Imperience Day Celebrations, 14-08-2006

Dear associates in the Path,

My humble Pranam to all of you gathered on this 4th anniversary day of Imperience. As you all know this institution supports the ISRC in the training programs. The last two days we were busy trying to inform new aspirants of the system of Rev. Babuji. We utilise the days of celebrations to guide those who are already practicing the system. All this we do is with a sense of service and dedication to the Master and we try to make everything as open as possible without mystifying anything.

The ISRC and Imperience are guided by a team of persons who are advanced in the path elected by the general body of the organisation annually, in the nominal but necessary routine duties of how, when and where to conduct the programs and is called the Governing Council though there is nothing here to govern. The collective decision made by them in favour of any person is the method adopted for according permission to work as trainer. We are all aware that our orientation is always to Rev. Babuji Maharaj and we have connection with him in the Dr. K.C.Varadachari Order. The philosophy and practice taught in these institutions are those given by Rev. Babuji and we only add our personal anubhava where ever necessary to explain his system. There is no head of these institutions as such is well known but many do not understand the approach to spirituality we have and think that some one or the other is the head. As humanity advances more and more in spirituality the non-head organizations will become normal. No one thus here amongst us is a Guru and that position is given to Mahatma Sri Ramchandraji Maharaj of Shahjahanpur, India who is a Satguru and Samartha guru as he gave us a new way to realisation and whose presence is what is enshrined in the hearts of all those who practice this system of balanced living.

Talking or writing has become one of the most preferred means of communicating though I personally think it is in silence that we communicate better. We all know that our Master Rev. Babuji Maharaj talked very little but communicated to us in silence and the thoughts penetrated into our hearts without the medium of words. This is what he is doing even now. Rev.Babuji Maharaj has informed Dr.K.C.Varadachari that “I am reminded of Lord Krishna’s prediction intercommunicated to me some time ago, that the time has not yet come for the people to have full understanding of your existence though it shall definitely come but only when you have given up the material form”. Our awareness of his existence now is much more real to us and this is understood only by persons who do not identify existence with physical presence. Those who cling to notions of existence as restricted to physical forms and notions are condemned to learn in the long run only. It should be noted that the entire work in spirituality is done in silence.

Dr.K.C.Varadachari throws more light on this subject when he wrote that “The mystic seer wishes to probe into that which is beyond thought and sense and even the individual ego-sense. He is determined to realise Reality through thought if possible if not through being itself. In one sense then being becomes the mode by which Being can be apprehended or grasped or made real to oneself. This is the meaning of anu-bhava, which may be properly translated as imperience rather than experience. It is an in-tuition rather than intellection or discursive and dichotomic dialectic.” Imperience is then a state of being and is not something restricted by the realm of thought, leave alone words.

While explaining the Goal we have to attain, he stated that “We have to go beyond the Jiva and beyond the Brahman to a condition that is neither thought nor motion. Those who say thought is motion are speaking nonsense. And those who maintain that motion has no thought are also speaking nonsense. They almost came together. They are like time and space, the two coordinates of existence. This is the picture which our Master gives. It is simple provided you rise up to the point of perception by imperience with the help of the Divine cosmic.”

We may kindly note that thought is the basic character of both the Atman and Brahman and while motion qua motion is the way of the Atman, motion as development is what the Brahman is. This clarity in the nature of the Atman and Brahman is given to us by our Grand Master Lalaji Maharaj about which we have had discussions earlier. I would like to redefine the state of Imperience as the wisdom that is definitive of the state of integral wholesome awareness that is gained in the moments of contemplation after we have had a dip in the state of Nothingness where in there is neither the internal nor the external. This is not any philosophical concept that I am putting forward but is the essence of my meditations that recurs daily. I am aware of many assembled here who have the same experience and are grateful to our Lord for the same.

