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The Quantum Leap in Consciousness
Enlightenment is not a step-by-step-by-step process but a sudden leap. This movement from one state of consciousness to another seems frequently to be characterized by two primary factors, one of acute inner tension and spiritual anguish followed by a sudden and often dramatic release or surrender of the personality to a higher aspect of consciousness. If properly utilized, meditation and prayer serve to heighten the tension at such times. Another device is the Zen koan that corners the intellectual mind with a problem it cannot solve through the normal thinking processses. Don Juan and Don Genaro, whispering simultaneously into the ears of Castaneda, create an acute condition of inner tension in order to precipitate him into a state of expanded awareness. The Indian saint Sri Ramakrishna, in complete desperation, leapt from his meditations and tore a sword from the temple wall to kill himself- at that instant he reached enlightenment. Don Juan speaks of the 'crack between the worlds' as a doorway beyond which lies the abyss.
To the Zulu this point beyond time and space is the 'gate of distance'. The Upanishads say: Where heaven and earth meet there is a space wide as a razor's edge or a
fly's wing through which one may pass to another world. |
Seven Spinal Chakras, painting by Mihran K. Serailian, USA, 1962 |
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The aspirant to wisdom passes through the doorway of intiation from the everyday consciousness of the lower-self to another world of heightened awareness. Following this he is never the same, nor is his view of the world. The leap from one state or world to another involves a self-naughting, a hurling of one's self into the void of Creation, into a state of imagelesssness. It means, as Benet of Caulfield says, to live in the abysss of the Divine Essence, to return to the nothingness of things by annihilation; thus the personality of man symbolically dies to the soul of Christ consciousness within, and paradoxically, out of nothingness and annihilation, emerges in all his fullness as the New Man. Jesus, like the Masters of Zen Buddhism, points out that we can move instantaneously into this world of expanded consciousness simply through recognition of the Presence. 'If ye be in the Spirit, ye are no more under the law' said Jesus; and he spoke of the law of the illusions and limitations of human beliefs and thinking. The Zen Master would say that you are already enlightened, it's just that you don't realize it. 'Set yourself and see,' said Jesus: turn from the illusory world you live in, 'see' the world of reality and be governed by it now, step into the void of the consciousness of Spirit, for in the void lies the fullness of all Creation.
Although external aids such as drugs may provide the illusion of exanded spirtual awareness, they do untold damage to the subtle and luminous bodies. Man, by his own efforts, must find his way, guided by the teachings of the past and harkening to his inner voice. The Lankavatra sutra points out that by concentrating the thoughts or energies of the mental body one can fly and be born in heaven. A Chinese text says, 'Silently in the morning thou fliest upwards.' Concentrating the desires or energies of the astral body, it seems causes one to fall. |
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