Guided Meditation: Wherever You Turn, There Is the Face of God

I want to try to show not philosophically but experientially how the paths of knowledge and devotion are the same path. The path of knowledge nana yoga with its attendant practice of self-investigation and the path of devotion with its practice of prayer or bacti yoga with its practice of prayer. pray or surrender to God. These are really the same path languaged in two very different ways. It is true that at the bottom of the mountain where we credit the separate self, the individual person that we seem to be with an existence of its own. There does indeed seem to be a difference between these two paths. The path of knowledge with its practice of self-investigation seems to pay no attention to God and focus only on this exploration of the nature of our self. Whereas the path of devotion seems to be the very opposite. It pays no attention to ourself and focuses exclusively on God. So at the bottom of the mountain, these two paths, they start on two opposite sides of the mountain. But as we proceed up the mountain, that is as our understanding and experience deepen and mature, these two paths converge, progressively converge. There is less and less distinction between them. until in the final ascent, the final 10 meters, they merge and become the same path. We are concerned here with that final ascent where the two paths are identical. And it is for this reason that this approach is equally applicable to the the philosophers and intellectuals amongst us as well as the devotees and the mystics, the lovers of God. So the path of knowledge, self-investigation starts out with one assumption and it's a a valid assumption because it's consistent with experience. Namely, that our self whatever our self is present now. In fact, that's not an assumption. It is a fact of experience. Even if we do not know exactly what our self is, whatever our self is, it is present now. And likewise on the path of devotion, whatever God is, God must be present and available now. Because if God were not present in our current experience, then there would be a part of creation or manifestation where God were not present. And then God would not be omnipresent. Therefore, God would not be infinite. And as such, God would not be God. How do we reconcile these two starting points? Namely, that our self, whatever our self is, is present and available now. And God, whatever God is, is present and available now. Are these two statements really two different statements or are they the same statement languaged in different ways? Let us start with the conclusion we arrived at yesterday. We cannot know what we are. We cannot be what we know. When I say we cannot know what we are, I mean we cannot know objectively. We cannot know as an object what we are. Nor can we be anything that we know objectively. Just as the eye the eyes can only see something that is at a distance from themselves. So we can only know something that is at a distance from ourself. In other words, all knowledge and experience takes place in subject object experience. Anything we know is an object of our experience. Whether what we know is a universe, a tree, a house, a car, an emotion, a thought. All these are what we know. They are not what we are. We know the universe. We are not the universe. We know the world. We are not the world. We know a tree. We are not the tree. We know a thought or an emot --- ur self. It's like when you hold your finger at a at a distance from your eye, you can see your finger, but the closer you bring it to your eye, the less easy it is to see it. And when your finger touches your eye, you can no longer see it because you can only see something at a distance from your eye. The closer an experience comes to our self, the less clearly we can see it. Until we come to our experience, not of a universe, of a world, of a tree, of a thought, of a feeling, but until we come to our experience of ourself. In our experience of ourself, nothing is known. Our experience of ourel is like a kind of blind spot at the center of the mind. Like a kind of blind spot at the very center of our self. A little cavity so to speak. It's just an image. a little cavity that is utterly dark. Dark in the sense that there is no knowledge there. There is no experience there because in order to know or experience something that thing must stand at a distance from ourself. Therefore, everything can be known or experienced apart from ourself or at least everything can be known or experienced objectively apart from ourself because everything stands to a greater or lesser extent at a distance from ourself. But there is no distance from our self to ourself. We are too close to ourself to know ourself in subject object relationship. So our self stands at the very heart experience as a kind of blind spot. It's utterly dark. Nothing is known there. like a dark cavity, a dark emptiness, but which shines with ourself, shines with being. erience of being or rather being. We can never we can never stand apart from being because we are Essentially just being and being cannot stand apart from itself to know itself objectively. So the fact of being that stands at the core of our experience is there is no knowledge there. There is no experience there. It is pure ignorance. But it is a kind of divine ignorance, a kind of luminous darkness. It cannot be known but is never not known. Just as the sun cannot stand apart from itself and illuminate itself from a distance, but it does not need to because it illuminates itself just by being itself. So the fact of being cannot stand apart from itself and look back at itself or pay attention to itself. It cannot know itself in subject object relationship. But it does not need to. It knows itself just by being itself. It illuminates itself just by being itself. So what is utter darkness for the mind is in fact luminosity for being. What is known by the mind is not known by being and what is known subjectively by being. Sorry. What is known objectively by the mind is not known by being. But but what is known subjectively by being is not known by the mind. That is why being is sometimes referred to as void or emptiness in some traditions. But it is a kind of luminous emptiness, luminous darkness, divine ignorance. It's what Raman Mahashi refers to as the cave of the heart. It's a cave because there is no outer light shining in it. The light of the sun and the objects that are illuminated by it do not appear there. It's why the early Greek philosophers used to meditate for days in underground caves to try and enact this darkness at a physical level. They called it incubation. They incubated in this dark womb in which there is no knowledge. Save the light of pure being. This this luminous