UNITIVE EXPERIENCE

Alan Watts said that he looked up at the stars and felt that he didn't relate to any of it, all the billions of galaxies out there. They weren't him. But then it occurred to him that he didn't relate either to all the wiggly stuff, all the biological things that were the inner workings of his body that were in personal terms him. He said that he did not achieve a unitive sense until it dawned on him that "Alan Watts" shared a boundary with the outside world, that the outline of his body was the border he shared with everything else that existed. It was this border that was the unifying factor for him, to where he now felt that he was everything else.

This was an intellectual determination, however, which in light of the fact that Watts was a trained philosopher and scholar should not be surprising. The unitive experience, though, can be realized free of the analytical mind. The Mandukya Upanishad outlines three states of consciousness, namely, waking, sleeping, and dreamless sleep. But there is a fourth state called turiya, the transcendental state, known also as samadhi. It is here that the unitive experience, free of the intellect, occurs. The Sanskrit word for this unitive state is "yoga," from which is derived our english word "yoke," meaning union.

The classical yoga of Patanjali sets out eight stages, or "limbs," all of which are necessary for reaching samadhi. First of all one must abstain from injuring any being through thoughts, words, or acts, known as ahimsa. Proper yogic posture is required. Proper inhalation, retention, and exhalation maintains control and focus of the life force. Attention must be directed inwardly and not be permitted to race haphazardly outwardly. The mind must be fixed on an object of meditation, for example a spot placed on a wall, or the midpoint between the eyebrows, to name just two. The seventh stage is maintaining an undisturbed flow of thought around the object of meditation. In the final stage the mind is completely absorbed in the object of meditation, becoming one with it. In this state, the ego-sense has grown weak, to where one's essential nature is no longer concealed. The result is what Christian writers call "the mystical union," and what Vedantists term transcendental consciousness, or samadhi.

Beyond the intellectual approach of Watts, and the technical means, so called, of Patanjali, there is one other avenue for the unitive experience, although this one is not in one's immediate control. This is the sudden flash of insight, realizing in an instant, out of the blue, by direct intuition, that you are the whole works. This happens to a person who is not aware that he is aware. There is spotlight consciousness, as it is described, where an individual's attention is on the task at hand, and there is floodlight consciousness where his focus, whether he knows it immediately or not, is on the big picture. It is when floodlight consciousness breaks through suddenly into spotlight consciousness that there is the abrupt insight.