I try here to explain matters that are not easily amenable to the language that we have, to express and clarify to the best of my capacity. I request the spirit of this communication may be taken and not the words which are in any way most of the time inappropriate. During meditations when we are deeply absorbed there comes a state when the condition of near (but never absolute) non-conscious state is reached. Our Being takes the character of an almost static, all-inclusive single point orientation to pure and absolute consciousness (subjective activity) and such an orientation also represents a state of nearly infinite potentiality for expansion. It is our imperience that at the very moment when the principle of duality or awareness of our condition of being in Prayer is the weakest it can ever be, our separateness forces its right to existence and to challenge the nearly all powerful imperience of integral Oneness. Being, almost totally absorbed and condensed into a nearly all-inclusive ecstasy of Unity (or blessing splendour), a nearly timeless imperience of "beingness" is compelled by the oscillatory momentum of the movement of wholeness, to reverse its polarity.

This phenomenon is what I had felt in my case as also that of others when such a reversal had to be willed to felicitate the Yatra in higher planes of consciousness. This is the phenomenon of what Rev. Babuji called the “the principle of Invertendo.” The "center" that has yawned to its circumference in each knot gets once more moved by the idea of a "circle" it would centralize. The incredibly condensed core of subjective being, burdened by samskaras or by the memory of its existential dimensions, is not allowed by the movement of wholeness to reach the condition of a dimensionless point. It is perfectly in order if I were to state that as the agony of being in Being but that is the lot of very few whom I had occasion to come across. The restlessness that exists here is in an apparent state of balance is a matter to be imperienced. However there is happiness that we are not alone here. As Master put it in his book Efficacy of Rajayoga the first person who reached the central region is still swimming to reach the shores of the Infinite.

It is evident for the serious aspirants that the structure of events in transcendent states of consciousness is different from what we have in our everyday mode of living. In particular, the subject-object duality that characterizes the manner in which we ordinarily think is superseded by "consciousness-without-an-object." If we understand this we would be able to appreciate Dr. K. C. Varadachari’s restrictive usage of the term "experience" for events that occur in the relative domain, and why he coined the term "imperience" for transcendent events. In our ordinary state of consciousness knowledge is possible through the two processes of sensory perception and rational thinking, whereas in the transcendent domain a new mode of knowledge becomes available, knowledge through identification with that which is known or what some thinkers call Noetic. That is what we mean by the word Laya or mergence. The states of Laya or mergence are as many as the knots and sub-knots and buffers. Imperience then would mean wisdom through identity and its characteristics are that it is immediate and highly Noetic. This is not in any way affecting the earlier definition I made of this word and as a matter of fact this only elaborates the same. It is not anything happening internal or inside our body but something that is integral and universal so far as the aspirant is concerned. True it is, that there is something imperial about this word and that is meant to be so. There is no regality that is more than the Divine Regality.

Furthermore, there is an ontological inversion between everyday and transcendent states. The substance of our everyday consciousness, that we take to be real, turns out to be only apparently real when we move from the consciousness prevailing in the lower portion of the heart to the higher portion. Unless this happens there is no significant change in our consciousness warranting us to state that we have progressed. While this is the first inversion that has to be attended to there are many more to come as we move in the path. In fact as revealed by our great Master Rev. Babuji there is an inverse relationship between the various knots and the inversion has to be reverted so that we may move from the apparent reality in one plane to the substantial reality in the next plane. There is thus a series of inversions and reversions that happen in our journey to the Infinity. This work gets done best with the help of the trainer and the co operation of the aspirant is paramount. Every aspirant should note that moulding is possible only when the substance sought to be moulded is malleable.

The consciousness in the deep states of absorption had at the higher planes of consciousness more particularly after we pass the realms of Para Brahmanda mandal grants us a state of awareness that is had after we come out of the state of absorption that we were through a realm where light is not felt and darkness is also absent. This is a matter of personal growth and I do not think I can explain it better. Our brother K.C.Srikrishna has pointed out to me the similarity of this state to the state of event horizon that is described in astrophysics. The event horizon I understand is the gravity field of a black hole where the space-time is so bent that light cannot escape it. The event horizon creates a region in space where nothing can escape.

