Are the views of two of the 20th century's most distinctive 'integrative' spiritual teachers complementary or contrasting?
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A few years ago, a friend, Dr. D.E. Mistry, sent me a copy of Eckhart's book, The Power of Now. The power of its words immediately gripped me. I intuitively felt that the words did not express some mental constructions based on theory but spiritual insights arising from Self-realization. Each time, to read the book was to enter a meditative state or what Eckhart would call the state of Presence. After several readings, the book still continues to exert the same influence on me.
In 2001 I had the good fortune to attend a talk given by Eckhart in Palo Alto, California, and a weekend retreat at Esalen in Big Sur. His spoken words and brief personal contacts at those events reinforced my impression of Eckhart as a mystic of a high order.
The following year Eckhart visited India and came to Pondicherry where he gave a public talk and very graciously granted me an interview, which forms part of this book.
It would perhaps be easier to understand Eckhart's impact on me in the context of the course of my seekings. It will also explain the reasons for some of the questions I asked Eckhart at Esalen and in the interview. Briefly, then, I will narrate here the story of my spiritual quest.
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I do not know when my quest can be said to have begun, but I remember being keenly interested at the age of fifteen in questions pertaining to God, the origin of the universe, and the purpose of life. Around this time a new headmaster came to our school. It was most probably he who initially fostered and nourished my interest in philosophical subjects. In his classes he would almost invariably digress to talk about such subjects. I visited him frequently in his home and read books on abstract subjects from his library as well as public libraries. The headmaster regarded himself as an agnostic who neither believed nor disbelieved in God. Agnosticism came to be also my first outlook on the ultimate reality.
When I was about sixteen, a devout and learned missionary priest of the Bahai faith gave a talk at our school. Later I had an interview with him. Unable to convince me of the existence of God, he remarked about the futility of intellectual questions regarding God's existence: water, he said, will never yield butter, however hard one churns it.
Not long afterwards, imperceptibly, I came to have faith in the existence of God. I do not know how or why.
Between the ages of sixteen and eighteen I read voraciously books on religion, psychology, and philosophy. Though I was born in a conservative Muslim family, I was drawn to all religions and went to Christian, Hindu, as well as Muslim places of worship. I was not yet on any particular spiritual path.
Then, at the age of nineteen, I came in contact with Theosophy. In the teachings of H.P. Blavatsky, I found not only answers to all my intellectual questions but also a path of which I became an ardent follower and promulgator.
When I was about twenty-one, I became acquainted with a devotee of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. The books of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother that I borrowed from him had a deep appeal. In particular, the Mother's Prières et Méditations1 made a strong impression, and I was prompted to write to her.
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It was nearly three years later, in 1950, that I visited the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and had Sri Aurobindo's Darshan. That was a turning point in my spiritual quest. I became less and less interested in Theosophy and more and more drawn to Sri Aurobindo's yoga. Since 1951 I have been an avowed practitioner of Sri Aurobindo's yoga and, though I have found inspiration from several spiritual teachers after Sri Aurobindo, I have felt no strong inclination to study any spiritual teachings other than those of Sri Aurobindo's yoga until I came into contact with Eckhart.
The previously mentioned contacts I had with certain persons at different times, the books I came across, and the events and circumstances of my life—many of them seemingly chance incidents—have made me realize intimately the truth of the Mother's words about the role of one's inmost self—the soul or psychic being—in guiding one on the spiritual path. She has said:
If you have within you a psychic being sufficiently awake to watch over you, to prepare your path, it can draw towards you things which help you, draw people, books, circumstances, all sorts of little coincidences which come to you as though brought by some benevolent will and give you an indication, a help, a support to take decisions and turn you in the right direction. But once you have taken this decision, once you have decided to find the truth of your being, once you start sincerely on the road, then everything seems to conspire to help you to advance. ...2
It was only after a lapse of time that retrospectively I had some understanding of the meaning and significance of each of the previously mentioned landmark events and stages in my spiritual growth. I understood that the upsurge of my interest in religious and philosophical subjects at the age of fifteen marked the beginning of the manifest influence of my inner being on my surface being, because all aspiration for the higher things of life, says Sri Aurobindo, comes from the inner being. As he states,
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Only a little of the inner being escapes through these centres [of consciousness3] into the outer life, but that little is the best part of ourselves and responsible for our art, poetry, philosophy, ideals, religious aspirations, efforts at knowledge and perfection.4
I understood the significance of the period of agnosticism through which I passed: it served to disencumber me of certain beliefs that I had acquired without reflection.
The inexplicable birth of faith5 in the existence of God has given mean insight into what the Mother has said about faith:
Faith is certainly a gift given to us by the Divine Grace. It is like a door suddenly opening upon an eternal truth, through which we can see it, almost touch it.
As in everything else in the ascent of humanity, there is the necessity—especially at the beginning—of personal effort. It is possible that in some exceptional circumstances, for reasons which completely elude our intelligence, faith may come almost accidentally, quite unexpectedly, almost without ever having been soliciced, but most frequently it is an answer to a yearning, a need, an aspiration, something in the being that is seeking and longing, even though not in a very conscious and systematic way.6
Theosophy enabled me to understand the fundamental unity of all religions—something I had intuitively sensed earlier— thereby freeing me from the views I had been influenced by previously that tended to stress the differences rather than the similarities among the various religions. Theosophy also served to introduce me to certain fundamental doctrines of Eastern spiritual philosophy,
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such as karma, rebirth, and spiritual evolution—tenets that were quite alien to my early beliefs about the afterlife.
