David Spero

www.davidspero.org

It's not so much the behavior of the Mad Avadhoot that concerns me, although this is a legitimate and fascinating point in this context. My real concern is that Being, or the Self, is the Shakti. Shakti is not an "event" or experience "in" advaita Vedanta.

Sometimes the ocean is silent, without waves. Other times waves crash, spraying vapor into the air, landing on a human body. You can gaze into water and realize the ocean by “seeing” it and you can also know it through “feeling” its vapors. In either case, ocean can be experienced.
There’s no evidence that the ocean, in its silent state, is residing in its preferentially Ultimate Condition. There is nothing to justify, from the viewpoint of Total Realization, that silence is more characteristic of the Absolute than its manifesting power, Shakti, or its felt (emotional) intensity as Bhakti, Devotion.

Shiva (Absolute), Shakti (Kundalini). and Bhakti (Devotional Feeling) birth into and as each other. From this perspective, neither Shiva, Shakti, nor Bhakti offer a superior viewpoint. When Shiva, Shakti, and Bhakti interpenetrate, one is wrapped in Absolute Love Energy. One becomes Living God-ness.

Shakti is bodily ecstasy, a thrilling form of orgasmic consummation in Energy. Shakti is what the Absolute "feels like." Shakti is the force that carries human attention into the Absolute. It is the Absolute, vibrating.

Some can reach Awakening through feeling-less communication (the "You are That" talk associated with advaita Vedanta). Others require a more visceral, experiential connection and for them Shakti (or Bhakti) is a Way.

Many beings enjoy Shakti as a ladder to "climb," or that which "climbs them," an energetic rope to grab onto, or that possesses them, so they can lift into the Supreme Reality. Shakti sages insist that Mother-Shakti does everything. She accomplishes their entire sadhana, without effort. Such can also be said of the Guru who radiates Shakti.

One of the dangers of advaita Vedanta language is to reduce enlightenment to the Subject, disregarding the movements of relative existence, thereby pointing to Being as ("merely") immutable and Absolute--when in fact it is constantly on fire, burning in its own intensity, radiating the "heat" of Energy and Devotion. Of course, for those with a strong disposition toward a phenomena-less enlightenment, it is a heatless or cool heat.

Radically, in Total Awakening, (experience of) the Absolute vanishes. Understanding the fateful eclipsing of the Absolute is essential, otherwise one will indicate the Absolute as a (separate) actual place or (exclusive) state (of inner Self-Realization). One might even become profoundly depressed upon realizing that one has actually realized Nothing.

Another issue comes up in this context--the various forms of spiritual transmission. For me, there are four, clearly discernable, yet mutually arising qualities within Total Awakening, Advaita Vedanta (Unknowingness or Absolute Being), Divine Love (Inebriating Feeling), Kundalini-Shakti (Upward Moving, Descending, and circulating Spiritual Current) and the Multi Dimensional Lights in Consciousness (frequencies, subtle energies, and healing vibrations, which heal and integrate the gross and subtle bodies). There is no hierarchy among them. They are all infused in non-dual liberation, one that cannot be seen, felt, heard or touched.

You know, nature has all kinds of beings in it. Some you like to cuddle up to and others want to dine on you. There are many different kinds of Enlightened Beings, idiosyncratic manifestations of the Absolute.

The Great Ones are all nuts, let's face it!
Going mad in God can take on any form or expression, even those of attachment and delusion. When I sit with people, they are all assumed to be embodiments of God-Consciousness, no matter what state of consciousness they are in.

You may also say that realization of the Shakti is the "whole story.” Can you find the “real ocean” only after all of its waves have ceased? Only in a picture book can you find such a quiet ocean.

I want to walk to the real ocean, not some picture of an ocean, where it is crashing, smashing all the spheres of existence, breaking in the beauty of sahaja samadhi, its natural state.

Love, David

www.davidspero.org