can wake up from a fearful dream. Each time you move one increment closer until finally you move past your intellect's defences. Then you will become aware that the intellect, although it has quite some power, does not have unlimited power. If it did, it wouldn't need to fight. So the next step is to decide to use the intellect for discrimination. Question the doubt itself: Why am I doubting?

When you go past resistance, doubt, pride and the emotional impact of egocentricity, you may reach a place in your own mind that was up until now a secret. You didn't know it existed. Many things in life exist, but they have yet to be discovered. You have to discover the existence of the "hidden place of the mind." And as you do, you will strip away the mystery and diminish fear and resistance, which eat up energy. You will become much more aware of how you use energy.
Imagine the exhilaration of going into outer space for the first time. Wouldn't you just watch and absorb? You would be overwhelmed and in awe because you had not known exactly what to expect. You had speculated, but you didn't know for sure. You had many assumptions, based on imagination. Now you might find that some of what you imagined or thought possible has proven true, while you have to totally discard other preconceptions.

The journey to the outer space of the mind is actually the very same: you have heard about higher states of consciousness and people who had attained them, so you drew conclusionswrongly or rightlyand created your own hypothesis. Now you find out.

The mind is like space with all the stars and planets: everything exists and is waiting to be discovered, but we can only go so far in our first explorations. Just as the first major voyages in space were to the moon, our first exploration is to the hidden place in our own mind. Just as the moon is able to reflect the light of the sun, we can discover in the mind the place that reflects and absorbs the Light of Divine Wisdom. We cannot take all the Light at once. We must take it in degrees. We may have a great flash, but it is a flash, and does not stay.

The more you overcome the resistance of the intellect, the more often you can travel to the place of Light. As you make repeated visits, you may discover new laws or circumstances that you need to become aware of, like physicists who discover the laws of the physical world or biologists who understand the laws of nature. You may not have given this cosmic law a name or defined it, but it's there. Then you will experience the repercussions of your discovery, which will reshape your entire perspective.

But you can't stop there, just as astronomers can't stop at exploring the moon but want to know about the sun and other stars, and beyond the known stars into previously unseen galaxies.
What are the possibilities within the outer space of the mind? You can always discover more, and a little more, and a little more. But it is like the study of space: you can never discover it all. However, the journey of discovery alone will expand your perspective and change your view of your capabilities.

[Note: Swami Radha (1911-1995) is considered one of this century's foremost women yoginis. She is the author of many books on Yoga and other forms of spiritual practice.]

- Swami Radha

Pure Potentiality

The first spiritual law of success is the Law of Pure Potentiality. This law is based on the fact that we are, in our essential state, pure consciousness. Pure consciousness is pure potentiality; it is the field of all possibilities and infinite creativity. Pure consciousness is our spiritual essence. Being infinite and unbounded is also pure joy. Other attributes of consciousness are pure knowledge, infinite silence, perfect balance, invincibility, simplicity, and bliss. This is our essential nature.

When you really understand your true nature — you will never feel guilty, fearful, or insecure about money, or affluence, or fulfilling your desires...

Our essential nature is one of pure potentiality. When you discover your essential nature and know who you really are, in that knowing itself is the ability to fulfill any dream you have, because you are the eternal possibility, the immeasurable potential of all that was, is, and will be. The Law of Pure Potentiality could also be called the Law of Unity, because underlying the infinite diversity of life is the unity of one all pervasive spirit. There is no separation between you and this field of energy. The field of pure potentiality is your own Self. And the more you experience your true nature, the closer you are to the field of pure potentiality.

Put It In Motion

How can we apply the Law of Pure Potentiality, the field of all possibilities, to our lives? If you want to enjoy the benefits of this field, if you want to make full use of the creativity which is inherent in pure consciousness, then you have to have access to it. One way to access the field is through the daily practice of silence, meditation, and non-judgment. Spending time in nature will also give you access to the qualities inherent in the field: infinite creativity, freedom, and bliss.

Practicing silence means making a commitment to take a certain amount of time to simply Be. Experiencing silence means periodically withdrawing from the activity of speech. It also means periodically withdrawing from such activities as watching television, listening to the radio, or reading a book. If you never give yourself the opportunity to experience silence, this creates turbulence in your internal dialogue.

Set aside a little time every once in a while to experience silence.

Or simply make a commitment to maintain silence for a certain period each day. You could do it for two hours, or if that seems a lot, do it for a one hour period. And every once in a while experience silence for an extended period of time, such as a full day, or two days, or even a whole week.

Practicing silence periodically as it is convenient to you is one way to experience the pure potentiality. Spending time each day in meditation is another. Ideally, you should meditate at least thirty minutes in the morning, and thirty minutes in the evening. Through meditation you will learn to experience the field of pure silence and pure awareness. In that field of pure silence is the field of infinite correlation, the field of infinite organizing power, the ultimate ground of creation where everything is inseparably connected with everything else.

