First Edition, 2020

Copyright © 2020

by Himalayan Academy

Seven Dimensions of the Mind is published by Himalayan Academy on the occasion of the 19th Mahasamadhi observance, held November 12, 2020, of the author, Sivaya Subramuniyaswami [1927–2001]. All rights are reserved. This book may be used to share the Hindu Dharma with others on the spiritual path, but reproduced only with the publisher’s prior written consent. Designed, typeset and edited by the swamis of the Saiva Siddhanta Yoga Order, 107 Kaholalele Road, Kapaa, Hawaii, 96746-9304, USA.

www.HimalayanAcademy.com

Published by

Himalayan Academy

USA

PRINTED IN USA

ISBN: 9781934145807 (print edition)

ISBN: 9781934145814 (ebook)

Black and white portraits of the author were created by Natalie Levin. Nataji®

Endsheet art and sacred circular symbols depicting concepts from the Vedas are by S. Rajam.

Printed on
recycleable paper

 Artist Natalie Levin writes: “The Gurudeva series all started with this drawing of Gurudeva done on September 1st, 2019. It was in honor of Gurudeva’s 238th lunar puja since his great Mahasamadhi. It was given to Paramacharya Sadasivanathaswami to put a smile on his face. That seemed to start a whole series. I call this one ‘The Chosen.’ Here he carries the vision of what he came here to manifest. His eyes embody the mystical, watery pearl of creation. So strong, sattvic and grounded, he embodies a magnetic force that pulls you to him. He has a wise, kingly presence, one that can mobilize the millions to stay safe, protected and on the straight and virtuous path of San Marga, towards our Self Realization.”

Preface

SATGURU SIVAYA SUBRAMUNIYASWAMI’S FRAMEWORK OF SEVEN DIMENSIONS OF THE mind divides consciousness into seven categories that range from gross to extremely subtle. The third dimension is mankind’s normal level of consciousness, consisting of thoughts and emotions about our own and others’ lives. The fourth through the seventh dimensions can be described as the inner, mystical or higher realms of consciousness. They are within everyone but require training and practice to be accessed with continuity.

This unique framework is useful in two ways. Firstly, it helps us clearly understand the interrelatedness of states of consciousness that we experience. Secondly, it provides guidance in our efforts to access inner states of consciousness. This requires knowing which dimension of the mind the inner state is in. Like following a mariner’s map, once we pinpoint a superconscious experience we are able to return again and again.

Gurudeva gives a helpful key to experiencing the states of consciousness in the fourth through seventh dimensions by relating them to the chakras. Specifically, he states that, while in meditation, to experience states of inner consciousness within the fourth dimension, look at the world from the chest area (anahata chakra); for the fifth dimension, look out from the throat area (vishuddha chakra); for the sixth dimension, look out from between the eyes (ajna chakra); or the seventh dimension, look at the inner world through the top of the head (sahasrara chakra).

Love and blessings to you from this and inner worlds,

163rd Jagadacharya of the Nandinatha Sampradaya’s Kailasa Parampara

Guru Mahasannidhanam of Kauai Aadheenam, Hawaii, USA

“I call this portrait ‘The Joy of Wisdom.’ Here he is wise and joyful, and is putting his full attention into the spirit dimension. The blessings of all the flower malas around him is almost kind of devouring him up! There’s a child-like joy bubbling out of his ancient face, which makes me smile, thinking of him in this great dance in the circle of life.”

Foreword

EACH YEAR ON CHITRA NAKSHATRA, THE LUNAR DAY OF HIS GREAT DEPARTURE IN 2001, the monks offer at Gurudeva’s feet something to honor his life and mission. This year, for the first time since his Great Departure, the lunar and solar days both fell on November 12. In the past, this Mahasamadhi souvenir has been a calendar, a Spiritual Toolbox, videos on CD (remember those?), a book of his spiritual visions, a photo album and more. This book is the 2020 offering, special in that it brings forward a key teaching that he stressed to his monks and close shishyas but that, until now, has not been widely shared.

There are three forms of art herein: black-and-white pencil sketches of Gurudeva based on historic photographs, dramatically colorful circular symbols used for the chapter spreads, and colored illustrations on the inside of the cover. The pencil sketches are the amazing work of Natalie Levin, an Arizona artist who knew Gurudeva and is also something of a sage, though she would never think that. Natalie is the sculptor who crafted the four-foot-tall bronze of Sadasiva that sits today in the sacred gardens on Kauai. She did not know, when she drew the first sketch, that this would become such a rich collection. One by one they flew off the page. She tells that some of them drew themselves. A few are from Gurudeva’s early years as a satguru, but most are of him in the 1980s and 1990s. Together they capture his inner moods as well as his physical evolution through the years. We asked Natalie to share what she, the artist, sees in each sketch, and her comments are shared as captions opposite each portrait.

The vivid symbols used on the chapter spreads and the illustrations on the endsheets are the work of South Indian artist and musician S. Rajam [1919–2010]. The symbols were commissioned to represent concepts found in the Vedas from Raimon Pannikar’s book, The Vedic Experience. The two endsheets are taken from S. Rajam’s illustrations in The Guru Chronicles.

It is amazing to reflect that Gurudeva’s entire language of Shum is structurally based on the seven dimensions you will study here, so important was this insight into the mind to him. With palms pressed together, we offer this small book at Gurudeva’s feet, as we continue to live in awe and appreciation of his remarkable and impactful presence on the Earth. Aum Namasivaya!

“This one is quite powerful. I wonder what he is thinking. I think of this as the power actualizing, power actualizing into Being. Like how to get things done on the earth plane, how to manifest it in this world. It can be a very intense journey with a lot of responsibility, a lot of forces to deal with—not just the conceptualizing and writing about something but making it happen and living it. That’s really an intense journey, and he did it. There is a heaviness to it, but also holding the power.”

Gurudeva’s Introduction

THE DIMENSIONS ARE A POSITIVE AND HELPFUL WAY OF LOOKING AT LIFE AND understanding the experiences we have on the inward path. By identifying experience as being within one dimension or another, we are able to know at all times just where we are in consciousness, and that knowledge is the control over awareness that we need to continue the upward climb.

At all times we are flowing through all of the dimensions. They all exist in total completion right now within us. However, we are only conscious periodically in one or another of them as awareness magnifies itself and registers the dimension by focusing upon it, shall we say.

Awareness itself functions differently from one dimension to another. When we look at life from the fourth dimension, we see more in depth than we can from the third or the second. Remember when we studied the second dimension, we found no depth at all? Then we created the third. We put depth and life, vigor and vitality to the second dimension of things that was just sitting there. Next we became tangled in this vigor and vitality, in the relationships between people and people and people and things, and subconscious was created. The sense of ego, of personality, evolved out of the third dimension, for it is composed strictly of odic, magnetic force. The intellect and emotions dominated us.

When we released awareness to travel freely in the mind by managing positively the second and third dimensions, we entered another perspective. We gained the overview, a mountaintop consciousness from which we could see a nine-day scope of time and look into and through all of the intricacies of the third dimension and how it is created. In a sense we put more light into the third dimension, the dark area of the mind.

When we are in inner darkness and confusion, that is the third dimension totally. But as we brought more light into the third dimension and saw how it was constructed, we were in the fourth dimension and could also look into the deeper dimensions. From the fifth dimension, we became aware of the intricacies and the inner workings of the fourth dimension, seeing what psychic nerves look like, seeing how psychic nerve currents draw their energy from the central source of energy. In the fifth dimension, we became aware of a bright light that filled the cranium. In a flash we intuited vast knowledge and saw the creation, preservation and destruction of objects over seeming great spans of time simultaneously in the now. A deep love, a universal and all-embracing love, unfolded. Compassion burst forth as we came to understand the predicament of our fellow man.

Awareness, too, changed. Instead of traveling or flowing through the mind, now it could focus and look into any area without seeming to move. Experiences came before our inner vision, and we could even bring past and future into the now. Later we evolved into the sixth dimension, where all form is reduced to sound and color. The devonic or heavenly realm of forces as represented by Gods, Deities and devas became manifest. From the sixth dimension, which corresponds to the ajna chakra or third eye, inner worlds opened and light flooded through the entire body.

The seventh dimension, or sahasrara chakra, brought us into pure consciousness or pure space void of form—awareness aware only of itself. Here awareness finally withdraws even from the magnificent visions of superconsciousness, and with no objects is able to contemplate itself as kaif». Finally, the snake swallows its own tail, awareness dissolves and only That remains, the Self God beyond all dimensions of the mind.

