The Word That is God

Itself often called “darkness” in the sense that it cannot be beheld by either the outer eyes or
the inner eye of the mind and intellect. But the eye of spirit can indeed behold It; and shall.
For that darkness will be found to be the true Light–all other light being but darkness and
shadow.
The “wheel of sparks” which is said to be like Brahman is the alatachakra: a firebrand that
is being whirled about so it forms a continuous orb of light that emits sparks in all directions,
the sparks being the individual spirits that exist ever in the One Spirit, yet seem to emerge
from Him and enter into relative existence with its attendant bondage.
The second part of this verse supports that which many contemporary sages have said: At
first in our search for God we follow the path of negation, saying neti, neti–this is not God,
that is not God–in relation to the world and its experiences. But when we find God and are
united with Him we reverse this and declare that “this” and “that” are God–and so, in a
mysterious way, are we. That which heretofore was seen as unreal is then known to be real.
Through meditation we abandon objective consciousness for subjective consciousness so we
may again return to objective consciousness–but now illumined by the experience of the
Divine Subject: God.
“And in another place it is said: ‘When one, with his senses held down or dormant as in
sleep, sees, in the cave of the sense-organs, still not under the sway of the senses, through the
purest thought, as in a dream, that director, the atman called the Pranava, who is formed of
light, who is slumberless, ageless, deathless, and sorrowless,’ because it is said: ‘Because it
binds together prana and Om and all the manifoldness or because It unites them in Itself, it is,
on that account, called Yoga.’
“And in another place it is said: ‘Just as the fisher pulls out the creatures living in water
within his net and sacrifices them into the fire of his body [the “fire” of digestion], so also,
indeed, one, as if, pulls out the pranas with the Syllable Om and sacrifices them into sorrowless
fire.’” (Maitrayana Upanishad 6:25,26)
“The purest thought” by which Brahman is perceived is the subtlest form of Om as
experienced in meditation.
Here, too, we see that Om is both Yogi and Yoga. And the Cosmic Fire of Brahman.
“He who knocks down the ego [ahankara] and journeys on the ship of Om beyond the
ether in the heart, in him the inner ether in the heart [that is Brahman] becomes manifest by
and by.” (Maitrayana Upanishad 6:28)
By this we learn that Om is the vanquisher of ego, ahankara, the false sense of “I” as
separate from God. When that is done, then Om is the ship that will carry us over the ocean of
ignorance into the harbor of God. The “by and by” spoken of here may be long or it may be
short, but Brahman will become manifest in the Om yogi.
“One should adore the Immeasurable Power [God] through the Syllable Om.” (Maitrayana
Upanishad 6:37)
Here again we see that the inconceivable and infinite God can be worshipped by means of
Om. For Om is Itself that God.
“The essence or nature of the ether found in the cave [of the heart, hridaya guha] is,
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