This Glorious Journey

The ocean of Consciousness pulsating within your heart is illuminated by the Sky of Consciousness that is Śiva’s Heart. Hṛdayavyāpti means penetration and absorption into the Heart of God. This is the search of Consciousness for Itself within each of us, and as such, it is the search inside the Heart.

This glorious journey to freedom begins when the Light of God sets fire to our heart, awakening us to the spiritual life. Endowed by that initial grace with spiritual sight, we surrender ourselves into the seemingly distant memory that everything we see is none other than God’s Light.

The syllables that comprise the name Śiva translate as “that in whom everything rests” (Śi) and “by whose power everything moves” (va). This is another way of talking about Consciousness and energy. Consciousness is that in which all life rests, and the power or energy that arises from within Consciousness is called Śakti. As we look at these fundamental aspects of existence, what we’re really exploring is the Absolute Heart of the Divine, the seat of which is in our own heart. There is a pulsation of Consciousness within us that is the active agent of the stillness in our hearts, and we can experience that in our meditation as the source of our breath. As we tune inside, we discover that our breath doesn’t just arise within the body, but out of that eternal pulsation. We arise out of the pulsation of Consciousness.

In Sanskrit, hṛayā refers to heart, and vyāpti means both “penetration into” and “absorption by.” There’s also the term mahāvyāpti, “the great absorption” into our own source, into the Heart of God. The word “heart” is intentionally used, even within Sanskrit, because “heart” has a deeper resonance than “consciousness.” When we say the word there’s an openness inside us, a memory, a depth—and it is this memory that is activated by the light of God’s grace.

God’s journey of Self-remembrance

We can only discover our divine source because we already know that source, and while it may be a very distant memory, it does exist in the depth of our awareness. Although our liberation seems to be personal, the truth is that God is remembering Himself, through us and as us.

Seen from this perspective it’s easier to see that we’re not creating an experience but are simply remembering it—because we are each an individuated expression of Śiva Himself. If our path to freedom is not our journey, but God’s journey back to Himself, why would we want to argue or get in the way of that? Our individuated journey starts when He lights a fire in us, and then our response can only be to surrender ourselves. There is no room for resistance or struggle if we really understand that our sādhana is God’s journey of Self-remembrance.

The “Light of God” is another way of describing grace, and our spiritual freedom only happens through that grace. Does this mean we don’t have to do anything? Unfortunately, because we have not always heeded that light, we have created some obstacles to our capacity to recognize higher consciousness within us. So we must make an effort, and that means having a spiritual discipline. God has tapped us on the shoulder, has given us a ticket back home, even when we didn’t know we needed a ticket. When we feel that light, that grace, our response can only be gratitude; it can only be devotion. And from that gratitude and devotion we are prepared to do whatever we need to do in our lives—engage in a disciplined practice, make conscious choices, and surrender our limitations—to allow that return to happen.

Beyond Personal Identity

As soon as we begin to ask, “Whose journey is this?” people get very concerned about losing their identity. This puzzles me, because I’m not all that impressed with personal identity! Forget about it; it’s not your identity that’s doing the work in the first place. It’s some illusion of identity. We think Śiva steals our identity, but how can He steal that which is already His? In reality, we stole His identity, although He created the possibility for us to do exactly that.

Nondual Tantric tradition tells us that Śiva chose to forget Himself, to create us as individuals who could forget who we are, for the simple joy of rediscovering Himself through us. This is why the universe exists. In the process of manifestation, God’s identity is concealed, and then it is revealed in joy. This suggests that God values the experience of joy more than anything else. In our own lives, the key to growing spiritually is to look for that joy and surrender everything else. Understand that every experience you have (all your pain, trauma, and particularly all your drama) is nothing but the search for joy.

Every person is simply the expression of Divine Consciousness. Spiritual freedom is the discovery of that source and that we are that source. In this body, in this diversity, in every challenge and joy of life, we have the possibility of that discovery. Knowing this infinite, Divine Heart, the absolute unmanifest Consciousness, is not a philosophical idea. It is the highest possible experience for every individual. How could that be true? If we exist because of that manifestation, then how could it not be possible for us to experience our source?