Of course, it is one thing to hear about the dimensions, to be intellectually fascinated by the vastness of this perspective and quite another to make them an experiential part of our lives. That is what must be done next. Identify the dimensions within the context of your own personal experience. Ask yourself, “Which dimension does this kind of happening belong to? How does one dimension relate to and exist within another inside of me?” Mark off the various areas of the mind. Map them out carefully and you will identify and enjoy aspects of yourself you never knew existed before.

You will observe that man is a whole, the totality of all existence residing within him in various layers of subtle and gross vibration, evolving ever more subtle as the continuum penetrates deeper into his being, reaching ultimately the timeless, spaceless Reality of himself which he then identifies as the one Reality in all of existence.

Love and blessings to you from this and inner worlds,

Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

162nd Jagadāchārya of the Nandinātha Sampradāya’s Kailāsa Parampara

Guru Mahāsannidhanam, Kauai Aadheenam, Hawaii, USA

“This drawing exudes maintaining and persevering. You feel the weight on him. There is a wisdom and a knowing coming from his eyes. But I begin also to feel a bit of the weight of accomplishment and the pains, perhaps, of the physical body that come with age. Though we are all ageless, the body does have discomforts that we must endure and accept, while being tethered to Siva. He is holding a lot of power here, you can feel it. Persevering through all, while having that little, twinkly smile!”

“This one I feel is about transformation. His expression came out very quickly from the pencil sketch that I start with. It reminds me in a way of how the soul is holding a secret. Is he going to reveal the mystery? There is something mysterious about this, it’s very interesting, curious. Reminds me of a quote: does the caterpillar know that his future lies in butterflies? There’s a transformation that is coming. Part of transformation is coming from one to another form, and that’s why I left the lines and then detailed in the key parts of his essence—his face, to show a movement and a becoming and a dissolving.”

First Dimension:
The Inside of Objects

OUR PERCEPTIONS IN THE FIRST DIMENSION

The first dimension is the inside of things that you cannot see or touch. The inside of a piece of fruit is the first dimension; the outside or surface of the fruit is the second dimension. The inside of the physical body, the Earth, a tree and a stone—these all lie in the first dimension. To bring the first dimension out, simply open up the fruit. The part that was previously unseen as well as untouched but which is now visible and tangible has been brought into the second dimension.

FIRST DIMENSION MANAGED POSITIVELY

It is interesting to note that most of modern science is dedicated to unfolding knowledge of the first dimension, and that within the molecular, atomic and sub-atomic elements of matter the other seven dimensions are discovered. Thus the scientist, by looking into matter, finds the deeper dimensions to the point of reducing matter to energy and energy to sound and light. Further reducing sound and light to consciousness and anti-matter, he verges on the brink of contemplative realization similar to that discovered in deep meditation. Therefore, all dimensions of the mind exist in every cell, every atom in the universe.

FIRST DIMENSION IN DEPTH

Within the first dimension of the mind, called arehmushum, there are energy flows. Energy in its static state. Energy spinning. Energy lifting, pushing, pulling, rising, falling, attracting, repelling, changing form, filling, emptying, appearing and disappearing. Eighteen forms of energy exist in the first dimension, interacting and causing the phenomena observed in the physical world and studied by science as gravity, momentum, inertia, magnetism, electricity and various forces. We can see these energy flows very readily in nature as we witness, without holding previous concepts, the actions and interactions within plants, within stones, within water, wind and fire.

PARAMACHARYA’S MEDITATION

One day, decades ago, I had a meditation that took me without notice into the first dimension. Prior to that, I had more or less dismissed it (its only one, and there are six more that are higher, and presumably more important). In this meditation, I was suddenly confronted with how vast the first dimension is. It had such depth and complexity. I realized it is far more significant to the workings of the cosmos than the second dimension, which we can see and touch. In fact, the second dimension is a mere surface, like a cell wall or the skin on our body, beneath which is the real workings of the cell. From that day, I have so appreciated what Gurudeva calls “the inside of things we cannot see and touch.” The inside is far bigger and substantive than the outside. What we don’t see and don’t touch is infinitely larger than what we do.

“This one is also about transmutation. Whoa! Dissolution. Dissolving…dissolving. As the body fades and the soul merges with Siva, we see the disintegration of the flesh preparing His imminent arrival into the eternal world, merging with Siva. He is awaiting this threshold of light, I feel it... Maybe he’s ready.”

“This one is the sacred swami in the garden, surrounded with nature, recharging in the paradise of the living garden to nourish and restore his soul. With all the plants so lush on the garden island of Kauai, you can imagine Gurudeva loving to walk around there with his long flowing hair, completely free, completely at one with the trees, flowers, insects, birds and all the luscious life of Ma Nature around him. I think that when we need to replenish, we need to go into nature to recharge our soul.”

Second Dimension:
The Five Senses

OUR PERCEPTIONS IN THE SECOND DIMENSION

The second dimension consists of things which can be both seen and touched—the surfaces of objects such as flowers, stones and water. When we observe these objects without thinking about them, without feeling like or dislike—just pure perception—then we are aware of the second dimension.

It appears flat, consisting of only two layers of form, for it is seen without evaluation or analysis which gives depth to our observations. If we close our eyes and then open them very slowly, holding the mind steady, we can sit without relating to anything we see and therefore see it objectively as it is. This flat view of the world of objects can be experienced more easily by opening just one eye than with both eyes open.

There is a tendency to get involved with what we see when both eyes are open. What we perceive are things that can be identified with the five senses—things we can smell, hear, touch, taste and see. These perceptions are all two-dimensional through the senses. Through interpretation they do flow into deeper dimensions of the mind.

SECOND DIMENSION MANAGED POSITIVELY

The mystic, in looking out at the world of objects, sees the second dimension as a coherent conglomeration of “things.” Recognizing the limited mind function of things, or the boundary of second-dimensional intelligence, he does not become entangled in his relationship to them. Nevertheless, he does relate to the second dimension by using it, by observing it, by appreciating it, or by renouncing it. He places the two-dimensional world where it belongs.

Forms are always changing in the second dimension. However, the substance out of which they are made is recycled from one form to another form. According to the mystic’s perspective, all forms exist in all time cycles within the mind. There is nothing created; there is nothing preserved; there is nothing destroyed. All things exist simultaneously, coming into various dimensions of manifestation from time to time.

The decay, the change of form in the second dimension through time cycles, is apparent when things of short time cycles are viewed—a flower, for instance. The brief time span of a flower lets us view its budding, blossom, life and decay within a matter of days or even hours. The atoms of a flower will go to some other forms once that flower has demagnetized itself, by breaking through a time cycle. A banyan tree or mountain are examples of objects with apparently more permanence, or which take years or centuries for the process of decay to become visible.

SECOND DIMENSION IN DEPTH

The second dimension has been and always will be created through certain aspects of time cycles and is comprised of two parts: time continuity or memory and the instinctive consciousness that works involuntarily according to habit patterns in man as well as in animals. Nature, then, is related to the instinctive mind. The memory patterns of a flower are very strong. It comes up the same year after year, century after century. It does not forget how to form itself. So the second dimension is created by the instinctive forces of nature, the instinctive mind of animals and man in conjunction with the memory patterns of the grand mind of nature—created by man according to his needs and desires.

Man himself controls these time cycles to a certain extent, but not totally. For one thing, he holds the second dimension together in consciousness in short, medium, or long time cycles, depending upon the nature of the object’s construction. If he actually constructs it himself, then the amount of energy and thought put into planning and clear thinking will either lengthen or shorten the time cycle. Because his body is of the second dimension, as he enters into a particular time cycle he adds power to that cycle and objects in it and can act either as creator, preserver or destroyer and thereby lengthen or shorten a natural time cycle. Back to the chair: man could allow the chair to sit until it went into its natural decay, or man could enter the picture as another second-dimensional object and preserve or destroy it.

The second dimension is the exterior world which most languages describe abundantly, making it seem real to us and giving it a sense of permanency, for man’s mind gives substance or recognition to things that are named or labeled. Most people acquire a possession, and instead of using that possession and disposing of it, they use it and become attached to it through like and dislike. It becomes a part of their mind. It becomes real to them. They take it seriously, and when the time comes to dispose of that possession, they are unhappy. This indicates the narrowing down of the mind which has been caused by language and attitudes which build possession and the significance of physical things out of proportion.

“In this one he exemplifies ‘Service to Siva.’ You could feel it with his hands in prayer pose. He is a perfect devotee to Siva. You could feel the focused, selfless, disciplined, heart-wide-open and chaste, in service, and calling forth of being of service, totally.”

