Experience of the Divine and the Essence of Humanity in the Subtle State

“My love is not a hunger of the heart, neither is my love a desire of the flesh; it came to me from God and returns from me to Him.” Sri Aurobindo

In the course of my development a fascination for subtle states passed my way several times. Subtle states I define here as the experience of something that is not commonplace, that cannot actually be experienced through the external senses, but is attributed to the realm of the imagination; states that are endowed with a color and intensity, with a feeling and clarity that cannot otherwise be found in everyday life, but that appears before the eyes, can be felt on the skin, or provides the ears with sounds — oftentimes while nothing sensory, like the body, does exist for consciousness. Such an experience includes seeing entities, spirits, angels, time travelers, extraterrestrials, deities, and many others that can be found in science fiction, comic books, or religion. In addition, they can also be interpretable visions, which generally do not require physical sensation. Visions that reveal themselves in a state in which there is no body, but only the brilliance and the clear surface of the consciousness that gives space to this vision or audition, or as John of the Cross says: “It is common knowledge that no corporeal being could ever survive the sight of God, and so he sends his direct messages into a state without or beyond the body”. One of those experiences where “God” talked to me included the serpent of paradise: when I looked into its eyes it seemed loving, but when it thought I could not see it, its eyes changed to red blood-thirst and deceit; the serpent wore the face of an acquaintance — and from that day on I had no doubt about their true intentions.

Another class of subtle perceptions involves the chakra system. The essential energy centers in our body, the spaces and the auxiliary structures surrounding them, which also connect the development of our consciousness to the body — creating a bridge between the senses, the life within us, our mental phantasies, and the universal consciousness. These channels, which extend from the crown of our head down to the tips of our toes — or from the bottom of the pelvis allow us to feel our roots in the world — are the pathways along which our growth seems to take place: not only in the sense of state development from pure sense sensation to gross material manifestations, via meaningful spiritual content and equanimity, happiness sensation or bliss in everyday life or in meditation to awareness that silently knows about its truth as being everything, in order to then finally also embrace everything, but also with regard to the stepwise development that has been part of the standard repertoire in Western philosophy and psychology since Hegel.

Meditation is perhaps not the right term here, so from now on let’s speak of prayer when it comes to activating these structures in us, which in a mysterious way hold together the levels of the world and the levels of being human in us; and in doing so make possible a deep realization of themselves by entrusting themselves to us in a subtle, fantasy-soaked way, thus also revealing something of the divine in them, which slumbers hidden behind all the surfaces. It gives itself as gods, angels, spirits, superheroes, or the chakra system to guide us to a deeper communication and integration with ourselves and others.

From my experience, all these structures, in contrast to what one might try to achieve with meditation, have at least a twofold otherness: on the one hand, although they are so universal, or at least have universality as their foundation, such as pure awareness or unity experience, they are much more interactive and unpredictable in their actual form; secondly, their appearance, at least for me, is much more connected with a moment of grace.

By more interactive, I mean that, as in the example of the snake, the vision springs from a necessity of everyday life, and should have a high degree of uniqueness because of the diversity of our lives, while it is additionally fed by the interactions with fellow human beings and one’s own cultural space, and not so much, as is said, for example, of the witness, which is always and everywhere, for everyone, the (almost) same feeling of what was already before your mother, your father, even before Abraham was born — at least such it is delivered by many spiritual masters.

The moment of grace ties in with this interactivity. The appearance of angelic beings and the disembodied experience of other worlds, where I could benefit from wiser and more mature life forms or simply the all-encompassing substance of compassion, hope and love that helped make their appearance possible, was tied to inner-worldly extremes. The size of my questions, in which I shrank relatively seen, led to the, for the mind, immeasurable size of a revelation event. The fine-material messages, expressing themselves through the visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and also olfactory as well as gustatory nerve tracts, were time and again far beyond what I would have been able to conceive in terms of richness of detail and imagination. They were experiences of facet-richly woven wholeness, as pure, every interpretation and human processing transcending knowledge.

