Conversation between a spiritual father and son

Guruji: My dear friends,
I wish to write a few lines as a conversation between a spiritual father F and son S.

S: What is my relationship to you?

F: None, really. You are given by Siva and Shakti to me. Mom and I happen to be your trustees.

S: What is your role then?

F: Same as that of a trustee. To help you mature from beast to human to divine being.

S: What is the purpose?

F: As far as I know, it is just a game. We are playing roles in a drama.

S: If I decide to be a bad guy?

F: That is your choice. Who am I to say no?

S: You won't correct me?

F: No.

S: Why not?

F: I choose to support your decision.

If you choose to play the role of a bad guy, I will support you to be a very good at that.

S: What is your message to me?

F: Do as you like. Find out who you are.

S: Wont you help me find out?

F: Of course I will. Here is a hint. You are much bigger than who you think you are.

You are the creator of the universe.

S: How can that be? The world is very big, ten to the power of 48 times my size.

F: It is.

 [Original full-scale image - link ]

S: How can the small create the big?

F: Small and big are illusions.

S: How so?

F: Let me ask you a question, for a change. Where was this world before you were born?

S: I dont know.

F: Where will it be after you die?

S: ditto.

F: Ok. Could it be that the world you see exists only in your mind?

S: Possible.

F: Then you are its creator because it exists only in your mind?

S: Possible. But...

F: But what?

S: I am so small, the world is so big...

F: Now, now. Haven't we agreed that small and big are illusions?

S: May be, but they are are real to me.

F: Why?

S: If I am the creator, the world should obey me. But it does not. I feel powerless to control it.

F: Mom and I created you. Do you listen to us and obey?

S: Why should I obey you?

F: Then why should the world you created obey you?

S: But I have a separate life of my own.

F: Exactly. The world you created does not obey you, because it has a life of its own.

S: You are tricking me with words.

F: Yes I am.

S: Give me an experience of being the whole world.

F: I cant give you that experience, but I can tell you how to get one.

S: Fair enough.

F: This is going to be a little long. You have patience to listen now?

S: Willing.

F: You are familiar with three states of you being: awake, dreaming and sleep. When awake, you can know and act. Time is flowing continuously. When dreaming, you know but cant act. Time is going in jumps. When asleep, you cant know, cant act. Time also sleeps. Time is like space. Life is its property, like energy-matter. Time arranges things. Things without life moves things to disorder, bad acts. Things with life move towards order, good acts. Time moves forward, towards more disorder. Life makes time move backward, to more order. Are you with me still?

S: Sure.

F: Good. Time is father, Life is mother.

Time is Siva, Life is Power, Shakti. OK?

S: May be. (Starts yawning).

F: Understand Shakti to go to the source, the state of perfect order when there is only one thing;
you may call it Shivashakti. What is in a name? You could call it Siva, you could call it Shakti;
both are same.

S: What does all this have to do with my experiencing my bigger self?

F: I am coming to that. I told you about awake, dreaming and sleeping right?

S: Yes, may be.

F: But I did not tell you about waking dream, and waking sleep did I?

S: No.

F: Waking dream is when you are manifesting an imaginary world. Because you are awake, you
have control over your dream, you can redirect it the way you want. Lucid dreaming manifests.
Waking sleep has two parts.
1.Thinking in words (memory or mind) is absent, feeling body movements is present. This is
called yoga.
2. The other part is when both words and feelings are absent, but consciousness alone is. This
is the pure witness state. This is called Samadhi.

S: Can you please summarise all this?

F: Sure. The way to Samadhi consists of three steps.
1. Yoga Nidra (conscious dream, astral interactions)
2. Nata Nidra ( conscious feeling, dyamic meditation of Nataraja)
3. Samadhi (pure consciousness when no object is visible, antarmukha witness)

S: Good. But why is the pure consciousness state important?

F: Because you are the witness of your self. Ask the question: who is your witness? The answer is, the world. So, when you are the world, you are identifying with the world.

S: I am the creator state?

F: Yes. Then it is true to say that. Then the world obeys you, because you are everywhere, at all times, and in all energies ( including matter). Because you exist at all times, you become deathless.

S: So, when the world does not obey me, I am saying that I am different from the world, separated from it, and the world obeys me, agreeing with me that it is separate. What does all this have to do with Sri Chakra?

