Deep Dhyana as a Window into the Actual Self
It seems to me that during deep dhyana we are able to live, even if only temporarily, in the experience of our full structure of self, together with its actual state of development. This is not merely an idea about ourselves or a mental image of who we think we are. It is experienced in a subtler and more essential form. At other times, worldly distractions occupy our attention so completely that this deeper structure is forgotten. We continue to live, act and think, but we remain largely outside our actual form. In this sense, I have described the dhyana state as a kind of window into our real being, and ordinary life outside that window can feel almost like a state of existential death. This does not mean physical death or that the self ceases to exist. It means that the deeper dimension of oneself, which becomes directly accessible in deep dhyana, becomes functionally absent from ordinary awareness.
Why the Ancient Teaching About the World and the Soul Becomes Clear in Experience
This makes me think that what the ancient sages said about the world being different from the soul, and about worldly life making us blind to the soul, may be pointing to an experience rather than merely presenting a strange metaphysical theory. In theory, such statements can easily be misunderstood. They may sound as though the physical world is unreal or that the soul is some mysterious supernatural object hidden somewhere inside us. In practical experience, however, the distinction can become much clearer. The world does not necessarily destroy or remove the soul. Rather, our attention becomes absorbed in sensory experiences, thoughts, desires, reactions, identities, memories and external objects, and therefore we forget the deeper structure of our own being. Dhyana reverses the direction of attention. When the outward movement becomes sufficiently quiet, what was previously obscured can become directly apparent. Thus the contrast is not simply between a false world and a true soul, but between world-directed consciousness in which the self is forgotten and inwardly gathered consciousness in which the self becomes perceptible.
The Soul as the Complete Intrinsic State of Being
I do not see the soul as something special or as an additional supernatural substance added to a person. By soul I mean one’s own complete state of being as it exists in itself, without something foreign being newly added to it from outside. Yet this does not mean that the self is completely devoid of external influences. The self bears the imprints of everything it has experienced. These experiences, however, are not necessarily present within the self in the same gross and differentiated form in which they were originally encountered. Experientially, they may exist in a subtle, consolidated and relatively undifferentiated form. Therefore, the self is not an untouched thing standing apart from all experience. It is a being in which experience has been assimilated into a deeper structure. We can say self gets colored according to what it has experienced till date. In deep breathless dhyana, it is same eternal self but it is not pure rather it is individualised by experiential imprints.
From Gross Experience to Subtle Imprint
This gives a different meaning to the distinction between self and non-self. A gross experience that has not yet become assimilated into the subtle structure of the self can appear foreign or non-self. It is something occurring to us from outside in its gross, differentiated form. When experience becomes imprinted and assimilated, however, it becomes part of our own subtle experiential structure. It is not like something physical adheres to self as nothing can stick to void, the true nature of self. Yes, its experience gets somewhat distorted and this distorsion is according to the extent and nature of the external experiences. It is like a illusion. Just as, after revolving round and round for some time, the world around may seem to revolve for a while when we stop, though the world itself has remained stationary as before, similarly, after prolonged experience of the external world, our own self may appear different and foreign, though in reality it remains the same pure own form as before. The movement can therefore be understood as gross experience becoming an imprint, the imprint becoming subtly consolidated, and the consolidated impression becoming part of the self. In this sense, what is non-self is not necessarily everything that originates outside the body or mind. Rather, it is what has not yet been assimilated into one’s own deeper structure of being or pure self form. Everything we experience is, in some sense, our own self, because we can never experience anything other than what becomes present within the self. No physical thing can literally be attached to the self as something separate and then experienced as part of it. For the self to experience something fully, it has to take the form of that experience itself. Yet this self has become partitioned through experience. When an experience exists only as a mental pattern or as a gross external impression, it is experienced as non-self or as something foreign. But when that experience becomes deeply imprinted and assimilated as a change in the feeling and structure of the self, it is no longer experienced as something separate; it has become the self itself.