Third Dimension:
Thoughts and Feelings

OUR PERCEPTIONS IN THE THIRD DIMENSION

It is in the third dimension that most people live most of the time. This is the world of thoughts and feelings, of emotions and intellectual theory. It thrives on novelty, new ideas, new feelings, new fashions, new discoveries, new anything. The third-dimensional world is changing rapidly.

When we open our eyes and look into the exterior world, where we perceive things through sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste, the five senses are going to naturally react. They react according to the personality and habit structure of man. If he smells something he is accustomed to smelling, he likes it. If he encounters an unfamiliar smell, the animal nature will recoil and he will say, “I don’t like it.” He forms likes and dislikes, loves and hates which later build through repetition into joys and sorrows. The flurry caused by this attraction and repelling in the nerve system of man as he relates to people and objects is the birth of the third dimension in man.

Man creates his own personal ego through these subtle reactions of his nerve system to the world of things and the world of other people. Once sufficient experience has been developed into habit patterns of action and reaction, he begins to dissect those things. He collects in his mind all of the good, positive, familiar impressions that he has grown accustomed to. Then he discards those impressions that have stirred his nerve system and those that are unfamiliar. Thus he enters fully into the third dimension of the mind, where most of the world as we generally know it takes place—much more so than in the first or second dimensions.

It is when we bring our subconscious and our intellectual facilities into the second dimension that we cause the third dimension to happen. We look at the world about us, up and down, right and left, and we begin to form comparisons in our analyzing things of the second dimension. Our likes and dislikes are the third dimension. The first and most simple structure of the third dimension is created in this way. Next we evaluate the likes and dislikes themselves, simultaneously creating the next more complex strata of third-dimensional existence. That is, we analyze our impressions, weighing them against the impressions of others. We think about our own thoughts. We have feelings about our feelings, and out of these ongoing comparisons the interwoven structure of this dimension evolves. Through our ratio of comparisons, first of objects, then of our interaction with objects, through nerve system response, and finally of our self-created thoughts and feelings, the third dimension gains prominence and severely entangles awareness in a fascinating and seemingly endless cinema.

When we sit with others in a room, the third dimension claims such priority that most of the activity takes place there. Of course, the second dimension is all about us and was prepared earlier. Someone had to arrange the furniture, clean the room, or even prepare a meal. But when we gather in the room, sit down together, we immediately lose consciousness of the second dimension. Instead, we relate almost exclusively to our feelings, emotions, desires, concepts, likes and dislikes. In talking, laughing and arguing back and forth we thrust our pranic life force into the third dimension, stimulate and are stimulated by the energy that others dedicate to the discussion. As the forces mix and mingle among everyone in the room, they produce either positive, creative overtones or negative, contentious ones, according to the chemicalization of the entire group mind.

The businessman or artist has cycles as well, but they are more consciously directed. In fact, they are partially creating the forces that influence others in the world. Their control of the forces of the third dimension comes through dealing positively and dynamically with themselves and through maintaining an active, creative state which dominates rather than is dominated by the swirling energies of other people. Through discipline, knowledge and restraints, they direct the mental and feeling forces positively and smooth out the cycles of inner-dimensional life.

THIRD DIMENSION MANAGED POSITIVELY

The mature meditator remains independent of fluctuating cycles by not identifying falsely with the inevitable changes inherent in third-dimensional existence. He works to hold awareness constantly in the fourth dimension, from which the first, second and third are viewed in affectionate detachment. The fourth dimension is home base, the area of mind he returns to after meditation, not allowing awareness to flow to the extremities of gross instincts and intellect found in the third dimension.

One of the first things he does to maintain a perspective that deals positively with forces of the third dimension is to study the cycles, the time cycles. These are called karmic cycles, containing actions caused within the third-dimensional aspect of his mind. These actions eventually produce a reaction, for every causation of mind substance eventually forms a reaction. By carefully observing the length of his instinctive cycles, his emotional cycles and his mental or intellectual cycles, he is able to anticipate reaction, which then gives him the ability to observe it without being further entangled or upset, which would then be the cause of yet another reaction. It is one thing to react to what we have said or done, or what others have said and done. But this simple form of reaction passes quickly. Far worse is a reaction to our reaction, for it sets in motion deep subconscious reverberations that may last for years. Knowing this law, the meditator cautiously watches his actions and reactions through their regular cycles, and by not reacting to his reactions they are eventually demagnetized. In this way he avoids the unnecessary repetition of his allotted cycles and stabilizes awareness in the more refined dimensions.

As unfoldment deepens and awareness evolves out of the third and into the fourth dimension, karmic cycles come more quickly. First the meditator will notice that his thoughts and actions produce their results more quickly. Whereas previously the cause and effect were separated by months or years, now they are only days or even hours apart, which allows him to observe their relationship more accurately. The motivating factor of the perceptive area of the mind has replaced un-thought-out involvement in the outer dimensions which covers action and reaction in heavy layers or strata and therefore slows the cycles.

“In this one I see him as the ‘Grounded Visionary.’ Here you could feel his charisma, determination and his youthful beauty. It seems that he is calling forth all his divine order together for what needs to be accomplished. He’s just magnetizing that together. It’s all going to be happening. There he is, the grounded visionary.”

Earlier, due to the amount of energy dedicated to things of the second dimension, he was unable to cognize the third. Very little can be discovered about the third dimension from the second. It is from the perceptive and intuitive areas of the fourth that the third can be seen and understood in its entirety.

It is from a conscious awareness of deeper dimensions that true understanding of the third dimension unfolds. By holding awareness stabilized in the fourth dimension, looking into the vastness of the fifth, sixth and seventh and simultaneously out to and through the third into the second, we know fully that the third dimension is a relatively small part of total mind substance, being only one fourth of the fourth dimension in relative size and significance, with the second dimension being half again as large as that one fourth. This then establishes a real identity on the inside of us, keeping the channels of subsuperconsciousness always open and preventing the process of third-dimensional subconscious congestion.

An outer-dimensional perspective, looking from the outside into the mind and trying to understand it, only results in partial concepts. We are unable to grasp the whole from such a vantage point. Similarly, we can learn about a city by traveling around the streets of that city and talking with selected residents. Generally, we learn one section of the city better and neglect others. Only by climbing to the peak of a nearby mountain can we study and comprehend the entire pattern of the city below. That overall vision or mountaintop consciousness is what the fourth dimension provides. Once that all-encompassing view is gained, we can enter any section of the city with confidence.

If we were to enter the fourth-dimensional state of consciousness, all of the time consciously withdrawing the pranic energies from externalized forces so that they did not exude out of the body, then the third dimension would cease to exist for us, for we would not connect up with the energies of other people or things. We could still observe the interchange of forces in others, but from another state of consciousness, totally uninvolved. We would still have the third-dimensional relation within our own mind, its fears, its thoughts, its habits—but eventually that too would be dissolved as energies were continually drawn out of it.

THIRD DIMENSION IN DEPTH

The third dimension is the essence of duality, the shifting of forces constantly. Within the changing world of the third dimension are two basic and intricate energy flows. The first is a flow of force between people and things. This is a one-way flow through which people relate to objects. The second is a flow between two people or more and also between people and animals. Visualize a stream of energy generated in the body by the processes of life. This energy or prana constantly flows out from the central source of energy and constitutes the aura, constitutes the physical energy that moves the body, constitutes thoughts and feelings. This prana creates a force field around the body. As soon as two people associate, these force fields interact, or the two energy streams interchange. Should these energies be of a like nature, the result is friendship. When we understand these energies as they combine, attract and repel in human relationships, we then begin to discover the constituent parts of what we call the world.

From the point of view of the second dimension looking into the third, awareness is awed by the seemingly powerful feelings, emotions and motivating forces of the third dimension. We feel victims of forces beyond our power to control. Generally, if we go into a study of the mind from this perspective of looking, in a sense, from the second dimension into the third and fourth, we analyze the surface by asking ourselves, “Why did this happen to me? Why did that happen? What did I do to deserve this?” Many, many people live their entire lifetime in a conscious-mind state, trying to analyze the subconscious, and discover very little for their efforts.

Although the third dimension exists predominantly in the mind of man, it existed before human beings came to this planet. It does because the animal kingdom has its own third dimension. Compared to man’s elaborately conceived system, the instinctive likes and dislikes of animals appear simple and basic. Animals cleave together in family and social units with the necessary rules governing acceptable behavior, division of labor, and so forth. The lions and the sheep do not get along too well. They have their own third dimension going on. Fear, hunger and the instinctive drives live in action and reaction cycles within their nerve systems.

In man the instinctive cycles comprise a relatively minimal portion of the third dimension. Emotional and intellectual cycles are more prominent. All people have emotional cycles. They are not always cheerfully liking and they are not always sorrowfully disliking. They are not always full and they are not always hungry. A constant ebb and flow of the odic forces characterizes this dimension. It is always in flux, always changing.

