Recently, a Facebook esoteric group that I am in posted this conceptualization of the stages of the Universe since the Big Bang. I looked at and saw the correspondent stages of Mahamudra meditative realizations. I posted those thoughts and have copied them here. The reason to give the correspondences on the FB group, or to use the idea for a Generation Stage meditation, is because “As above, so below.”
In other words, the principles in cosmos create all manifest existence and forms of life. And, as one comes to understand them, appropriate them, and knowingly live according their flawless cosmic flow, this makes Life and the Path flow. Yeah, for that! (Below are the Stages of Mahamudra meditation experience and realizations in relation to the diagram of the Big Bang evolution.)
* For a few minutes in the meditation, you might hear a repeated chirp by a mother bird calling her babies to fledge from the nest.
Downloadable podcast: Big bang mahamudra
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This lovely image depicts the stages of light or vibrational Suchness within mahamudra meditation and realization. First, the clarity of samadhi gives way to wispy ephemeral arisings of vibration/and transparent light. As one abides and does not investigate the experience – but sustains the nature of Mind as it is bearing witness to its nature, then eventually the next layer of refinement ensues. This gives way to the experience of fireflies dancing or of sparks arising from a campfire. Abiding … . This births (big bangs) dark, deep blue black, fathomless, vacuousness, the roar of the silence is deafening. Abiding … . This gives way to blue-white. Breath is taken away, and an absorption ensues that is completely wordless and incapable of words. Abiding. A riveting abiding. Breath becomes primordial flames engulfing nothing but engulfing All. The flames are gold, white, red, orange, yellow – but no color exists. It is a rapacious devouring consummation of ongoing consuming rawness. (The artist of the universe has given this a blue-green vibrant coloration.). Ultimately, the nature of Awareness catches up to it capacity for Awareness and the light is beyond any description. Nor is there a “meditator” to describe it either.
So, “As above, so below” ever holds true. Also, our insides create our outsides. The theorem is called a Big Bang for reasons having to do with a predilection for force, brute strength, and the expression of physical power. With a slightly different mind, the same idea could be presented “great birth,” “emanation theory,” “cosmic song”, and other words or names that the metaphysical and spiritual traditions have called the “beginning”.
The reference to the stages of mahamudra is in direct relation to the image regarding the stages of the universe according the Big Bang theory and the physically measured evidence of the expanding universe. The correspondences proceed from the first stage to the most non-dual of mahamudra stages in relation to the same phenomenal or noetic experience being expressed by the dynamics of the universe.
* Mahamudra is a Sanskrit word as are several in the following descriptions.
- a) The first stage is that of samadhi giving way to a deeper samadhi in which profound clarity becomes translucent – wispy, etheral and ephemeral. This is correspondent to the ubiquitous “dark energy” determined as pervasive and equal in all cosmos. The meditator’s experience is of an acceleration into a new state, one that is dynamic yet profoundly still, transparent and lucid, rapturous as well.
- b) The next is fireflies dancing or like sparks from a campfire going off into the dark night. This is correspondent to the stars, galaxies, and celestial phenomena themselves. The meditator is experiencing the pixelations – the seeds (bijas) – of Suchness/Tatahata/Alaya within the substance of Itself, which we experience as consciousness (vijnana). It offers the meditator the truth through direct experience that consciousness is the seeded substance of That which is more than the seeds, more than the ground of perceived consciousness, and more than any concept or ascription about That (Suchness/Alaya/Tathata). Similarly, the stars, galaxies, nebulae, and nurseries of billions of phenomena are this on a cosmic scale. Each is a seed, a bijas, of and within the fabric (tantra) of the nature (svabhava) of Absolute MIND/AWARENESS, ie. Cosmos.
- c) Next is deep, blue-black, fathomless, silence that roars, which is correspondent in the diagram to the “Dark Ages” . For the meditator, it is the profound awareness that ALL IS NON. It is beyond uncontrovertible that Reality is Emptiness, and that Voidness is the infinite nature (svabhava) of Reality.
- d) Breath/flames/ consuming fires but no fire exists is correspondent to the Afterglow Light Pattern in the diagram. No structure, NON has ignited all seeds of potential realization. They combust seemingly simultaneously so as to destroy any remaining constructs of idealized singularity. From the point of view of the Big Bang, this is thought to be the eon of potential of a vibrational heat and luminescence that only a primordial plasma of cosmic waves was expressing.
- e) And finally, within the mahamudra stages is mahamudra itself. Within the Big Bang diagram, that would be the Allness emitted but completely antecedent to any structure or expression other than shear raw potency.
We are well served by remembering that science is only capable of measuring that which is of the physical plane. This has come to include the fourth, third, and possibly some phenomena of the second ethers, but these are still within the confines or constructs of cosmic physicality. As such, to hypothesize a macrocosmic theorem is fine, but without including reference to the other layers of existence, that theorem will be partial and, therefore, ultimately incorrect. Does it serve a learning curve? Yes, absolutely. That’s the path of being human!
It’s wonderful that you have pointed out the parallels of this diagram of the “Big Bang” and the progression back to origin of meditative states. It helps us broaden the context of the theory and validates the scientific track at the same time. Thanks for your thoughts and clarity on the matter. Good pondering material for quite some time!
Thank you, Jennifer, for your thoughts. Yes, there are a variety of parallels between the meditative states, or their realizations, and the discoveries that science comes to.This is one of the reasons that His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, wanted meditators studied, as well as that which they come to and experience. He knew that the dimensions and workings of reality can be known directly from within, and have been for millennia by those achieved in the art and science of meditation. It is often that he will point out to a scientist that so-and-so master wrote of such-and-such demonstration of what science has recently “discovered”. He smiles with the word “discovered.”