Original subtitles

The world's greatest spiritual teachers from ancient to modern times have shared

the view that the deepest truth of our being is not the property of one

particular religion or spiritual tradition but can be found within the

heart of each person.

The poet Rumi said "where is that moon that never rises or sets? Where is that

soul that is neither with nor without us? Don't say it is here or there.

All creation is "That", but for the eyes that can see.

In the story of the Tower of Babel humanity fragmented into countless

languages, beliefs, cultures and interests. Babel means literally "the gate of God".

The gate is our thinking mind - our conditioned structures. For those who

come to realize their true nature, their essence beyond name and form, they are

initiated into the great mystery of what lies beyond the gate.

An ancient parable, the elephant parable, has been used to describe how various

traditions are actually all pointing to one great truth. A group of blind people

are each touching a different part of an elephant, getting a certain impression of

what an elephant is. The person standing at the elephant's leg describes the

elephant as being like a tree. The person at the tail says the elephant is like a

rope. The elephant is like a spear, says the one standing at the tusk. If one

touches the ear, it seems the elephant is like a fan.

The person touching the side is adamant that the elephant is like a wall.

The problem is we touch our piece of the elephant and we believe our experience

is the only truth. We don't acknowledge or appreciate that each person's

experience is a different facet of the same animal.

The perennial philosophy is an understanding that all spiritual and

religious traditions share a single universal truth. A mystical or

transcendent reality upon which foundation all spiritual knowledge and

doctrine has grown.

Swami Vivekananda summed up the perennial teaching when he said "the end

of all religions is the realizing of God in the soul. That is the one universal religion."

In this film when we use the word God it is simply a metaphor for the

transcendent, pointing to the great mystery beyond the limited egoic mind.

To realize one's true self or immanent Self is to realize one's divine nature.

Every soul has the potential to manifest a new higher level of consciousness. To awaken

from its slumber and its identification with form

The writer and visionary Aldous Huxley, known for his book "Brave New World",

also wrote a book which he entitled "The Perennial Philosophy" in which he writes

about the one teaching that comes back over and over in history, taking the form

of the culture in which it is realized. He writes, "The perennial philosophy is

expressed most succinctly in the sanskrit formula "Tat Tvam Asi"; "That Thou Art."

The Atman or immanent eternal self is one with Brahman, the absolute principle

of all existence, and the last end of every human being is

to discover the fact for himself. To find out who he or she really is.

Each tradition is like a facet of a jewel reflecting a unique perspective of

the same truth, while at the same time echoing and illuminating each other.

Whatever the language and conceptual framework used, all religions that

reflect the perennial teaching have some notion that there is a union with

something greater, something beyond us.

It is possible to learn from and integrate the teachings from one or many

sources without identifying a sense of self with them. It is said that all true

spiritual teachings are simply fingers pointing to the transcendent truth. If we

hold on to the dogma the teaching for comfort we will be stunted in our

spiritual evolution. To realize truth beyond any concept is letting go of all

clinging and attachment, letting go of all religious concepts.

From the ego's perspective the finger pointing you to Samadhi is pointing

straight toward the abyss.

Saint John of the Cross said "If one wishes to be sure of the road they tread,

one must close their eyes and walk in the dark."

Samadhi begins with a leap into the unknown.

In the ancient traditions in order to realize Samadhi it was said that one

must ultimately turn consciousness away from all known objects; from all external

phenomena, conditioned thoughts and sensations, toward consciousness itself.

Toward the inner source; the heart or essence of one's being. In this film when

we use the word Samadhi we are pointing to the transcendent. To the highest

Samadhi which has been named Nirvikalpa Samadhi.

In Nirvikalpa Samadhi there's a cessation of self activity, of all

seeking and doing. We can only speak about what falls away as we approach it

and what reappears when we return from it. There is neither perception nor

non-perception, neither "thing" nor "no thing", neither consciousness nor

unconsciousness. It is absolute, unfathomable, and inscrutable to the mind.

When the self returns to activity there's a not knowing; a kind of rebirth,

and everything becomes new again. We are left with the perfume of the divine,

which lingers longer as one evolves on the path.