This may also explain why, after moderate drinking, a person can sometimes experience a temporary sense of joy or relief, as though the outer distractions have been reduced and one comes closer to a feeling of oneself. But what becomes accessible is not necessarily the pure self; it is still the self carrying all its accumulated imprints. Alcohol may temporarily weaken the ordinary mental activity through which worldly distinctions and distractions are maintained, making the underlying feeling of self seem clearer. Yet it does not remove the imprints. In fact, after heavy worldly involvement, experiences that might otherwise have gradually dissolved through witnessing can become more deeply impressed or carried forward as further conditioning. Thus the temporary relief may give the impression that the road has become clearer, while the underlying burden has not actually been removed. It may simply have been carried forward to be released later. Witnessing, in contrast, allows impressions to arise and dissolve without adding the same kind of further burden, so that the self can gradually become lighter, clearer and less partitioned. It becomes less partitioned because, as the burden of accumulated imprints is shed, the darkness created by those imprints gradually diminishes. The self becomes clearer and begins to correspond more closely with the shimmering, undivided character of the external world as it is directly experienced. What had seemed divided between self and world becomes less sharply separated, not because the self becomes something new, but because the accumulated obscurations that made it appear separate are gradually released. Once this process reaches its full extent, the separation between self and the experienced world becomes completely nil. There is no longer a sense of the self standing apart from what is experienced. In that moment, there may be a glimpse of nondual awakening—a direct self-realisation in which the self is experienced without the partition that ordinarily separates it from the world. This is not the creation of a new self, but the recognition of the same self after the accumulated imprints and obscurations that made it appear separate have fallen away. However, the glimpse of awakening may fade after a few moments. The self then seems to regain its previous imprinted structure, although often in a somewhat lighter form. In my understanding, the sudden glimpse occurs through a strong upward movement of kundalini, which temporarily breaks through the accumulated structure and reveals the nondual state. But a glimpse is not the same as complete purification. If the self has been accumulating impressions through countless experiences over an enormously long period, their complete dissolution may require decades of meditation and witnessing. Awakening therefore need not be regarded as the end of the journey. It can instead be understood as a road marker: a brief direct glimpse of the destination that confirms what lies beyond the accumulated structure, while the remaining work is the gradual clearing of the imprints that still obscure it.
Witnessing Dhyana and the Release of Worldly Imprints
This also explains what seems to happen during witnessing dhyana. The self contains accumulated impressions, and these impressions can arise into consciousness as thoughts, memories, images, emotions, sensations or impulses. When they arise and are simply witnessed, without identification, fresh attachment or resistance, they can pass away. The self is then no longer continually burdened by them in the same way. Dhyana becomes not merely a method of observing thoughts but a process through which accumulated worldly imprints can gradually be released. With their release comes a sense of becoming clearer, lighter and purer. Purification, in this understanding, does not mean adding something new to the self. It means removing or releasing what has accumulated and obscured the self’s own intrinsic nature.
From Purification to the Pure Self of Liberation
The process can therefore be understood as a gradual movement from worldly experience to subtle imprint, from subtle imprint to witnessed thought or feeling, from witnessing without identification to release, and from release to increasing clarity and lightness. The deeper self does not have to be created through this process. Rather, what obscures it is gradually reduced. This gives liberation a particularly simple meaning: liberation may not be the creation of a new or extraordinary self, but the gradual removal of whatever prevents the already-existing self from being experienced in its own completeness. The final state could therefore be described as the true or pure self of liberation, in which accumulated worldly formations no longer obscure one’s intrinsic being.
The Dhyana Window and the Possibility of Continuous Awareness
Seen this way, the dhyana window may be only the beginning. At first, there may be a strong difference between deep dhyana and ordinary waking life. In dhyana, the deeper structure of being becomes clear, and for some time afterward, as an aftereffect of the practice, accumulated impressions may arise into awareness and be released to dissolve. Outside dhyana, however, worldly impressions and distractions again tend to dominate awareness, covering the deeper structure once more. Repeated witnessing may gradually disburden the self and reduce identification with these formations. The possibility then arises that the clarity experienced inside dhyana can increasingly remain present outside it. This is because shimmering world supports clearer self outside too. Spiritual development would therefore not simply mean repeatedly entering a special meditative state, but gradually carrying the recognition of one’s intrinsic being into ordinary life. The dhyana window could eventually become less of a temporary window and more of a continuous way of being.
This also gives a more precise meaning to the old idea that the world blinds a person to the Self. The problem is not necessarily the existence of the world but our absorption in its gross, differentiated experiences. The self carries the subtle impressions of experience, while ordinary consciousness is continually occupied with the experiences themselves. Deep dhyana allows attention to move beyond this gross level and encounter the subtler structure in which one’s accumulated experience has already been consolidated. Witnessing then allows those formations to arise and pass without renewed identification. Gradually, what remains becomes clearer, lighter and less burdened. Whether this final pure self should be understood metaphysically as an independent spiritual reality is a further philosophical question. The immediate experience, however, is simpler: through deep dhyana, one can experience a dimension of oneself that is normally forgotten, and through sustained witnessing, one may gradually become less obscured by what has accumulated upon it. In this sense, liberation can be understood as not becoming something else, but finally becoming fully present as what one intrinsically is.
Demystifying Kundalini 