Principle #2: Enter The Field Of Infinite Potential, The Divine Mind
This post is second in the series "7 Principles for Consciously Creating Your Life" on cultivating a life of joy, prosperity and abundance.
Some of you may have seen the popular, Oprah-acclaimed movie The Secret which claims to reveal a closely guarded ancient secret - that you are a powerful, volitional co-creator of reality. You manifest your experience directly through your thoughts and intentions, the movie asserts. Your thoughts carry a certain energy which attracts objects and experiences of similar vibration to you through the "law of attraction".
This notion of "attraction" is an imprecise approximation of the mechanics of manifestation as understood by the yogis (we'll come back to that shortly), but the overall conclusion is consistent: you create your reality in every moment.
In fact, it is the very nature of the Self to create. You are imbued with infinite creative potential. "As the great banyan tree lies in the form of potency in the seed, even so the entire universe lies as a potency in the heart of the Supreme," says the yogic text Paratrimsika. Creativity is the essence of divinity. As you awaken to your true divine nature, you can access the vast creative power inherent in the heart of your being.
There's only one problem -- most of us are still operating from individual ego identities. Our minds are cluttered with thoughts, doubts, fears, and worries which unconsciously manifest into frenzied, conflicted and chaotic lives. In order to consciously invoke your creative potential and begin manifesting a life of peace and wholeness, you must be willing to soften your addiction to the rational mind and move your awareness into the "Divine Mind." Let me explain.
The word "rational" comes from the root "ratio", to divide or particularize. The rational mind is particularized into discrete thought constructs which operate at conscious and subconscious levels to create your reality. Referred to as karma in the eastern traditions, this condition of being beholden to habituated patterns and predispositions of thought, limits your free will. Because your thought patterns are relatively fixed, your ability to create a wildly audacious new reality through the rational mind is virtually zero.
Alternately, the Divine Mind holds unbounded possibilities. The Divine Mind is an infinite field of non-dual awareness beyond thought, variously described as the superconscious mind, ultimate reality, source, emptiness, void, no-mind, universal consciousness, etc. by different traditions. It is omniscient, all-powerful and eternal. By relaxing into the thought-free Divine Mind, "you" cease to exist, becoming one with the unlimited intelligence and creative potential of the supreme Self, liberated from the small habituated patterns of ego. In this universal state, individual karma also ceases to exist (think of it as a karma-free zone) and powerful new realities are possible.
Sounds intriguing, you say, how does this work?
Let's return to the misnomer of "attraction". According to the yogis, reality is not "out there" waiting to be attracted to you. Instead, the entire phenomenal world arises from within your own consciousness. While the perception of duality created by your limited sense organs might lead you to believe you are separate from the rest of creation, even our science knows that you are mostly swirling electrons and empty space, non-different from the chair on which you are sitting or the computer screen displaying this article.
Creation is not about attracting objects to you, it's about entering the Divine Mind which holds all things simultaneously in indistinguishable unity. Here you are non-different from that which you desire to create. Thought and form are inseparable, an idea and its physical expression are indivisible. By collapsing subject and object, you become infinite. Now, the true yogic secret is revealed: if you drop a single thought into the thought-free Divine Mind, it will have atomic power to manifest.
"In the Divine Mind, energy and matter are the same. Subject and object are the same. At that level, there is truth without duality," teaches Dattatreya Siva Baba. "Go into this divine state and then visualize what you want to create. By building castles in the air, you build them in reality."
The exercise for this week is to cultivate access to Divine Mind:
Entering the Field of Infinite Potential - This exercise builds upon last week's practice of bringing awareness inward. Sit quietly and bring your attention to the spinal column. Visualize a luminous channel of light running up the spinal column, from the tailbone up to the crown of the head and out into infinite space.
The central channel is called "sushumna" in Sanskrit. It is the primary channel for awakening spiritual consciousness, as well as for distribution of vital life force energy throughout the subtle body. As you practice maintaining your awareness within the sushumna, imagine also a brilliant flame burning in the area between the two eyebrows.
If this feels difficult, you can use a series of tones discovered by the yogis to help purify and awaken this channel. The following sounds can be chanted out loud or silently while moving your awareness up the spinal column as described. Start by focusing your attention on the lower abdomen region, and tone the sound “ahhhhh,” (as in “awe”). Slowly move your awareness up the spinal column to the heart center in the center of the chest, and tone the sound “ooooooo,” (as in “tune”). Now moving your attention further up the spinal column into the throat region, tone the sound “maaaaaa” (as in “mom”). Finally, imagine a flame burning in the third eye between the two eyebrows, and tone the sound “Ommmmm” (as in “home”). Repeat this cycle as many times as you like. By awakening this channel, you open into the Divine Mind.
