Envision a World Where Real Love Reigns
So the retreat is aimed to help you reach the crown chakra, to reach liberation from the illusion, to get out of the matrix of maya so that you can be one with the dreamer of this dream world. If we were Vedantists of the old school we would have started out the retreat with a prayer, a famous prayer from the Upanishads: Asatoma sadgamaya Tamasoma jyotirgamaya Mrtyorma amrtam gamaya. This prayer is still relevant and important because if we don’t realize we are in asat, the unreal, we cannot get to Sat, the Real.
So we must recognize if there is still any trace of ego-consciousness—in other words consciousness that is identified with the body, that is carried by the representation of the Self, the I-thought, rather than the Real I that is transcendent of thought—then we are in the unreal. And if you’re identified with the body there will be fear, there will be anxiety, there will be despair, there will be the emotional rollercoaster of the ego. We must be free of all of those emotions; they are all unreal—whether it’s anger, or sadness, or desire, or lust for power—any of those emotions of possessiveness of an individual self must be released if we are going to be instruments of the infinite Self.
So the perspective and the attitude must become purified if we are going to be in Sat, in the Real. And Sat Yoga is the act of becoming one with the Real, letting go completely of the unreal. The unreal is tamasic—tamaso—to jyotir, the passing from the tamasic state to the light. The tamasic state is dark, but it’s not just dark, the ego is self-deceiving, the ego structure is such that it has different layers, and the conscious layer of the mind is in a state of plausible deniability of what is going on at subconscious levels of the mind, so even if we believe we have become pure and good and we have none of those lower chakra intentions, but if we have not eliminated the entire ego structure then the censor, that level below the conscious mind, we could call it the subject—not the ego: that is subjected to the desires, the fantasies of the subconscious, and wants them to be played out and wants to deceive the conscious mind about the real intentions—this must be eliminated. And this requires a great deal of inner work, a great deal of penetrating vision into our own heart in order to recognize any falseness and to have the courage to slay the demons of the subconscious mind that would sabotage our efforts to be in the crown chakra, and to abide in inner silence and peace and God-consciousness.
And so it is the working through of those subjective tendencies that will show up in your dreams—it will show up in slips of the tongue, it will show up in desires, impulses, addictions, attitudes of the lower three chakras—whether they are those of wanting to escape, wanting to space out, wanting to take drugs in order to ease the pain and the anxiety, or to lose touch with our true duties and dharma, and our mandate and imperative of transformation.
And we must let go of whatever desires of the body there are—whether it’s pornographic lust or romantic fantasies, or any of the other forms of chakra two false self desires for an object that will make one feel whole—we can only feel whole through the letting go of the false self that lacks essence, that lacks reality, because it’s identified with a material form that is temporary, and therefore that is in a state of fear of its own extinction and the pain and the suffering of aging and of loss, etc. So we must be free of that, and we must be free of the desire for territory, power, money, control, of chakra three; we must let go of those very consciously but also see if there are tendencies that remain below the threshold of consciousness, that would sabotage our complete openness, and our complete letting go of the attempt to manipulate and control and determine, but be in a state of surrender to the supreme Intelligence that is guiding us, but that can only reach us and move us accurately if we are empty of ego.
And then finally the Mrtyor, the death—we are to be led from death to immortality. Well, in fact of course we are already immortal, we are already the light, we are already the Real, but if you’re identified with a mortal body then you are still in the land of death. And it’s letting go of our attachment to the body that is necessary in order to realize our true immortal nature, our eternal nature. And our nature is eternal because when we are free of the false ego and all of its narratives—its constant self-talk, its constant attempt to control, understand through conceptualization and rhetoric and using words to manipulate and persuade and seduce, etc.—when we are free of that we are living in the present—and the present is eternity. The present is beyond time and it is that timeless presence that is what brings about the capacity for the redreaming of a world.
So all of these three aspects of the ancient prayer are still accurate but we must understand them psychologically and we must not ask to be led from outside, but we must find the Godself within. We must not be dependent on any other being. We must give up all dependency if we are going to be free. And if our population had been in this state no one would have been afraid of a virus, the pandemic could not have led to lockdowns and the shutting down of society and the bringing an end to the world as we know it, which is just the beginning of the various machinations that will go on—but because of the cowardice that is inherent to body-consciousness, humans have fallen from a true race intended to be crowns of creation, and masters, to become a slave-race. And if we are to give up the chains of our slavery we must realize our true nature as bodiless spirit and not fear death.
And so those who are heroic, who have the courage to kill the ego and the thoughts that promote fear, anxiety, desire, and all of the emotional chains, attachments, addictions, of the ego-mind, that keep us from being in a state of peace, and silence, and love—those must be dropped, renounced, let go, and consistently, not just occasionally—completely—so that in that state of desirelessness the higher chakras open and we will know what love really means—love without an object, love that is our nature, love that is union with all that is, love that is the freedom of our infinite Being to manifest in a state of grace.
And this brings the opening of chakra five and the wisdom, the archetypal knowledge that we have forgotten and lost our attunement to through the body-conscious identity—and that wisdom then that comes from God will guide us through the world, enable us to navigate properly and to cope with whatever challenges we face in our own individual destinies.
But this will open up chakra six as the true surrender leads to mastery, and the mastery of the mind leads to that consistent silencing that brings the total union, the crown chakra, the capacity for living as an instrument of God-consciousness, free of ego. It’s this that is the sadhana, the pathway, that enables us to earn our liberation, our right to co-dream the new cycle of time, the new world in which we are free to appear again as avatars of the Godself, or be liberated eternally into the light that is transcendent of all worlds.