If we studied under a qualified terrestrial spiritual teacher in a mid-twentieth-century eastern setting, we’d probably hear that purification is an essential stage of spiritual practice aimed at enlightenment.
Here’s a typical statement of the case, from the Upanishads:
“The secret of immortality is to be found in purification of the heart, in meditation, in realization of the identification of the Self within and Brahman without. For immortality is union with God.” (1)
And here’s an adaptation of that same view by a more contemporary teacher, Swami Yatiswarananda:
“Whatever be our spiritual path, Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, or Sufi, the three stages we all have to follow are purification, meditation, and experience of the divine reality or Godhead.” (2)
To Buddhists, these three stages would be called sila, samadhi, and prajna/panna (purification, meditation, and wisdom/realization). But as Swami Yatiswarananda said, it’s to be found in all religions.
If we remember that unveiling the Self is what purification does, then we can see that the only real work we need to do to uncover the Self is to eradicate the overburden of core issues or vasanas that sits on top of and veils the Self, as Ramana Mahaeshi states here:
“Sahaja [the ascended state] is the original state so that sadhana amounts to the removal of obstacles [i.e., vasanas], for the realization of this abiding truth.” (3)
“In Kevalya Nirvikalpa Samadhi [Brahmajnana or God-Realization] one is not free from vasanas and does not, therefore, attain mukti. Only after the samskaras have been destroyed [in Sahaja] can one attain salvation. …
“Even though one practices Kevalya Nirvikalpa Samadhi for years together, if one has not rooted out the vasanas, he will not attain salvation.” (4)
The Mother confirmed with me back on May 7, 2012 that Sahaja Samadhi is the ascended state. (5) It burns our remaining vasanas to a crisp.
We’re just building momentum for that event, so as to draw in (or enroll) the rest of the planet in our first mass Ascension on Earth.
Everything that’s happening right now – our personal work, financial deconstruction, Earth changes – can be, and is, seen as purification. I’ll be writing more on the subject because working this phase of things seems to me to be very important, now and in the overall scheme of things.
What I hope these further studies will show is that the very same purification or purgation phase we’re passing through now, many, many generations of spiritual seekers and sages had to go through as well in former years. So we’re among good company.
Shedding our heavy baggage, which prevents us from flying free, is now and has always been a necessity of spiritual unfoldment. But never has there been galactic assistance and never such an energetic outpouring. Consequently, never has it been so easy.
Footnotes
(1) Swami Prabhavananda and Frederick Manchester, trans., The Upanishads. Breath of the Eternal. New York and Scarborough: New American Library, 1957; c1948, 13.
(2) Swami Yatiswarananda in Christopher Isherwood, ed., Vedanta for Modern Man. New York: Collier Books, 1962; c1945, 133-4.
(3) Ramana Maharshi in Paul Brunton and Munagala Venkataramaiah. Conscious Immortality. Conversations with Sri Ramana Maharshi. Rev. ed. 1996, n.p.
We may also need to withdraw from the conditioned behavior that our vasanas tend to create in us over time.
Of Sahaja, Ramana says:
“The Sahaja Nirvikalpa [Samadhi] is permanent and in it lies liberation from rebirths.” (Ramana Maharshi in S.S. Cohen, Guru Ramana. Memories and Notes. 6th edition. Tiruvannamalai: Sri Ramanasramam, 1993, 88.)
We’re “rooting out the vasanas.” And we have been for the past three or four years. This is the purification stage.
(4) Sri Ramana Maharshi in Ramananda Swarnagiri, Crumbs from His Table, at http://www.ramana-maharshi.org. Downloaded 10 September 2005, n.p.)
(5) Steve Beckow: Now, you said that the experience [of Ascension], the enlightenment experience is beyond the 13 chakras, but you didn’t actually say yes or no to my question of whether this experience corresponds to sahaja samadhi.
Divine Mother: Yes.
SB: It does?
DM: That is correct.
SB: Oh, eureka! Thank you, Mother! I’m so happy to have that confirmed. (“The Divine Mother: Come to Me as I Come to You – Part 1/2,” Oct. 17, 2012 through Linda Dillon, at http://goldenageofgaia.com/2012/10/the-divine-mother-come-to-me-as-i-come-to-you-part-12/.)
