Seven planes of the mind

“It is said in the Vedas that a man experiences samādhi when his mind ascends to the seventh plane.

The ego can disappear only when one goes into samādhi. Where does the mind of a man ordinarily dwell? In the first three planes. These are at the organs of evacuation and generation, and at the navel. Then the mind is immersed only in worldliness, attached to ‘woman and gold’.

A man sees the light of God when his mind dwells in the plane of the heart. He sees the light and exclaims: ‘Ah! What is this? What is this?’

The next plane is at the throat. When the mind dwells there he likes to hear and talk only of God. When the mind ascends to the next plane, in the forehead, between the eyebrows, he sees the form of Satchidānanda and desires to touch and embrace It. But he is unable to do so.

It is like the light in a lantern, which you can see but cannot touch. You feel as if you were touching the light, but in reality you are not. When the mind reaches the seventh plane, then the ego vanishes completely and the man goes into samādhi.”

Indescribability of highest plane

VIJAY: “What does a man see when he attains the Knowledge of Brahman after reaching the seventh plane?”

MASTER: “What happens when the mind reaches the seventh plane cannot be described.

“Once a boat enters the ‘black waters’ of the ocean, it does not return. Nobody knows what happens to the boat after that. Therefore the boat cannot give us any information about the ocean.

“Once a salt doll went to measure the depth of the ocean. No sooner did it enter the water than it melted. Now who could tell how deep the ocean was? That which could have told about its depth had melted. Reaching the seventh plane, the mind is annihilated; man goes into samādhi. What he feels then cannot be described in words.

The “wicked I”

“The ‘I’ that makes one a worldly person and attaches one to ‘woman and gold’ is the ‘wicked I’. The intervention of this ego creates the difference between jiva and Ātman.

Water appears to be divided into two parts if one puts a stick across it. But in reality there is only one water. It appears as two on account of the stick. This ‘I’ is the stick.

Remove the stick and there remains only one water as before.

“Now, what is this ‘wicked I’? It is the ego that says: ‘What? Don’t they know me? I have so much money! Who is wealthier than I?’ If a thief robs such a man of only ten rupees, first of all he wrings the money out of the thief, then he gives him a good beating.

But the matter doesn’t end there: the thief is handed over to the police and is eventually sent to jail. The ‘wicked I’ says: ‘What? Doesn’t the rogue know whom he has robbed?

To steal my ten rupees! How dare he?’

VIJAY: “If without destroying the ‘I’ a man cannot get rid of attachment to the world and consequently cannot experience samādhi, then it would be wise for him to follow the path of Brahmajnāna to attain samādhi. If the ‘I’ persists in the path of devotion, then one should rather choose the path of knowledge.”

The “servant I”

MASTER: “It is true that one or two can get rid of the ‘I’ through samādhi; but these cases are very rare. You may indulge in thousands of reasonings, but still the ‘I’ comes back.

You may cut the peepal-tree to the very root today, but you will notice a sprout springing up tomorrow. Therefore if the ‘I’ must remain, let the rascal remain as the ‘servant I’. As long as you live, you should say, ‘O God, Thou art the Master and I am Thy servant.’ The ‘I’ that feels, ‘I am the servant of God, I am His devotee’ does not injure one. Sweet things cause acidity of the stomach, no doubt, but sugar candy is an exception.

“The path of knowledge is very difficult. One cannot obtain Knowledge unless one gets rid of the feeling that one is the body. In the Kaliyuga the life of man is centred on food. He cannot get rid of the feeling that he is the body and the ego.

Therefore the path of devotion is prescribed for this cycle.

This is an easy path. You will attain God if you sing His name and glories and pray to Him with a longing heart. There is not the least doubt about it.

Suppose you draw a line on the surface of water with a bamboo stick. The water appears to be divided into two parts; but the line doesn’t remain for any length of time.

The ‘servant I’or the ‘devotee I’ or the ‘child I’ is only a line drawn with the ego and is not real”.

The “ego of a devotee”

VIJAY (to the Master): “Sir, you ask us to renounce the ‘wicked I’. Is there any harm in the ‘servant I’?”

