Sea of Bliss

My body became immovably rooted; breath was drawn out of my lungs
as if by some huge magnet. Soul and mind instantly lost their
physical bondage, and streamed out like a fluid piercing light
from my every pore. The flesh was as though dead, yet in my intense
awareness I knew that never before had I been fully alive. My sense
of identity was no longer narrowly confined to a body, but embraced
the circumambient atoms. People on distant streets seemed to be
moving gently over my own remote periphery. The roots of plants and
trees appeared through a dim transparency of the soil; I discerned
the inward flow of their sap.

The whole vicinity lay bare before me. My ordinary frontal
vision was now changed to a vast spherical sight, simultaneously
all-perceptive.  Through the back of my head I saw men strolling far
down Rai Ghat Road, and noticed also a white cow who was leisurely
approaching. When she reached the space in front of the open ashram
gate, I observed her with my two physical eyes. As she passed by,
behind the brick wall, I saw her clearly still.

All objects within my panoramic gaze trembled and vibrated like
quick motion pictures. My body, Master's, the pillared courtyard,
the furniture and floor, the trees and sunshine, occasionally became
violently agitated, until all melted into a luminescent sea; even
as sugar crystals, thrown into a glass of water, dissolve after
being shaken. The unifying light alternated with materializations
of form, the metamorphoses revealing the law of cause and effect
in creation.

An oceanic joy broke upon calm endless shores of my soul. The Spirit
of God, I realized, is exhaustless Bliss; His body is countless
tissues of light. A swelling glory within me began to envelop towns,
continents, the earth, solar and stellar systems, tenuous nebulae,
and floating universes. The entire cosmos, gently luminous, like
a city seen afar at night, glimmered within the infinitude of
my being. The sharply etched global outlines faded somewhat at the
farthest edges; there I could see a mellow radiance, ever-undiminished.
It was indescribably subtle; the planetary pictures were formed of
a grosser light.

The divine dispersion of rays poured from an Eternal Source, blazing
into galaxies, transfigured with ineffable auras. Again and again
I saw the creative beams condense into constellations, then resolve
into sheets of transparent flame. By rhythmic reversion, sextillion
worlds passed into diaphanous luster; fire became firmament.

I cognized the center of the empyrean as a point of intuitive
perception in my heart. Irradiating splendor issued from my nucleus
to every part of the universal structure. Blissful AMRITA, the
nectar of immortality, pulsed through me with a quicksilverlike
fluidity. The creative voice of God I heard resounding as AUM,
{FN14-1} the vibration of the Cosmic Motor.

Suddenly the breath returned to my lungs. With a disappointment
almost unbearable, I realized that my infinite immensity was lost.
Once more I was limited to the humiliating cage of a body, not
easily accommodative to the Spirit. Like a prodigal child, I had
run away from my macrocosmic home and imprisoned myself in a narrow
microcosm.

My guru was standing motionless before me; I started to drop at his
holy feet in gratitude for the experience in cosmic consciousness
which I had long passionately sought. He held me upright, and spoke
calmly, unpretentiously.

"You must not get overdrunk with ecstasy. Much work yet remains
for you in the world. Come; let us sweep the balcony floor; then
we shall walk by the Ganges."

I fetched a broom; Master, I knew, was teaching me the secret of
balanced living. The soul must stretch over the cosmogonic abysses,
while the body performs its daily duties. When we set out later
for a stroll, I was still entranced in unspeakable rapture. I saw
our bodies as two astral pictures, moving over a road by the river
whose essence was sheer light.

 
From Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramhansa Yogananda, first published in 1946