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother seemed to have entered my life at a timely point when Theosophy was beginning to pall on me. Theosophical teachings had well satisfied my need for a philosophical understanding of questions pertaining to life, but for leading a spiritual life, all it offered was basically a path founded on the philosophical concept of the brotherhood of mankind and the ethical ideal of service to humanity. There was a yearning in me, as yet unformulated, for something deeper than the philosophical light and the ethical path I had found in Theosophy. What my inner being seemed to be asking for was a spiritual path leading to self-discovery and God-realization. It is such a path that I found in Sri Aurobindo's yoga. Most probably, the reason why the Mother's Prayers and Meditations made a special appeal to me was that the book speaks of the Divine as not only an impersonal Reality—as conceived in Theosophy— but also as the Lord of the universe and Master of one's being, with whom one can establish a relationship through prayer, devotion, self-offering, and self-consecration.7
The Theosophical view of a solely impersonal Reality no longer seemed to satisfy me. Initially, such a view had made a strong appeal to me because of my dissatisfaction with a too human conception of God with which I grew up. As the Mother remarks in answering the question "What does to seek after the Impersonal mean?":
Oh! It's very much in fashion in the West, my child. All those who are tired or disgusted with the God taught by the Chaldean religions, and especially the Christian religion—a single God, jealous, severe, despotic and so much in the image of man that one wonders if it is not a demiurge as Anatole Fiancé said—these people when they want to lead a spiritual life no longer want the personal God, because they are
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too frightened lest the personal God resemble the one they have been taught about; they want an impersonal Godhead, something that doesn't at all resemble—or as little as possible—the human being; that's what they want.
... but beyond the impersonal Divine there is the Divine who is the Person himself; and we must go through the Impersonal to reach the Supreme Divine who is beyond.8
The view of God as the Supreme Divine, who is beyond the personal and the impersonal, resonated with my deepest intuitions.
Eckhart speaks of God primarily as an impersonal Divine and, like Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, does not use the word "God" very often for similar reasons. He does, however, sometimes speak of Grace, which makes of God more than a purely impersonal Reality solely meting out the results of human actions under the inexorable law of karma.9 From Eckhart's viewpoint, the Divine can be spoken of equally well as He, She, or It.
My inner quest had begun, as it does to some extent with most seekers, with an intellectual need to understand myself, the nature of reality, and the purpose of life. This intellectual need had been well met by Theosophy. So, when I came in contact with Sri Aurobindo, it was his practical teachings on yoga rather than his philosophical writings to which I was paricularly drawn. However, his philosophical writings, which I felt to be charged with the vibrations of a spiritual consciousness and which gave me an intuitive feeling that they were based on spiritual experience, made an impression that was deeper than that of Theosophy and gave me a greater understanding than what I had gained in Theosophy of the nature of the soul and its evolution, and of the laws of karma and reincarnation. I feel that the deep impact Sri Aurobindo's philosophical teaching tends to have is due to its not being a product of mental theorizing but having its source
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in the state of silence beyond the mind. As Sri Aurobindo wrote in 1933: "Since 1908 when I got the silence, I never think with my head or brain—it is always in the wideness generally above the head that the thoughts occur."10
It is certainly not because of any need for a greater philosophical understanding of things that I have been drawn to Eckhart in recent years. In the first place, that need had already been amply met by Theosophy and by Sri Aurobindo. Secondly, Eckhart does not offer a system of philosophy. As he states, a spiritual teaching is not a philosophy or a cosmology; it does not seek to explain the nature of the universe but to help one in accessing a state of consciousness beyond that of the mind. Many of Eckhart's talks, in fact, typically open with a disclaimer that the talk does not purport to give new "information" or theory that may provide food for thought. The power of his words lies not so much in their informational content as in the "high-energy frequency of Presence which they carry."11
A word regarding the relevance of philosophy for the spiritual life from the viewpoint of Sri Aurobindo. He states:
It is only if there is a greater consciousness beyond Mind and that consciousness is accessible to us that we can know and enter into the ultimate Reality. Intellectual speculation and reasoning must fall necessarily into a very secondary place and even lose their reason for existence. Philosophy, intellectual expression of the Truth may remain, but mainly as a means of expressing this greater discovery and as much of its contents as can at all be expressed in mental terms to those who still live in the mental intelligence.12 [Italics by the author.]
Sri Aurobindo is one of those few mystics who, having discovered the Truth through spiritual experience, have given an intellectual expression of the Truth "as a means of expressing this greater discovery and as much of its contents as can at all be expressed in mental terms to
those who still live in the mental intelligence." More on the subject of the role of philosophy in relation to spiritual experience will be said in a subsequent chapter.
Meeting a world teacher such as Eckhart and being strongly drawn to his teachings cannot be a mere chance incident without significance. But I feel I have yet to understand fully the intent of the invisible Wisdom behind my coming into contact with Eckhart at the present stage of my spiritual journey. All I can do at this juncture is to state some of the aspects of Eckhart's teaching that have made a special appeal to me, and which I have found helpful in my practice of Sri Aurobindo's yoga.
Though Eckhart's teachings do not deal with philosophical questions posed by the intellect, they contain a wealth of psychological insights that resonate with one's inner experience and intuition. It is in fact the thoroughly psychological, experiential, nonmetaphysical, and dogma-free nature of his teachings that makes them most appealing.
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Fear—Insecurity
One of the psychological insights of Eckhart's teachings pertains to the nature of ego, which he describes as identification with the mind. To be identified with the mind, says Eckhart, is to be disconnected with one's deeper self and one's true power. Therefore, the mind-identified ego always feels vulnerable and insecure; it experiences constant threat and lives in perpetual fear. Thus, practically everyone lives in a state of fear that varies in degree from being ill at ease to experiencing acute anxiety.