There are numerous types of Samadhi described in the ancient traditions and

language has created much confusion over the years. We are choosing to use the

word Samadhi to point to the transcendent union, but we could have

used a word from another tradition just as easily. Samadhi is an ancient Sanskrit

term common to the Vedic yogic and Samkhya traditions of India, and has

permeated many other spiritual traditions. Samadhi is the eighth limb of

Patanjali's eight limbs of the yoga, and the eighth

part of the Buddha's Noble Eightfold Path. The Buddha used the word "Nirvana",

the cessation of "vana" or the cessation of self activity.

Patanjali described yoga or Samadhi as "chitta vritti nirodha", the Sanskrit

meaning "cessation of the whirlpool or spiral of mind." It is a disentangling of

consciousness from the entire matrix or creatrixof mind.

Samadhi does not signify any concept because to realize it requires a

dropping of the conceptual mind.

Different religions have used various words to describe the divine union.

In fact the word religion itself means something similar. In Latin "religare"

means to re-bind or reconnect. It's a similar meaning to the word yoga which

means to yoke to unite the worldly with the transcendent. In Islam it is

reflected in the ancient Arabic meaning of the word Islam itself which means

submission or supplication to God. It signifies a total humbling or surrender

of the self structure.

Christian mystics such as Saint Francis of Assisi Saint Teresa of ávila and

Saint John of the Cross describe a divine union with God the kingdom of God

within. In the Gospel of Thomas, Christ said "the kingdom is not here or there.

Rather the kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth and men do not

see it." The works of the Greek philosophers Plato, Plotinus, Parmenides,

and Heraclitus when seen through the lens of the perennial teaching point

towards the same wisdom. Plotinus teaches that the greatest human endeavor is to

guide the human soul towards the supreme state of perfection and union

with the One.

The Lakota medicine and holy man Black Elk said "The first peace, which is the

most important, is that which comes within the souls of men when they

realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers. And

when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells Great Spirit and

that this Center is really everywhere. It is within each of us.

On the path to awakening unless we are in Samadhi

there are always two polarities, two doorways one can enter. Two dimensions:

one towards pure consciousness the other towards the phenomenal world. The upward

current toward the absolute, and the downward current toward Maya and all

that is manifested, both seen and unseen. The relationship between relative and

absolute could be summed up in the following quote by Sri Nisargadatta

Maharaj: "Wisdom is knowing I am nothing, love is knowing I am everything, and

between the two my life moves."

What is born of this union is a new divine consciousness. Something is born

out of the marriage or union of these polarities or the collapse of dualistic

identification, yet what is born is not a thing and it was never born.

Consciousness flowers creating something new, creating what you could call a

perennial Trinity.

God the Father, the transcendent, unknowable and changeless, is united with

the Divine Feminine, which is everything that changes. This union brings about an

alchemical transformation; a kind of death and rebirth.

In the Vedic teachings the divine union is represented by two fundamental forces

Shiva and Shakti. The names and faces of the various gods change throughout

history but their fundamental attributes remain. What is born out of this union is

a new divine consciousness, a new way of being in the world. Two polarities

inseparably one. A universal energy that is without center, free of limitation.

It is pure love. There's nothing to be gained or lost

because it is utterly empty but absolutely full.

Whether it is the mystery schools of Mesopotamia, the spiritual traditions of

the Babylonians and Assyrians, religions of ancient Egypt,

Nubian and Kemetic cultures of ancient Africa, the shamanic and native

traditions around the world, the mysticism of ancient Greece, the Gnostics

the Non-dualists the Buddhists the Taoists, Jews, Zoroastrians, Jain's, Muslims,

or Christians one finds that their common link is their highest spiritual

insights have allowed their adherents to realize Samadhi.

The actual word Samadhi means something like to realize the sameness or oneness

in all things. It means Union. It is uniting all aspects

of yourself. But do not mistake intellectual understanding for the

actual realization of Samadhi. It is your stillness, your emptiness that unites all

levels of the spiral of life

It is through the ancient teaching of Samadhi that humanity can begin to

understand the common source of all religions and come into alignment once

again with the spiral of life, Great Spirit, Dhamma or the Tao.

