The Vision
Of Venerable Ananda Bodhi Acarya, now known as the Venerated Namgyal Rinpoche
Revisited by Wesley Knapp, 2009 with Namgyal Rinpoche’s previous blessing
Transcribed by Margaret Aboud 1971 – reproduced with her permission
Humans are the summation of thousands of years of different forms of life on this planet. Humans are an abstraction from this continuum of on-going existence, this continuum of evolution. We can view this continuum as varying degrees of consciousness. As the highest form of consciousness on Earth humans have all the previous states of consciousness within them.
Each form of life wants to live. Humans know that they want to live. But unlike the plant that will push aside any obstacle in the soil that prevents its growth to reach the light of the Sun, most of humanity is not conscious of their deep longing to reach the light. They grope in the darkness lacking the one thing that would awaken consciousness to its purpose – a Vision
A Vision contains both the ‘end’ state of affairs on the one hand and the means to realize it on the other. Thus the Vision we see guides us in our actions towards the achievement of an aim.
What is the aim of the Vision? Very simply, it is to unfold, to awaken to and to fulfill the true purpose of our life on Earth as part of the human experiment.
The aim just stated was described by verbs and verbs imply action. What kind of action? Again, very simply, exploratory action—action which awakens question and increases what could be called the bundle of doubt.
Thus, we must make haste to doubt, not in a pessimistic sense, but in the sense of the raising of questions, of both the inner and outer planes of our existence. The Vision sees God as both universal and personal. We come from the Light, from Love, from the Divine and our task is to return.
Our task is to become aware that by doubting God we are continually in God’s presence. This doubting is a compliment to God. It means that we are seeking to know. Our mind is from the same God who wants us to use it, to doubt God.
But while we are in the process of doubting, another ‘ingredient’ must be present – faith. There is no real dichotomy between doubt and faith. In fact, as the doubt increases, so does the faith.
How is this? You may say “But if we must continually raise questions, how can we believe in anything?” First, we must be careful to distinguish between faith based on blind dogma and ritualized formulas and faith based on question, on seeking to know.
[We must see God as a very silly being if we think that we have to approach God in the rituals and formulas of organized religion. We must let the images of ourselves and the world die and so too we must let God die – that is, our concept of God. And in the sense that the universal flow is continually unfolding through all manner of phenomena, we are continually approaching God].
In other words we must become aware that we were created to doubt, to explore, to extend our consciousness. This is precisely what we have faith in – faith in the universal flow or process.
Second we must come to realize that even though we raise questions about the life flow, it still keeps flowing. In other words, this flow exists as an objective fact of the universe. Although we may each have our perception of the flow, it is merely a ‘perception of’ and not the flow itself. Our task is to come into harmony with this flow so that we are the flow. Most beings spend much of their time resisting the flow and call this resistance ‘Life’.
You must understand that the Vision does not see humans as puppets in slavish subservience to some iron-clad laws of the universe. On the contrary, it sees humans as coming into harmony with these laws. If humans are in slavish subjection to something they sense is out of their control, it is by their own unawareness that this is so.
The dharmas are quite literally acting out all around and within us, waiting for humans to make an exploration of them, so that they may understand the nature of the universe as ‘hidden’ in the workings of the laws. But humans must go forth to explore the dharmas – they will not come to them without effort on their part.
The Kingdom of Heaven must be taken by storm – that is, pursued – and this search demands full absorption. We must become aware that there is literally nothing better for us to do than to join together and collectively tap our powers of telepathy, clairvoyance, clairaudience and moving matter by mind. Indeed, space ships are crude in the sense that through meditation, we can go into space without them. We have the potential of mastery of any aspect of the universe. It merely requires a shift of power from one form of action to another, from exploitation to exploration.
In order to explore we need a vehicle. The Vision sees Religion, Science and Art as vehicles – that is – as different ways to explore the same thing. These disciplines are not ends in themselves but avenues running alongside one another. Although our curiosity may be aroused by one avenue of exploration, we must maintain a non-selective curiosity, not clinging to any one part, but seeking to embrace the whole. We must be in a state of ‘choice-less’ awareness – non-exclusive – so that we may be all-inclusive.
The Vision sees humans as being open to all possibilities, to all views or theories, to the vast amount of knowledge, and yet clinging to none. We must not even cling to a Vision – that would be to misunderstand its nature. Intensity, passion and commitment do not mean clinging.
If we push any discipline to its limits, we come to all the others. The Vision sees these disciplines as having a common form; wonder, curiosity, the awakening of question about our inner and outer universes – and faith – that in the seeking, we shall find.
Thus, the Vision sees the transcending of the dualistic thought that perceives Science, Art and Religion as separate and distinct. It also sees humans as transcending the splits in their being which they have projected onto the outside world.