It is after coming across Eckhart's teaching about the ubiquitous nature of fear that I have come to realize more adequately the truth of the following statements of the Mother that I first read decades earlier:
The normal human condition is a state filled with apprehensions and fears; if you observe your mind deeply for ten minutes, you will find that for nine out often it is full of fears—it carries in it fear about many things, big and small, near and
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far, seen and unseen, and though you do not usually take conscious notice of it, it is there all the same.13
Resistance—Complaining
Because of its feeling of constant threat, the ego sees life as an enemy and tends to meet events and circumstances with some form of negative reactivity and resistance, such as anger, complaint, criticism, or judgment. Thus, one tends to fight constantly with what is and continually to say "no" to the present moment, as if one has a perpetual issue with reality. In other words, one lives continuously at discord with the friendly universe and with the benevolent wisdom operating in the universe. Very few human beings are conscious of the fact that, in our normal or egoic consciousness, we are constantly at war with reality. Thus, for instance, very few people realize that, even complaining against bad weather, which is so common with most human beings, implies a resistance to what is. Eckhart's teaching helps one become more conscious of the fact that, complaining, which always expresses a resistance, is a pervasive attitude of our normal egoic consciousness.
Eckhart's description of the egoic resistance to reality gives one a deeper understanding of the ignorant nature of the personal will and the wisdom of the yogic teaching about learning to surrender the personal will to the divine Will. Surrender, says Eckhart, lies in accepting what is, relinquishing the insane resistance to the flow of life.
How to let go of inner resistance to life? Witness the resistance, says Eckhart; be present when it arises, thus making it conscious. By witnessing the unconscious resistance, one steps out of it. Thus, by allowing what is, one can come to feel something of inner freedom and peace.
Needing Ever More—Desire
Another chief characteristic of the egoic self that Eckhart speaks about is its incurable sense of lack, insufficiency, or incompleteness. From this arises insatiable desire for various things. The things one commonly desires in order to fill the hole and feel more complete
are wealth and possessions, success, social status, and special relationships. As the ego never achieves a permanent sense of completeness, one always lives in a state of "craving, wanting, and needing." Though such a state of inner restlessness is present all the time except for brief periods when a particular desire is satisfied, most people are not conscious of the constant restlessness except perhaps when the stare becomes acutely painful.
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Looking to the Next Moment—Waiting
A corollary of the state of constant wanting and needing is the tendency to live always in the future. One does not find joy or satisfaction in the present moment, and looks continually to the next moment or the future when one hopes to have the fulfillment of one's desires. The present moment is regarded as only a means or a passage to the future. Because the future never arrives, one unconsciously lives in a continual state of waiting. Perhaps sensing the state of waiting in the audience before starting to speak, Eckhart has on several occasions opened his talk by commenting on the pervasive attitude of waiting, about which he says, "With every kind of waiting, you unconsciously create inner conflict between here and now, where you don't want to be, and the projected future, where you want to be. This greatly reduces the quality of your life by making you lose the present."14
Waiting, a subtle form of impatience, is more pervasive bur less easily recognized than impatience. Eckhart is the first teacher I have come across who has spoken specifically about the unconscious and pervasive state of waking that characterizes the normal consciousness and that mars the joy of being. This profound psychological insight has enabled me to appreciate Eckhart's message, "Just be and enjoy being," which is reminiscent of what the Mother has inspiringly said about the delight of being that is present in all things and creatures in the universe.
There comes a time when one begins to be almost ready, when one can feel in everything, every object, in every movement, in every vibration, in all the things around—not only
people and conscious beings, but things, objects; not only trees and plants and living things, but simply any object one uses, the things around one—this delight, this delight of being, of being just as one is, simply being. And one sees that all this vibrates like that. One touches a thing and feels this delight.
... For this delight is everywhere. This delight is something very subtle. One moves in the midst of things and it is as though they were all singing to you their delight. There comes a time when it becomes very familiar in the life around you. Of course, I must admit that it is a little more difficult to feel it in human beings, because there are all their mental and vital formations which come into the field of perception and disturb ir. There is too much of this kind of egoistic asperity which gets mixed with things, so it is more difficult to contract the Delight there. Bur even in animals one feels it; it is already a little more difficult than in plants. But in plants, in flowers, it is so wonderful! They speak all their joy, they express it. And as I said, in all familiar objects, the things around you, which you use, there is a state of consciousness in which each one is happy to be, just as it is. So at that moment one knows one has touched true Delight. And it is not conditioned. I mean ... it depends on nothing. It does not depend on outer circumstances, does not depend on a more or less favourable state, it does not depend on anything: it is a communion with the raison d'etre of the universe.15
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Self-Seeking
Another characteristic of the egoic consciousness, which spiritual aspirants are often unaware of, is a seeking for what is basically personal satisfaction or fulfillment. In ordinary life this takes the form of desire for different things. However, Eckhart points our that seeking is part of the egoic consciousness, and so one must cease to be a seeker if one is to live a truly spiritual life. As the Mother said to an aspirant who asked her about yoga:
What do you want the Yoga for? To get power? To attain to peace and calm? To serve humanity?
None of these motives is sufficient to show that you are meant for the Path.
The question you are to answer is this: Do you want the Yoga for the sake of the Divine? Is the Divine the supreme fact of your life, so much so that it is simply impossible for you to do without it? Do you feel your very raison d'etre is the Divine and without it there is no meaning in your existence? If so, then only can it be said that you have a call for the Path.
That is the first thing necessary—aspiration for the Divine.16
Whereas desires arise from the egoic self, what the Mother calls aspiration is something that comes from the inmost self, the soul. So, putting together what Eckhart and the Mother are saying, it is evident that, in order to live a truly spiritual life, one must cease to be a self-seeker and aspire only for Presence—the Divine. In other words, true spirituality consists in giving oneself and in losing one's egoic self rather than in seeking something for oneself. For, the impetus behind the evolution of consciousness—of which both Eckhart and Sri Aurobindo speak—is towards the manifestation of the divine consciousness, which can take place only with the disappearance of the egoic self.
