“ Life is a process of learning, every moment of unfolding is a learning. Life is ever on the move, never stagnating. It is like a meditation, a meditation in being.” said the Yogi.
The snake had known what it was to be in meditation. But he wondered why the Yogi talked of ‘meditation in being’.
“This is an echo process you know” , said the Yogi. “Being in meditation, being in meditation, and then meditation in being”. “Tell me” , said the Yogi, “what do you know of being in meditation, and I shall tell you of meditation in being”."Since I had no formal teaching in meditation. I made my own improvisations, said the snake, I took a blanket, folded it for a seat, closed my eyes and meditated upon what there was when there was nothing".
"Good" , said the yogi, "This is a direct way of looking for the source, the beginning. What did you realise?"
"The curious mind, which has, so far identified itself with its conditioning, thoughts, and own conceptions, yearns to transcend itself, to know the truth about the truth, to reach the unreachable. Meditation, is a step to introduce this mind to the truth.During meditation, the meditator strives for maximum awareness." said the snake.
" Yes, and this striving is paradoxical too, it comes only after complete relaxation and ‘at easeness’. One should not be, therefore, rigid or conditioned even about approaches to meditation. Continue", said the Yogi.
" In due course, it perceives many new sensory lights, sounds and smells, which of it, did not exist earlier. These serve as indicators of progress. The mind now knows that there is nothing known as soundless. That in fact, the absence of noise which we call silence, alone leads to anahata, the eternal reasonance, vibrating the universal hum. Similarly, that, which we have known as darkness, is actually permeated by lights.Then, the meditator becomes conscious of an energy formation that rises slowly, up the spine. This is a higher awareness and the arrangement is being made for the mind to meet the self, through (within) the meditator. The steadily rising energy reaches the brain and explodes into permeation. This one moment of culmination is spontaneous and the mind meets with, knows, and fuses into the self, all at once. This is the highest awareness. There is nothing more to be seen, heard or smelled; only a knowingness.This knowingness is known by itself. The mind that has been so stilled by the meditator into perfect awareness, knows that it has transcended itself, that it stands in the truth. That, it is experiencing eternity, void, nothingness, everythingness, all at once. There is the experience of the great ‘I am’ness and all previous conceptions of duality between the meditator and the self stand erased. You are at once the knower and the known, the experiencer and the experienced." said the snake.
"Do not forget the vital links", said the yogi," You are not only the experiencer and the experienced you are the experience. You are the knowing."
"The concept of time too, stands radically altered, because you know you have taken a cosmic journey in a split second; indeed, you have experienced time immemorial in a fraction of the present. Later, when the mind returns to the level of intellect, and then reflects upon the experience, it may be called ‘near death’ since there was no body or mind consciousness at the time; and you are trying to understand it through memory. You are filled with the wonderment again, who was it that experienced all that?" Exclaimed the snake.
"Only pure consciousness reflecting upon pure consciousness", said the Yogi. A declaration of the primordial state of being. So did you realise what there was, when there was nothing?Pure consciousness, pure energy, pure transcendence; no matter, no manifestation, nothing of dynamics, only lots of potential energy. Nothing gross, only a subtle state. Like a seed not sprouted, an egg not hatched, a baby not born to the outer world; Prakasa!"
~ From the book The Yogi and the snake ( conversations with God Shiva)