What I have learned from these experiences, however, is that they can, to a lesser extent and as a regular exercise, significantly influence our quality of life and our growth, and this for the better. And that the helpers, as already thought of in Hinduism and other traditions — but also when they are dressed in modern superhero costumes — can awaken aspects in us and transfer them from dream existence to actual embodiment that we have been lacking up to now.

If one sees the person as a being, equipped with cognitive and emotional abilities, equipped with impulse control and goal orientation, living out interpersonal needs and abilities, and experiencing unique perception in a place of conscious occupation, as in ego development theory; then all these areas can be newly characterized and possibly expanded through subtle experiences, if we not only uncover the aspects that were first veiled and then awakened and not lived until now; but also integrate them by repeating the experience in conscious remembering and feeling through, as well as with the help of a mental analysis, and transfer them into everyday life through testing.

The work with subtle energetic centers and entities that accompany us can be permanent or, if necessary, can lead to living from the embodiment of an angel, a heroic spirit or a deity and carrying its transmissive and aesthetic power through the collective of shared consciousness, to plant one’s own chain of negation of other subtle life forms, selection of the experienced entity and retention of its characteristics and its inherent reality-forming power in the evolution of the subtle and thus, in discourse, to bring it to fruition in a collective of recipients.

Subtle Practice and Subtle Discourse

What has been said can be summarized and further thought about in a somewhat disconcerting turn to Jürgen Habermas. Speaking with his discourse ethics, a subtle practice of prayer, just like communicative action and communicative reason, would have to fulfill three criteria: ( a ) an orientation towards objective truth, ( b ) a normative orientation towards correctness, and ( c ) considerations of a communal aesthetics and therapeutic critique.

The objective foundation

Subtle practice requires first of all, in order to be truly effective, an objective component. This is not to say that all practice has equal value in interacting with and enriching aspects of our senses, life, mind and consciousness. It ideally relates to the visible, the audible, the tactile, and the other sensory channels, especially the components of the sense of sight beyond sight, such as the feedback of our facial expression, which is often permission for certain forms of inner experience and a complex mirror of the social events around and through us. In addition, the practice should wrap itself around our concrete body, comprehensively using, appreciating, correcting, or optimizing our organs, our weak points or strengths, and our external features. As studies show, muscle growth, for example, also fundamentally depends on imagination, not merely on physical training. Accordingly, through regular prayer, one can positively support physical changes through the asking, imaginative attitude.

In my training practice, for example, I made the mistake for a while of holding a Bruce Lee-like spirit being in my body in order to increase the success of my training. This not only changed my posture and, from my point of view, led to an increase in strength, but also began to redraw the fine lines that make up my body on an energetic level and put them on different tracks. However, this quickly led to negative effects in terms of the mobility of my body and mind, because my body type did not fit into this scheme from the beginning. Here it is essential to align practice with existing, relatively inert and difficult to change realities, such as body types, in order to avoid health and mental consequences.

The next moment is about connecting to the energy channels. This also means that with increasing awareness of the actual pathways of evolution within us, of states and stages, but also through knowledge of other energetic channels and nodal points such as meridians, acupuncture points or nadis, the practice can encompass more and more material from the energetic body and thus also from our emotional and spiritual life, and integrate it into the main system of, for example, chakras or an entity.

Last, but not least, being a god or goddess in Hinduism, just as being an angel or saint in Christianity, meant having an authentic connection to the actual and highest aspect of God. To establish a relationship with Brahman or the Father, the aspect of God who can only ever elude man and show Himself only through the veil of Maya or His only begotten Son, the Logos, or the Spirit breathed by both. The church father Augustinus Aurelius sees in the recognition of the impenetrable mystery behind every appearance, which is always more perfect than our experience of perfection allows, a necessary humble attitude before the greatness, which nevertheless always escapes us in the universe, a correction mechanism for every arrogance, every narcissism and every self-overestimation in man. Regardless of this, meditation in the Hindu Advaita tradition, as well as prayer in the Christian Centering Prayer movement, contains the possibility of coming close to the supra-cosmic God in separate existence. The attempt of an unmediated, unmediated, unseparated, albeit unmixed unity with the ultimate unchanging clarity of Self-being, as All-being from a divine perspective or the sufficiency of the divine from a human perspective.