MASTER: “The ‘servant I’-that is, the feeling, ‘I am the servant of God, I am the devotee of God’-does not injure one. On the contrary, it helps one to realize God.”

VIJAY: “Well, sir, what becomes of the lust, anger, and other passions of one who keeps the ‘servant I’?”

MASTER: “If a man truly feels like that, then he has only the semblance of lust, anger, and the like. If, after attaining God, he looks on himself as the servant or the devotee of God, then he cannot injure anyone. By touching the philosopher’s stone a sword is turned into gold.

It keeps the appearance of a sword but cannot injure.

“When the dry branch of a coconut palm drops to the ground, it leaves only a mark on the trunk indicating that once there was a branch at that place. In like manner, he who has attained God keeps only an appearance of ego; there remains in him only a semblance of anger and lust. He becomes like a child.

A child has no attachment to the 3 gunas-sattva, rajas, and tamas.

He becomes as quickly detached from a thing as he becomes attached to it. You can cajole him out of a cloth worth five rupees with a doll worth an ānnā , though at first he may say with great determination: ‘No, I won’t give it to you.

My daddy bought it for me.’ Again, all persons are the same to a child.

He has no feeling of high and low in regard to persons. So he doesn’t discriminate about caste. If his mother tells him that a particular man should be regarded as an elder brother, the child will eat from the same plate with him, though the man may belong to the low caste of a blacksmith.

The child doesn’t know hate, or what is holy or unholy.

“Even after attaining samādhi, some retain the ‘servant ego’ or the ‘devotee ego’. bhakta keeps this ‘I-consciousness’. He says, ‘O God, Thou art the Master and I am servant; Thou art the Lord and I am Thy devotee.’ He feels that way even after realization of God. His ‘I’ is not completely effaced. Again, by constantly practising kind of ‘I-consciousness’, one ultimately attains God. This is called bhaktiyoga.

“One can attain the Knowledge of Brahman, too, by following the path of bhakti. God is all-powerful. He may give His devotee Brahmajnāna also, if He so wills. But the devotee generally doesn’t seek the Knowledge of the Absolute. He would rather have the consciousness that God is the Master and he the servant, or that God is the Divine Mother and he the child.”

VIJAY: “But those who discriminate according to the Vedanta philosophy also realize Him in the end, don’t they?”

Path of bhakti is easy

MASTER: “Yes, one may reach Him by following the path of discrimination too: that is called Jnanayoga. But it is an extremely difficult path. I have told you already of the 7 planes of consciousness.

On reaching the seventh plane the mind goes into samādhi. If a man acquires the firm knowledge that Brahman alone is real and the world illusory, then his mind merges in samādhi. But in the Kaliyuga the life of a man depends entirely on food. How can he have the consciousness that Brahman alone is real and the world illusory? In the Kaliyuga it is difficult to have the feeling, ‘I am not the body, I am not the mind, I am not the 24 cosmic principles;

I am beyond pleasure and pain, I am above disease and grief, old age and death.’ However you may reason and argue, the feeling that the body is identical with the soul will somehow crop up from an unexpected quarter. You may cut a peepal-tree to the ground and think it is dead to its very root, but the next morning you will find a new sprout shooting up from the dead stump.

One cannot get rid of this identification with the body; therefore the path of bhakti is best for the people of the Kaliyuga. It is an easy path.

‘I don’t want to become sugar; I want to eat it.’ I never feel like saying, ‘I am Brahman.’ I say, ‘Thou art my Lord and I am Thy servant.’ It is better to make the mind go up and down between the fifth and sixth planes, like a boat racing between two points. I don’t want to go beyond the sixth plane and keep my mind a long time in the seventh.

My desire is to sing the name and glories of God. It is very good to look on God as the Master and oneself as His servant. Further, you see, people speak of the waves as belonging to the Ganges; but no one says that the Ganges belongs to the waves.

The feeling, ‘I am He’, is not wholesome. A man who entertains such an idea, while looking on his body as the Self, causes himself great harm. He cannot go forward in spiritual life; he drags himself down. He deceives himself as well as others. He cannot understand his own state of mind.