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Mental Noise
One characteristic of the mind that Eckhart has spoken about more often than perhaps any other teacher is the chatter or mental noise that takes place in the head almost all the time, a broader aspect of what Sri Aurobindo calls "the buzz of the physical mind."17 Eckhart
compares this affliction of the mind to pressing the accelerator with the gear in neutral: one burns fuel without going anywhere. This description of mental noise as a drainer of energy has made a particularly strong impression on me.
The remedy spoken of below by the Mother, though most radical, is not of easy access:
The mind must learn to be silent—remain calm, attentive, without making a noise. If you try to silence your mind directly, it is a hard job, almost impossible; for the most material part of the mind never stops its activity—it goes on and on like a non-stop recording machine. It repeats all that it records and unless there is a switch to stop it, it continues and continues indefinitely. If, on the other hand, you manage to shift your consciousness into a higher domain, above the ordinary mind, this opening to the Light calms the mind, it does not stir any longer, and the mental silence so obtained can become constant. Once you enter into this domain, you may very well never come out of it—the external mind always remains calm.'18
Eckhart teaches a remedy that is more readily accessible. It consists simply in being present, becoming a conscious witness of the mental activity instead of unconsciously identifying with the mind.
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Perceiving through the Veil of Mind
This teaching about mental noise is to be found in various schools of discipline that deal with the quieting of the mind. What is new in Eckhart's teaching is his broader and deeper view of what constitutes "mental noise." It includes not only the constant stream of thought but also all mental activity in perceiving reality, including even the rudimentary activity of the mind involved in labeling whatever one perceives. For instance, perceiving a flower and recognizing it, say, as a rose, and mentally labeling it as a rose is, from Eckhart's viewpoint, mental noise. One does not see the being that is the rose but only the
superficial form of the rose through the veil of a label that is a mental abstraction. Thus all mental activity in the form of labeling, judging, analyzing, comparing, classifying, interpreting, theorizing, and the like constitutes mental noise, which prevents one from seeing the reality as it truly is. It is only through the stillness that lies beyond mind that one can perceive reality as it is, says Eckhart. This teaching gives one a jolting insight into the fact of how our contacts with the world are shot through and through with mental noise in Eckhart's deeper sense of the term. His inspiring message in this regard is: "To meet everything and everyone through stillness instead of mental noise is the greatest gift you can offer to the universe. I call it stillness, but it is a jewel with many facets: that stillness is also joy, and it is love."'19
The deeper meaning Eckhart gives to mental noise has enabled me to understand better the distinction the Mother makes between a mental phenomenon (involving thought) and a phenomenon of consciousness (characterized by mental silence or absence of thoughts). As she says:
... you must learn to distinguish between a phenomenon of consciousness and a mental phenomenon. One can be conscious of an experience in such a way that this consciousness is not formulated into a thought or thoughts. This is very important if the mind is to remain absolutely quiet and silent.20
In this regard, one of Eckhart's teachings that has appealed to me most is about cultivating what he calls "thoughtless awareness" or consciousness without thought.
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The Witnessing Presence
Becoming the witnessing Presence is the one remedy Eckhart teaches not only for eliminating mental noise but also for liberating oneself from all other characteristics of the ordinary consciousness, such as fear, desire, and all forms of egoic resistance to life. If I recall
correctly, in the first letter I wrote to Eckhart several years ago, I stated two things: first, the encouraging message I found in his reaching that the witnessing Presence is not part of the old consciousness—it indicates the arising of the new consciousness; and, second, the discouraging feeing I had that, in spite of the practice of the witnessing Presence for quite a number of decades, I still felt almost as bound as ever to the ordinary consciousness. These ambivalent feelings of encouragement and discouragement about the power of the witnessing Presence led me to undertake a study of the witness consciousness in the light of Sri Aurobindo. The study forms Chapter 4 of this book. As a result of the study, I have come to understand that the witnessing Presence that Eckhart teaches can itself be regarded, from the Buddhist perspective, as a state of enlightenment. From this viewpoint, once the witnessing Presence has emerged, all one needs to do is to allow the power of Presence to deepen progressively the state of enlightenment. Therefore I continue to find encouragement in Eckhart's teaching that the noticing of being in nonalignment with ^ the present moment is not part of the nonalignment; it is stepping out of the nonalignment into Presence] However, from the viewpoint of the Hindu tradition, which speaks of liberation as consisting in the dissolution of and freedom from bondage to ego, the witnessing consciousness is only the first step. Liberation from the ordinary egoic consciousness can come only after a long process of making the Witness not only a detached Watcher but also the Master of the being. This point has been elaborated in Chapter 4, "Sri Aurobindo and the Witness Consciousness."
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No Problems in the Now
A revelatory teaching Eckhart often reiterates is that there are never any problems in the Now. This teaching, which is apt to be puzzling to many people, may be understood in the light of two different meanings of the Now. The one obvious meaning of the Now is the present moment. The egoic consciousness, which finds it extremely difficult to live in the present moment and anticipates, most of the time, the next moment or the future, rends to flee from the present moment all the more when something "goes wrong" and life presents a "problem." The mind instinctively projects what is perceived
as a problem into the future and imagines all sorts of catastrophic future eventualities. This trait of the human has been well described by the Mother:
... if an animal is suffering because of an accident or an illness, this suffering is reduced to a minimum by the fact that it does not observe it, does not project it in its consciousness and into the future, does not imagine things about its illness or its accident.