Normative Concerns

In addition, a subtle prayer practice makes normative demands on the practitioner. That is, it raises questions about the rightness of striving for a particular experience or realizing a particular subtle form. In the simplest case, this refers to an attunement to the abilities and objects that are of value to oneself, as well as a consideration of one’s own values, such as the virtues of what constitutes human action as right and good. In addition, however, as soon as one does not see oneself as the center of the world, there is a moral component that transcends one’s own perspective and attaches importance to the ethical-functional fit into a larger context of communication and experience, to reciprocity and integration.

A subtle practice should therefore, besides the individual better and worse, more or less desirable and the orientation towards one’s own preferences, at least also take into consideration the inalienable rights of others, of what is overarchingly valued as good; somewhat more esoterically expressed: we should land with our prayers and our desires beyond the needs of our own small, separate, flesh-enveloped self or ego. In theosophical writings one can read, almost in warning red, that the use of curses or the subtle disregard for basic moral values, such as attempting to injure or gain unilateral advantage through incantations or visualizations, can have severe consequences for one’s mental health.

In principle, it can perhaps be said that human rights are a good point of reference: Respect for cultural, typological, gender and stage identity as well as recognition of self-chosen preferences, be it sexuality or status, as long as this respect is based on reciprocity and includes a deeply felt understanding of equality as human beings and sentient beings. Here, however, a purely superficial living and letting live seems too little for the subtle cosmos. Rather, it is about a deep anchoring of non-prejudice, the development of the ability to take on perspectives as well as the cultivation of the ability to love and forgive, which reaches up into the spheres of one’s own person, in which subtle we-nesses have their origin: Thus, a half-angelic, half-demonic being, equipped with small wings and resembling a cherub, but perhaps more like a being from the Star Wars universe in Village People disguise, sprang from an acquaintance who, while professing his love and affection for me, began to flutter towards me and penetrate me; There were enormous worldview differences between the acquaintance and me, both politically, sociologically and sexually, and the being accordingly began to perform energetic operations on me in an attempt to form me into its image.

Any respect for the other that is not deeply lived and felt can lead to such emanations that initiate changes beyond the individual levels of the recipient that go beyond the potential of linguistic and emotional interaction. In the penetration through the clear mirror, the pure window of consciousness, the subtle pathways that hold our identity together — sexual, typological, ideological — are re-tailored; thoughts and memories begin to falsify, processes in our bodily schema and locomotor system begin to modify, and finally, the impulsive, core-self, reactive evaluations of sensory impressions, the judgments of what is perceived as pleasurable and less pleasurable, begin to be reshaped. Thus, in the long run, the living out of past preferences becomes impossible and the former identity falls victim to oblivion.

For the time being, however, the discrepancy between the new and the untouched, old memory structures can trigger profound existential crises, which extend over numerous stages of one’s own psychosocial and psychosexual development, as described by Erik H. Erickson, and include, for example, the formation of trust, the ability to be autonomous and the feeling of shame, guilt processes, the feeling of worth, the understanding of roles, the ability to love and relate, the striving for self-realization and the integrity of one’s own life story. All the solutions already found can lose value and lengthy reconfiguration, defense and decision-making processes can paralyze one’s life and bring serious socio-economic and health consequences.

In addition, there are mechanisms deeply embedded in our bio-logy, such as the recognition of social status based on physiognomic features, but also contextually and culturally determined, that can become conscious, dubious, and subject to legitimate critique as soon as they occur. A subtle practice can also cause deep structural disturbances in the fabric of society, and although the questioning of power structures is fundamentally necessary and not only considered in the structure of modern forms of consciousness, but subtle mechanisms of punishment can also subsequently be set in motion, which, if not anticipated or integrated, can have similarly devastating effects on self-image and being-in-the-world.

The subtle discourse, which takes place parallel to and in the midst of other communicative processes, thus raises numerous normative questions, which have already been answered before on other more concrete levels and allows to a large extent the transfer of already gained insights from the history of mankind.

Aesthetic-therapeutic aspects

The integration of subtle states is not only subject to the own self. Rather, there seems to be a kind of common sense, an aesthetic sensibility and taste of culture with specific permissions. This common sense also carries out a therapeutic critique, which is already active in the described status mechanisms and was thought of in the thoughts on morality.

