Frontier is the limit or boundary of an area or nation, mentally is the extreme limit of understanding, and in meditation we have a frontier when we meet the limit we allow ourselves to surrender to God. For us to continue to make progress in deepening meditation we must face the inner frontiers that act as resistance; resistance being the self-imposed boundaries created by the ego-mind.
The ego-mind draws a circumference around itself to define itself; it is what the ego does. The nature of the ego is to say, “This is me, and this is not me.” This allows the ego to operate in the world according to its own comfort and to make decisions. As a child develops there comes a fateful day when the mind says, “mine.” Small children will play a game in which they choose to keep a toy and not give it to the mother—then arbitrarily turns around and gives it to the mother with total delight. The next step is to consider an object mine, unless I sell it. Of course, this is how the world operates on a daily basis, with some being misers and others generous.
In India sadhus take a vow to have no possessions and to not stay at any one place for more than three days. This discipline is to break the idea of, “this is mine,” to eliminate the ego-mind. Even in a sadhu’s world, as Papa humorously writes, one can find the ego-mind inserting itself. Whether it is the position in line for meals being served, or possessiveness of a lota pot for water, or even one’s cloth—the sense of position or possession can exhibit the idea of “mine” in the most subtle of ways. Papa describes how a seeming madman came into a hut he was staying in and demanded that Papa hand over, one by one, every “possession” he had—which was very little. For Papa, this madman was his beloved Ram come in this form, and he immediately took it as a test as to whether he had any attachment to these things. Papa cheerfully handed over every item, until he was down to his last cloth that Papa wore in modesty. That too Papa started to give, when the man suddenly changed his mind and said no, Papa could keep that. The man left, but Papa was in such a state of bliss at having this interaction with God that he merged into his infinite Beloved in samadhi and stayed that way until far into the next day. At which time he found himself surrounded by devotees who had come to see him and sat in wonder as to why Papa was reduced to wearing only one small cloth!
Your attachment to things are a small thing compared to your attachment to the boundaries of the mind. You sit in meditation, focus on the ajna, the point between the eyebrows, you face your frontier—that which is in front of you. It may be the immediate darkness you see with closed eyes, or, if your consciousness has expanded it is the vast but limited sphere of consciousness. You may be in a deep state of stillness, when suddenly thoughts about the world create waves upon the mirror-like surface of your mind.
I remember many a time in meditation I had the sense I was dropping deeper, like going down through thermal layers of the ocean. Suddenly, some thought would whiplash me back to the surface—some idea activated worldly awareness and had taken me from that wonderful state of stillness. On other occasions I would feel uplifted, expanded, like going up in a hot air balloon. In this state of blissful expansiveness some thought would come along, and attachment unthinkingly reached out to this thought or memory, the presence of that thought weighted down the balloon and descended from those heights—it was maddening.
Oh, to be present to God with no attachments, no artificial limits—no fear of infinite expansion or to be taken into the minute world of subatomic matter, to go anywhere God takes you without fear or desire is perfect freedom. The active ego-mind is transformed into the witness to what is; and all that is, is Divine in origin. When your absorption in meditation transitions into activity in the world, then all sensory input is seen and felt as God living His life through His creation. You and all others, animate and so-called inanimate, are all part and parcel of one Divine Life.
A few months ago I injured the bicep tendon. As a result, moving my arm in a certain direction, overhead or behind, creates a blindingly shooting pain. Pain can bring up any number of attachments to the body, resulting in fear, anger, resentment and depression. It has been my long practice to see pain as coming from God—the pain impulses being activated prana, life-energy, traveling at high speed through the nerves to the brain. Prana, coming from God, is nothing but God in that form—to practice allowing the pain impulse to pass through the brain and into the light, not simply be absorbed in the brain; to affirm life-energy in this form is God, just as all other forms of life-energy are God. An interesting thing began to happen with the pain from this tendon area, instead of coming as a pain impulse, with internal vision I saw the shoulder area emit light, instead of shooting pain. God is so interesting.
When we are in the adventure of exploring God, in creation and beyond, and we challenge the frontiers of limitations, not accepting anything in life as being normal—in the sense of being absent of God—then the normal frontiers dissolve into something more, something greater, something Divine. For most of us, this is a process. However, it does not take much reflection to see the various ways in life our minds have created barriers, even beyond our conscious intention—and that these barriers keep us separated from Sacred-awareness. To know God as bliss, wisdom, light, expansiveness and the deep—to know Him as our all and all, in all, is real freedom, true liberation. Let us journey together until we know, absolutely know, there is nothing but He, nothing but He. And, as our dear Swami Satchidanandaji said to do, dive deep, soar high.