The Gate of Artemis

In memory of a conversation between Duilio, Gregoire and Engy back from Genoa
Animals are predictable. They go for survival. It explains their two main focus: food and reproduction. They feel dopamine flow – the well being chemical – in association with these two basic needs. Their brain can also experience such flows through association with these needs: for instance if you ring a bell when feeding them, at some point, they will salivate at the ringing of the bell, even without food.
Much of the rites of the human tribe are derived from its animal past. For instance our basic impulses such as the sense of hierarchy, bowing to the alpha male, fighting for control of the territory or dominion over the female, all this comes directly from the animal kingdom. Especially the fighting.
However the human brain is infinitely more complex than the animal one and this opens an almost endless network of associations through which human beings seek and obtain satisfaction: love, power, sex, money, relationships, creation, aesthetics, service, meaning, singing, laughing etc… but in all these properties and more, what humans seek is a certain experience and sensation that they enjoy in their central nervous system on the occasion of such opportunities.
Dopamine, serotonin, etc are the chemical substance that carry in our brain the experience and sensation of diverse intensity of comfort, wellness, pleasure, joy… or even bliss. They have been planted in the limbic area of the brain to give us the capacity, when activated, to reach much higher states of satisfaction and enjoyment. For instance, in Sanskrit, there are so many words to express a rich variety of joys. Here are just a few:
Kriyananda (the joy of action that absorbs our work alcoholics),
Gnyananda (the joy of knowledge)
Premananda (the joy of love)
Atmananda (the joy of the Self) ,
Surananda (the joy experienced by the gods).
Paramananda (the joy of the Absolute) or
Nirananda (nothing but joy without any support) .
The last one is very tempting because it implies we may reach a state where we experience well being and joy without the need of any external support, situation or stimulation. This is why, when a friend asked me: “what is your hobby?
I answered: “ my hobby is existing”.
Ambitious perhaps, I confess, but worth the try.
Hence, at the peak of this spectrum, there comes the experience of the sacred and of the kingdom, the much glossed over Kingdom of God. The fact that chemicals in the brain allow the consciousness to perceive or contain the experience does not reduce it to only a chemical happening as atheists or drug addicts would argue.
The spiritual seeker is the one who has narrowed the options and trails of the quest and seeks the short cut to the dopamine flow in that she or he seeks the Self, which is the meeting point of truth consciousness and bliss.
Isn’t it rather nice to discover that we discover bliss when we discover who we really are?
And isn’t it very nice of God to have built us in this way? And now isn’t it very kind to lead us in unfolding our potential, in experiencing it.
And should we not be very thankful instead of blaming God for all the miseries, catastrophes and non-sense that, in ignorance, we have created?
The space of awareness where this cathartic transformation can take place is called Thoughtless Awareness. Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi demonstrated that spontaneous meditation opens the silent space between two thoughts and this is the place, William Blake would say, where Satan cannot find us.
According to the teachings and praxis of Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi the limbic area of the brain is precisely the place of this encounter and the experience is triggered by Kundalini awakening. In the sixth chapter of the Jnaneshwari, Shri Gnyaneshwar explains that, at the level of the lower charkas the Kundalini is experienced as fire, a stage that is dangerous. But at the higher stage, Kundalini is experienced in a gaseous state.
The followers of Shri Mataji experience that this is also registered by the Central Nervous System as vibrations (also described as the breeze, pneuma or nous or the wind of the Holy Ghost). The gaseous state corresponds to a diffuse but very real sense of almost vaporous well being, ready to bubble in merriment and joy. I called it the Bath of the Blessed.
As the gaseous moisture of humidity in the air and the clouds can eventually precipitate into rain, so can the higher joy move from the gaseous to the liquid state. It is then experienced as an indescribable flow of bliss pouring from the top of the brain in every cells of the body (Ambrosia or amrut in sanskrit). In an essay in philo fiction (www.dagadtrikon.com) I tried to relate this ancestral tradition coming from a long disappeared golden age to the medieval myth of the Quest of the Holy Grail.
This is the direction, sense and purpose of evolution of the consciousness unveiled by Shri Mataji as She grants us en masse Self-realization. And it is a very beautiful one. When we will emerge from ignorance and understand that we can be so much more, we won’t need to own so much more.
This will be, at last, the only realistic and solid basis for changing our patterns of production and consumption, protecting our life giving eco systems and safeguarding the sustainability of our race.
If we cannot achieve it, well, read the newspapers….