It has always been changing. They probably thought the world was coming to an end. And it was—their third-dimensional world. Cities and buildings were replacing tribes and tepees. Automobiles were taking the place of the horse. Tribes were scattered, even slaughtered. The whole world as they knew and understood it—the values, the customs, the systems, the daily patterns of Indian life—all this had reached a certain pinnacle of vibration and was coming to an end. Another third dimension evolved out of that, then another, then another. Today some people think the world is coming to an end, and generally they inwardly mean their own world of values, ideas or accustomed ways of doing things.

For the average person, these changes come in undetermined intervals depending on physical body functions, immediate environment, and the status of the subconscious mind. These cycles govern and control life day to day. The general moods of friends and family, health, dreams and daydreams, good and bad fortune, local and national news—all of these, as they rise and fall in waves, dominate awareness.

By allowing his emotions to explode, he naturally shatters the various rivers and currents of the third dimension, which have to be put back together in the same way that a shattered object in the second dimension is reassembled from the broken pieces. Sometimes it is not possible to reconstruct things exactly as they were. If he shatters the forces of the mental and emotional realm, he faces a period of healing while the injured nerves and feelings are harmonized. This is made easier if he understands what has happened, for he can then create a positive inner flow from the fourth-dimensional area of mind. Otherwise, should he continue to reflect unhappily on his actions and subsequent reactions, the event will be deeply impressed in the subconscious and become a more or less permanent part of his third-dimensional ego identity instead of just another lesson in life.

“This reminds me of the world-weary Kannon, Bodhisattva goddess of total compassion and love. He’s kind of reflecting in a repose; reminds me of feeling all of humanity, all of the suffering that humanity goes through, which can be a weight. But there is a sweetness here. He has a little smile. He reflects on the compassion for all beings, reflecting on the world, it seems.”

The second and third dimensions both have memory patterns, which are different in nature. The second dimension has an instinctive memory pattern, and we therefore don’t remember how the pattern came to be formed. For instance, we don’t remember how a tree is made. However, through much research and scientific investigation we can reconstruct our memory of the development of trees. We could say that the memory of objects in the second dimension is locked up in the objects themselves, available to us if awareness penetrates deeply enough. In the third dimension, memory is partially instinctive but mingled with forces of the intellect as well. Depending on the ratio of instinctive to intellectual forces, this dimension will be gross or subtle.

“This one is the ‘Embodiment of Siva,’ where the knower and the known merge as one, a place of total surrender. He just is so at one with the Divine. It really expresses the spiritual path and what we are all here to do, to have that total service and surrender to the Divine.”

Fourth Dimension:
Mountaintop Consciousness

OUR PERCEPTIONS IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION

The fourth dimension is the natural state of mankind, the state he resides in unless external events consume awareness. This is where life should be lived every day, having that mountaintop consciousness that looks over, in and through everything and gives the facility to enjoy and participate fully in the world while knowing at all times exactly where we are in the mind. It gives the experience of a pure state of awareness flowing through the mind and is the threshold to vaster inner space and spiritual realization. It is a beautiful place to be, and you can be there all of the time by feeling the power of your spine. The minute you feel that radiant energy in the spine, you are disconnected from the third dimension and soar into the fourth.

As this transition occurs, the first glimmer of inner light within the head is seen. It is usually a pale, moon-like glow seen at the top of the head from the fourth dimension looking into the fifth. This light illumines the darkness of the third dimension. The third dimension is the dark area of the mind, and we only see our way clearly in it through the two lights of the fourth dimension: sunlight, or electric light which man himself has invented to light up the third dimension and remove the fear of unknowing which is equal to the fear of darkness.

When we can hold ourselves in consciousness steady enough to see yesterday and tomorrow right in the same moment, we are in the fourth dimension. When we can hold ourselves steady enough to see the flow of force and vibration in the inner atmosphere between other people and ourselves, we are in the fourth dimension.

When we are emotionally tangled or upset and we see that we are emotionally upset, we’re in the fourth dimension. The fourth dimension is the watcher. If totally enmeshed in the third dimension, we would be upset but would be too identified with the emotion to be able to simultaneously observe, “I am upset. I feel confused and terrible!” When we watch the mind think, we are using a faculty of the fourth dimension. Only the fourth dimension can observe the thinking process at work. That is a good, clear way to look at the fourth dimension—as simply the watcher, the witness. There are millions of different ways consciousness can and does function in the fourth dimension, but this is the best way to define and learn of it.

Understandings gained from the fourth dimension tend to make one a good teacher and philosopher. Artists are in the fourth dimension. Each time you designed or created anything, you were bringing the beauty of the within through your nerve system into manifestation. Didn’t your whole nerve system feel good? That was the subsuperconscious fourth dimension of you. It finds expression in the creative intellect that wants to know for the good of the other fellow, that seeking to know.

When we say a person is open-minded, more willing to listen than to banter back his own ideas at you, he is conscious in the fourth dimension. He’s a new-age person. When he says something, it’s because he has something to say and generally his perspective of looking at the world is quite different from the material attitudes of people around him. He is able to see all four sides of a subject at the same time and to understand what people mean even if their viewpoint differs from his own. He is inspirational. He has and enjoys happiness. He is creative, unique, and works out of the box. He is independent, relying on himself and the power of his spine. He is quick to help others but slow to get entangled with their third-dimensional forces. He is highly motivated with well-defined purposes and goals. He expends his energy well, not wasting or draining the power that propels him onward and inward. He is enthused, charmed with life, charged with great desire to pursue the spiritual path.

It is not as difficult as we sometimes make it seem to be in the fourth dimension. Most people spend quite a bit of their time in the fourth-dimensional realm without even realizing it. But the discovery of the fourth dimension or any dimension is the discovery that we’re already there and knowing when we are there and when we are not there. If we know that, we automatically know how to be there when we find we are not.

The transition from the third dimension into the fourth comes when our subconscious has released itself from opposing forces sufficiently to recognize that awareness travels in the mind and to identify with awareness instead of states of emotion and intellect through which it passes. We then gain a certain control over previous congested areas of the third dimension. More perception comes. We are able to see the third dimension clearly, to hold for longer periods of time our proper relations to the second, third and fourth dimensions.

It’s very easy to get into the fourth dimension, very easy. It’s a little more challenging to hold that detached perspective when things are not going as well as we would like—but then it’s easy to return when the forces smooth out. Whereas man himself creates the third dimension in daily life, the fourth dimension is the being of man and how he relates to himself within himself. Yet, it is not powerful like the fifth dimension, but serene and quiet.

FOURTH DIMENSION MANAGED POSITIVELY

It is the home base for the jnani. He never moves further out in consciousness than the fourth dimension, never becomes attached or identified with thought, emotion, or even the multitudinous forms of superconsciousness. He is the watcher and his awareness is centered, hovering like a hummingbird, governing the flow of the externalities of life while resting in the peace and enlightenment of his own being. From his established silent center, he looks at and into every aspect of the interrelated states of mind, the interrelated states of the nerve system as seen by the fourth dimension. His awareness remains basically within the fourth dimension and does not have to flow out into the third or second, because the visionary powers and faculty of inner sight already sees out through the third and second dimensions, acts, and governs those dimensions as well as the personality effectively from the fourth without ever leaving it.

From this vantage point, we can view the building of emotional involvements within the third dimension, observing the workings of the emotional and intellectual units of ourselves and others. From this detachment, we gain the ability to dissolve confusions, conflicts, and the various and varied entanglements that are encountered daily. And if they are merely seen, that in itself is the necessary elucidation, for congestion cannot exist when perceived with clarity.

“This one is very powerful. I feel his darshan just looking at his eyes. I think of this as an embodiment of Siva. It’s the power of knowing Siva that can bless everyone around with the darshan and initiate other souls’ journeys on their spiritual unfoldment just by the glance. Thank you, Gurudeva.”

Also, from the fourth dimension we have the choice as to the kinds of third-dimensional creations we involve awareness in. We see precisely the path ahead and are able to avoid undesirable areas and karmic sidetracks. Thus, by clearing congestion at the time it is generated without letting it settle and in a sense “harden” in subconscious memory cells, and by holding the overview as to the optimum course of action based on a cognition of past and future, awareness is kept free-flowing in the spiritual intensity of now.

Living here he is peaceful, alive and balanced. Consciousness never sleeps. Mystics leave their physical body at night in a state of sleep and go into the fourth dimension in consciousness and continue a very lively mental life, teaching and being taught within the recesses of this and deeper dimensions. This is especially true if they practice the conscious withdrawal of awareness from the body and from the vibratory patterns of the day just before they go to sleep.

