THE VEDANTIST: MUDRA CLUSTER

(Mudra) The awakened Atman.

(Mudra) The rudder of concentration that kept him on an even keel in the flow of the awakened Atman.

(Mudra) The Flow of the awakened Atman.

(Mudra) The background consciousness, the seed consciousness, the pure consciousness that was Atman/Brahman, the pure consciousness that illuminated the conditioned consciousness of humans, the pure consciousness that was in all of existence, the pure consciousness that was all of existence.  All of existence emanated from the pure consciousness like sparks from a fire.

(Mudra) This was his greeting to his spiritual family, the kindred spirits, both there in the world of form and over there in the afterlife, in other dimensions and on other planes, and he felt their greeting in return.  The Atman would not have awakened in him without their guidance, inspiration.  Of special mention among his spiritual family was Alan Watts, and Christopher Isherwood.  They led him to so many other spiritual teachers who were now in his spiritual family, too.

(Mudra) The oblique world, backstage, behind the scenes, just out of sight.  There was a lot going on there constantly.  This was the realm of ji ji muge, the mutual interpenetration of all things and events.  It was from there that meaningful coincidences arose, the one mind.

(Mudra) Moksha, liberation.  Everything other than the awakened Atman was off the table for him now.  There was no past, no remembering, no regretting, no thought to who he used to be or to what his circumstances once were, even five minutes earlier.  And there was no future now, which was to say that there was no anticipation, expectation, planning, worrying, no thought to who he was yet to be or to what his circumstances would one day be, even in the next five minutes.  There was only the present moment, one breath, one heartbeat at a time.

(Mudra) The bonus mudra was the mystical spot in him.  It was Brahman with attributes was how it felt to him, except that it was also Brahman without attributes.  In Vedanta it was “neti, neti,” not this, not that, which was to say that it was beyond description.

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But now what did he do now that he was done?  The purpose of life, according to Ramakrishna, was to find God.  Well, he had found God, the awakened Atman.  He had crossed the finish line.  Now that he was done, though, what did he do next?  When he was done, he should just be done, which meant no further striving, seeking, aspiring after God.  Striving, seeking, aspiring after anything was a burden, after all, a fetter, a chain that binds. 

There were fetters, however, that were essential, such as maintaining the awakened state of the Atman, as it could be lost to distraction quite easily.  He knew this well.  He looked away from the Atman at one point, for one week the previous month, and he felt awful, felt lost and alone and lonely.  Yet the moment he returned his attention to the Atman, he felt joyful again, blissful, as though the Atman was welcoming him back.

But there was one other requirement now that the Atman had awakened in him, and that was to notice, to pay attention, to focus on what was going on in and around him.  Revelations came to him to guide him--he had experienced many of them already--and then meaningful coincidences, synchronicity, as though a reminder to him that the Atman was still with him, and that he needed to be with the Atman, too.