Another way to access the field of pure potentiality is through the practice of non-judgment. Judgment is the constant evaluation of things as right or wrong, good or bad. When you are constantly evaluating, classifying, labeling, analyzing, you create a lot of turbulence in your internal dialogue. This turbulence constricts the flow of energy between you and the field of pure potentiality. You literally squeeze the "gap" between thoughts.

The gap is your connection to the field of pure potentiality. It is that state of pure awareness, that silent space between thoughts, that inner stillness that connects you to true power. And when you squeeze the gap, you squeeze your connection to the field of pure potentiality and infinite creativity.

Putting It All Together

Through silence, meditation, and non-judgment, you will access this first law. Once you start doing that, you can add a fourth component to this practice, and that is regularly spending time in direct communion with nature. Spending time in nature enables you to sense the harmonious interaction of all the elements and forces of life, and gives you a sense of unity with all of life. Whether it be a stream, a forest, a mountain, a lake, or the seashore, that connection with nature's intelligence will also help you access the field of pure potentiality.

You must learn to get in touch with the innermost essence of your being. This true essence is beyond the ego. It is fearless; it is free; it is immune to criticism; it does not fear any challenge. It is beneath no one, superior to no one, and full of magic, mystery, and enchantment.

Access to your true essence will also give you insight into the mirror of relationship, because all relationship is a reflection of your relationship with yourself. For example, if you have guilt, fear, and insecurity over money, or success, or anything else, then these are reflections of guilt, fear, and insecurity as basic aspects of your personality. No amount of money or success will solve these basic problems of existence; only intimacy with the Self will bring about true healing.

When you are grounded in the knowledge of your true Self — when you really understand your true nature — you will never feel guilty, fearful, or insecure about money, or affluence, or fulfilling your desires, because you will realize that the essence of all material wealth is life energy, it is pure potentiality. And pure potentiality is your intrinsic nature.

- Deepak Chopra

From Meditation to Contemplation

In Meditation we discover what the object is as compared with other things, and in relation to them. We go on with this process of reasoning and argument until we can reason and argue no more about the object: then we suppress the process, stopping all comparing and arguing, with the attention fixed actively upon the object, trying to penetrate the indefiniteness which for us appears to surround it. This is contemplation.

The beginner should bear in mind that meditation is a science of a lifetime, so that he should not expect to attain to the stage of pure contemplation in his earlier efforts.
Contemplation may be described also as keeping the consciousness on one thing and drawing it into oneself so that the thinker and it becomes one.

When a well-trained mind can maintain its one-pointedness or concentration for some time, and can then drop the object, maintaining the fixed attention, but without the attention being directed to anything, then the stage of contemplation is reached.
In this state the mental body shows no image; its own materials are held steady and firm, receiving no impressions, perfectly calm, like still water. This state cannot last for more than a very brief period, being like the "critical" state of a chemist, the point between two states of matter.

Expressed in another way, as the mental body is stilled, the consciousness escapes from it and passes into and out of the "laya centre," the neutral points of contact between the mental and the casual body.

This passage is accompanied by a momentary swoon, or loss of consciousness, the inevitable result of the disappearance of objects of consciousness, followed by consciousness in the higher body. The dropping out of objects of consciousness belonging to the lower worlds is thus followed by the appearance of objects of consciousness in the higher world.

Then the ego can shape the mental body according to his own lofty thoughts, and permeate it with his own vibrations. He can mould it after the visions he has obtained of planes even higher than his own, and can thus convey to the lower consciousness ideas to which the mental body would otherwise be unable to respond.

These are the inspirations of genius, that flash down into the mind with dazzling light and illuminate a world. The very man himself who gives them to the world can scarcely tell, in his ordinary mental state, how they have reached him; but he knows that in some strange way
" . . . . the power within me pealing
Lives on my lip and beckons with my hand."
Of this nature also are the ecstasy and visions of Saints, of all creeds and in all ages; in these cases, prolonged and absorbing and absorbing prayer, or contemplation, has produced the necessary brain-condition. The avenues of the senses have become closed by the intensity of the inner concentration, and the same state is reached, spasmodically and involuntarily, which the Raja Yogi seeks deliberately to attain.
The transition from meditation to contemplation has been described as passing from meditation "with seed" to meditation "without seed." Having steadied the mind, it is held poised on the highest point of the reasoning, the last link in the chain of argument, or on the central thought or figure of the whole process; that is meditation with seed.
Then the student should let everything go, but still keeping the mind in the position gained, the highest point reached, vigorous and alert. That is meditation without seed. Remaining poised, waiting in the silence and the void, the man is in the "cloud." Then suddenly, there will be a change, a change unmistakable, stupendous, incredible. This is contemplation, leading to illumination.

Thus, for example, practising contemplation on the ideal man, on a Master, having formed an image of the Master, the student contemplates it with ecstasy, filling himself with its glory and its beauty, and then straining upwards towards Him, he endeavours to raise his consciousness to the ideal, to merge himself in it, to become one with it.