With man there has begun this perpetual worrying about what is going to happen, and this worry is the principal, if not the sole cause of his torment. With this objectivising consciousness there has begun anxiety, painful imaginations, worry, torment, anticipation of future catastrophes, with the result that most men—and not the least conscious, the most conscious—live in perpetual torment.21
When one lives in the Now instead of the future, all problems vanish, says Eckhart. Anything that "goes wrong" is seen simply as a challenge, and one takes appropriate action to meet it.
Another related meaning Eckhart gives to the Now is the state of true consciousness, the state of Presence. In such a state there are no problems. As the Mother remarks:
... if one attains the true consciousness, there is no longer any problem to solve. What you have to be, you become. What you have to know, you know. And what you have to do, you have the power to do. And it naturally follows that all those so-called difficulties immediately vanish.22
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Portals into Enlightenment
A unique aspect of Eckhart's teaching that I have found to be particularly helpful pertains to what he calls "portals" for entering directly and immediately (without the usual recourse to the practice of certain
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techniques23) the consciousness beyond mind, and experiencing what he describes as a "raste of enlightenment" through connectedness with Being. Eckhart speaks of various such portals:
The Now, or Presence, he considers the foremost portal, constituting an aspect of every other portal. To step into the Now is to step out of one's mind and its incessant stream of thought.
Surrender—letting go of resistance to what is—is another portal. It gives one access to something within oneself that is unaffected by life circumstances.
Three unique portals pointed out by Eckhart are:
Silence—When one pays attention to silence in the external world, one creates stillness within. For, it is only inner stillness that can listen to outer silence.
Space—The space in which everything exists is formless. One's true nature is formless consciousness. By becoming aware of space, one becomes, at the same time, aware of pure consciousness because only the formless within oneself can become aware of the empty space outside.
The inner body—By focusing one's attention on the inner body, the invisible energy field that gives life to the physical body, one establishes connectedness with Being.
A portal that has come to me as a particular revelation lies in creating gaps in the constant stream of thought, especially with the aid of Nature. The doorway of nature, frequently mentioned by Eckhart, has impressed me as perhaps the least difficult means for creating gaps in the stream of thought and experiencing stillness within. To look at a flower or a tree and perceive its stillness is to become still oneself, says Eckhart.
I have found in Eckhart's concept of the portals new and inspiring ways for stepping out of ordinary consciousness and experiencing
in daily life what Eckhart describes as connecredness with Being. I must admit though that I have not yet been able to enter the portals effectively enough to experience stillness within and aliveness of everything around, which, says Eckhart, characterize the state of enlightenment. As for the portal of the inner body, I find it almost out of reach. I cannot help feeling that one must follow a long path of inner growth before arriving even at the entrance to this portal.
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The Pain-Body
Some of Eckhart's psychological insights that I have found to be of the most practical value pertain to what he calls the "pain-body." At firsr I found it somewhat difficult to understand very well the meaning of pain-body because I could not quite relate it to anything I had come across previously in the teachings of other Masters. But after a while I came to recognize readily the similarity between the pain-body and some aspects of what Sri Aurobindo calls the life-nature or the vital being, which is a distinct part of the human constitution as he describes it. Life energy is beautiful, says Eckhart, when it flows freely, but when it is trapped, it produces contraction and pain. The pain-body is life energy that has become temporarily lodged in one's inner space and is no longer flowing.
All forms of unhappiness, says Eckhart, are manifestations of the pain-body. Some forms of unhappiness, such as anxiety, fear, and depression, are readily felt by everybody as painful. However, many people do not realize that such things as jealousy, irritation, impatience, and anger are also forms of pain. It requires some psychological insight to see, for instance, that wherever there is anger, there is pain underneath. Therefore, the first step in dealing with the pain-body is to learn to recognize the signs of its manifestation—to become conscious of it whenever it arises.
Though the pain-body always exists as an invisible entity in everybody, it is not continually noticeable except in a deeply unhappy person. An insight of much practical value in Eckhart's teaching about the pain-body is that in most people the pain-body has two modes of being—dormant and active. It becomes periodically active when it needs to get replenishment through experiences that resonate with its own kind of energy, whether it is anger, anxiety, depression,
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or some other form of the pain-body. During its active mode, the slightest occasion will trigger it. An insignificant event, an innocent remark, or even a mere though can precipitate a pain-body attack. Therefore, when the pain-body is in the active mode, one needs to be all the more alert and vigilant in order not to identify oneself with the pain-body and consequently fall into unconsciousness.
Eckhart speaks of two ways in which the pain-body feeds itself. One way is to rise into the mind and control the thoughts. When an emotion associated with the pain-body flows into the mind, the pain becomes intensified. To watch the pain-body—by becoming present when it arises—is the beginning of freedom from it, for Presence prevents the pain-body from controlling the mind.
The second way in which the pain-body tries to feed itself is by eliciting emotional feedback from other people. The pain-body, says Eckhart, is extremely cunning in finding ways for eliciting emotional reactions from other people in order to feed itself. It knows how to press the right button. So, in human relationships, one needs to be watchful in order to recognize the pain-body when it arises in somebody we know. By remaining present, one can abstain from reacting and thereby providing feedback to the pain-body of the other person.
Watching the pain-body when it begins to arise in oneself may not dissolve the pain all at once. What one needs to do is simply to continue to watch the pain, feel it instead of trying to fight it, allow it to be, holding the state of Presence. Each time one meets the pain-body with Presence, the pain-body loses its energy charge, and the sense of Presence grows. The pain-body serves as a fuel for intensifying Presence. Thus, the pain-body, which starts out by being an obstacle to Presence, becomes, in course of time, a help by providing motivation for a most powerful practice.
Pain arises when one is not present and unconsciously identifies with the pain-body. "Unconsciousness creates it; consciousness transmutes it into itself."24 Watching it implies accepting it as part of what is at the present moment.
