Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Waves of Reality - Big and Small

The nature of a wave can be described using wavelength and frequency. Using music as an example, lower octaves, the deep bass sounds, are waves with longer wavelengths and shorter frequencies. Higher octaves, the kind of sound that breaks the wine glass in movies, have shorter wavelengths and greater frequencies.


The kind of sound that breaks the wine glass in movies have shorter wavelengths and greater frequencies.
Wavelengths and Frequencies

As shown in the figure above, the lower octave waves in Figure A complete one wave cycle at 50 Hz while the waves in Figure C have a much higher frequency and shorter wavelengths.

In an earlier post, Margaret pointed to the nature of the lower three chakras. These are the chakras in the earthly realm. I have written about the significance of the number 33 and it's relevance to kundalini in an earlier post. The three lower chakras represent, respectively, the elements earth (base chakra), water (sacral chakra) and fire (solar plexus chakra). This is a progression from slower, 'denser' vibrations to faster and more fluid vibrations.

As described before in my post 'The Divine Vibration', all existence is manifested as vibration. We come out of the primal big bang. All of the universe is sound or 'nada brahma' in sanskrit (nada - sound, brahman - the universe). This vibration descends from the fastest to the slowest from the crown chakra down. To the human being having a kundalini experience, however, reality unravels from the lowest to the highest chakra. 

The initial explosive opening of the holy grail or kunda (the terms mean the exact same thing and are interchangeable. The chalice or grail reference in Judeo-Christian spirituality and the word 'kunda' or pit in Sanskrit. A concave holding vessel). Then the rising of the 'holy ghost' up the spine, and it's ascent upwards into ethereal realms upon being cleansed of 'sin' or past conditioning and trauma.

My exploration of Indian classical music reveals that the lower octave sounds activate the lower chakras, the middle octave activates the heart and throat chakra and the highest octave notes activate the upper two chakras. 

Kundalini awakenings are classified into two categories:
  • permanent, the energy flows through the spine 24/7 for the rest of your life; 
  • temporary, there is an awakening for a brief period, and then the energy becomes dormant once again.
In my experience, the difference between the two is the piercing of the heart chakra. If the awakened kundalini is able to pierce the heart chakra, the awakening becomes permanent.

In my own case, after the initial awakening described here, I was in an awakened state, hyper-aware of everything. In the frantic search for answers, I ran into literature that explained this fact to me. At that point, I was determined to do whatever it took to make sure my awakening was permanent. The energy kept moving up and down my spine those first three months and I was constantly going into trance states, my consciousness totally moving with the energy, feeling each part of my body, opening blockages and unlocking more and more of my true self.
Ascension
I realized that even after changing my diet and not making any efforts towards helping the energy, it was still flowing through me. It dawned on me slowly that I had a permanent awakening and that this was not going away. This realization caused both relief and apprehension. Relief because I got what I wanted — a permanent experience of the divine within me; apprehension because I realized it came with no finite end-point. The energy continues to do its work today as I type this.

Going back to the nature of waves, it can be said quite literally that the coarse manifestation of the divine, the densest waves, create solid earth. Not the planet, but the state of solidness, the element earth. At the highest level, the fastest frequencies manifest as thoughts, emotions and sensations. This state of emanation, from nothingness to existence at its most solid and palpable is represented by the Hindu symbol AUM, seen in the figure below.
Hindu symbol AUM
AUM
We reside in the 'waking state' in the earthly realm. Kashmir Shaivism describes the human experience as a cosmic interplay of the different levels of vibrations, creating the sense organs, the activity associated with those organs and the divine will that allows the eye to see, the nose to smell and so on.

We are basically consciousness trapped in a body of congealed waves, given the outward appearance of a limited human body with it's limited abilities. After an awakening, pure consciousness, from the higher vantage point beyond the corporeal amalgam of sense organs, witnesses the being that lives in that limited state.

This is the best way to describe my experience immediately after my awakening episode — the highest level I had attained up to that point in time. I was lucky enough to find the right books, websites and personal accounts and managed to put these words together. This description in no way does the experience justice, but is the best I can manage.

The following diagram from Kashmir Shaivite cosmology elucidates this concept further. In Kashmir Shaivism, the term Shiva is used interchangeably with the term Brahman and they both mean 'the absolute'.  The use of these terms should not be mistaken for the deities Shiva or Brahma used in popular Hindu mythology.
Shiva is used interchangeably with the term Brahman
Kashmir Shaivite Cosmology
I won't go into detail about the different terms used in the above diagram, other sites explain them much better and in more detail. I am only trying to connect the AUM diagram with the one above as being two ways of showing the same thing: the descent of divinity into limited-ness, multiplying waves creating complex states of reality, sense organs, the canvas as well as the images on the canvas that then forms our reality, perceived by the limited human sense organs. We call this our waking reality.


Ultraviolet and infrared exist but we cannot perceive them without the use of special instruments.
Light Waves
Sound is just one way of representing this reality. Using light waves as another example, we see the human experience as a limited existence between the confines of violet (crown chakra) and red (base chakra). We know that ultraviolet and infrared exist but cannot perceive them without the use of special instruments.

Just as the earth is round but appears flat to our eyes, we live guided by our senses, unaware that our higher spiritual reality only becomes apparent when the noise fed to us by our surroundings is bypassed. This state is achieved through a practice of meditation.