It Takes Two to Tango - Spiritual Plurality Within Oneness
We normally exist in the realms of duality; the push and pull of Yin and Yang; pleasure and pain, light and dark, union and separation, clarity and delusion.
Some think that without polar opposites, neither pole has meaning; that one has to know darkness to know light, or that pleasure cannot be appreciated without pain, or that love needs the shadow of hate to define itself. But in a higher sense, some things stand alone.
Although there is some measure of truth in the relative experience of duality being necessarily co-dependent, another model also exists where two can harmonize as one, through loving exchanges free from any shadow opposition, or hurtful polarity.
The higher model is experienced through Transcendence; by re-connecting with the Source of love, who expands both impersonally by His energy, and as the universally cognitive Supreme Personality of Godhead.
Some think that without polar opposites, neither pole has meaning; that one has to know darkness to know light, or that pleasure cannot be appreciated without pain, or that love needs the shadow of hate to define itself. But in a higher sense, some things stand alone.
Although there is some measure of truth in the relative experience of duality being necessarily co-dependent, another model also exists where two can harmonize as one, through loving exchanges free from any shadow opposition, or hurtful polarity.
The higher model is experienced through Transcendence; by re-connecting with the Source of love, who expands both impersonally by His energy, and as the universally cognitive Supreme Personality of Godhead.
Transcendence Harmonizes All Duality, Where 1 + 1 = 1
Just as the Sun radiates dual energies of both heat and light, so according to revealed knowledge the Source of Creation radiates both material energies and eternal spiritual energies. The living entities seen within creation are of the eternal spiritual nature - it is as spark of conscious spiritual energy which animates the temporary material forms which house the spirit. Matter fades, spirit endures.
How the creation is manifested and for what purpose, is also found in revealed knowledge - with the conclusion being that creation is a type of cosmic playground, bullies included, meant for evoking the dormant spiritual love in each heart into action, by consciously re-connecting to one's universal Source, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who creates the conscious universe and resides energetically everywhere, including the heart of all living beings.
The Supreme expands without limits, for the purpose of expanding love. As God has complete free will, as emanations from the Supreme, each emanated spark of spirit has a spark of free will also, which allows the soul to choose union or separation from it's source. One can face the sun and move freely in it's light, or one can turn away from the light, wherein one's shadow instantly created - and the beginning of shadow reflections of karmic bondage are created with each action performed with one's back to the light.
How Supreme expands the material and spiritual energies is revealed in ancient Sanskrit texts. It is also reveled that the individual sparks of spiritual consciousness that populate the material universe such as you and I, are of the same spiritual quality as the Source we emanated from - but we are quantitatively different - as a spark's potency is significantly less than the raging fire from which it emanated. When one's actions are performed with love in service of the Supreme good, one becomes godly, but not God. In spirit we are one with God, constitutionally equipped to participate in a loving dance with the Supreme, if we so desire. It takes two to tango. This truth plays out both in our earthly circumstance, and continues intact even after one's spiritual liberation.
How the creation is manifested and for what purpose, is also found in revealed knowledge - with the conclusion being that creation is a type of cosmic playground, bullies included, meant for evoking the dormant spiritual love in each heart into action, by consciously re-connecting to one's universal Source, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who creates the conscious universe and resides energetically everywhere, including the heart of all living beings.
The Supreme expands without limits, for the purpose of expanding love. As God has complete free will, as emanations from the Supreme, each emanated spark of spirit has a spark of free will also, which allows the soul to choose union or separation from it's source. One can face the sun and move freely in it's light, or one can turn away from the light, wherein one's shadow instantly created - and the beginning of shadow reflections of karmic bondage are created with each action performed with one's back to the light.
How Supreme expands the material and spiritual energies is revealed in ancient Sanskrit texts. It is also reveled that the individual sparks of spiritual consciousness that populate the material universe such as you and I, are of the same spiritual quality as the Source we emanated from - but we are quantitatively different - as a spark's potency is significantly less than the raging fire from which it emanated. When one's actions are performed with love in service of the Supreme good, one becomes godly, but not God. In spirit we are one with God, constitutionally equipped to participate in a loving dance with the Supreme, if we so desire. It takes two to tango. This truth plays out both in our earthly circumstance, and continues intact even after one's spiritual liberation.
Of The Light, For The Light; Love Is The Purpose
Across all spiritual traditions, saints and sages have described the divine feelings of ecstatic love that manifest within and without, as they traversed the path of transcendent spiritual enlightenment on the way back home, back to Godhead. Occasionally revealed in the heart during a state of trance, or in a continual state of transcendence called "samadhi', one consciously experiences that material duality dissolves into a non-dual spiritual plurality wherein three aspects of spirit abound in oneness, namely: 1. you, as an eternal spark of individual consciousness 2. the Source of all forms of consciousness and all that is 3. the personal energetic exchange; a dance serving the mellows of love exchanged between each conscious spark and it's energetic Source, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Such loving exchanges even when performed through one's earthly body, manifest one's eternal spiritual form, function, purpose over time, allowing one to actively enter non-dual timelessness, fully endowed with a loving purpose manifested.
DIVINE MESSAGES
BHAGAVAD GITA (APPROXIMATELY 3,000 BC) Chapter 6, text 20-23
"The stage of perfection is called trance, or samādhi, when one's mind is completely restrained from material mental activities by practice of yoga (connecting with God). This is characterized by one's ability to see the self by the pure mind and to relish and rejoice in the self. In that joyous state, one is situated in boundless transcendental happiness and enjoys himself through transcendental senses. Established thus, one never departs from the truth, and upon gaining this he thinks there is no greater gain. Being situated in such a position, one is never shaken, even in the midst of greatest difficulty. This indeed is actual freedom from all miseries arising from material contact."