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The Paradox of Enlightenment and Time
All spiritual teachings contain paradoxes because any mental formulation of a truth can convey only one perspective of the truth, the opposite perspective being also valid, thus leading to an apparent contradiction. As the Mother says:
There are innumerable facets. There are innumerable points of view. One can say the most contradictory things without being inconsistent or contradicting oneself. Everything depends on the way you look at it. And even once we have seen everything, from all the points of view accessible to us, around the central Truth, we will still have had only a very small glimpse—the Truth will escape us on all sides at once. But what is remarkable is that once we have had the experience of a single contact with the Divine, a true, spontaneous and sincere experience, at that moment, in that experience, we will know everything, and even more.25
Eckhart has helped me understand one of the great paradoxes—the apparent contradiction between the Buddhist and Hindu perspectives of time in relation to spiritual realization. Expressing what is essentially a Buddhist perspective, Eckhart says that enlightenment is something that is to be found in the here and now, in the present moment; it is not something to be attained in the future. Therefore, time is not only unnecessary but also an obstacle to enlightenment. All negativity and suffering, which indicate a state of non-enlightenment, have their rootss in rime, says Eckhart.
Stating the Hindu perspective, a discourse in the Mahabharata, alluded to by Sri Aurobindo, speaks of Time as one of the four aids on the path leading to Self-realization:
Yoga-siddhi, the perfection that comes from the practice of Yoga, can be best attained by the combined working of four great instruments. There is, first, the knowledge of the truths, principles, powers and processes that govern the
realisation—śāstra. Next comes a patient and persistent action on the lines laid down by the knowledge, the force of our personal effort—utsāha. There intervenes, third, uplifting our knowledge and effort into the domain of spiritual experience, the direct suggestion, example and influence of the Teacher—guru. Last comes the instrumentality of Time— kāla; for in all things there is a cycle of their action and a period of the divine movement.26
Thus, in the Hindu spiritual traditions, Self-realization has been regarded as always a long process stretching over a long period of intense and sustained practice. Therefore, time is considered not only an aid but also a necessity. From this viewpoint, instances in which realization seems to have taken place suddenly, as in the case of Eckhart, are those in which there has necessarily been a long and sustained practice in a prior life. As Sri Aurobindo states:
A few great souls prepared by past lives or otherwise lifted beyond the ordinary spiritual capacity may attain realization more swiftly; some may have uplifting experiences at an early stage, but for most the siddhi27 of the path, whatever it is, must be at the end of a long, difficult and persevering endeavour.28
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Chronological Time and Psychological Time
The explanation of the paradox that time is an aid as well as an obstacle lies in the distinction Eckhart makes between chronological time and psychological time. Chronological or clock time is, of course, needed, says Eckhart, in all practical tasks, such as learning a language, playing the piano, or even making a cup of tea. What Eckhart stresses is that, while using time is required in all such tasks— which may involve even planning for the future—it is necessary to return immediately to present-moment awareness when practical matters have been dealt with. Time becomes an obstacle if one loses
present-moment awareness and lives in psychological time by continual projections into a future goal, thereby reducing the now to a mere means for the future.
Is clock time needed to be free from psychological time? Eckhart's answer to the question presents another paradox. For, on the one hand he says that time cannot free you from time. On the other hand he says that though in rare cases (such as Eckhart's own case) freedom from the time-bound consciousness comes suddenly, most people need to "work at it." Working at it naturally implies the need for clock time. The explanation of the paradox lies in the difference between the Buddhist and Hindu perspectives of enlightenment.
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Enlightenment Distinguished from Liberation
From one viewpoint—prominent in Buddhism—enlightenment is essentially a state of living in present-moment awareness. No time is needed to enter such a state. From another perspective, found in Hindu thought, the enlightened state, usually referred to as Mufti or liberation, is one in which the time-bound illusory self of the ego has been abolished and replaced by the true and eternal Self, which is the Self of all beings and the one Reality of the universe. Whereas from the first viewpoint, enlightenment consists in entering the state of present-moment awareness, the second view regards enlightenment as dwelling continually and permanently in the consciousness of the eternal Now. To enter the state of present-moment awareness is to establish connectedness with the Source; to dwell in that state permanently is to have an indissoluble union—yoga means union—-with the One Reality. In the state of connectedness with the Source, there is a partial and temporary suspension of the ego. In the state of union with the true Self, the ego is irrevocably abolished and. replaced by the Self. One can enter the state of enlightenment whenever one chooses to become present. No time is needed for entering such a state of enlightenment. But from the Hindu point of view, such a state of enlightenment or Presence, as Eckhart calls it, which one enters by merely stepping out of the ego temporarily without permanently abolishing the ego, can never be constant; Presence is bound to be obscured by unconscious identification with the ego time and again.
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Such partial and momentary states of enlightenment are most often not felt and recognized as states of enlightenment because they are not accompanied by the stillness, illumination, love, and joy that we usually associate with enlightenment. To live abidingly in the state of Presence, one needs to have dissolved the ego by discovering the true self. The Hindu sages who have attained such a state of liberation from the ego say that the freedom from ego requires a very long time extending over many lives of sustained pursuit of the spiritual goal. As Sri Aurobindo states, "even many yogis of a great spiritual attainment are not free from it [ego and desire]."29
Sri Aurobindo, who speaks of not only liberation from ego but also an integral transformation of all parts of the being—physical, vital, mental—says that such a transformation of the whole being takes place in stages that extend over a long time. In a letter to a disciple he writes:
As I have constantly told you, you cannot expect all [parts of the being] to be enlightened at once. Even the greatest yogis can only proceed by stages and it is only at the end that the whole nature shares the true consciousness which they first establish in the heart or behind it or in the head or above it. It descends or expands slowly conquering each layer of the being one after the other, but each step takes time.30
Eckhart, too, implicitly states that, becoming fully conscious, that is, overcoming completely the unconscious identification with the mind and making Presence a constant state, is a gradual process that takes place over a period of time. As he says, one first becomes aware of not living in the present moment except rarely. Then one chooses to be present but is able to stay in the Now only momentarily before losing it. One returns to the present moment more and more frequently and is able to live in it for longer and longer periods. Thus, one sways repeatedly between the conscious state of Presence and the time-bound state of unconsciousness until Presence becomes one's predominant
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state. It is only eventually that the unconscious state of mind identification is definitively replaced by the conscious state of Presence.