Around two o’clock each morning, when the inner-plane schools take place and students gather in the fourth dimension, if I’m awake, I can close my eyes and they inwardly appear in my mind. I can identify many of them, one after another. Even devotees whom I haven’t thought of in eight or nine years still attend inwardly. There they are in a body that looks like a mannequin made out of clear plastic. It’s not a fleshy body; it’s a light body that glows of itself. I can see all of their features as one appears and then disappears so the next one comes forward. So they come, right into the mind, come to learn of the within, the inner worlds.

FOURTH DIMENSION IN DEPTH

The fourth dimension then is the subsuperconscious faculty of man. The dual identities of the subconscious and conscious mind are harmonized, and we experience a clearing that allows the superconscious mind to flow through. We call this spiritual awakening, for consciousness at that point is no longer bound, but free to flow with new-found facility into any and all areas.

The fourth dimension doesn’t interact much with the first. It looks into the third and second and inwardly into the fifth. When these dimensions are experienced simultaneously from the fourth, it is similar to standing in an open doorway looking out into a small room and in into a vast fifth-dimensional room.

That’s the fourth dimension of the mind—a wonderful place to live and to bring through inner unfoldment, for you then have the continuity of creative thought. In Christian thinking it is the state of the soul. From the fourth dimension you can see the panorama of life unfolding flawlessly day to day. You can look deeply into the subconscious, cognize and understand the chemistry of feeling, thought and reaction. You can look into the magnetic force fields of the third dimension and comprehend the processes by which different people relate to one another.

The fourth dimension does not preclude intellectual activity. But it does mean that you have an intelligent intellect, a creative intellect that is not caged in by conceptual walls. A humble intellect that is willing to say, “I don’t know” now and then, instead of pretending to know beyond its own territory. A selfless intellect that prefers to use its abilities for the benefit of mankind and not in the service of personal ego building.

The fourth dimension is already well known by everyone on the path; otherwise they would not even know that there is a path to be on. It does not take years of difficult practice to break into and experience it. It’s very simple. There’s no practice involved. That was done while we were evolving. That was the practice. The many lives of evolution—that was the rehearsal. Now we can enjoy it.

From the fourth dimension, one (simultaneously) has here-and-now consciousness and is able to perceive a scope of nine days at once; whereas from the third dimension, one sees basically the pattern of the current day, and from the second a span of only a few minutes or hours. This nine-day time period looks from now into the past and ahead to the future, approximately four and a half days or 108 hours in both directions.

That is the reason that we can make accurate and valid judgments from the discriminating consciousness of the fourth dimension, for it sees the totality of intermingled past actions and future effects from a mountaintop perspective. It is easier to maintain the overview of the fourth dimension as it looks into and through the second and third if we practice containing awareness within the boundaries of the nine-day period, not speaking or thinking unnecessarily about events or experiences that are more than four and a half days in the past or four and a half days in the future. Awareness can then concentrate on current happenings, bringing the aspirant into the intuitively inspired consciousness of being here and now, not there and then, or even where and when.

The actinodic body we refer to is a body of light. It is also called the astral body. It is not a highly spiritual body. It is just a duplicate of the physical body and exists inside of the physical in the third-dimension plane. The astral plane is an exact duplicate of this plane, but when you are looking into it from the fourth dimension you see what is going to happen three or four days ahead of time. You are actually seeing events happening on the astral plane that will take place three or four days from now on this plane. Physical-plane creations happen first on the astral plane, which is always seventy-two hours ahead of this plane. When in the fourth dimension, you are out of the time-space continuum as we generally know it. It’s all there. You don’t travel in the fourth dimension. You’re there. Things just appear.

The fourth dimension does not always remain the same. Consciousness within it changes the flow of currents that run through that dimension, just as they do in the third. However, the patterns within the fourth are fairly well set, more regimented, so to speak, whereas third-dimensional patterns fluctuate and change. Consciousness, then, takes a different perspective or a different way of looking at it.

The fourth dimension merges into the fifth, and at that point it is really impossible to distinguish the two. But the fourth flows and functions through the subconscious faculties and can therefore observe the third. The fifth dimension cannot. That is the reason the fourth dimension encompasses the subsuperconscious, intuitive realm of consciousness. The fifth dimension doesn’t contact the third. It cuts right through it.

“Look at him, so adorned with the sacred shawl. Looking again, total receiving grace. I think of this as ‘Receiving Grace,’ the chalice with the Grace of Siva, the light reflecting His effulgence. I feel a lot of light in this drawing. He really has the embrace of the Divine around him.”

Fifth Dimension:
The Mind of Light

OUR PERCEPTIONS IN THE FIFTH DIMENSION

The perspective that all is well in the world, the experience that everything is as it should be, perfect right now, is of the fifth dimension. In this state we realize a great bliss, a comprehensive, all-encompassing acceptance of the universe as it is, which reveals that the whole of existence is working proportionately one with another. Everything is right, just right, and if you moved even one thing…you wouldn’t want to move one thing. You wouldn’t want to change or improve one thing, or stop something or start something, because everything is all right. Now, you would never feel that way in the third dimension or even the fourth, which would inspire philosophical discourse.

The fifth dimension is powerful. It eradicates concepts of imperfection in the flash vision of perfect harmony of all things. It is pure insight. Then insight is translated to the fourth dimension, where it can be comprehended by the outer consciousness of man.

Metaphysicians call the fifth dimension the “mind of light,” for it is the superconscious area from which the clear white light is inwardly seen to fill the head. Others call it God. As man comes into the sixth dimension, that light extends throughout the physical body and can even be seen in the feet as he walks.

When people function in the fifth dimension, they are not out of touch with daily realities. It makes them extremely alert and bright. They’re right there. They see things that have to be done and do them. Since they draw from a vast storehouse of energy and a broad evolutionary vantage point, they even do unfamiliar tasks with confidence—as though they had performed it a thousand times. They haven’t done it before, but they have. They feel they have. Nothing seems strange or awkward. Everything is familiar, and they bring grace into every department of life.

In the beginning, we discover the fifth dimension only through flashes, brief insights. People have had intuitive flashes that have altered and changed the pattern of their entire life. The still, small voice, or the inner voice, comes directly from the fifth dimension. The third eye functions from the fifth and sixth dimensions. Then one of the difficulties comes—that of translating knowledge and insight into a conceptual understanding. Very often fifth-dimensional insight is so deep, so subtle that we cannot label it and therefore cannot reconstruct it in our memory patterns. We think, “Oh, this is so clear, so obvious I could never forget it.” Ten minutes later we are struggling to maintain the continuity of the experience which, dream-like, begins to fade. Yet, as we become more and more acquainted with these strata, the memory is impressed easily on the physical brain cells and the fifth dimension comes more into focus for us.

In the fifth dimension of the mind the total evolution of form is perceived. When we see a flower, we not only see it as it is at that moment, but simultaneously actually see the stages of its life from creation to preservation to disintegration. This is where we see “life in a blade of grass and the universe in a grain of sand.” All things are within all things. The fifth dimension is not timeless, but it has no consciousness of time or even of the third dimension.

Great inventions and music have come from the fifth dimension in a flash, followed by years of working all of the details through to the fourth and third dimensions. Awakened psychics enter the fifth dimension and are able to read patterns of the future and past through the third eye.

The fifth dimension can be related to the kalingkasim° chakra, located at the throat. People who are conscious in the fifth dimension have a deep universal love for other people. They are often humanitarians. Life for them is a joyous, even blissful, experience with events happening in perfect timing. Other people like to be with them, for they are open, right there, present to the needs of others. The forces of their life are not so much consciously directed as directed superconsciously from the fifth dimension itself, which keeps all aspects in proportion. Of course, they also need a strong fourth-dimensional capacity to follow through on these subtle directions, and a strong third dimension to sustain the forces of superconsciousness. If they find themselves struggling with forces of the third dimension, the rules and regulations of which may not be totally familiar to them, they resolve their problems from the fifth dimension. Solutions come clearly to them, and with strong fourth-dimensional capacity they follow through and do it.

In the fifth dimension we have no sense of ego, no personal me or mine, which after all are composed of the elements of the second and third dimension. People who experience this metamorphosis from ordinary consciousness, and then discipline themselves so the intensity of fifth-dimensional being is sustained, love their fellow man with quiet compassion. They are great humanitarians and understand the predicament and problems of others without criticism. Timing in their lives is right, and things happen for them. They’re open. They’re right there. They receive positive direction from the fifth dimension, which periodically, shall we say, adjusts their forces, keeping all other aspects in line. They find out how to do things—they’re creative.

