The Cosmic Mandala
A Discourse by The Avataric Great Sage Adi Da Samraj
I.
ADI DA SAMRAJ: It is more or less common knowledge, at the present time, that you are not merely seeing what is external in this room. Your seeing is, in fact, an electronic apparition, developed in the nervous system of the brain. You have no direct connection to the gross object, or objects, that you are seeming to view at the present time. In other words, you are having a vision. You are not merely seeing a gross environment, but you are having a vision of a gross environment.
Likewise, your sense of being physically embodied is communicated to you through the electronics of the nervous system. You are experiencing an apparition, an electronic sense of being identified with a gross physical body. The position in which you are experiencing perceptions is an extremely subtle position. You seem to be possessed of very gross, tangible objects of attention, but none of the objects with which you are associated are actually gross and tangible to you. They are all electronic apparitions.
Because of the tendency to be identified with the body, and also because of all the taboos associated with conventional consciousness in this world, people do not investigate, or thoroughly explore and "consider", the status of their own experience in any moment. Therefore, when they have uncommon experiences, such as near-death experiences or even mystical experiences, they interpret and modify those experiences, or only move into certain kinds of experiences, because of limiting tendencies or presumptions of mind.
Mind is not merely in the brain and less than the brain. Mind is the circumstance of limited consciousness in its association with objects of all kinds. Mind is universal, infinite in extent. And if you put yourself into a position to explore the roots of experiencing, you are going to enter into a realm of mind in which you realize mind to be greater than mere daily thinking and social consciousness.
Those who take up the discipline of Yogic mysticism learn in the process to become responsible for the tendencies of mind and attention that cause certain experiences to arise, or cause attention to gravitate toward one or another kind of phenomenon, or cause limiting interpretations to be superimposed on experience. Through the science of Yogic mysticism, living beings can enter into a pure perception of the mechanism of human existence.
By contrast, the spontaneous experiences of people in the near-death condition are really impure perceptions of the mechanism wherein experience is arising, because those who experience them are not completely responsible for attention, and, therefore, for mind. Likewise, in the ordinary waking state, because of the conditional limits of attention, people are engaged in an impure perception of the present phenomena of ordinary waking consciousness. They do not directly enter into an awareness of things. They are living out a conventional destiny based on un-Enlightened presumptions of born existence in this world. People do not typically enter into subtler phenomena, or the mechanisms that are the source of gross experience, and, even if they do, whether intentionally or unintentionally, they tend to enter into them via irresponsible attention-or attention that is habituated to a limited state of self-identification, limited associations, and mind-forms that are developed in the un-Enlightened drive of the individual for consolation and survival.
But in the near-death experience, and in the death experience, which will come to everyone, attention moves directly into, through, and beyond the subtler mechanism of the brain and nervous system, and then, ultimately, into the Source of phenomena, mind, and the mechanics of attention. The Source of phenomenal appearances is a great Power. It is Love-Blissful Energy. It is called "Shakti" in the Hindu tradition. It is Maya, or the binding power of creation. It is a dimension of the Transcendental (and Inherently Spiritual) Divine Being, in Which you inhere, and with Which you are, ultimately and Perfectly, Identical. But because you are related to That with Which you are ultimately Identified, and in Which you inhere, on the basis of an already presumed limitation of being, you do not live on the basis of Identification with the Divine Self-Condition.
The situation of conditionally manifested beings in this world is typical of conditional beings in all worlds. You are presuming a limited condition of being, based on identification with attention in your current state of embodiment. The embodied attention is surrounded by a massive psychic form or individuated state of energy. And each of you is living out that condition in the gross plane of embodiment. You have the opportunity, in the subtler range of your existence, to explore more subtle conditions of existence and even the Ultimate Divine Self-Condition of all existence. That opportunity is directly available to you in the present moment, but you are dissociated from it through the habit mechanism of attention. Likewise, in sleep, in dreams, in reveries, in near death, in death, in your life of aspiration and creativity, in all kinds of moments, you are thrown out of the circumstance to which you are tending to bind yourself habitually, and you have the opportunity to perceive, or intuit, That Which is Ultimate or Divine.
But the state of your attention, which is a mechanical gesture of individuated consciousness within the frame of conditional possibilities, determines your experience. If an individual enters into the near-death state or the actual death state in a moment of Spiritual maturity, having (through real self-transcending Spiritual practice) become responsible for the mechanism of attention, so that the body-mind is in a state of equanimity and attention is inherently free, then whatever secondary phenomena may occur, the Primary "Phenomenon" will be directly obvious.