The aesthetic mechanism refers to cultures and their traditional imaginary worlds. In the past, the preservation of certain subtle objects and appearances was part of protected semantics that were put into the form of dogmas or of a relatively closed collective consciousness, from which individual experiences could feed without any problems and, if the potential for a subtle state was present, relatively uniform appearances could occur in succession, which, depending on the cultural area, provided the legitimation to call oneself saint, prophet, magician, shaman, seer or enlightened. However, here the isolation of the community or the restabilization by punishment of dissenters and thinkers played just as determining a role as the detailed practice by worshipping always the same icons and images of other kind. In this way, certain forms of experience could be maintained in the long term and activated in suitable everyday situations, in order to bring their vitality to full bloom more and more over the centuries.

It is already a children’s wisdom that the fairy realm disappears with the extinction of the belief in it. Correspondingly, in a plural society, without isolated practice groups and interspersed with a collective duality of very subtle realities, the experience of subtle entities is opposed, on the one hand, by fundamental skepticism and, accordingly, by the automated deconstruction of any truth to that effect within the collective consciousness, on the other hand, through creative factories like Disney, Marvel and the Asian world of mangas and animes, through the film and comic industry in general, the number of free-living entities has increased to infinity through limitless and continuous media dissemination; The lack of faith has led in an ironic feedback to a flooding of the unbelievable that has a stronger grip on our lives than many seem to assume. Contrary to the tendency to biological decimation of life and the radical devaluation of “God-given” revelation and the possibility of an imagination coming to life in subtle entities, an unrestrictedly growing diversity of species arises here and leads to a flood of introjections, i.e., potential subtle phenomena, which are at the same time fundamentally devalued in their potential. At the same time, however, the transfer or the reconstruction of this state potential of subtle realities in interfaces of virtual and classical material reality may advance the blunting of our natural abilities, moreover, the value of every possible selectable appearance may be reduced, since it is always exposed to the inherent criticism, which is due to the fact that a multiplicity of possibilities always generates a multiplicity of better or undecidable alternatives.

Thus the question about the actual authentic experience becomes more difficult, moreover none of the forms of appearance can withstand the permanent change for a long time, as long as the own community does not reach a subtle consensus, which is directed to the preservation of a specific form — thus as long as one’s own subtle identity and connection to the space of subtle appearances has not been integrated into the system preferences in a way that is appreciative because value-bearing, life in subtle worlds is exposed to a permanent de- and reconstruction; which perhaps also strongly reduces the possible rate of appearance, because collectively driven processes of mistrust and overflow direct the inner focus differently and undermine individual efforts of resonance with the subtle.

The question of aesthetics is seamlessly followed by the question of the therapeutic dimension. Apart from the form of the beings and appearances, which by their shape, by the archetypal ideas they embody and carry with them in living symbols, co-determine one’s own development of personality and thus identity, it is also a question here of maintaining the health of the objective basis: thus status dynamics, educational processes, life experiences, but also subtle practices can lead to problems in the body structure, to blockages, hardly enlivened places and restricted breathing. In this way, the respective aspects of the experiences invoked in the subtle practice, be it personality traits or the contents of consciousness of certain states and stages of development, are also diminished. This can eventually cut one off from the experience of the subtle, pure consciousness or oneness per se, and replace this with the reward of suppression: Apparent peace of mind through immaturity, apparent unity through fusion and regression into pre-personal structures, or seemingly subtle sensations as the reflection of the states of mind and spirit of the socially privileged and the resulting varieties of trust and love that result, for example, from the interplay of mistreatment and reward, disregard and minimal attentions. Conversely, the appearance of subtle entities can enormously expand our behavioral repertoire. I remember the visit of time travelers who had landed within my neuronal network and had a fight. There were probably also two aspects of my person, an old man and a young one, two people, but one person, who had found each other again in me on their journey. After the dispute was settled, they gave me two time-travel suits, somewhat reminiscent of a diving suit. The older time traveler’s suit allowed me to see and think through the future more clearly, as in time travel, and the boy’s allowed me to revisit my past — a priceless therapeutic gift that really worked wonders at the time.