F: I have been talking about the first three enclosures, the square-waking awareness, 16petals-dreaming imagining awarenss, 8 petals-sleeping unconsciuosness. The inner circle has to be approached through putting thinking mind to sleep, and feeling mind to sleep, putting both to sleep, just abiding in a pure consciousness. Then you enter the world state, and then the energies making this world, the trinity and beyond. All this is Sri Chakra.

S: Is there some course on achieving "I am creator" state of Samadhi?

F: Sure. Pray to Shakti to reveal Her secrets and be your comanion-mentor-guide-guru. She will surely help you. If your compassionate mother doesn't help you, who will?

S: What about science?

F: All science is Mother, Saraswati. She can teach you. Love and Nature are also your Mothers. They can also mentor you. Shiva dances because Shakti gives him life.

S: One final question. If I choose to be good, will you help me?

F: What more can I ask for?
May Shiva and Shakti dance in the atirudra yagam conducted in a grand style by S.

Visakhapatnam, 6 Mar 2010

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Beneath an article of Guruji I want to add words of Kamalakara Mishra, that  can deepen the understanding of the words of Guruji: 

Moksha, or mukti, has two meanings — a negative meaning and a positive one. The negative meaning of moksa is the freedom from impurity (ajñāna or māyā). This is suggested by the literal meaning of the word mukti. The word mukti, or moksa, literally means “release,” “freeing,” or “unbinding.” As we have already seen, the soul is in bondage — the bondage of ignorance, or māyā — that obstructs the real nature of the soul. Moksa is the release or freedom from the bondage of ignorance. The soul is bound by limitations and moksa is freedom from limitations. It is not that one becomes free from some limitations for some time under some conditions; one becomes free from all limitations for all time under all conditions. [tasmānmukto’ pyavacchedādavacchedāntarasthiteh/ amukta eva, muktastu sarvāvacchedavarjitah// Tantraloka 1.34]  Moksa is not relative freedom but absolute freedom.

Since moksa is understood as release from something — ignorance or impurity — it follows that moksa is a negative attainment. We lose something in moksa, but what do we gain? We gain our own real nature that was hitherto obstructed. [mokso hi nāma naivānyah svarūpaprathanam hi sah.  - Moksa or liberation is nothing else but the awareness of one's true nature. Tantraloka 1.156]

When we clean a piece of cloth, cleaning is certainly a negative process — we separate the dirt from the cloth and we do not add anything to the cloth. But the negative process of cleaning leads to the positive attainment of the real nature of the cloth, which is clean in and of itself. We do not add cleanliness to the cloth. The cloth is clean by its very nature; that clean nature was only obstructed. Now that the dirt is removed, the cleanliness of the cloth comes to the fore. Or, to use another analogy, when a lion is released from captivity, it is not true that when it was in the bound state it was a goat and only when it is freed does it become a lion. The lion was already a lion, but its “lionness” was not in evidence as it was caged. Once it is freed from the cage, it becomes what it already really was.

Similarly, in moksa we become what we really are. Our real nature was obscured and now that the obstruction is cleared away, we attain our real nature. Moksa is thus also a positive attainment — the attainment of our real nature. Of course, this is not the attainment of a new thing; it is the “getting of the gotten’’ (prāptasya prāptih). [apravarititapūrvo’ tra kevalam mūdhatāvaśāt, śaktiprakāśaneśādivyavahārah pravartyate. Iswara Pratyabhijna Karika 2.3.17]  This paradoxical statement is not a tautology; it means that the Self that we attain in moksa is already there; it is not a new thing. In this sense moksa is the “getting of the gotten.’’ But the Self was previously obscured, and we have come to realize it only now; in this sense it is a new event. The Self, or Consciousness, was very much present, but its powers were blunted, just as in the case of a lion in a cage. So it is only when Consciousness is released from captivity that its powers are revealed, just as the powers of the lion come to the fore only when it comes out of the cage. The thing that is attained is thus already there, but the attainment itself is a new thing.
All the systems of Indian philosophy that accept moksa accept both the negative and positive meanings of moksa, namely

 (a) moksa is freedom from bondage and
 (b) moksa is the attainment of one’s own real nature.

