The succession of experiences that one goes through in the process of involution is called the Spiritual Path, and the going through them is likened to a journey. On one stage you hear melodious sounds and music that enchant and overwhelm you. On another stage you see wonderful visions in which most often you get lost. Such experiences are part and parcel of the Great Dream in Illusion, though together they may be called a real or super Dream compared with day to day experiences of the gross sphere.
The experiences are so innumerable and varied, that the journey appears to be interminable and the Destination is ever out of sight. But the wonder of it is, when at last you reach your Destination you find that you had never travelled at all! It was a journey from here to Here. As one Sufi expressed it, When I plucked the date (Fruit of Realization) I found the fruit was within me.
Meher Baba
The journey seems infinitely long while you are passing through the dream-experiences of reincarnation and the six planes of involution, until finally you merge into yourself to emerge as Self.
But the journey is after all no journey: it is simply the momentum of your urge to awaken from the Dream and get established in the reality of the God-state of Infinite Consciousness. To awaken means to consciously experience the sound-sleep State of God. When you awaken you find that the Great Dream containing all the varied illusory aspects of dreaming, has vanished forever. Heaven and hell as well as all the planes vanish within your Self, to remain as nothing. In this Awakened State, there is no scope for anything besides you — the Self, the Existence eternal and the Infinite.
This is the only Experience worth experiencing and aspiring after. To gain this Experience you have to become as dust at the feet of the Perfect Master — which amounts to becoming as nothing. And, when you become absolutely nothing, you become Everything.
Meher Baba
Even as the sun shines and fills all space With light, above, below, across, so shines The Lord of Love and fills the hearts of all created beings. From him the cosmos comes, he who teaches Each living creature to attain perfection According to its own nature. He is The Lord of Love who reigns over all life.
– Shvetashvatara Upanishad
He is not asleep. He is not awake. He never closes his eyes Or opens them. Wherever he is, He is beyond everything. He is free. And the man who is free Always lives in his heart. His heart is always pure. Whatever happens, He is free of all desires.
– Ashtavakra Gita 17:10-11
My Christmas wish for you this year is two fold: that the consciousness of Christ be manifest in you through deep meditation, and that your exemplary actions will persuade others to abandon their evil or worldly ways and become spiritual. Both meditation and action are necessary on the spiritual path, for they contribute toward individual and mass evolution. It is not God’s will to develop spiritually in a selfish way, i.e., without extending help to others who are suffering. So remember always to render service to mass evolution, while seeking the Father through regular practices of deep meditation.
Christmas Massage from Paramhans Yoganand
December 1950