Second Interlunde Part 2

into the Grand Magnificent Self is a breathtaking experience that touches the deepest of our emotions. An intense burst of ecstasy, elation and of profound relief suffuses us as we regain awareness of who we really are. There's the dawning of vast comprehension, immense freedom and deep sovereignty. And there's a surge of great exhilaration as we receive a first taste of the fantastic future spreading out before us now.

    The high intensity of this initial burst typically stays with us for several days. Then slowly we become accustomed to our widened perception.

    In the months following this breakthrough these feelings of intense happiness gradually decrease and slowly turn into a more stable, less prominent emotion. Something within us changed fundamentally, but as the months turn this seems to fade into the background, until the hustle bustle of daily life gets back to dominating our life again.

    Many who experienced this breakthrough reported such 'fading away'.

    Apparently our very first ecstatic insight merely serves to give us orientation, to provide an anchor, to show us where we can find that hidden, magnificent basis within ourselves. Yet left to itself we easily may drift back to our previous, limited life without taking much advantage of this priceless insight.

    Though we are able to re-vitalize this special experience at any time just by recalling the ecstasy, elation and serenity we felt during our initial breakthrough, it seems that something more would need to be 'activated' or 'done' or 'focused on' to stabilize our perception, to make it permanent. - 'If we are careless about it, we will lose it again' was said by the wise Rangaramanuja.

Now - given the fact that awareness of our Grand, Majestic Self was quite thoroughly forgotten during the past 2000+ years, and that knowledge about it had been turned into much useless formal religion and empty ceremony, it's easy to assume that information about far deeper and even more advanced methods how to handle and stabilize such insight might have gotten lost entirely.

    Yet - contrary to this assumption - there exists a body of ancient Sanskrit scriptures in which such special know-how survived for almost three millennia - 'The Upanishads'.

    Written from around 800 BC onwards, The Upanishads hold advanced information how to stabilize perception of our Grand Self - called 'Brahman' = 'The Great, The Expanding' in the scriptures, - and intricate details how our world functions when awareness is as its center.

    During the eight centuries these texts were written in, such knowledge was evidently so thoroughly established that a long succession of people could lay down extensive descriptions of this central experience.

    The title 'Upanishad' itself contains a hidden clue about its theme, - and also about the type of person it is intended for.

    'Upanishad' combines two words: 'upa' = 'nearby' and '(ni)shad' = 'to sit', - denoting: 'sitting close by'. For many centuries this was believed to either mean 'sitting close to a teacher (guru) to hear secret instructions', or 'being closely associated with the Vedas', though no textual evidence exists that either of these readings may be correct.

    In the light of this new, dynamic interpretation, an entirely different meaning is far more obvious: - The dominating theme of all the upanishadic texts is Brahman, is the realization of our own Grand Self. Thus 'sitting closely' simply stands for that special 'state' we find ourselves in after we became aware of our Grand, Majestic Self – Brahman, - but have not stabilized our perception, have not made it permanent yet. We 'sit near to' our  Grand Self, and now are introduced to the mechanism to fully integrate It into our life.

    So widespread must have been this knowledge in the ancient days that its people didn't even feel the need to state what they were 'sitting near to'. For them it was entirely obvious that Brahman – their very own Grand Self - the very theme of these scriptures – was meant here.

There is a myth surrounding the ancient authors of The Upanishads. Called 'rishis', - which means 'seers', - they are alleged to have somehow 'seen' the stanzas, to have divined them in a magic way beyond the reach of normal people. Much lore about these highly venerated sages accumulated during the millennia, none of which providing insight into this process of 'seeing', into the mysterious perception of this knowledge.

    So far so good. - Yet if we simply take the core content of the scriptures these sages generated, then what they 'saw' was actually their Grand Self, - was what they called Brahman - 'The Great, The Expanding' - in their revelations. The rishis were simply 'knowers of their Grand Self', in the same way as the 'Gnostics' - the 'Knowers' of the early Christian era - had insight into the same Grand Majestic Awareness underlying everything.

    While 'seeing', - i.e. while being firmly anchored in their Grand Self, - the rishis just verbalized the insights they perceived in this special state.

Today The Upanishads are deemed to be remnants of an arcane and rather unfathomable philosophy that has little to no practical use for daily life.

