Liberation While Alive - Part One
On attaining the bliss of Consciousness, there is permanent perception of Oneness with Consciousness even when perceiving the body and so on. This is liberation while alive.
This sutra from the Pratyabhijñā Hṛdayam (The Heart of Recognition) by the Tantric master Kṣemarāja describes the state of a liberated yogi. The highest Consciousness is available to each of us, but if your liberation is not the most important thing to you, you will not have it. If you are not prepared to surrender yourself completely, you will not live in freedom.
Spiritual freedom is not found outside the context of our own lives. We can—and must—be free even while we have a body, a job, and relationships with others. In fact, freedom is understanding and experiencing that everything in our life is an integral part of the manifestation of our own consciousness. Nothing is separate from us. This is called jīvan mukti, freedom while alive.
Attaining it is the very purpose of our life. We are liberating ourselves from limited consciousness—an opportunity that is possible for each of us. The primary characteristic of this state of consciousness is experiencing the peace and unconditional joy that is not affected by the day-to-day dynamics we face. Having this awareness does not negate the daily experience of life, but everything is enjoyed from a place of freedom and non-attachment. We simply experience the Oneness of life in its perfection, moment by moment.
The unwavering experience of Oneness is a state that emerges as an expression of the bliss of Consciousness. When we can suspend all of our attachments long enough to tune in to the abiding joy in us, that immersion completely dissolves everything that makes us suffer. The good news is that we don’t get to choose what we are freed from—because we all know what happens when we decide what we want and don’t want to have in our lives.
Offering Ourselves Unconditionally
If we do not offer ourselves unconditionally into the fire of Consciousness, if we don’t want joy more than anything else, we won’t have it. If we allow anything to rob us of freedom, that is our choice. Attaining liberation while alive is a conscious process, requiring that we escape from being ensnared by the mind. We must consume duality in order to transcend it, in every moment of life.
This means that when we are moving through the day and our energy starts heading out toward Pluto, we reel it back. We take a breath, internalize the energy, and integrate it into the flow. In this way we develop the strength of our consciousness by increasing the capacity of our psychic muscle system. We start wherever we are and then do the work to expand our inner awareness. Hoping just doesn’t get it done.
We must want our liberation from the place inside us that understands what liberation is, not from the part of us that doesn’t understand. There is a profound yet powerful difference between the two. To attain liberation all of our actions must be inspired by that which is already free inside us—but how do we find it? We must penetrate through the densities of consciousness that obscure our highest awareness, and we can’t do that if we are attached to the limited part of ourselves. We can’t get attached to thinking, “This should not be happening to me . . . they shouldn’t have done it to me . . . my spiritual life should be different than this.” These types of misunderstandings create the reality of our life if we believe them.
When we push away what is actually happening to us, we avoid taking responsibility for the condition of our own experience. These thoughts are an expression of the limited part of us, a sign that our resistance to change is surfacing. When such thoughts arise, we have to keep drilling past them. On the other hand, when we get quiet enough, we can find the joy in any difficulty, and we understand how much freedom is available in letting go of everything we cling to.
Deeper Than Mind or Emotion
The beautiful thing is that as we pierce through every level of consciousness, we discover that we are no longer a prisoner of our own density. When we consciously detach from our mind and emotions, we gain a sense of separation from them. We recognize them as a powerful covering, yet merely a covering.
We can penetrate through the surface form long enough to experience that whatever arises is just energy. Then, its grip on us suddenly dissolves. We no longer give our emotions validity and we no longer give them the strength to consume our consciousness. We have enormous power. The question is, what dimension of ourselves are we infusing with that power? We must always choose our higher will to free ourselves from our limited consciousness. Remember that it was Śiva’s will to manifest, for the purpose of revealing, for the expansion of freedom. That’s exactly what happens in our life if we too focus on revelation.
When we have the understanding and awareness that life is trying to reveal its source to us, our experience is very different. If the purpose of our life is the revealing of the highest Consciousness, all the other things we attach to (or even mistake as life’s purpose) are just obscurations of that highest revelation. We may not understand this from our limited perspective, but that’s the very point of spiritual practice—to uncover the place within us that does understand.
Any powerful experience of limitation—emotions, mind, fear, or self-rejection—is a vehicle for us to free ourselves from an invisible binding. As these limitations surface and become visible, we actually see the dross that is covering our lives. If we get caught in the struggle, drama, and pain of what arises, we will simply reinforce that covering. But if we understand that the purpose of the experience is freedom, we can avoid getting trapped in the dynamic. We simply see it as an energy that, when buried, has kept us separate from the unwavering experience of Oneness.
To be continued. . .