Transcendent and Immanent

Subtle practice in combination with the sharpening of the bodily senses and the guidance of the life stream or breath in oneself or others, can counteract all the forms of self- or other-restriction by purely individual factors or the interactions in a collective. As said before, however, they must always remain in the anticipation of having to forfeit and re-practice acquired abilities through the interaction with less conscious or less appreciative people or the simple differences between cultures, both as discourses and structures as well as as states and lived forms of subtle embodiment — however, the recovery time decreases and the ability to integrate is experientially increased, so that in the emptiness of all this, the accidental, the arising and passing away of de-marking difference, especially in the context of increasing experience of the permanent presence of the absolute, pure and clear consciousness, the experience of identity, authenticity and integrity as “I” in unity with a subtle entity becomes permanently possible as a change of form; as a permanent transcending of the personal immanence of a discourse with the subtle dimension within a collective consciousness.

It is a discourse that holds together one’s own selfhood, one’s own person, in unity with the timeless and spaceless awareness, beyond any form, and makes it just as timeless and spaceless; although there is nevertheless a clear, delimited, temporal and spatial substance that absorbs everything, insofar as it is everything of which it knows and can know, but no more and then reintegrates and internalizes it within this self-transcending absorption; and makes it its own entity and its own subtle appearance, which again throws itself into the supra-personal dialogue between its own manifesting form and just the common sense of all other prayers; as wish and fantasy productions within the collective consciousness or the cosmic net of subtle realities, the paths of evolution and the energy centers beyond our body and our consciousness; from which we feed ourselves again, in order to dissolve and lose ourselves in it again and in this loss of self at the same time to reabsorb what was given and is given from others into this collective pool of fantasies.

A practice from Kashmir Shaivism

Now follows an exercise based on a practice from Kashmir Shaivism. It comes from the Vijñānabhairava, a concise handbook of advanced meditative practices. These practices combine sense perception, breath control and observation, subtle energetic practices, and pure awareness of the Absolute into a logical series of sequences, and thus seem well suited as an infusion to add some blood through practice to the flesh of the thoughts expressed so far. The original text of the Vijñānabhairava is about the unification of Shiva and Shakti by directing the Shakti — the breath and energy through energy centers. This leads to the realization of the Absolute, Shiva, and ultimately to the union of both aspects. The title of the meditation guide is composed of Vijnana, the knowledge, and Bhairava, a special aspect of Shiva, whose realization is known after reading and practicing.

Especially interesting for me is the polar character of subtle entities. All or at least almost all of them that I have experienced embodied opposites in one harmony or revealed themselves in two forms within a very short time. In early Old Testament times, for example, the male Yahweh was not worshipped alone, but he had a wife in the form of the goddess of water, fertility and the sea, Ashra. In the later monotheistic phase, after the Babylonian exile, this was replaced by the wisdom, which is characterized primarily female. Accordingly, a male and female alien angel-god and goddess pair from another galaxy once appeared to me and transmitted to me the memories of an android in search of identity to enable me to understand the always simultaneous presence and absence of the divine. The absence in the creator aspect and the presence of this aspect in our consciousness and correspondingly in every form. Therefore, I find the exercise, because it takes into account this apparent fact and because of its multidimensionality, doubly useful.

