Bliss - serene, inner contentedness, is actually our birthright.  The state where our awareness is unbounded, where we identify more with our inner experience, the established experience of Being, pure consciousness, is, in the Vedic worldview, our "normal" state. 

Often it sounds as if sustained bliss - bliss being that experience of inner contentedness not reliant on external stimulus - is a far fetched idea, completely unachievable or unrealistic.  As we accumulate stresses and impressions, our nervous system moves further and further away from this natural state, our pure white cloth tainted with the impurities of stress in the environment.  We begin to think that the dirty cloth is our true state, we get used to operating shrouded in this layer of dirt, as if seeing the world through dirty sunglasses - our perception becomes skewed. We begin to identify ourselves as the dirt. 

Yet, as we continue to meditate, regularly twice a day, we find that after some time, we are starting to notice a shift in the way we respond to life.  We seem able to let things go more.  When we have a reaction we find that is moves through us much more quickly.  Circumstances that used to cause us to feel stressed are having less of an effect.  We feel calmer in general.  We're less concerned with what others think of us and less driven by pleasing others.  We find ourselves following our own inner guidance more and more, and the signals seem to be clearer.  Though we may be caught up in our thinking from time to time, we seem able to carry on with our day despite having some lingering concerns in the background.

These are all signs that the state of established bliss, of unbounded awareness is beginning to dawn.  We are starting to identify more with Being, the unbounded experience of inner fulfilment inside, and less with the external circumstances of our lives.  The rapid return to equilibrium is a sign of a nervous system that is retaining very little, if any, stress.  That feeling of inner calm and contentedness, even in the face of change or challenging circumstances, is a sign Being is establishing in our awareness.

The onset of this state of awareness, which in the Vedic tradition we call 'cosmic consciousness', an all inclusive state of awareness which can sustain Being and thinking at the same time, is very subtle.  The brain will rapidly normalise new states of awareness and it can take a while to realise this subtle, yet profound shift in awareness, which is occurring.  The most classic sign that cosmic consciousness is starting to dawn is the fact that you "don't go deep in meditation anymore".  After about a year of meditating, meditators will come with this question.  Once our awareness is established in Being, in pure consciousness to a certain degree, then we cannot 'go deep' in meditation anymore, because we are already deep.  Our awareness is already beginning to be unbounded to the degree that when we go to meditate, the experience is not too dissimilar to the eyes open state.  If you're already standing on the bottom of the ocean, you cannot then descend further when you begin to meditate. 

What then happens in meditation, is that we more regularly have the experience of 'ritam' - a stratum of consciousness where we experience Being and thinking at the same time.  It feels deep, but not as deep as transcendence (the experience of losing the mantra and all thought).  Now we are deep, but aware of being deep.  We have faint or subtle sensory perception.  This is a more advanced experience as the mind has learned to sustain Being along with thinking, which over time leads to the experience of eyes open ritam, unbounded awareness which is not overshadowed by thinking and activity.  Our meditations take on a different quality where we start to explore ritam in greater depth and for longer periods of time, in infinite degrees of increasing subtlety.  We start to experience finer states of the mantra which begins to express itself in subtle sensory perception of forms and phenomena.  The experience of ritam has infinite capacity to deepen and as our senses become refined and the ability to detect such subtleties increases, we begin to develop the higher states of consciousness, beyond cosmic consciousness, outside of meditation.  If we have an advanced technique (which can be introduced any time after one year of meditation), then we increase our ability to explore the infinite subtleties of ritam as the advanced technique is designed to hook us in to sustained experiences and infinitely increasing depths of ritam. 

The onset of cosmic consciousness can be subtle, and it's the nature of the mind to constantly be looking at where we have yet to get to, or judging the reactions we have now and then, rather than detecting the subtleties which are occurring. The place from which you experience life is changing. Your awareness, the cloth on which your movie of life plays out, is becoming whiter and whiter, purer and purer, with each successive meditation.  Your system is being normalised, purified and the new normal is dawning.  Sustained bliss is being organised for you.  The effect is cumulative, so if you're practising regularly then it's only a matter of time before you start to notice these shifts.  With the onset of Being, greater perception, clarity and the ability to detect the subtle evolutionary forces behind all experiences in life.  With the onset of light, the shadows fade.

Love and Jai Guru Deva*

Georgia x

*victory of light over darkness