What people are seeing in the near-death state are mind-forms, or tendencies of mind. The tendencies of their attention are causing them to gravitate toward apparitions in the universal realm of appearances. Thus, people do not generally report a direct awareness of the mechanism whereby phenomena are arising. Rather, they describe secondary visions.
II.
ADI DA SAMRAJ: If attention were free to simply see the universal mechanism in which the phenomena of near-death experiences are arising, however, what would be seen is a Mandala of light, or light-energy, made of concentric circles.
In the Tibetan Book of the Dead, it is said that after death a person will immediately enter into the Clear White Light. This is the White Brilliance, the primary Light from which all colored light comes prismatically. The curve is the sign of the crystalline prism that is conditional existence, which breaks up the Whiteness into colors. Just as a rainbow is red and yellowish at its outer edge, then blue toward the center, the outer field of the Mandala is golden-yellow with reddish or pinkish colors at its periphery and blue toward the center. But at the most distant central point is the White Brilliance.
In the death state or the after-death state, generally the tunnel is the indigo field that surrounds the blue. As they enter into the blue, they seem to pass down a long tunnel made of the indigo field. Then they see into the blue field itself, and if they do not become involved in the blue field, they will see beyond its possible visionary phenomena or apparitions. The blue field itself will seem like a tunnel that moves into the distance and may even curve slightly to the right, so that the White Brilliance seems to be directly ahead of them, but just slightly around a curve. The light even looks as if it is shining against the left wall. That White Brilliance is not merely objective to attention. If It is Divinely Recognized, It is Realized to be the Native Self-Radiance of Self-Existing Divine Being, or the Transcendental (and Inherently Spiritual) Divine Self. Only if it is Realized as such will attention enter into the Domain of Whiteness and stay there. That is Divine Translation, or entrance into the Divine Self-Domain.
But human beings are controlled by the mechanics of attention. They are already identified with lesser states by virtue of the habit of attention. Thus, as it is said in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, if there is no ability to remain in the White Brilliance, or the Clear White Light, other apparitions will immediately appear. The Tibetan Book of the Dead describes a developing sequence of apparitions, at the end of which occurs re-embodiment in the gross plane. The book is in fact a record of the real investigations and real experiences of highly Spiritualized individuals who had the capability to enter fully into the process of death and life. The process they describe as the return from the White Brilliance, or the Clear White Light, to embodiment is in fact inevitable in nearly all cases.
Each of the levels of this Great Mandala of the Cosmos represents a quality of energy, or light. In each of the rings or portions of this Mandala that move out from the central Whiteness are infinite numbers of possible worlds and kinds of embodiment. In this gross plane in which you now exist, you are at the outskirts of the Great Mandala of the Cosmos at this present moment. There are grosser conditions of awareness, grosser possibilities, than the present one, which may be called "hells", or degraded states, or states of embodiment less than human. They may appear as forms of worlds other than the present one, as well as states in the plane of this gross world that are not necessarily apparent to vision.
You are presently existing in the outer frame of the Great Field of the Cosmic Mandala. Unless there is responsibility for attention, there will be no movement closer to the Center. Unless there is Divine Enlightenment, there will be no permanent residence in the Center, or the Source, of the Cosmic Mandala, and there is no permanence anywhere but in the Source. All possibilities, all forms of embodiment and experience in the planes of manifested light, or the rainbow of the Cosmic Mandala, are temporary.
It is possible to live a long time in any plane. It is even possible to live a long time in this gross world under certain conditions of Yogic transformation. It is possible to appear as an ordinary human being in this world for hundreds or thousands of years. Typically, people live for just a few years, but they could live longer. To live longer is not to Realize Divine Enlightenment—it is simply to live longer. It is possible to realize a state of relative equanimity, in this world or in any other world, and to live more peacefully, more happily, more pleasurably, more sensibly, more sanely. Even so, so to live is not itself to be Divinely Enlightened, nor is it a permanent condition. Sooner or later life comes to an end.
Subtler worlds exist closer to the Center of the Cosmic Mandala. Even in the golden-yellow ring there are subtler worlds closer to the Center. In the blue field, there are all kinds of worlds. In general, to live in any of the worlds closer to the Center is to live in a condition that is more benign, with greater powers and with a greater range of phenomenal possibilities, than the usual life in this gross world. But to live in these worlds is not to be inherently and Divinely Enlightened, Free, or immortal. Nor would immortality be desirable in those planes, because there is no Ultimate Happiness there, even in the state of equanimity.
Equanimity is simply the sattvic, or balanced, condition in any realm of possibility. Equanimity is not an end in itself but simply a ground on the basis of which attention is relatively free. What you do with attention on the basis of equanimity is the means for the transcendence and transformation of destiny.
YOU COULD STOP HERE.