Some of you may have seen the popular, Oprah-acclaimed movie The Secret which claims to reveal a closely guarded ancient secret - that you are a powerful, volitional co-creator of reality. You manifest your experience directly through your thoughts and intentions, the movie asserts. Your thoughts carry a certain energy which attracts objects and experiences of similar vibration to you through the "law of attraction".
This notion of "attraction" is an imprecise approximation of the mechanics of manifestation as understood by the yogis (we'll come back to that shortly), but the overall conclusion is consistent: you create your reality in every moment.
In fact, it is the very nature of the Self to create. You are imbued with infinite creative potential. "As the great banyan tree lies in the form of potency in the seed, even so the entire universe lies as a potency in the heart of the Supreme," says the yogic text Paratrimsika. Creativity is the essence of divinity. As you awaken to your true divine nature, you can access the vast creative power inherent in the heart of your being.
There's only one problem -- most of us are still operating from individual ego identities. Our minds are cluttered with thoughts, doubts, fears, and worries which unconsciously manifest into frenzied, conflicted and chaotic lives. In order to consciously invoke your creative potential and begin manifesting a life of peace and wholeness, you must be willing to soften your addiction to the rational mind and move your awareness into the "Divine Mind." Let me explain.
The word "rational" comes from the root "ratio", to divide or particularize. The rational mind is particularized into discrete thought constructs which operate at conscious and subconscious levels to create your reality. Referred to as karma in the eastern traditions, this condition of being beholden to habituated patterns and predispositions of thought, limits your free will. Because your thought patterns are relatively fixed, your ability to create a wildly audacious new reality through the rational mind is virtually zero.
Alternately, the Divine Mind holds unbounded possibilities. The Divine Mind is an infinite field of non-dual awareness beyond thought, variously described as the superconscious mind, ultimate reality, source, emptiness, void, no-mind, universal consciousness, etc. by different traditions. It is omniscient, all-powerful and eternal. By relaxing into the thought-free Divine Mind, "you" cease to exist, becoming one with the unlimited intelligence and creative potential of the supreme Self, liberated from the small habituated patterns of ego. In this universal state, individual karma also ceases to exist (think of it as a karma-free zone) and powerful new realities are possible.
Sounds intriguing, you say, how does this work?
Let's return to the misnomer of "attraction". According to the yogis, reality is not "out there" waiting to be attracted to you. Instead, the entire phenomenal world arises from within your own consciousness. While the perception of duality created by your limited sense organs might lead you to believe you are separate from the rest of creation, even our science knows that you are mostly swirling electrons and empty space, non-different from the chair on which you are sitting or the computer screen displaying this article.
Creation is not about attracting objects to you, it's about entering the Divine Mind which holds all things simultaneously in indistinguishable unity. Here you are non-different from that which you desire to create. Thought and form are inseparable, an idea and its physical expression are indivisible. By collapsing subject and object, you become infinite. Now, the true yogic secret is revealed: if you drop a single thought into the thought-free Divine Mind, it will have atomic power to manifest.
"In the Divine Mind, energy and matter are the same. Subject and object are the same. At that level, there is truth without duality," teaches Dattatreya Siva Baba. "Go into this divine state and then visualize what you want to create. By building castles in the air, you build them in reality."
The exercise for this week is to cultivate access to Divine Mind:
Entering the Field of Infinite Potential - This exercise builds upon last week's practice of bringing awareness inward. Sit quietly and bring your attention to the spinal column. Visualize a luminous channel of light running up the spinal column, from the tailbone up to the crown of the head and out into infinite space.
The central channel is called "sushumna" in Sanskrit. It is the primary channel for awakening spiritual consciousness, as well as for distribution of vital life force energy throughout the subtle body. As you practice maintaining your awareness within the sushumna, imagine also a brilliant flame burning in the area between the two eyebrows.
If this feels difficult, you can use a series of tones discovered by the yogis to help purify and awaken this channel. The following sounds can be chanted out loud or silently while moving your awareness up the spinal column as described. Start by focusing your attention on the lower abdomen region, and tone the sound “ahhhhh,” (as in “awe”). Slowly move your awareness up the spinal column to the heart center in the center of the chest, and tone the sound “ooooooo,” (as in “tune”). Now moving your attention further up the spinal column into the throat region, tone the sound “maaaaaa” (as in “mom”). Finally, imagine a flame burning in the third eye between the two eyebrows, and tone the sound “Ommmmm” (as in “home”). Repeat this cycle as many times as you like. By awakening this channel, you open into the Divine Mind.
posted by Stacey Lawson at
8:05 AM
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