1. The divine energy unveils itself when inhalation and exhalation are offered and die at the two extreme points of the head and the ground. Therefore, sit and breathe deeply into your pelvis and exhale from your pelvis up to the crown of your head. Between inhaling and exhaling, experience your whole body from the pelvis or even the feet up to the crown of your head and between two breaths as an infinite space flooded as evenly as possible with breath and life.
2. Between inhalation and exhalation, between stopping and moving, when the breath stops at your two extreme points, locate your outer and inner heart, between the lungs; as your I, which is one with every object outside, though distinct from it, and the silent substance which is common to you with all, though in your innermost being.
3. Lose your mind and see your heart from these two aspects, the center of energy in which your absolute being sits as outside and inside, whatever form it should take. This is done while breathing in and breathing out into your relaxed body.
4. When you have spent enough time to imagine an entity within you that embraces and houses two poles that embody both outside and inside, then pay attention to the moment when the breath movement of inhaling and exhaling comes to a stop all by itself, in this universal pause of rest, the thought of ‘I’ disappears in the end of the breath and the pure movement of energy through your body can become visible, and the image you have created can spread naturally through your body.
5. Imagine the energy as a bright, subtle and more subtle light being carried up the stem of a flower, a flower that may be rooted in the earth beneath your pelvis and running through the center of your being and the being visualized in your heart space. This energy flows from one energy center in you and your being to the next, fed by the energy of the breath, and blossoms in your crown.
6. You can now explore each of the major energy centers between the pelvic floor and the crown: in the abdomen, more than two fingers’ width below the navel, in the area between the navel and the rib cage, the section of your chest where the heart and lungs are located, and above in the area of the neck. Let the energy flow there with your breath and also recognize the connection of each section to your sense of sight. Explore the aspects of yourself in each of these areas: each outer and inner, each individual and collective, each masculine and feminine. Allow yourself to optimize the knowing in your heart with each breath; as you recognize aspects of your organs and energy pathways, the centers draw into this knowing and bring your energy system to shine; perhaps revealing other inhabitants of your self, such as subtle emotional and mental forms, light beings, and even independent ego parts in the form of entities.
7. When you have finished this exploration up to the throat space, then let yourself come to rest with the breath in the highest center, your crown, and enjoy the awakening of the Absolute, in which all these explored aspects converge. Imagine a flower with a thousand or infinite petals, or a mosaic in which everything explored flows and is joined together in a huge, faceted mirror of your inner and outer universe.
8. Continue until your heart opens and the crown unites with your being in it, and from center to center, energy rises along the paths and centers you have drawn.
9. Try to grasp this rising and give it a moving shape, for example that of a snake, a flash of lightning, a beam of light, the energy on the circuit boards of a processor or whatever comes to your mind. This subtle breath, which rises from your pelvis through the abdomen, the chest and the throat to your crown, you can now get hold of between your eyes or in the middle of your forehead, and then, when there the consciousness is intensified and the light of the dream state enters, wander with this consciousness down into your energy centers and explore the radiant presence of the separate experience of the subtle processes there. As you do so, do not stop breathing and allowing the energy to flow up and down.
10. Explore the whole universe of the dream in all these centers as dissolving into finer and finer forms until it merges and disappears into pure consciousness everywhere there, linking every aspect to the leaves of your flower or the mosaic of your crown, weaving and increasingly integrating the shape of your subtle identity.
11. The breath flows in and out of it, smoothly within itself. Fully attuned with the breath, the energy continues to rise within you, uniting both transcendent and immanent in your body, your life, your subtle being, and the pure awareness within you as one.
12. Thus, deeply embedded in the rhythm of the great bliss, fully present to the rising of the divine energy and the drawing of your being in the dissolution of the dream state, you attain the highest absolute and transform your being in its subtle nature through the connection to the ultimate mystery behind the divine energy.
13. This exercise can be greatly expanded, for example, you can learn to recognize the consciousness, the deep structures behind the surfaces of the stages of human development in the energy centers and segments of your body and become more and more a conscious embodiment of all recognizable facets of human evolution.

The Life of the Gods

As Sri Aurobindo writes in The Life Divine, however, the transformation here cannot be instantaneous. It needs a slow evolution into the rays of these subtle psychic worlds, which appear to us as the first veiling of the supramental and the first ignorance of this ultimate approach to the pure divine, in order not to bring down the whole reality in a radical trans-formation. But we can see in every breath and every energetic sensation a sign of the undeniably given nature of the sphere of the divine and of a subtle-material consciousness endowed with a collective dimension and containing a superhuman and -individual reality and truth. In the development from matter to life and spirit, the play with the limits of the possible and their combinations is characterized by the flashing of the interventions of a divine sphere, if we do not close our eyes to it and sharpen all other senses for it. Be it a fine tingling of the life energy, a short flash of an insight, or a consciously remembered dream, a life-changing vision or the appearance of an entity — they are all intrusions and interruptions that can help us to find the way to the farthest still hidden and unexploited realm of the gods among us. An effort and a possibility which this article would like to call into consciousness and support.