The need for chronological rime becomes even more obvious when we view enlightenment as a state of complete inner silence in contrast to the normal mind-identified state, which is one of constant noise. According to Sri Aurobindo, silence is the culmination of a long process of establishing progressive states: quiet, calm, peace, silence. He defines these states as follows:
Quiet is a condition in which there is no restlessness or disturbance. ... Quiet is rather negative—it is the absence of disturbance. ... Quietness is when the mind or vital31 is not troubled, drawn about by or crowded with thoughts and feelings. Especially when either [mind or vital] is detached and looks at these things [thoughts and feelings] as a surface movement, we say that the mind or vital is quiet.
Calm is a still unmoved condition which no disturbance can affect—it is a less negative condition than quiet.... Calm is a positive tranquillity which can exist in spite of superficial disturbances. ... Calm is a strong and positive quietude, firm and solid—ordinary quietude is mere negation, simply the absence of disturbance. ... When there is a clear or great or strong tranquillity which nothing troubles or can trouble, then we say that calm is established.
Peace is a still more positive condition; it carries with it a sense of settled and harmonious rest and deliverance. ... Peace is a calm deepened into something that is very positive amounting almost to a tranquil waveless Ananda.32... Peace is more positive than calm ... something positive bringing not merely a release as calm does but a certain happiness or Ananda of itself.
Silence is a state in which either there is no movement of the mind or vital or else a great stillness which no surface movement can pierce or alter. ... Silence is the absence of all motion of thought or other vibration of activity.33
Thus, there are degrees of the absence of mental noise and vital disturbance. What Eckhart refers to as stillness or "thoughtless awareness" is akin to what Sri Aurobindo describes as silence. Normally, for most people, it is only progressively over a very long period of time that total silence can be attained. Most yogis, says Sri Aurobindo, get silence "at the end of a long Yoga."34
We may note in passing that Eckhart generally describes as silence that which exists in the external world, and calls stillness that which is experienced within. Sri Aurobindo refers mostly to the silence within, though he has also spoken about the silence in the external world in terms similar to those of Eckhart. Thus he writes:
There is a silence behind life as well as within it and it is only in this more secret, sustaining silence that we can hear clearly the voice of God. In the noise of the world we hear only altered and disturbed echoes of it. .. .35
It is on the silence behind the cosmos that all the movement of the universe is supported. ...
In a more outward sense the word Silence is applied to the condition in which there is no movement of thought or feeling, etc., only a great stillness of the mind. But there can be an action in the Silence, undisturbed even as the universal action goes on in the cosmic Silence.36
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The Simplicity of Enlightenment
To return to the paradox that enlightenment is both an immediate experience as well as what comes at the end of a long path, it is necessary to understand the truth of both the opposite perspectives in order to resolve the paradox.
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The perspective that enlightenment is an immediate experience requiring no time—a view that I had found quite incomprehensible before I came in contact with Eckhart's teachings—is beautifully illustrated by a parable I chanced on by "coincidence" while still writing this part of the book.
A disciple asked his Master: "How long does it take to get enlightenment?" The Master answered with the following story.
A lion came to drink master at a river. As it was drinking, a hunter arrived, killed the lion, skinned it, and went away. A dhobi,37 who had been washing clothes at the river, saw all this. He approached the dead lion and found that it was highly pregnant. He took out the young one and brought it home. When the cub grew big, he used it for carrying clothes on its back like his donkeys. One day, when the dhobi was washing clothes at the river while his donkeys and the tame lion grazed peacefully, a wild lion came hunting for a prey. It was amazed to see a lion eating grass when its natural food was just near it. The wild lion leapt out of the bush into the midst of the herd. The herd, including the tame lion, panicked and scattered in all directions. The wild lion pursued and caught the tame lion. Seizing it at the neck, the wild lion said, "You are a lion. What are you doing here among the donkeys?"
"No, Sir, I am a donkey," answered the tame lion. "Please let me go back to my herd."
"You are a lion," repeated the wild lion. "Look into the river at your reflection and mine."
Looking into the river, the tame lion was astonished to see that the reflections of the two of them were alike.
"And now," said the wild lion, "open your mouth and roar."
The Master paused, and then said to the disciple, "Enlightenment is your real nature. You have to simply open your mouth and roar."
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The Grace of the Guru
Another version of the story was narrated from a different perspective to Sri Ramakrishna by his guru, and subsequently by Sri Ramakrishna to his devotees.
A tigress once attacked a herd of goats. As she leapt to seize one of the goats, she gave birth to a cub and died. The cub tiger grew up among the goats. It ate grass and bleared like the goats and ran away like them when attacked by a fierce animal. One day a wild tiger attacked the herd. Amazed to see a tiger eating grass, the wild tiger seized it and dragged it to the water and said: "You are a tiger and you are eating grass! Look at your face in the water. It is exactly like mine." So saying, the wild tiger thrust some meat into its mouth.
At first the grass-eating tiger would not eat the meat. But as it got the taste of blood it gradually began to eat the meat. Then the wild tiger said: "So you see there is no difference between you and me. Now follow me into the forest."