Our hearts are often made into the battleground for the split between the mind and the emotions and feelings. But it is a heart unclouded by neuroses that will give us the feel of the texture of the task. Our mind or intellect will give us the skill in means. Together, they will produce openness, clear seeing and will power. But the will power is not to carry out our ego’s will but God’s.
When we become aware that mathematics, physics, art, poetry and other categories are languages – ways of seeing the processes of the universal laws or dharmas – the barriers to exploration in the form of “I am not” give way to “I wonder if … “ and finally, “I can!”.
Furthermore, the being is the summation of all that has gone before us in history. What this means is that within our being lies all the mysteries of the universe. The within is as the without and we must understand the relationship between them.
The Vision means seeing – clear-sightedness. It is a clear seeing into the mysteries of the universe that we must seek. The premise upon which the Vision rests is ‘Seek and ye shall find’. Seek to extend the evolutionary process of consciousness through the dropping of the categories and labels that imprison our being in the stagnant existence hardly worth the name of ‘a life’.
To see our descriptions of ourselves as the totality of our being is to be unaware that part of our being is always pure possibility, pure potential. Humans have always wanted to transcend what they are, but how can one do this when treating oneself as an object, a static and fixed one? We must accept what we are, both in our wholesome and unwholesome aspects, and move on.
For, although we seem to be in a period of ever-increasing darkness, I do not see Humankind as being inevitably destroyed by some catastrophe like a world war. Humans are irretrievably blessed, not damned – which is precisely why they think they can continue to dabble in the destructive arenas of their being.
Thus the Vision sees the verb ‘to be’ as being perhaps the most active state in the universe, not just as a passive state. It is passive in the sense of acceptance but active in the sense of a basis for action.
We must gain the awareness that there is a sphere (like the troposphere or the stratosphere of the atmosphere) of consciousness – the nuosphere – surrounding us, that provides a climate for our being to unfold.
How are we to fulfill the purpose? We must first have a sensibility of the extrasensory world – dimensions of this life that are other than, or beyond, the sensate experience. In other words, we must become quite literally non-sensical and allow our intuition to grasp the nature of our purpose as human beings.
But the main point here is that we are at a point in history where humanity is on the threshold of a ‘quantum leap’ – we must collectively make a leap out of the darkness into the light.
What does quantum leap mean? It means that when we realize that it is because we see our own being in another, that communication with others is possible, we will understand how it is that we can meaningfully come together.
We are only individuals in the sense of our being unique manifestations of the dharmas. But we are not separate and distinct from one another on the spiritual plane. And it is to this plane that we must return. When our ego defenses that make us see ourselves as separate and distinct are no longer necessary, they can be dropped and the flow of communications on all levels between human beings will produce an ‘Over-Mind’.
Whether we like it or not, we are being invaded by others. The world is shrinking. We can respond positively to this or not; by opening up our being and reaching out to others, or by withdrawing into our defenses.
Those who do not really want anyone to reach their core and be penetrated and communicated with are committing psychological suicide. We have powers that still lie dormant within us. But we must throw off the conceptual hypnosis that keeps us isolated from each other in terms of religion, class, race, ideas and chosen people-ism; and that keeps us as individuals from exploring ourselves and our outer world.
It will no longer be viable to stay locked within oneself. We must join one with the other to make exploration of that which lies within and without us. Only in this way will question be awakened, in turn to awaken us. Only in this way can we live life the way it must be lived – with passion, commitment and intensity.
Human minds will meet for a distinct breakthrough in the evolution of consciousness. In the past, a few individuals here and there throughout history have emerged and unfolded and passed on their teaching. Human beings are beginning to emerge but they may still be in isolation from each other for the most part.
In the future, the quantum leap will lift all those who desire to be uplifted. The quantum leap means that the vibrations sent out from like consciousnesses will draw us together on a scale hitherto unknown in order to collectively leap out of our conceptual hypnosis and darkness into a new space, both inner and outer. It is in a state of love that we will make this quantum leap together.
For it is from Divine Love that we came, it is love that enables us to intuitively grasp what Divine Love means, and it is love that finally brings beings through to fulfillment of their task.
The Vision is grounded not just in the mind but in the heart. It contains the kind of being we desire to be, the kinds of interaction we want. Love springs from the heart. Herein lies the beauty of a Vision.
Vision means seeing, means eyes letting in the light – and humans are the pupils of the universe to explore her. Humans are responsible for the extension of consciousness, for the exploration of God. God can only help us if we help God. The dharmas are, but they need us to fulfill them so that we may in turn be filled full and our cups run over. We must be as cups for the universe: open-ended bodies to contain the flow of the universe only in order to make manifest that flow and express its shape – until it changes shape and flows on. Containers that do not contain…