The spiral is the bridge that extends from the microcosm to the macrocosm.

From your DNA to the inner Lotus of energy that extends through the chakras,

to the spiral arms of galaxies.

Every level of soul is expressed through the spiral as ever-evolving branches,

living, exploring. True Samadhi is realizing the emptiness

of all levels of self. All sheaths of the soul. The spiral is the endless play of

duality and the cycle of life and death.

At times we forget our connection to the source.

The lens we look through is very small and we identify with being a limited

creature creeping upon the Earth, only to once again complete the journey back to

the source;

to the center that is everywhere.

Chuang Tzu said "When there is no more separation between this and that, it is

called the still point of the Tao. At the still point in the center of the spiral

one can see the infinite in all things."

The ancient mantra "om mani padme hum" has a poetic meaning. One awakens or

realizes the jewel within the lotus. Your true nature awakens within the soul,

within the world AS the world.

Using the Hermetic principle "As above so below, as below so above", we can use

analogies to begin to understand the relationship between mind and stillness,

relative and absolute.

A way to begin to grasp the non-conceptual nature of Samadhi is to

use the analogy of the black hole.

A black hole is traditionally described as a region of space with a massive

gravitational field so powerful that no light or matter can escape. New theories

postulate that all objects from the tiniest microscopic particles to

macrocosmic formations like galaxies have a black hole or mysterious

singularity at their center. In this analogy we're going to use this new

definition of a black hole as "the center that is everywhere".

In Zen there are many poems and koans that bring us face to face with the

gateless gate. One must pass the gateless gate to realize Samadhi.

An event horizon is a boundary in space-time beyond which events cannot

affect an outside observer, which means that whatever is happening beyond the

event horizon is unknowable to you. You could say that the event horizon of a

black hole is analogous to the gateless gate. It is the threshold between the

self and no self. There is no "me" that passes the event horizon.

In the center of a black hole is the one-dimensional singularity containing

the mass of billions of Suns in an unimaginably small space. Effectively an

infinite mass. Literally a universe in something infinitesimally smaller than a

grain of sand. The singularity is something unfathomable beyond time and

space. According to physics movement is impossible, the existence of things is

impossible. Whatever it is it does not belong to the

world of perception, yet it cannot be described as merely stillness.

It is beyond stillness and movement. When you realize the center that is

everywhere and nowhere, duality breaks down, form and emptiness

time and the timeless.

One could call it a dynamic stillness or a pregnant emptiness, within the center

of absolute darkness. The Taoist teacher Lao Tse said

"Darkness within darkness the gateway to all understanding."

The writer and comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell describes a recurring

symbol, part of the perennial philosophy which he calls the Axis Mundi; the

central point or the highest mountain. The pole

around which all revolves. The point where stillness and movement are

together. From this Center a mighty flowering tree is realized. A Bodhi tree

that joins all worlds. Just as a Sun gets sucked into a black hole, when you

approach the great reality, your life starts to revolve around it and you

begin to disappear.

As you approach the imminent self, it can be terrifying to the ego structure. The

guardians of the gate are there to test those on their journey.

One must be willing to face one's greatest fears and at the same time

accept one's inherent power. To bring light to the unconscious terrors and the

hidden beauty within. If your mind is not moved, if there's no self reacting, then

all phenomena produced by the unconscious arises and passes away.

This is the point in the spiritual journey where faith is most needed. What do we

mean by faith? Faith is not the same as belief. Belief is accepting something on

the level of mind to bring comfort and assurance. Belief is the mind's way of

labeling or controlling experience. Faith is actually the opposite. Faith is

staying in the place of complete not knowing, accepting whatever arises from

the unconscious. Faith is surrendering to the pull of the singularity, to the

dissolving or dismantling of the self in order to pass the gateless gate.

