Finding the Light’s Center
After his first nirvikalpa samādhi, the renunciate’s concentration and his practice of concentration should be easier. His first step in practicing samādhi would be to concentrate upon one physical object, that is if he cannot see his inner light. And if his mind is confused, he won’t be able to see the inner light, like before he went into his first samādhi. Only after he has gone into samādhi many, many, many times, where his whole body becomes filled with light, will he then see his inner light all the time, twenty-four hours a day. But at first he won’t. He will have his first breakthrough, but he won’t see the light all the time.
If he doesn’t see the inner light, he must concentrate, get his mind quiet, write down his confessions and understand the different experiences he has gone through, in the very same way he has been taught in his beginning study. Then, finally, when his inner light—which he will soon begin to find right at the top of the head—comes into prominence, he must turn his concentration onto that. And, with enough mind power, he should be able to hold that inner light, a very bright white light looking just like a star, right at the top of the head. This will give him figures and conscious-mind forms, about three inches in diameter, and then he would concentrate the light into a three-inch diameter. He may not always know where the center is, especially if he has been involved in his Śaiva seva. If that is so, he should press the top of his head with his finger, and that will indicate to him where the center of that light should be. This will immediately center his awareness in the center of the light. Then he tries to part it, tries to open it up like a camera lens, and comes into brilliant, very brilliant, light. It will just be scintillating, much brighter than a star. It will be like a carbon-arc light. This is very brilliant and very powerful. The renunciate is then schooled in how to hold that to a three-inch diameter, because the tendency will be for that light to fill up his whole head. He will feel very blissful. We don’t want that to happen. We don’t want the emotions or the lower mind to get out of control simply because he found a bright light in his head.
He has seen other seekers, as they were just awakening in the inner light, get so carried away about the inner light that it throws them into an emotional state and they can get fanatical about it. It doesn’t give them any inner wisdom or anything like that. So, remembering this, the wise sannyāsin will not allow himself to get emotional about the inner light, because seeing this light indicates that he is only beginning to come into his superconscious. The light, really, is the friction of the superconscious mind against the conscious and subconscious mind. In my way of looking at it, it is an electrical friction. The odic forces and the actinic forces merging causes light and sound.
So, when he sees this brilliant light right in his head—more brilliant than he has ever seen, intensified brilliance—he tries to find the center of it. When he finds the center of it, again trying to open up that light like a camera lens, he will then come into a state of consciousness called Satchidānanda, a state of pure consciousness, a state of pure bliss, savikalpa samādhi. Here he won’t be in a brilliant light anymore. Above him it will look like he is looking way up in the sky, into outer space, and the color of it will be a whitish blue. That will be the ākāśa he will be in.