The momentary swoon mentioned above is called in Sanskrit the Dharma-Megha, the cloud of righteousness; Western mystics speak of the it as the "Cloud on the Mount," the "Cloud on the Sanctuary," the "Cloud on the Mercy-Seat." The man feels as though surrounded by a dense mist, conscious that he is not alone, but unable to see. Presently the cloud thins, and then the consciousness of the higher plane dawns. But before it does so it seems to the man that his very life is draining away, that he is hanging in a void of great darkness, unspeakably lonely. But, "Be still, and know that I am God." In that silence and stillness the Voice of the Self shall be heard, the glory of the Self shall be seen. The cloud vanishes and the Self is made manifest.

Before it is possible to pass from meditation to contemplation, wishing and hoping must be entirely given up, at least during the period of practice: in other words, Kama must be perfectly under control. The mind can never be single while wishes occupy it; every wish is a seed from which may spring anger, untruthfulness, impurity, resentment, greed, carelessness, discontent, sloth, ignorance, ect. While one wish or hope remains, these violations of the law are possible. So long as there are wishes, non-satisfactions, they will call one aside; the stream of thought is ever seeking to flow aside into the little gullies and channels left open by unsatisfied desires and indecisive thought. Every unsatisfied desire, every un-thought-out problem, will present a hungry mouth ever calling aside the attention; when the train of though meets a difficulty it will swing aside to attend to these calls. Tracing out in interrupted chains of thought, it will be found that they have their source in unsatisfied desires and unsettled problems.

The process of contemplation commences when the conscious activity begins to run, as it were, at right angles to the usual activity, which endeavours to understand a thing in reference to other things of its own nature and plane; such movement cuts across the planes of its existence and penetrates into its subtler inner nature. When the attention is no longer divided into parts by the activities of comparing, the mind will move as a whole, and will seem quite still, just as a spinning top may appear to stand still when it is in most rapid motion.

In contemplation one no longer thinks about the object; it is better even not to start with any idea of the self and the object as two different things in relation to one another, because to do so will tend to colour the idea with feeling. The endeavour should be made to reach such a point of self-detachment that the contemplation can start from inside the object itself, the mental enthusiasm and energy being at the same time kept up all along the line of thought. The consciousness is to be held, poised like a bird on the wing, looking forward and never thinking of turning back.

In contemplation the thought is carried inwards until it can go no further; it is held in that position without going back or turning aside, knowing that there is something there, although it is unable to grasp clearly what it is. In this contemplation there is, of course, nothing in the nature of sleep or mental inactivity, but an intense search, a prolonged effort to see in the indefiniteness something definite, without descending to the ordinary lower regions of conscious activity in which the vision is normally clear and precise.
A devotee would practise contemplation in a similar manner, but in his case the activity would be mainly feeling rather than thought.

In contemplation on his own inner nature, the student repudiates his identity with the outer bodies and with the mind. In this process he is not divesting himself of attributes, but of limitations. The mind is swifter and freer than the body, and beyond the mind is the spirit, which is freer and swifter still. Love is more possible is the quietude of the heart than in any outer expression, but in the spirit beyond the mind it is divinely certain. Reason and judgment ever correct the halting evidence of the senses; the vision of the spirit discerns the truth without organs and without mind.

The key to success at every step of these practises may be stated thus: obstruct the lower activities, while maintaining the full flow of conscious energy. First, the lower mind must be, made vigorous and alert; then its activity must be obstructed while the impetus gained is used to exercise and develop the higher faculties within.

As the ancient science of Yoga teaches, when the processes of the thinking mind are repressed by the active will, the man finds himself in a new state of consciousness which transcends and selects among desires, and just as desires prompt to particular actions and efforts. Such a superior state of consciousness cannot be described in terms of the lower mind, but its attainment means that the man is conscious that he is something above mind and though even though mental activity may be going on, just as all cultured people recognise that they are not the physical body, even while that body may be acting.

There is thus another state of existence, or rather another living conception of life, beyond the mind with its laboured processes of discernment, of comparisons and casual relations between things. That higher state is to be realised only when the activities of consciousness are carried, in all their earthly fervour and vigour, beyond the groping cave-life in which they normally dwell. The higher consciousness will come to all men sooner or later; and when it comes all life will suddenly appear changed.

As the student by his meditation grows richer in spiritual experience, he will thus find New phases of consciousness gradually opening up within him. Fixed in aspiration upon his ideal, he will presently aware of the influence of that ideal raying down upon him, and as he makes a desperate effort to reach the object of his devotion, for a brief moment the flood-gates of heaven itself will be opened and he will find himself made one with his ideal and suffused with the glory of its realisation. Having transcended and more formal figures of the mind, an intense effort is made to reach upwards. Then will came the attainment of that state of ecstasy of spirit, when the limits of the personality have fallen away and all shadow of separateness has vanished in the perfect union of object and the seeker.

As is said in The Voice of the Silence:" Thou canst not travel the Path before thou hast become that Path itself . . . . Behold ! thou has become the light, thou hast become the sound, thou art thy Master and thy God. Thou art thyself the object of thy search: the voice unbroken, that resounds throughout eternities, exempt from change, from sin exempt, the seven sounds I one."

- E. Powell