THE PURE VISIONS OF DEITY YOGA – THE PATH OF PATHLESSNESS
Pure Visions seems an especially appropriate teaching at this time of the Winter Solstice when we are born again and reaffirm our devotion and connection to all our paths, and the celebration of the birth of the Spiritual Son and Daughter, the One Christ Child within us, within our consciousness, in the process of awakening.
Because people are of different capacities, interests and dispositions, Christ and Buddha taught many different paths.
Christ and Buddha both taught “You are the Master”
Matthew 23:10 “There is but one Master, the Christ Within”
and the Buddha as he was dying
“Be a Master unto yourself. Be a lamp unto yourself. Look not for a refuge in anyone other than yourself. In this way, if you are keen to learn, you will reach the highest height.”
and Krishnamurti
“You are the Master and the student. Be a light unto yourself.”
The Christ and the Buddha both taught Deity Yoga, that the ideal being, the God and Goddess-Self is within you.
Luke 17:21 “Behold, the Kingdom of Heaven is within you.”
and as the Buddha Amitabha promised in the Pratyutpanna Samādhi Sūtra
“If you wish to come and be born in my realm, you must always call me to mind again and again, you must always keep this thought in mind without letting up, and thus you will succeed in coming to be born in my realm”
This is an experiential journey about the Pure Visions of Deity Yoga in which the Master in you arises through your practice. There is an exercise for you to try below called “EXERCISE TO TRY” lol. I suggest you read all the way through to understand the journey a little better, but you are most welcome to skip straight to there if you are in a hurry. Please let me know what you discover after trying the exercise.
NOTE : This is a deep and profound teaching. If you have the patience to read through until the end and have questions about the details or about how you might apply this in your own path and practice please ask in the comments below the post and I will do the best I can to answer from my own experience as a somewhat lazy monk.
So to Deity Yoga and Pure Visions…
Deity Yoga manifests in many forms.
They are one aspect of the many rituals, transmissions initiations and resets we are all receiving.
In Tibet for example these practices are transmitted in three ways
the long lineage of kama
the shorter lineage of terma
the profound direct transmission through pure visions or dak nang which is what I will speak to you now of.
Pure visions, such as you are experiencing are of two types
- meditative experiences of ephemeral and astral world kinds known as nyam
- pure visions in which the master within you actually experiences receiving the transmission from a deity in a pure realm
The Fifth Dalai Lama has been my main guide and mentor in this respect. He has guided me in the same way as in his own experience, to actually go to the wisdom realms and be given the transmissions encoded in these empowerments. That is how I received the Kalachakra Tantra Initiation under the tutelage of the current Dalai Lama.
One of the most powerful transmissions was involving Metatron and Guan Yin.
Thich Nhat Hanh says to call the name of or to visualise Quan The Am/Guan Yin/Avalokiteshvara in such a way that your mind becomes perfectly concentrated and pure can give you the power to overcome any kind of suffering.
In Sanskrit this ‘calling’ is nama japa or naming prayer. You can apply this to your Beloved whoever He or She is. Calling the name with power, intention and attention helps your mind to become concentrated, and with concentration you become calm, clear, mindful and heartful.
The seeing’ is rupa japa or invoking form. Calling to mind the image of a great being is done, like the naming, with complete presence and sincerity. Only in that way does your mind and heart become still, silent and present with the object of your love, in order to blend and merge with them.
This is not just bhakti, devotion. it is vipashyana, looking deeply, insight, whose foundation is shamatha, stopping and concentrating the mind. Only with sincerity, humility and faith will you bring about tranquility and equanimity.
From my own personal experience it is best for me to keep this incredibly simple, with the open heart of a child, concentrated with humility and surrender to Guan Yin. Over the twenty years or more since She manifested the rare deep sea ocean pearl out of the heart of Her statue for me, the process of surrender has never failed to yield all the miracles and signs, siddhis and healing She has promised.
So I basically have had one focus, and from that very simple, child-like, heart-centred focus, all other great beings have come.
So Metatron, in a way, has come as a real experience to me through Our Mother Guan Yin.
The Dalai Lama directed me in the following way. It took me about a year to work through the Kalachakra Tantra with Him in the most sincere, humble way, involving emptying and surrendering myself to the Divine Presence within. As the Dalai Lama is an incarnation of Avalokiteshvara/Guan Yin/Chenrezig I was very careful to follow His/Her every instruction. As you know I have had both personal contact with the Dalai Lama in the physical and visionary contact to work through these processes with the Fifth Dalai Lama. When I work through an initiation or empowerment I do it very slowly and sincerely, taking a sentence or a paragraph at a time and meditating on it for hours or a day at a time until the wisdom percolates through into my being.
In this particular instance, this is what I was instructed to do. I share it only because this wisdom is already your own so please use it to guide your heart on your path as only you will know how to do. You are not going to use the same wisdom beings in the same way as I do, so please heed their wisdom and guidance and trust your heart and that of the Hearts of Your Light Family. That is always the way of the Master, of whom you all are one.
To understand how I use the wisdom beings you need to understand that in my case my Lama is the Dalai Lama and the path I was initiated in is Avalokiteshvara/Guan Yin through the Dalai Lama and the Dzogchen path through The Fifth Dalai Lama, Padmasambhava, and Sogyal Rinpoche. My guru is Paramahansa Yogananda and the Kriya path I was initiated in was through Krishna, Babaji, Yeshua, Lahiri Mahasaya, Swami Sri Yukteswar, Yogananda and Sri Daya Mata. So I have received these teachings directly. It means everything and nothing. It is not to prove anything, only to bring understanding so whenever I use certain terms or expressions that you are informed where they come from.