All the systems are thus in agreement with regard to the meaning of moksa as the attainment of the real nature of the soul or self. But what is the real nature of the self or soul? It is here that the differences among the systems of philosophy start. The conception of moksa in a particular system depends upon the conception of the real nature of the soul accepted in that system. We find in the systems of Indian philosophy a hierarchical understanding of the real nature of the soul.

In Vaiśesika, the nature of the soul is only existence (sat); the soul exists but it has no knowledge, no activity, no pleasure, no pain. These are the accidental qualities of the soul. They naturally disappear in the state of moksa, as they are not part and parcel of the soul. In the state of moksa, as conceived by Vaiśesika, one virtually becomes like a stone, as one is devoid even of knowledge. The moksa of Vaiśesika is viewed by the other systems as a disvalue, and is also ridiculed by some of them. A Vaisnava bhakta, for example, says, “I would rather forego moksa, and accept being bom as a jackal in the forest of Vrindāvana (hallowed by the presense of Krsna) than pray for the mukti of Vaiśesika.
- varaṁ vṛndāvane ramye śṛgālatvaṁ vṛṇomy aham | vaiśeṣikokta-mokṣāt tu sukha-leśa-vivarjitāt  ||

In Sāmkhya, however, we find an improvement upon the Vaiśesika position with regard to moksa. According to Sāmkhya, the nature of the soul (purusa) is both sat (being) and cit (knowledge), and thus the state of moksa is a state of knowledge. But here, too, the soul is devoid of joy (sukba or ānanda) and activity, as these are the qualities of matter (prakrti). In moksa (or kaivalya, as it is called in Sāmkhya) the soul (purusa) remains a seer or knower and not a doer; it is also devoid of bliss, as bliss goes with prakrti, from which the purusa is completely dissociated in moksa.

Vedānta moves a step further and declares that the real nature of the self (soul or purusa) is not only sat (“existence”) and cit (“knowledge” or “illumination”), but also ānanda (“joy” or “bliss”). Brahman, which is the real nature of the self, is sat-cit-ānanda. This idea is fully developed in Advaita Vedānta. According to Advaita Vedānta, one becomes sat-cit-ānanda in the state of mukti. But there, too, as in Sāmkhya, the liberated soul remains inactive (niskriyā). There is no activity in the real nature of the Self, activity being relegated to māyā, which is transcended in moksa.

Kashmiri Tantra [and hence Sri Vidya] , as we have seen, accepts as the nature of the Self not only sat-cit-ānanda but also activity (kriyā, vimarśa, spanda, śakti, or svātantrya). This is spontaneous activity freely arising out of the fullness of the Self. Since freedom or activity (svātantrya) is the very nature of the Self, the liberated person is vibrant with joyful activity.

Bondage is a state of the forgetfulness of our real nature. This forgetfulness did not begin at a particular point in time; it is beginninglessly present with the existence of the individual soul, as if the soul were bom blind. Since bondage is the forgetfulness of our real nature, moksa, naturally, is the state of remembrance of the same. Abhinavagupta says, “The enlightenment (prakāśa) that dawns in the state of moksa is like the remembering of a forgotten wealth, and the forgotten wealth is the state of one’s unity with all.” [sarvādvaitapadasya vismrtanidheh prāptih prakāśodayah. ANUTTARASTIKĀ 4.]

In the same vein it can be said that the joy (ānanda) that we obtain in moksa is the natural joy of the Self, which we realize by easing ourselves from the crushing load of ignorance we are carrying.

Abhinavagupta further says, “The joy of moksa is not like the acquired pleasure of material wealth, women, and wine; [ānando na hi vittamadyamadavan naivāñganāsañgavat. IBID. ]  the joy of moksa is the joy of the freedom from the colossal sense of duality, like the joy of the unloading of a heavy weight.” [harṣaḥ saṁbhṛtabhedamuktisukhabhūr bhārāvatāropamaḥ. IBID.]
From the above treatment of moksa, two things become clear:

(a) moksa is not a physical acquisition but a realization, a remembrance, or a re-apprehension of the Self; and
(b) moksa is not a new acquisition; what we attain in moksa is already there — it is only a question of uncovering or discovering it. [ tadapararanameva hiparameśvaratālābho muktih -  Iswara Pratyabhijna Vimarshini 2.3.17]