    Yet considering the fact that for at least one entire millennium these texts were painstakingly memorized and passed on in verbal form only, they clearly must offer more than mere dry, theoretical thoughts destined to perish in dusty tomes on library-shelves.

    Somewhere within these scriptures vitally important, unique instructions must be hidden to warrant that huge concerted effort of a large number of families, who during a long one thousand years – for forty generations ! - devoted themselves to hand down these text orally and exact from one generation to the next.

    The effort of these dedicated people paid off. The Upanishads made it to our present time with hardly any distortion and are now widely available in printed and digital form.

    Yet the key to that vital information, that hands-on access to their core substance seems to have gotten lost. The real purpose of these scriptures, their true meaning and the immediate, concrete impact they held in ancient times, remains utterly obscure today.

    It's three crucial factors that thoroughly block access to the scriptures' true substance in our days:

All translations available till now focus exclusively on the - rather static – presumption that The Upanishads would be archaic philosophical texts. Thus they completely miss the practical, dynamic instructions readily available within their contents.

 

    Brahman - our very own Great Self - is mainly thought of as an 'obscure principle', a 'theoretical postulation', a 'speculative idea' that could not possibly be experienced.

 

    Yet many of these ancient texts explicitly describe such direct perception and mention a wide range of dynamic interactions with the Self that enhance life, - and which may easily amplify and inspire our hopes, ambitions and achievements today, if we just could access them in our times as well.

 

None of the scholars translating it really knew Brahman, - really knew their own Grand Self from direct personal experience. None of them had true inner access to what the scriptures really talked about in an electrifying way.

    Thus, without this direct knowledge, nearly all translations sport highly diffuse, twisted and often outright false meanings, which impose the interpreters' confused ideas and non-comprehension on the texts, - and in consequence render much of the original information unintelligible.

 

There exist about 200 Upanishads, written by at least as many authors over a period of 800+ years.

 

    The oldest are long and elaborate, while some of the younger ones contain only a handful of stanzas. Some just promote one particular monotheistic or polytheistic idea, some are merely extolling one specific feature mentioned in earlier texts, some tell intricate, elaborate cover-stories, some attempt intellectual explanation of the concepts they put forward, while others just list factors without any elaboration.

 

    There've been attempts to classify these texts into major and minor works, but this is mostly along what scholars describe as 'the evolution of intellectual thought', - a criterion utterly useless for gaining insight into their real content, into the vital orientation and assistance they offer.

 

    Yet what really complicated my task - i.e. to identify the passages offering instructions how to stabilize and intensify perception of our Grand Self, - was that the relevant segments were few only, and scattered over the entire collection of texts.

    And then these select segments often presented multifaceted, complex views, aspects, paths of action and ways of thinking, all condensed into highly concise, comprehensive statements. Many repeated what other texts said, only adding further, often minute, yet vital aspects.

To untangle this jungle of instructions and information, I chose to arrange the passages into three main groups:

The Grand Self

• to understand what's hidden deep within us, - the immense powers of our Grand Self, its deep sagacity, its intricate, kaleidoscopic creative force

• to become aware of what's ahead of us, - what we are expanding into
  
  

Navigation, Expansion and Stabilization

• to gain a compass with which to navigate the countless labyrinths of time that surround us at present

• to activate deeper mechanisms of our actions, thoughts and emotions that expand vision, perception and abilities

• to find the best way to steer life into total freedom, - and – last not least -

• to stabilize and
  
  

Direct Interaction With The Grand Self

• communicating directly with the Grand Being residing deep within us through meditation and other means
  
  

And one word before I present the scriptures: -

    There is really nothing arcane or unfathomable or intellectually complicated about this knowledge.

    Being aware that a Majestic Self resides within each one of us that's only waiting for us to access it at any time we choose, is simple, basic knowledge that should be available to everyone.

    To know that we were born with this Grand Self nobody is ever able to take away from us, enriches life immensely. It makes us independent of factors we dislike, it opens doors to unthought-of expansion, to entirely new ways of achieving what we desire, to intense fulfillment, vast happiness, and to wide-ranging sovereignty and freedom.

    There's no precondition, no special qualification, nor any need for outside assistance to manifest this broad perception in our life.

    And since we all are born with this ability, - why not inform our children about this - their very own - potential at the earliest time they are capable of understanding.