FIFTH DIMENSION MANAGED POSITIVELY

Although the trained mystic can remain in intense states of the fifth dimension for long periods of time, the first experiences are generally brief intuitive flashes. Yet even these seemingly short encounters represent vast mental, emotional and spiritual adjustment, so potent are the superconscious forces.

One does not have to wait for a still, small voice to speak. It is always there—a functioning part of the mind and not a once-in-a while exhilaration. Knowledge comes from nowhere. That’s the purpose of Zen koan—to awaken the intuitive faculty that transcends the reasoning mind. Ask a question; get an answer simultaneously. Knowledge comes right out of the light, right out of nowhere. Koans are carefully chosen questions that cannot be satisfactorily answered from the third or even the fourth dimension. The monk must reach deeper and deeper until he can get that intuitive vision.

These strata operate totally separately from the third dimension and are extremely fascinating. However, the advanced jnani is not concerned with the intricate workings of the fifth dimension, which are vaster in their ramifications than the outer worlds. He is more concerned with stabilizing kaif»—pure consciousness of the seventh dimension—and with That beyond a stilled mind, the Self God. He knows that the fifth dimension is there, already totally unfolded, already perfect, already functioning to guide life along according to the spiritual laws.

“This is very dear. I refer to this as a drawing that drew itself, or the hands that drew themselves. It just happened so fast and easy! I am sort of amazed how it just came out so quickly. This is like ‘Siva as friend,’ Siva as your friend, your intimate dear, he who sees into your soul, to your deepest self, expressing a closeness as if with your most precious beloved friend. There’s an intimacy about this one that speaks to my soul. I am especially amazed how well the hands turned out, without any struggle on my part.”

Religious people or mystics who have plunged deeply into the fifth dimension and come out of that experience in a new channel acquire a firm sense of mission or calling. They feel reborn, awakened, transformed. The world is suddenly different, and their whole life has changed within an abrupt period of time by having gone into the fifth dimension and returned to the fourth through this new channel. They inwardly perceive the ability man has to transform himself in this very life, and they often assume a spiritual destiny to fulfill the larger pattern.

Still other religious and mystical people have gone deeply into the fourth dimension, unraveled profound insights and brought forth great knowledge, and yet nothing changed with them. Why? They did not have the foundation—the control over the fluctuating forces of the second and third dimensions, and this alone kept them from going a little deeper into the fourth where it meshes and melts into the fifth dimension. The second and third dimensions always demand awareness to return to them if it is not totally in balance. For instance, if we are unkempt and messy in our housekeeping, if we strew clothing from room to room, that disorder is always nagging awareness, bringing us too far out into external consciousness and plunging us into the mire of “I should haves” and “Well, it really doesn’t matters.” Until the outer dimensions are ordered and stabilized in crystal-clear patterns of daily life, we never go deep. The foundation must be built first, and it must be strong. It is not advisable to overlook the importance of the most basic and ordinary daily chores and activities. No one wants to build the rest of the house, only to have to take it down later to repair weaknesses in the foundation.

The way to get stabilized in the fifth-dimensional consciousness is to lead a positive and virtuous inner life and a positive and virtuous outer life. This simple act brings the subtle layers of existence to the forefront of awareness. In the initial stages of meditation, the fifth dimension seems extremely tenuous, almost non-existent or out of reach. Gradually, after years of sustained sadhana, we come to relate freely within its realms. It becomes very much a part of life as we discover it during meditation, then later in the midst of ordinary activity. When this happens, dramatic changes in our life manifest due to awareness’ migration to a new channel within the spinal column.

“He looks like he’s in divine rapture, doesn’t he? A mystical union is taking place. When devotees merge with their higher self, the soul dissolves in this luscious Grace, a place of total bliss. Nothing compares to this bliss. That’s what we all seek for, I think, the small self dissolving and the pure love pouring through one soul. You can feel that in his eyes, receiving total Grace.”

If you visualize the símshumbisi» current as a cord of wires all together, awareness would generally flow through just one of them. In order to get into the next wire, it is not possible to jump across the hiatus in the middle. You must go to the top, to the fifth dimension, for that is the only opening. Most people are only aware of one or two currents and believe that is all that exist.

Most devotees on the path have already experienced the re-channeling of awareness from the fifth dimension. They may not know what happened exactly, or even when, but something did happen, and here they are seeking within, whereas before the within was perhaps a mental concept. Re-channeling could happen during an intense sorrow or joy, by meeting a holy being or even during sleep.

FIFTH DIMENSION IN DEPTH

The fifth dimension is pure superconsciousness. The mind of light. Absolute consciousness. In fact, it seems upon entrance to be a new mind, so unrelated is it to all known forms of outer existence. Yet, it does associate with the fourth dimension. There’s an overlapping there, an inter-blending of the fourth and fifth layers on the periphery of the fifth, which dissolves as awareness penetrates into the mind of light where there is no consciousness of time nor space and things are transparent.

From the fifth dimension we can look millions of years into the past, the akashic records, or project an object into the future according to vibratory rate. In that sense, it is beyond time, whereas the fourth dimension encompasses a radius of nine days in its past, present and future.

There are vast areas of knowledge in the fifth dimension that can be consciously tapped. Deep laws of the interworkings of form and force fields can be unfolded. From here we can penetrate the first dimension, the inside of the physical universe, and unravel the so-called mysteries of life from the cellular to the subatomic. From the fifth dimension we can also look into and know other deep mind strata—the sixth and seventh dimensions.

“He is such a bright light peering at us here, his soul radiating out direct from Siva. This light holds all that will come to be and manifest, similar to the power of what a banyan seed may hold, which contains all that it needs to create an enormous tree, a tree that has roots stretching everywhere. He contains everything for the future in this bright, effulgent face.”

There are a multitude of phases within the fifth dimension. There is one phase that handles karma, another controls time and time cycles, another provides for the coherent and disintegrating forces of evolution and forms, and still another oversees light in its multiplicity of vibratory expression.

Faculties of the fifth dimension operate totally separate from the third dimension. They are independent faculties. For instance, you could be cleaning the house and simultaneously be working at the fifth-dimensional level in South America, and not be aware of it, or be aware of it. It is a totally different phase of the mind, almost like the beginning of a new mind from a certain perspective. It does not relate to your personality, to your intellect, or to anything you do or have done in the second, third or fourth dimensions. The only way to bring through this consciousness is to have a very stable fourth dimension, divorced from the second and third. Otherwise you would not be aware of your own functioning on the higher planes.

From this we can see that the fifth-dimensional world, which is a very vibrant world, is the core of the body of the soul and the pivot point from which human destiny is mapped out. Yet, it is a world completely independent of all others. That is the paradox. It is all form in time and space and yet has nothing to do with what we normally call time and space.

The fifth dimension is placid and contains every thing—every replica of every object in every stage of evolution. Take this book, for example. It has its existence in the fifth dimension, totally encompassing every stage of its construction, aging and decay, from split second to split second, as well as its final disappearance into other elements. If you were to look at this book from the fifth dimension, you would see it in its totality of evolutionary development and disintegration. And you would see this all right now. If you were to see a person from the fifth dimension, you would see him as an infant, a grown man, an old man, as dead, decayed and reborn right now. Totally now. In every split-second area of his whole life pattern. It’s the same with everything.

There are fourteen distinct nerve channels within the spine, each governing a complete mind territory such as language, philosophy, music and art, science, medicine, politics, yoga, religion, and so forth. Only through the fifth dimension can awareness move into other channels. This is what gives people different mind structures, different points of reference, and different inner potential. They relate everything to the channels they are functioning in and appreciate and socialize with others in the same channel. People functioning in contiguous channels are close, but unless they are flowing through the identical channel of símshumbisi», they will not travel together in consciousness. They may travel closely, but not together. The scientist does not look at life in the same way the mystic does, and neither of them sees it as the musician would. Each channel has its own color. The scientific channel is a very pale green, for example. The channel governing language is lavender and pale yellow. If awareness, for example, is functioning in Channel “D,” it will normally flow there for the remainder of one’s life. Awareness cannot move to, let us say, Channel “F” from the second, third or fourth dimensions. We must meditate extremely deeply in order to reach the fifth dimension at the throat chakra, where entrance into the símshumbisi» is made.

That’s the reason people are more or less set in their patterns throughout life. They are literally confined to one channel or another of their being, and there they remain, often appreciating others who function in vastly different ways but unable to be that way themselves. Or so it seems. Basically, they do not have the stability of second-dimensional materialism or third-dimensional mental and emotional forces well enough under their control to enter into the fifth dimension long enough to re-channel awareness.