Commenting on the story, Sri Ramakrishna said:
Eating grass is like enjoying "woman and gold."38 To bleat and run away like a goat is to behave like an ordinary man. Going away with the new tiger is like taking shelter with the guru, who awakens one's spiritual consciousness, and recognizing him alone as one's relative. To see one's face rightly is to know one's real Self.39
Sri Ramakrishna narrated the story to point out the power of the guru's grace for dispelling the ignorance about one's true nature. According to one of his sayings: "With the guru's grace all difficulties can disappear in a flash even as age long darkness does the moment you strike a match." Requested by a disciple to comment on this, Sri Aurobindo wrote:
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I think this saying of Ramakrishna expresses a certain characteristic happening in sadhana40 and cannot be interpreted in a general and absolute sense, for in that sense it is hard for it to be true. ... But what could be true is that the central difficulty may disappear by a certain touch between the Guru and the disciple. But what is meant by the kṛpā ?41 If it is the general compassion and grace of the Guru, that, one would think, is always there on the disciple; his acceptance itself is an act of grace and the help is there for the disciple to receive. But the touch of grace, divine grace, coming directly or through the Guru is a special phenomenon having two sides to it—the grace of the Guru or the Divine, in fact both together, on the one side and a 'state of grace' in the disciple on the other. The 'state of grace' is often prepared by a long tapasya42 or purification in which nothing decisive seems to happen, only touches or glimpses or passing experiences at the most, and ir comes suddenly without warning.43
Reiterating what has just been said about the power of Grace and the need for tapasya, Sri Aurobindo writes in another context:
I have always seen that there has been really a long unobserved preparation before the Grace intervenes, and also, after it has intervened, one has still to put in a good deal of work to keep and develop what one has got—as it is in all other things until there is the complete siddhi.44 Then of course labour finishes and one is in assured possession. So tapasya of one kind or another is not avoidable.45
Sri Ramakrishna, too, speaks of the necessity for purification. A metaphor he often employs to stress the indispensable need for purification
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Enlightenment—Slow or Sudden?
Paradoxically, the change from the ordinary consciousness, in which one is identified with one's illusory self, to the true consciousness of identification with one's real Self—a "reversal of consciousness," as the Mother describes it—is both a slow process and a sudden happening. This paradox has been well explained by the Mother using the metaphor of the incubation of an egg. She says:
This change of consciousness and its preparation have often been compared with the formation of the chicken in the egg: till the very last second the egg remains the same, there is no change, and it is only when the chicken is completely formed, absolutely alive, that it itself makes with its little beak a hole in the shell and comes out. Something similar takes place at the moment of the change of consciousness. For a long time you have the impression that nothing is happening, that your consciousness is the same as usual, and, if you have an intense aspiration, you even feel a resistance, as though you were knocking against a wall which does not yield. But when you are ready within, a last effort—the pecking in the shell of the being—and everything opens and you are projected into another consciousness.46
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Thus, from the viewpoint of the actual happening of the reversal of consciousness, enlightenment does not take any time: it is not a gradual process taking place over a period of rime. As the Mother says:
It is not like a convalescence after an illness: you must change worlds. So long as your mind is real for you, your way of thinking something true for you, real, concrete, it proves that you are not there yet. You must first pass through to the other side.
... It is not true that one can understand little by little, it is not like that. This kind of progress is different. What is more true is that one is shut up in a shell, and inside it something is happening, like the chick in the egg. It is getting ready in there, It is in there. One doesn't see it. Something is happening in the shell, but outside one sees nothing. And it is only when all is ready that there comes the capacity to pierce the shell and to be born into the light of day.
... This may happen suddenly, spontaneously, quite unexpectedly.
I don't think one can go through gradually. I don't think it is something which slowly wears and wears away until one can see through it. I haven't had an instance of this so far. There is rather a kind of accumulation of power inside, an intensification of the need, and an endurance in the effort which becomes free from all fear, all anxiety, all calculation; a need so imperative that one no longer cares for the consequences.
One is like an explosive that nothing can resist, and one bursts out from one's prison in a blaze of light.47
This view that a dimensional change of consciousness is a sudden happening rather than a gradual process seems to be consonant with Eckhart's view, for he has remarked on more than one occasion that one cannot accumulate credits towards liberation. I have been struck by the frequency with which Eckhart uses the terms "sudden" and "suddenly," both in his writings and especially in his talks when speaking about a shift of consciousness.
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Enlightenment—Living in the Present Moment
On the spiritual path, such as that of yoga, which envisages a distant goal, one is apt to lose the focus on the present moment and become obsessed by the goal of a definitive enlightenment that lies in the remote future. What Eckhart tries to drive home is the psychological fact that preoccupation with the future, and lack of awareness of the present moment, are essential characteristics of the egoic consciousness that seeks fulfillment in the future rather than in the present moment. Because the future never arrives, one lives, whether one is conscious of it or not, in a state of constant dissatisfaction and inner restlessness, except for brief periods when a desire is satisfied. This teaching of Eckhart has made me more conscious than ever before how much one tends to live in the next moment or the future. The indispensable corrective for such a state is the perspective that looks upon enlightenment as a state of present-moment awareness. It is this message that Eckhart conveys powerfully and beautifully: "Your outer journey may contain a million steps, your inner journey has only one: the step you are taking right now."48
What seem to be Eckhart's two most central messages are:
Dwell in the Now, for the Now is your true home. Not to dwell in the Now is to feel not-at-home, or homeless; it is to feel perpetually ill at ease; it is to be in a state of suffering.
Surrender to what is; say "yes" to it and allow what is to be. Surrender and Presence, says Eckhart, go together— the passive, gentle Presence that allows this moment to be, and the active, fierce Presence of alert attention that is thoughtless awareness, peace, and stillness.
Eckhart has well summed up these two messages in four mantric words: "now", "is", "yes", "allow".
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