Qutoes from the Sufi Saint and Mystic Poet, Rumi 1207 - 1273 AD
“What you seek is seeking you.”
“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
“I was dead, then alive.
Weeping, then laughing.
The power of love came into me,
and I became fierce like a lion,
then tender like the evening star.”
“Gamble everything for love, if you are a true human being. If not, leave this gathering. Half-heartedness doesn’t reach into majesty.”
“Give up to grace. The ocean takes care of each wave 'til it gets to shore. You need more help than you know.”
“For ages you have come and gone
courting this delusion.
For ages you have run from the pain
and forfeited the ecstasy.
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul...
You descended from Adam, by the pure Word of God,
but you turned your sight
to the empty show of this world.
Alas, how can you be satisfied with so little?
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul...."
“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
“I was dead, then alive.
Weeping, then laughing.
The power of love came into me,
and I became fierce like a lion,
then tender like the evening star.”
“Gamble everything for love, if you are a true human being. If not, leave this gathering. Half-heartedness doesn’t reach into majesty.”
“Give up to grace. The ocean takes care of each wave 'til it gets to shore. You need more help than you know.”
“For ages you have come and gone
courting this delusion.
For ages you have run from the pain
and forfeited the ecstasy.
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul...
You descended from Adam, by the pure Word of God,
but you turned your sight
to the empty show of this world.
Alas, how can you be satisfied with so little?
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul...."
Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu
Text 1
Glory to the Sri Krishna Sankirtana, which cleanses the heart of all the dust accumulated for years and extinguishes the fire of conditional life, of repeated birth and death. This sankirtana movement is the prime benediction for humanity at large because it spreads the rays of the benediction moon. It is the life of all transcendental knowledge. It increases the ocean of transcendental bliss, and it enables us to fully taste the nectar for which we are always anxious.
Text 6
O my Lord, when will my eyes be decorated with tears of love flowing constantly when I chant Your holy name? When will my voice choke up, and when will the hairs of my body stand on end at the recitation of Your name?
Union and Separation
It is said "Absence makes the heart grow fonder". Although not an absolute truth, it sometimes applies.
In a material sense, sometimes the tendency is to take another person's presence for granted until a day comes when separation happens by time or circumstance, at which time that person's value is more clearly recognized, fostering a desire for re-union.
In a spiritual sense, the conscious spirit is suffering separation from it's spiritual Source, while living covered over by material elements and conceptions. For one truly seeking re-connection, the path is usually one of glimpses in stages to that state of grace, where the presence of the divine is felt within one's field of activities. Once felt and nurtured in the heart, nothing compares to that deepest awe and personal love of the Divine's presence; taking the form of loving reciprocation with the ever-present and all-pervasive Supreme Lord who is looking to reclaim His willing dance partner.
In a material sense, sometimes the tendency is to take another person's presence for granted until a day comes when separation happens by time or circumstance, at which time that person's value is more clearly recognized, fostering a desire for re-union.
In a spiritual sense, the conscious spirit is suffering separation from it's spiritual Source, while living covered over by material elements and conceptions. For one truly seeking re-connection, the path is usually one of glimpses in stages to that state of grace, where the presence of the divine is felt within one's field of activities. Once felt and nurtured in the heart, nothing compares to that deepest awe and personal love of the Divine's presence; taking the form of loving reciprocation with the ever-present and all-pervasive Supreme Lord who is looking to reclaim His willing dance partner.
In post-graduate spirituality, it is described in sacred texts that the pastimes in the spiritual realm contain inconceivable oneness yet difference, in each soul's union with the Supreme. Such pastimes are laced with ecstatic varieties of union and separation - rather than static monism with no varieties of flavor or 'Rasa" - the mellow of loving exchange. Thus even a lover's lament during separation until the next union on the spiritual platform, is supremely sweet. Absence makes the heart grow fonder..
This concept is only dimly reflected in our mundane realm as sometimes it may hold true, and at other times, continued separation from unwanted elements is required. But saints and sages have confirmed through their own experience - a higher reality exists wherein there are only unlimited grades of increasing sweetness flowing from the Supreme Lord, which cannot compare to any flickering thrill offered on the separated material plane of misguided exploitation.
This concept is only dimly reflected in our mundane realm as sometimes it may hold true, and at other times, continued separation from unwanted elements is required. But saints and sages have confirmed through their own experience - a higher reality exists wherein there are only unlimited grades of increasing sweetness flowing from the Supreme Lord, which cannot compare to any flickering thrill offered on the separated material plane of misguided exploitation.
More references: Bhagavad Gita (The Song of God) Ch 7, Text 4-9, Ch 10. Text 8 - 11
Earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence and false ego—altogether these eight comprise My separated material energies.
Besides this inferior nature, O mighty-armed Arjuna, there is a superior energy of Mine, which are all living entities who are struggling with material nature and are sustaining the universe.
Of all that is material and all that is spiritual in this world, know for certain that I am both its origin and dissolution.
O conquerer of wealth [Arjuna], there is no Truth superior to Me. Everything rests upon Me, as pearls are strung on a thread.
O son of Kuntī [Arjuna], I am the taste of water, the light of the sun and the moon, the syllable om in the Vedic mantras; I am the sound in ether and ability in man.
I am the source of all spiritual and material worlds. Everything emanates from Me. The wise who know this perfectly engage in My devotional service and worship Me with all their hearts.
The thoughts of My pure devotees dwell in Me, their lives are surrendered to Me, and they derive great satisfaction and bliss enlightening one another and conversing about Me.
To those who are constantly devoted and worship Me with love, I give the understanding by which they can come to Me.
Out of compassion for them, I, dwelling in their hearts, destroy with the shining lamp of knowledge the darkness born of ignorance.
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