Book 4 (Part I)

88 the Universe has become the whole, and phenomena and noumena are no longer opposed. But it is quite impossible to describe this state of mind. One can only specify some of the characteristics, and that in language Which forms no image in mind. It is impossible for anyone who experiences it to bring back any adequate memory, nor can we conceive a state transcending this. There is, however, a very much higher state called Shivadarshana, of which it is only necessary to say that it is the destructionofthe previous state, its annihilation; and to understand this blotting- out, one must not imagine “Nothingness ” (the only name for it) as negative, but as positive. The normal mind is a candle in a darkened room. Throw open the shutters, and the sunlight makes the flame invisible. That is a fair image of Dhyana.1 But the mind refuses to find a simile for Atmadarshana. It seems merely ineffective to say that the rushing together of all the host of heaven would similarly blot out the sunlight. But if we do say so, and wish to form a further image of Shivadarshana, we must imagine our- selves as suddenly recognizing that this universal blazeis darkness; not 1 Here the dictation was interrupted by very prolonged thought due to the difficulty of making the image clear. Virakam.