One of the reasons that devotees deeply enough evolved to perform sadhana seriously do not change teachers or maintain an eclectic attitude is that other teachers could re-channel them, unconsciously or even consciously, if he were unscrupulous. For that reason there is an unwritten code among gurus that no one will take another’s student unless concrete permission is given for a specified purpose, such as training in a specialized area. Each teacher works on a different channel or ray, and his devotees must work carefully with that energy and not get derailed. The elders of Sri Lanka say that gurus literally own these territories of consciousness, that you cannot enter them without permission. I had never looked at it quite that way, but it is more or less accurate.

“This one I see as such a dear and deep soul, as old as the mountains, rocks and seas. This image of Gurudeva is powerful and moves my heart with respect for all that he accomplished and manifested during his lifetime. He moved a lot of energy. You can feel a bit of the weariness of the world in his face. I would call this one ‘Deep Soul.’”

Sixth Dimension:
The All-Knowing Body of Light

OUR PERCEPTIONS IN THE SIXTH DIMENSION

The sixth dimension is color, sound and vibration as well as subtle forms and beings composed of these elements. The colors of the sixth dimension are unlike colors we have ever seen on the surface of the Earth. They are brighter, yet more subtle, and they mix and mingle. In other words, colors pass into and through each other, creating exquisite varieties of color with form. The beautiful actinic body of light, that pure inner body, exists in the sixth dimension.

Awareness in the sixth dimension has an all-knowing capacity which is difficult to translate into fourth-dimensional conceptual understanding. Therefore, mystics often have deep sixth-dimensional experiences, but cannot always recall the experience later. This dimension is outside of the normal processes of thought and time, and a prolonged experience may seem to last an entire month, while its actual duration on the physical plane is only two seconds; and such vast experience cannot register within the faculty of time-space memory patterns of the fourth dimension. But from the fourth dimension, the aspirant would intuit later certain aspects of the experience and bring them through to work with and use in his daily life. Extended practice of kaif» and other disciplined contemplative efforts bring more and more awareness of the deeper dimensions into daily perceptions.

Science has recently discovered the sixth dimension. It tells us that all matter is energy in a grosser form and that even a chair can be reduced to sound and color at a sub-molecular level. And they’re right. A chair on one level sounds like a symphony and looks like a light show. But in the second dimension it is just an ordinary chair. It exists simultaneously in all dimensions and looks different from each.

SIXTH DIMENSION MANAGED POSITIVELY

The great saints and sages venerated by men have lived fully and consciously in this rarified mind strata. There are people who once lived in physical bodies and in the fourth dimension and who now live totally in the sixth dimension. It is possible to live without a physical body in this dimension and to still be fully conscious. One lives in his inner body.

Temple Deities are sixth-dimensional beings. When we visit temples, they actually do hear and see our supplications. Great beings who no longer need a physical body also reside in this dimension.

If awareness has been well schooled in concentration, it can hold itself placidly in the intensity of the sixth dimension, remaining there to view the interrelated inner forces which construct the inner bodies of man—the actinodic or astral body and the golden actinic body, which is given birth after continued experiences of Self Realization.

The sixth dimension is a guarded area of the mind, less accessible than other states. The gates to these realms are guarded by fierce and apparently demonic creatures, and entrance is only gained once it is earned. The best way to earn access into the sixth dimension is to come in from the seventh. The best way to gain audience with a king is to be a king yourself. Better not to consciously open the psychic centers of the sixth dimension, but to understand the realm. When the time is right, experience will come of itself. It is far easier anyway to enter the equally blissful seventh dimension by entering simshumbusi» energy in the spine and from there into pure consciousness—kaif». The bliss of the seventh dimension is quite different from that in the sixth.

SIXTH DIMENSION IN DEPTH

The superconscious plane of the sixth dimension is situated at the third eye or ajna chakra. The inner mechanism of the human aura, the inner mechanism of thought forms, the inner mechanism of the astral plane and the superconscious body of light are all within this sixth dimension. The forces and rays of actinic energy, the various breakdowns of magnetic energy, the rays of the actinic force fields radiating out from the seventh dimension, and the rays of the odic magnetic force fields issuing forth from the third and fourth dimensions all come together within the sixth dimension in a tremendous intensity. The sixth dimension is therefore the heart of the generative and regenerative function of intelligence of man, whereas the fifth dimension actually governs all intelligence.

Before Self Realization has been attained, the sixth dimension can be a fascinating pitfall or an endless involvement for this life. For that reason in earlier years I taught devotees to avoid contacting that dimension and to concentrate fully on their realization. Otherwise, they would have become interested and involved in the same way one can get involved in the astral plane of the third dimension and never get far beyond it other than intellectually. Therefore, I taught disciples to establish themselves firmly in the fourth dimension, touch occasionally into the fifth dimension and then move directly into the very pure seventh. Only after someone was very well stabilized in the nondual experience of Self Realization and a lifestyle of sadhana, then and only then were they allowed to investigate the world of the devas, for then any experience is viewed as merely another aspect of themselves and not a “something else,” a being greater than themselves.

Now, however, aspirants are stronger in their sadhana. They are able to relate to the devas and individual entities with vast influences while simultaneously holding the advaita principle that nothing exists outside of themselves, and even the Gods, the saints and Deities are nothing more and nothing less than the highest aspects of their own being. An aspirant contacting Deities or communicating with space beings is merely touching into deeper parts of himself that were always there, even when he could not actually make contact. By acquainting himself with the Deities, he is drawing forth those profound qualities which the Deity represents—awakening, from one perspective, those qualities within.

“This bubble of light is like he is emerging from a light beam. It’s so buoyant and weightless, like he is coming out of the light. To me it’s sort of a shining vision which one might receive from the inner worlds, to quote a Gurudeva quote, ‘Everything is all right, right now.’ It has that total knowing. There’s a lot of light coming from it; it’s sort of glowing.”

Seventh Dimension:
Pure Consciousness

OUR PERCEPTIONS IN THE SEVENTH DIMENSION

No mind patterns are visible in the core of the seventh dimension. The seventh dimension is a silent world. Only the air exists there and not the smoke. Only pure energy, which is equivalent to pure space. What is seen here are particles of actinic force more intense than other particles of actinic force. Thus, rays of actinic force are seen in the seventh dimension as pure color or pure sound—for sound and color themselves are one and the same thing in their breakdown within this dimension.

When one is consciously in the fourth dimension, he sees a slight moonlike glow within the head—just a faint glow. When he is in fifth-dimensional consciousness, he comes into a brilliant inner light within the head—bright and clear. However, when he evolves into the sixth dimension, that light glows in every cell of the body—through the torso, the hands, legs and feet. Then, in the seventh dimension he comes into pure inner space, seeing within himself a vast space that goes on and on and on. At that time he is not necessarily conscious of light at all, for light exists as the interaction of pure force with magnetic forces.

The seventh dimension is clear inner space—not clear white light, just clear space. It goes on and on infinitely, like an infinite inner sky. Thus space itself, even intergalactic space in the second dimension, is dark, but our atmosphere is light due to the reflecting resistance or friction it offers light energy. Similarly, one deeply immersed in the seventh dimension would be aware of being aware without an awareness of light. In a sense he would be above the vibratory rate of light, and with no thing to be aware of, awareness becomes conscious of itself.

Awareness does not change, it only seems to change as the objects of its awareness revolve. Therefore, kaif» or pure awareness is exactly the same in the seventh dimension as awareness which travels in the outer dimensions as niimf». The difference is in the dimensions, not in awareness. In other words, the same faculty of awareness that sees physical objects in the second dimension also perceives subtle forms in the fifth and sixth and is called pure awareness when it is able to eliminate all objects and be aware of itself. This can be observed by coming slowly out of deep meditation in the seventh dimension instead of coming out quickly as is the tendency. By consciously slowing down the externalizing process we observe pure consciousness first, followed by awareness of subtle forms of light and various consistencies of denser space which can be visually distinguished. This brings us from simply being aware immediately into processes of sight. We may also hear the inner sounds—the high pitched “ee” or the “aum.” Next, actual inner visions could be seen. As awareness moves further out into the mind, instead of focusing, it begins to travel or flow and might then come into memory patterns, then into the energy current of the nerve system and out into the physical body. At this point one would feel a blissful river of energy rushing through the body, or perhaps discomfort or even pain. Opening the eyes, awareness finally flows out into the second-dimensional world of things. It is the same awareness that functions through the dimensions, and it is closer to what you call “you” than any other form that can be identified with the mind.