The evolution and structure of a galaxy is closely tied to the scale of its

black hole just as your evolution is tied to the presence of the imminent

Self, the singularity that is your true nature.

We can't see the black hole but we can know about it by the way things move

around it, by how it interacts with physical reality. In the same way we

cannot see our true nature. The imminent self is not a thing, but we can observe

enlightened action. As the Zen master Suzuki said, "There are, strictly speaking,

no enlightened people. There is only enlightened activity."

We can't see it just as the eye cannot see itself. We can't see it because it is

that by which seeing is possible. Like the black hole Samadhi is not

nothingness, and neither is it a thing. It is the collapse of the duality of

thing and no thing. There is no gate to enter the great reality,

but there are infinite paths. The paths the Dharma's are like an endless spiral

with no beginning and no end. No one can pass the gateless gate. No one's mind has

ever figured out how and none ever will. No one can pass the gateless gate,

so be no one.

Samadhi is the pathless path, the golden key. It is the end of our identification

with the self structures that separate our inner and outer worlds.

There are many developmental models which describe the layers or levels of

the self structure. We will use an example which is very ancient. In the

Upanishads, the sheaths which cover the Atman or soul are called koshas. Each

kosha is like a mirror. A layer of the self structure; a veil or level of maya

which distracts us from realizing our true nature if we are identified with it.

Most people see the reflections and believe that that is who they are.

One mirror reflects the animal layer, the physical body. Another mirror reflects

your mind, your thoughts your instincts, and perceptions. Another your inner

energy or prana which you can observe when you turn inward. Another mirror

reflects on the level of the Imaginal which is the higher mind or wisdom layer,

and there are layers of transcendental or non dual bliss that are experienced

as one approaches Samadhi.

There are potentially countless mirrors or aspects of self that one can

differentiate, and they are constantly changing.

Most people have yet to discover the pranic, higher mind, and non dual bliss

layers. They don't even know they exist.

These layers are informing your life but you do not see them. The hidden mirrors

actually inform our lives more than the ones that are visible.

They are unseen because for most people they are not fully illuminated by

consciousness. Like Indra's net of jewels, the mirrors all reflect each other and

the reflections reflect every other reflection infinitely. A change on one

level simultaneously affects all levels.

Some of these mirrors may be left in the shadows unless we are fortunate enough

to have a competent guide to help us shine light upon them. The truth is we

don't know what we don't know. Now imagine that you shatter all the mirrors.

There's nothing reflecting you back to yourself. Where are you?

When the mind becomes still the mirrors cease to reflect. There is no more

subject and object. But do not mistake the primordial state for nothingness or

oblivion. The imminent self is not something but neither is it nothing.

The source is not a thing it is emptiness or stillness itself. It

is an emptiness that is the source of all things. Form is realized as exactly

emptiness, emptiness is realized as exactly form. This source is the great

womb of creation, pregnant with all possibilities.

Samadhi is the awakening of impersonal consciousness. Just as when you are

having a dream, upon awakening you realize that everything in the dream was

just in your mind. Upon realizing Samadhi it is realized that

everything in this world is happening within levels upon levels of energy and

consciousness. It is all mirrors within mirrors, dreams within dreams. The you

that you think you are is both the dream and the dreamer.

Whatever we say in this film let it go don't capture it with the mind. The soul

is dreaming, dreaming the dream of you.

The dream is everything that is changing, but it is possible to realize the

changeless. This realization cannot be understood with the limited

individual mind.

When we return from Nirvikalpa Samadhi the mirrors begin to reflect again and

it is realized that the world you now think you are living in is actually you.

Not the limited you which is only a temporary reflection, but you are aware

of your true nature as the source of all that IS. This dawning of higher wisdom,

the embryo, "prajna" or gnosis is what is born out of Samadhi. According to the

book of Job Chokhmah or wisdom comes from nothingness. This point of wisdom is both

infinitely small and yet encompasses the whole of being, but it remains

incomprehensible until it has given shape and form in the palace of mirrors,

called "binah", the womb carved out by higher wisdom which gives shape to the

embryonic Spirit of God.