darkness that stands at th --- ur self, the center of the mind. A little blind spot in a little blind spot in our experience like the moon in Turner's watercolor painting that seems to be an object in the painting. That's how this luminous darkness appears from the point of view of the mind. But what is its experience of itself? The mind can know nothing of this luminous darkness because Everything that it knows is filtered through and distorted by the lens of thought and perception. So the best the mind can say is it is nothing. It is empty. It is dark. Or even worse, it is non-existent. But what is its experience of itself? That could that its experience of itself is the only true experience of itself there could be. Because its experience of itself, being's experience of itself is not filtered through or distorted by the lens of thought and perception. Its experience of itself is unmediated knowledge, direct knowledge, absolute knowledge, not relative to the finite mind through which it is known. It's like asking the space in this room, what is your experience of yourself? The four walls of this room say you are limited. But do you experience any limit in yourself? The mind says that being the fact of simply being is limited. But what is its experience of itself? Prior to the rising of thought and perception, there is no experience of time or space. It experience being experiences itself ever present and unlimited or infinite. even that is not true. We only say that being's experience of itself is everpresent or eternal or unlimited or infinite with reference to the time and space that seem to be known by the mind. In reference to time and space, we say no being is not being's experience of itself is not in time and space. That is, it is eternal and infinite. But being never conceptualizes itself as such. It just is what it is. and what being is is what I am. If being were to say one true thing about itself, it would say, "I am else about itself." He would just say, "I am what I am. I am that I am. It would not add anything to that statement because there is nothing in itself other than itself with which it could be qualified. Now imagine that Jesus and the Buddha and Ramana Mahashi were sitting here with us and they were following this contemplation, would their experience be any different from ours? Would they find anything else at the center of their yourself other than this luminous darkness, this everpresent unlimited would the being that they find shining at the heart of their self be any different from the being that each of us now finds shining at the heart of ourself? And if we asked Jesus, what do you mean when you say I and my father are one? Are you meaning to suggest that this luminous darkness that shines at the heart of yourself to which you give the name I or I man is the same being that your father is the same being that God is. And Jesus would reply, "Yes. This luminous darkness that shines at the center of myself that shines in me as me as the knowledge I am is God's presence is God's being the only being there This Now imagine that we were to run this assertion past God and God whatever we conceive God to be were to be here with us and we were to say to God what is Your experience of yourself. If God could speak, what is the very first thing that God can say about itself? I am. In other words, for God, the words I am would express its kno --- bject relationship. But if God is omnipresent, God cannot stand apart from itself. And therefore, God cannot know anything except itself. And its knowledge of itself shines in its experience as I am. And God's experience of itself must be eternal and infinite because there is nothing in its experience of itself other than itself with which it could be qualified or limited. What is the difference between the eternal infinite being that shines as God's experience of itself? and our experience of eternal infinite being that shines as our experience of ourself and that is Jesus's the Buddhas Ram from Manam Mahashi's experience of their What is the difference between the space in this room, the space in your bedroom? The space in a prison, the space in a cathedral, and the infinite space of the universe. Are these even separate spaces that may or may not have differences between them? Or are they just the one universal space, seemingly limited by the four walls within which they seem to be contained, but never anything other than the one unlimited space of the universe. is the being that shines in each of us as the knowledge I am that shone in Jesus and Ramana Mahashi and the Buddha and numerous others as in all others as the knowledge I I am that shines in God's experience of itself as I am. Are those all different experiences, different beings or just one eternal infinite indivisible being in whose experience there is nothing but itself? And if there is nothing in God's infinite being other than God's infinite being and if God's being cannot stand apart from itself and know anything in subject object relationship ationship and therefore cannot know anything of creation or manifestation. How is it that we seem to perceive a universe? The RAF is delighted with this meditation. The reason that God's infinite being appears as a universe is because we view it. through the narrow through the filter of thought and perception. It is perception. It is thought and perception that confers names and forms on the infinite without ever actually reducing the infinite to those finite names and forms. The names and forms are only names and forms from the point of view of the finite mind. It is precisely because in God's knowledge of itself, it is nothing, not a thing, that it can appear to a finite mind as Everything as Plutinus said, "It is because there is nothing in the one other than the one that all things are from The phrase in the Old Testament that is usually translated the Hebrew phrase I am that I am. I am only what I am. was translated by the early Greek pre-Christian philosophers as I am the existing one. I am that which alone truly is. In other words, to know oneself is to know God or more accurately to be oneself as one truly is. is to be the only being there is God's being. God's being literally shines in us as us as our knowledge of our self. There is not room in God's being for any other being. For this reason, self-nowledge is the ultimate surrender to God. For in the ultimate surrender to God, there is no room for a self who surrenders or is surrendered. There is just God's infinite being. And we are that God knows nothing but is what the mind calls everything. That is why when we look inwards towards ourself we find nothing. When we look outwards we find everything. Wherever we look, as the Sufi say, there is only the face of God.