EXERCISE TO TRY
Whenever we do exercises, rituals, preparation, resets, initiations, empowerments and so forth the first step is the enhancement of your being, which in simple terms is adjusting your motivation.
This means
- bringing kindness to yourself and whatever arises through the practice, which ultimately is extended out to all beings and becomes bodhichitta and the Holy Spirit
- bringing wisdom or prajna into whatever you do. That is why I surrender to the Great Mother Guan Yin or whomever you refer to as the Mother. Be in Her arms throughout this practice.
By this you should understand that even though things seem to exist independently this is not true. Your “inter-being” connects you to each and every thing as soon as you “step into” a practice with deep intention, so you will naturally attract the most powerful energies and support from your Light Family when you feel kindness for yourself and extend this kindness to others. In fact the entire cosmos revolves around kindness, suns extending kindness to planets, planets extending life-giving kindness to their inhabitants and so forth.
You also realise that the illusory nature of this physical earth body is suffering, a veil which you want to be free of, so that you can free others.
Further, things are always changing, impermanent. This is what brings you here. Your many lives, and this one, are constantly changing.
So you have a deep motivation now, the opportunity to accomplish something of great impact throughout the world(s).
Your purpose, your mission, is to bring about all beings’ happiness and bliss, their liberation, and to accomplish this you do so through being a Christ and a Buddha yourself.
This attitude is bodhichitta or the Holy Spirit (ruach) which is cultivating presence, silence and stillness, through the breath, in whatever path you choose to be the Christ and Buddha.
So to whomever the Father and Mother are to you (this could be your Divine masculine and feminine self, or Yeshua and Mary Magdalena or Buddha and Prajnaparamita or Metatron and Guan Yin) you pray “I am requesting initiation to achieve enlightenment for the sake of others”
Kneel on the ground, bring your palms together at the Heart.
Visualise your Lama or mentor or guide or soul guardian in front of you.
As I explained above this is the Dalai Lama/Guan Yin/Avalokiteshvara/ Chenrezig for me,
who will confirm “You who seek to achieve the Secret (Mantra) in this life enter the (mandala)”
Again this can be in your own words with your own intention however simple or complex that may be connecting with your own soul guardian.
At this time in the meditation the Lama and the principal deity and yourself are not different. So for me the Dalai Lama is Guan Yin as I am Guan Yin. I meditate on myself as Guan Yin and the Dalai Lama as Guan Yin. This is a very important part to practice. The awareness is total surrender to Guan Yin in my case for the sake of others.
From now on I will refer to the “Lama” as Guan Yin for simplicity.
She says
“It is meditated that Rays of Light from My Heart, where I represent All Deities – the Divine Father and the Divine Mother – draw you in. You enter My Mouth and dissolve in the Mother’s Lotus”
You are now going to take birth as a child of Guan Yin or whichever deity you chose.
In your imagination you visualise Guan Yin as the Ultimate in Father and Mother aspect, so She is in union with Her Divine Consort.
(At this point in my meditation Archangel Metatron appeared in union with Guan Yin. This was entirely unpremeditated by me and somewhat of a shock since Guan Yin has both female and male (Avalokiteshvara) forms as well as guru (Amitabha Buddha) form)
Rays of Light, spreading out from the hum at His Heart as He now appears in His Divine Father and Divine Mother aspect, draw you into His Mouth, passing down through His Body and into the Womb of the Mother. There you turn into emptiness.
(At this point my ‘self’ was extinguished. There was an extraordinary earth-shattering flash of light and ‘I’ disappeared. This was the first time I had experienced such “lightning dissolution” of everything that is, was and will be. I had, for lack of any better explanation, turned literally into emptiness. The energy and consciousness of emptiness took over this bodily form and as my wife will remember rendered me in a state of presence and peace that lasted just over 24 hours. Three days later I had an experience of the Holy Spirit descending through my crown and into my heart.)
It was a very similar experience to St Paul being struck down by light while on the road to Damascus.
From Acts of the Apostles 9
“As Saul neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him… Jesus said to him “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” Saul got up from the ground, but could see nothing…Three days later Ananias went to the house Saul was staying and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptised, and after taking some food, he regained his strength.”
I felt the same sudden light flashing around and within me. It was so astonishing I was “struck to the ground” speechless for around three hours. The deep presence I experienced in my case continued for 24 hours. Three days later I had a deeply profound experience of the Holy Spirit descending like a ball of light through my crown chakra into my Heart.
When you experience the Holy Spirit and the Light entering you, you deeply question all you have ever been told, and observe suffering and the cries of the world in a completely different way. The Source fills you with the energies and consciousness of the invisible world. It is like being filled with the most delicious divine nectar and every part of your being hums and vibrates with purpose and clarity. You realise how much can be accomplished in unity, as one Shared Mind and Heart. You see how important unity consciousness, love, and kindness are for our world. You ask “What is fundamental truth, how do we inquire into that and what would we discover?” “Your own self-realisation is the greatest service you can render the world” answers Ramana Maharishi and this helps to inform our inquiry. What do you think and feel? What is ‘universal’ self-realisation? The deepest truth I have discovered is that fundamental truth is revealed in the Heart when the mind ceases to be active and remains still, open and empty, surrendering to Divine Mother’s Grace. The silence, stillness, love and presence that awakens in this pure awareness, this natural effortless state, is self-realisation or samadhi or God-realisation, when the ‘I’ is extinguished. It is wordless, nameless and timeless. The eternal Self. That has been my discovery and experience. That is where the secular meets the spiritual and the religious. From saints to gurus to Masters to Christs and Buddhas, all meet at this point.
Love and blessings
Altair and Mother