[music] "Abwoon d'bashmaya" by Indiajiva

The existence of the mirrors or the minds existence is not a problem. On the

contrary, the error or aberration of human perception is that we identify

ourselves with it. This illusion, that we are the limited self, is Maya. The yogic

teachings say that to realize Samadhi one must observe the meditation object

until it disappears until you disappear into it or it into you. Although the

language in the various traditions is dissimilar at their root they all point

towards a cessation of self-identification and self-centered

activity. The Buddha always taught in negative terms. He taught to investigate

directly into the working of the self structure. He didn't say what Samadhi was

except that it was the end of suffering. In Advaita Vedanta there's a term "neti

neti" which means "not this not that." People on the path to self-realization

inquire into their true nature, or the nature of Brahman by first discovering

what they are not.

Similarly in Christianity St. Teresa of Avila described an approach to prayer

based on the negative path, or via negativa. A prayer of quiet, surrender and

union, which is the only way to approach the absolute.

Through this gradual process of stripping away one drops anything that

is not permanent, anything that is changing. The mind the ego construct and

all phenomena, including the hidden layers of self. The unconscious must

become transparent in order to reflect the one source. If there is some deep

knowing or some self operating in the unconscious then our lives remain locked

into a labyrinth of hidden patterns that comprise the undiscovered self.

When all layers of self are revealed as empty then one becomes free from the

self. Free from all concepts

A turning point in your evolution is when you realize you don't know who you are.

Who experiences the breath? Who experiences the taste?

Who experiences the chant, the ritual, the dance, the mountain? Witness the witness,

observed the observer.

At first when you observe the observer you will only see the false self, but if

you are persistent it will give way.

Inquire directly into who or what experiences.

Unblinkingly, piercingly, penetratingly, with the full force of your being.

[music] "Gate, Gate, paragate. Parasum gate, bodhisvaha." (Meaning: gone, gone, far beyond, completely beyond the awakened source IS)

There is no self that awakens. There is no YOU that awakens. What you are

awakening from is the illusion of the separate self. From the dream of a

limited "you". To talk about it is meaningless.

There must be an actual cessation of the self to realize directly what it is, and

once it is realized there is nothing that can be said about it. As soon as you

say something you are back in the mind. I have already said too much.

We normally have three states of consciousness: waking, dreaming, and deep sleep.

Samadhi is sometimes referred to as the fourth state, the ground state of

consciousness. A primordial awakeness that can become present continuously and

in parallel with the other consciousness states. In Vedanta this is called Turiya

Other terms for Turiya are Christ consciousness, Krishna consciousness,

Buddha nature or s=Sahaja Samadhi. In Sahaja Samadhi the imminent Self stays

present along with the full use of all human functions. The stillness is

unmoving at the center of the spiral of changing phenomena.

Thoughts feelings sensations and energy revolve around it at the circumference

but the degree of stillness or I-am-ness remains during outer activity exactly as

in meditation. It is possible that the imminent self will remain present even

during deep sleep; that your awareness of I am does not come and go even as states

of consciousness change.

This is yogic sleep.

In the Song of Songs, or the Song of Solomon from the Hebrew Bible or Old

Testament, it reads "I sleep but my heart waketh". This realization of the eternal

impersonal consciousness is reflected in the words of Christ when he said

"Before Abraham was, I AM."

One consciousness that shines through countless faces, countless forms.

At first it's like a fragile flame born out of the polarities within you.

Masculine penetrating consciousness with a surrender or opening of feminine

energy. It is delicate, and easily lost, and one must take great care to protect

it and keep it alive until it is mature.

Samadhi is simultaneously a timeless state of consciousness and a stage in an

unfolding development process. Something organic and growing in time.

As one spends more and more time in Samadhi, in the now, in the timeless,

one takes more and more direction from the heart, the soul or Atman, and less from

the conditioned structure.

This is how one becomes free of the lower mind. Free of pathological thinking.

The inner wiring changes. Energy no longer flows unconsciously in the old

conditioned structures, which is another way of saying one is no longer

identified with the self structure, with the outer world of form.

