The Bliss of Union With Your Self
My last blog discussed the statement from the Śiva Sutras that said, Consciousness is everything, and the flip side of this precept is that everything is Consciousness.
To continue understanding what this means, let’s look at the term Chit-Śakti, which is the power of Consciousness. It signifies that Consciousness is not inert but contains an inherent power, and the most exalted power is the capacity to know Itself as Consciousness.
Because we are not separate from the Divine, this means we also have that same power to know ourselves as Consciousness. That knowledge is present even as we also know our limited aspects, including all our problems, tensions, thoughts, and emotions. In fact, the suggestion is that every one of those are energies, and that every one of them are portals back to knowing our highest Self.
Śiva and Śakti, Consciousness and energy, are one, not two. This leads us to the secret of nondual practice: that we can use Śakti to know Consciousness. We can penetrate past our misinterpretations to the underlying energy that permeates them and that energy leads us to know Consciousness Itself.
Every person is the individuated expression of that Divine but never separate from that source. Your life is the Divine walking. Why does It choose to walk? Tradition suggests that all of life is the inherent, innate explosion of the joy of that Consciousness.
Why We Might Not Feel Joy
Ananda Śakti, the energy of bliss, is the essential joy of experiencing one's own existence, and every part of our experience is contained in that existence—but we often get overshadowed by the conditions we face. There is never a denial of any of the dimensions of consciousness that exist within us, including our thought-constructs, ego, body, and tensions. They are all part of Consciousness and every dynamic interchange we have with life from each of those dimensions is real.
But we feel these energies as tension or contraction when we misunderstand our essential nature, which is Ananda Śakti. We lose the innate bhava (resonance) of Consciousness if we function only from the limited dimensions of ourselves. When that happens, our experience may not be one of joy
That doesn't mean the underlying joy of life is unavailable to us. When Grace descends, and we begin our spiritual practice, we gain the tools to find that miracle of union with Consciousness Itself. The descent of Grace is that very Consciousness beginning to know Itself within us. This is the Divine saying, wake up, honey, let's dance. Then, our inner practice, coupled with our engagement in the world from a platform of openness and service, provides the very means to penetrate back through our misunderstanding.
The Opportunity to Change
The challenge for all of us is to surrender our interpretation of the conditions of life as being good or bad. Ananda is not created or diminished by any condition except when we allow it to be! It’s only diminished by engaging life from the limited perspective of our minds and emotions.
The most essential and the most difficult passageway for us as sādhakas is to penetrate back through our own moment-to-moment experience to the underlying energy, and then from there, to the unlimited Consciousness that is the source of all experience. All the difficulty and trauma of present and past experiences then become a portal back to the unlimited joy that underlies it all.
In any contracted state we can choose to affirm, I will not be bound by my own misunderstanding. Think of the difference between declaring, I will move through life in search of joy versus I'll move through life to deny that it exists. This is a choice we make in every moment—and that moment is not yesterday or tomorrow.
Whether it's the conditions of the world or the tricky ones inside our heads, we have a choice to discover the truth that everything happens by the will of the Divine, as an expression of that innate bliss of being.
Surrender Your Understanding
Maybe this has not been your experience, and, in that case, it's worth investigating why. Perhaps it's worth surrendering your own misinterpretation. But again, none of that is a denial of the difficulties of life. I always quote Nityananda, who said, “As is your devotion, so is your liberation,” and then added, “Devotion does not eliminate difficulty.”
In our minds, we somehow equation liberation and joy with the removal of all those difficulties. But how has that really worked out for you? How much have you really been able to remove those conditions you seek to control?
The miracle, the very gift of Grace, is that instead of trying to change conditions, we can change our consciousness. And my experience is that the intent, the willingness to open the heart, to take a breath, particularly in the face of difficulty, is the thing that changes our experience within that difficulty.
Life is the very testing ground of whether we have the disciplined consciousness to remain in that open state in the face of adversity. And consider this: The very thought that life has to change in order for you to experience joy is exactly what prevents you from experiencing the innate joy of your own existence.
Devotion to spiritual growth is at once an act, an energy, and a state—and that's the progression that we move through in our sādhana. Ultimately, devotion is really a state of surrender, and the experience is that of being completely immersed in the bliss of union, in the innate joy of your own being.
Wouldn’t that be something worth choosing?