SEVENTH DIMENSION MANAGED POSITIVELY

Entering the seventh dimension, we enter realms of knowledge resulting from superconscious perceptions of the superconscious itself. It would be the heaven world of the Gods themselves. Their retreat place. The seventh dimension does not look back into the fifth dimension at all. It does look into the sixth and deeper into the eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth dimensions, which exist in a completely different realm—a different universe, so to speak. And all of this takes place within you, within the wonderful mind of man, your mind.

Everything learned must be forgotten to enter the seventh dimension. There are no concepts there, no feelings, no thoughts, no unfolding anyone—just pure space or pure consciousness. So, in that sublime state there is nothing to do except to let consciousness be aware of itself and finally swallow itself. Then the Self alone remains. After that total elimination of conscious into the Nothingness of Being, pure consciousness returns, forgets itself and travels as niimf» back into the mind, flows into the fifth dimension, flows out to the fourth, looks into the third and second and becomes involved. The whole thing starts over again for you. Isn’t it wonderful?

The experience of kaif» is simple; our concepts about it are the biggest barrier. We often feel that pure consciousness must be earned by a saintly life, and we generally know our life well enough to disqualify ourselves. But that is the “I’m out here and heaven is in there” concept—a false concept if ever there was one. Turn it inside out. Realize and then convince the subconscious mind that you are the whole thing right now—the within as well as the without. The saint you envision living the perfect life lives in your own consciousness. All dimensions of existence reside in you, and you will never be more or less than you are at this very moment. That makes attaining pure consciousness simple, doesn’t it? And it is simple if we discard the baggage of accumulated opinions and misunderstandings.

SEVENTH DIMENSION IN DEPTH

Between the fifth, sixth and seventh dimensions the lines we draw are understandably hypothetical. We give them boundaries and brackets in order to understand them, to define and identify these realms. The dividing lines between the first, second, third and fourth are clear and distinct. But in the deeper realms we know that they run together and merge, each existing as it does inside the other. This is intellectually intriguing, but the experience is much different. And that is what is sought, the direct personal experience.

Anyone can experience kaif», awareness aware of itself, for brief interludes. It is much more difficult to sustain the intensity, however, for the very power that allows us to control the mind enough to touch into kaif» stimulates the other dimensions as well, setting a wave rippling through stillest consciousness. That wave travels through the sixth, then the fifth, fourth and third dimensions, right out into the second. And if there are areas of the mind, especially in the second and third dimensions, which are not under guidance of the will or which are unresolved, then that ripple will catalyze them and pull awareness out of kaif». That is why very few aspirants are able to just sit in the absolute simplicity of kaif»—they are externalized by the outer dimensions as the intensity of pure awareness radiates and reverberates through the nerve complex. Therefore, although kaif» is itself easy to attain, it is indeed difficult to sustain for longer periods and even more difficult to dissolve into im'° kaif», Self Realization. The aspirant, noting this, then dedicates himself to refining the outer manifestations of the second, third and fourth dimensions in order to gain a stable control over those forces so that when he does return to kaif» the ripple that goes out into the mind does not cause a backlash stimulation sufficient to pull awareness out to the third dimension. And you have all experienced this. You have been absorbed in a meditation only to be drawn out into a vision or into your legs which were hurting or into some thought sequences in the mind. Therefore, the realms of Self Realization protect themselves from entrance simply by the nature of the mechanism of the dimensions.

“In this drawing, he looks like the ‘Divine Prophet,’ seeing with pure, actinic light. It’s very powerful, like he’s manifesting something with sankalpa shakti, just seeing something come out from his intense vision and gaze, like a wizard, or using all siddha powers to actualize and crystallize something into being. There is a trance-like aspect to this. He’s definitely manifesting something that’s piercing... piercing the darkness.”

The clear, placid, powerful seventh-dimensional space has remained the same for millions of years, untouched and untampered. Awareness travels through it viewing the various breakdowns of color, hearing the various pitches of sounds. It is the very source of the construction of all things. It is actinic energy within its quiescent state. For when actinic energy and odic energy intermingle, the mind then becomes active and awareness is thrust on the waves of mind substance and therefore views different things. Actinic or pure energy when blended together with odic, magnetic energy creates form in a similar way that the combination of air, which is invisible, with smoke creates various forms or clouds in the sky. Different patterns are made by the intermingling of smoke and air depending on the density of one and the motion of the other.

“I feel this one is about being the dreamer. He is imagining how to spread Siva’s presence on Earth, going deep within, his eyes are seeing the unseen. I love the dreamy quality of this, and how he’s just sort of absent-mindedly resting on his prominent hands.”

Dance of Creation

(Each poem is a separate eighth-dimensional Shum word, after comma.)

FIRST POEM, IFIF

Once upon an infinite, long, long ago, before time existed and way, way into the future the Dancer danced, making all vanish in a roar and appear within a silent noise for there were no ears to hear, the Dancer danced alone, the Dancer danced this dance alone.

SECOND POEM, IFLIF

The Dancer’s dance of grace and rhythm performing only for the mirror of consciousness, viewing in cosmic enjoyment, as the Dancer danced, vibration began occurring as powerful, never ceasing, moving movements emanated and mingled into a constant sound made of the many vibrations, and then into a constant rhythm that moved the Dancer’s dance into a frenzy of furiousness.

THIRD POEM, IFNIF

Hair flying, head moving, heart pounding, arms flinging and the hands giving forth messages, the Dancer magically created light from the constant sounds; so long, long ago this happened, beyond all memories, and, we are told, far, far into the future beyond imagination will it happen again. It will be the time for movement, sound and light manifesting time; it will be the time when the last dance has been performed and the eternal Dancer sits in the silence of eternity and breathes in the last and final breath.

FOURTH POEM, IFSIF

A leap into the future, a dip into the past, a moment in the moment of all moments, this is the way this Dancer danced, is now dancing and will dance on into future moments, impulse, pulse, creation, impulse, pulse, creation, impulse, pulse, creation, the eternal manifestation of forms and the space between them, energy flowing and lights flashing, sounds brimming with beauty. Who could hesitate to dance with the Dancer, invited or not?

FIFTH POEM, IFDIF

Dancing with the Dancer is the ultimate experience of a culmination of oh-so-many, many lives. Dancing with the Dancer gives moments into the far-off future and pleasant happenings within the present of each of those moments. Dancing with the Dancer, moving impulsively to the constant pulse, creating as the two become one in sound, light, color and movement in the infinite energies, the dancers are one, the dancers are one.

SIXTH POEM, IFIMF

Time and space and the time it takes to traverse the space, as well as the space that is taken up by creation within time as the forces blend into less movable matter, this is the dance of formation, the formation of form.

SEVENTH POEM, IFMIF

Costumes, stage; the curtain lifts upon a multitude of forms, multitude of forms, multitude of form, some shining, others opaque, some dense and others floating, forms clinging to each other, others pushed apart by each other, forms of all sizes; shapes decorate the stage and move with Dancer during the erratic dance of creation spurred on by the constant pulse and occasional impulses that command one dance to become another.

EIGHTH POEM, IFMIMF

Settling down into a routine of rotation around the sun as the galaxy rotates around its center, the moon burst forth and began its rotations; round and round and round the Dancer danced. The music became language and the language settled down into an understandable structure; culture began as communications became consistent; the ways and means of being or dharma commenced; the stage was set and the curtain opened to the world of the Gods, who talked with their subjects.

NINTH POEM, IFLIMF

It was after the sounds came one after another and combined—iaum, m’bium, símhuhm’, íngchau, liieh, língdiu, nifahnya, kajiyu, rehjaing—and the space between them created time, the first two images, then, more, created form and between them was space that the Dancer settled into a deeper meditation; souls were about to be spawned, what wonder; the Gods were the first created and their space became their world, their existence their enterprise; their helpers were spawned in even greater numbers and their space became their world; then in a flash, while all Gods and devas watched in amazement, souls in even greater numbers were created and their space became where they live, mature and become as their creator.

The pattern was set, the choreography finished for the great extravaganza of time, form, space interacting with iaumiaum—pure consciousness, m’biumiaum—energy, light and love, m’biumsímhuhm’—power of revealment, íngchauliieh—power of concealment, íngchausímhuhm’—pure knowing, língdiumm’bium—mirific energy, língdiumliieh—time, língdiumsimhuhm’—karma, liiehliieh—creativity, aptitude— liiehsímhuhm’—knowledge, nifahnyam’bium—attachment, desire, nifahnyasímhuhm’—shrouded soul, kajiyuliieh—primal nature— kajiyusímhuhm’—intellectual mind, simhuhm’simhuhm’—external ego— rehjaíngliieh—instinctive mind, rehjaíngsímhuhm’—hearing. [The above is describing the emergence of the first 17 of the 36 tattvas. Each tattva is described with the English name and the Tyeif equivalent.]