To realize Samadhi requires an effort so great that it becomes a total surrender

of oneself, and a surrender so encompassing that it is a complete

effort of one's being; all of one's energy. It is a balance of effort and

surrender, yin and yang. A sort of effortless effort.

The Indian mystic and yogi Paramahamsa Ramakrishna said "do not seek

illumination unless you seek it as one whose hair is on fire seeks a pond>"

You seek it with your whole being.

During one's ego transcending practice it takes great courage, vigilance and

perseverance to keep the embryo alive. To not fall back into the patterns of the

world. It takes a willingness to go against the current, against the

inexorable crush of the matrix, and the grinding wheels of samsara. Every breath

every thought every action must be for realizing the Source. Samadhi is not

realized by effort nor is it effortless. Let go of effort and non effort; it's a

duality that only exists in the mind. The actual realization of Samadhi is so

simple so undifferentiated that it is always misconstrued through language

which is inherently dualistic. There is only one primordial consciousness that

awakens as the world but it has been obscured by many layers of mind. Like the

Sun hidden behind the clouds as each layer of mind is dropped one's essence

is revealed.

As each layer of mind is dropped people call it a different Samadhi. They give

names to different experiences or different types of phenomena

but Samadhi is so simple that when you are told what it is and how to realize

it your mind will always miss it.

Actually Samadhi is not simple or difficult; it is only the mind that makes

it so. When there is no mind there's no problem, because the mind is

what needs to stop before it is realized. It is not a happening at all.

The most concise teaching of Samadhi is perhaps found in this phrase:

"Be still and know."

How can we use words and images to convey stillness? How can we convey

silence by making noise? Rather than talking about Samadhi as an intellectual

concept, this film is a radical call to inaction. A call to meditation, inner

silence and inner prayer. A call to STOP.

Stop everything that is driven by the pathological egoic mind.

Be still and know.

No one can tell you what will emerge stillness.

It is a call to act from the spiritual heart.

It's like remembering something ancient. The soul wakes up and remembers itself.

It has been a sleeping passenger but now the emptiness awakens and realizes

itself as all things.

You can't imagine what Samadhi is with the limited egoic mind just as you can't

describe to a blind person what color is. Your mind can't know. It can't

manufacture it. To realize Samadhi is to see in a different way, not to see

separate things but to recognize the seer.

St. Francis of Assisi said "what you are looking for is what is looking." Once you

have seen the moon you can recognize it in every reflection. The true self has

always been there it is in everything, but you have not realized its presence.

When you learn to recognize and abide as the true self beyond the mind and senses

it is possible to experience awe at the most mundane we become AWE.

Do not try to be free of desires because wanting to be free of desires is a

desire. You can't try to be still because you're very effort is movement.

Realize the stillness that is always already present.

Be the stillness and know

When all preferences are dropped the source will be revealed, but do not cling

even to the source. The great reality, Tao is not one not two. Ramana Maharshi said

"The self is only one. If it is limited it is the ego, if unlimited it is infinite

and the great reality." If you believe what is being said you've missed it.

If you disbelieve you've also missed it. Belief and disbelief operate on the

level of mind. They require a knowing, but if you enter into your own investigation

examining all of the aspects of your own being, finding out who is doing the

investigating, if you're willing to live by the principle not my will but higher

will be done, if you're willing to travel beyond all-knowing then you may realize

what I've attempted to point towards. Only then will you taste for yourself

the profound mystery and beauty of simply existing.

There is another possibility for life. There is something sacred, unfathomable

that can be discovered in the still depths of your being, beyond concepts

beyond dogmas, beyond conditioned activity and all preferences. It is not

acquired by techniques, rituals or practices. There is no "how" to get it

There's no system. There's no way to The Way. As they say in Zen

it is discovering your original face before you were born. It is not about

adding more to yourself. It is becoming a light unto oneself; a light that dispels

the illusion of the self. Life will always remain unfulfilled

and the heart will always remain restless until it comes to rest in that

mystery beyond name and form

[music] Om Shreem Lakshmi