Thus when something enters the event horizon, it will vanish without a trace. If the object initially were to be emitting something, after it is enveloped by the event horizon, not even the emissions that traced its existence will escape the black hole. This state may be summarized to mean that God abhors a naked singularity. This means that no one outside of the event horizon is capable of observing what is inside a black hole. During meditations when we are in a state of an initial expansiveness and find that the scenario has become dimensionless expansiveness, that is all the ten directions are totally enveloped by an awareness that does not cognize any light of any type and even when the gray color is totally absent there comes a state that, in the not fully understood centre of the expansion, a sudden collapse and the state of awareness or identity is totally gone. We enter into a state which we do not know how to describe, as the awareness is something that comes after we emerge from this state and then feel that we were into Nothingness. Such is the nature of laya or mergence that we imperience in each knot and sub-knot on the path Towards Infinity. This is what I understand to be the meaning of the concept of several sandhyas apart from the physical ones that we see at sunrise and sunset. After each encounter with Nothingness that is had in the different knots there is an emergence of a new and refined identity or singularity of being. The various shades of sublimity or singularity that we have in the various knots have been described in the book Path of Grace.

The wisdom that gets generated due to these imperiences is what I consider to be the enabling factor in understanding the real meaning of the various commandments of the Master. That is what was sought to be portrayed in the book “Imperience Beckons”. Master has categorically stated that the book on Commandments was written in a state of superfine state of spirituality. It was our endeavour to present a picture of the various commandments imperienced in this manner with the conditions in the various knots and also the different realms and regions of spirituality that we go through during our march to Infinity. It is our considered opinion that this interpretation of the Commandments of the Master makes the original work more meaningful and we do not agree with others who feel that these injunctions are not all that necessary when one has the love for the Master. During this year we have been able to present the original text in Urdu of the book along with its transliteration and translation thanks to the initiative and zeal of Dr. Janardhan Reddy garu who shared his moments of joy and happiness he found in the work of the Master.

When we go through the various states of mergence and identicality and we move out of the rings of splendour we find that though re-emergence is there it is but nominal. This is what was tried to be portrayed in the cover page of the book Event Horizon where we presented the state of Insignificance that moves through the singularity of the Master into Nothingness. The knots and centres that are identified in the human frame where a particular type of consciousness reigns and which have a binding nature too had been the subject of research at the institution of Imperience.

It is because of the problems in training that arose in the system during Rev. Babuji’s life time itself are due to the, I feel, lack of understanding of the role of Pranahuti and that of the trainer many problems arose to the aspirants in the path. The institute is trying to help the aspirants in the path explaining several intricacies. The seminars and workshops we have had so far tried to meet this requirement to some extent. We have already published papers on Pranahuti and on many occasions clarified for ourselves the nature and role of Pranahuti. We are attempting a comprehensive book let on the subject and a draft on Pranahuti is getting finalised and the assistance of several seekers in the content and manner of presentation of the subject is gratefully acknowledged.

The article “The method of Training” was written by the Master during the seminar of trainers in 1970 where the lapses in the work of the trainers were fully discussed. The papers discussed are to day not available with SMRI or with us. Fortunately the talk of the Master Rev. Babuji Maharaj on this occasion is available with us. The article “They have lost the Ocean” was published in 1976 or thereabouts. Finding that there is no change in the attitude of the persons involved in work the Master in this article laments openly (as contrasted to the veiled version in the earlier talk) about the work of the Preceptors and prefects. How the trainers have developed their Ego and are lost in their own vanity, prescribing methods of their own is the subject matter of the talks. We have requested some senior aspirants in the path to present a paper to day on the topic of interest to all of us namely “A few are so born who confuse dhal for boiled rice and take great pleasure in this confusion.” I do hope that the papers will throw some light on the subject and enable all in the field to understand their responsibilities and work for the Master with greater zeal and enthusiasm.

My humble pranams to all of you.