When lifeforms achieve once more the infinite and merge back into the vast consciousness, will there be any consequence to the infinite; having had part of it go out that way ... deflate, re-inflate, and return again? If the nature of the bliss that it is, was to expand into aspects vulnerable to duality, and then finally return to oneness. In other words, was there any resolved effect or new cause created in having completed the drama, or dream? Did any improvements ... or even changes result?
—sharon, usa
Dear Sharon,
This is a very interesting question, but one to which I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a direct answer from Yogananda or any other Master. So I can only speculate.
On the one hand, the Infinite Consciousness from which all creation springs is said to be Itself changeless, and that all that appears to be changing around us is in fact illusion. On the other hand, the Masters say that each of us is a unique spark from the Divine Fire and that we have a degree of free will with which we can guide our own journey back to the Fire.
Further, Yogananda was once asked if our own personal growth ever ends and he replied that we continue to grow until we acheive “endlessness.” In the Autobiography of a Yogi, Yogananda describes final liberation as the mergence into God without loss of individuality.
Could we then say that the individuality, the uniqueness of every soul, evolves through it’s journey through illusion? I’d like to think so :). But that could easily be the ego talking. We are so accepting of the notion of change and growth that we tend to see it as something necessary and enduring when in reality we may simply be returning to the awareness of what we have always been. In Eternity there is no before and after, no cause and effect.
In any speculation about Non-Duality we find ourselves ineffectively having to use the language born in duality to try to describe it. We also find that the Masters tend to describe the ultimate Reality in paradoxical ways – Timeless time, Changeless change – to try to express the fact that understanding the Divine cannot be acheived via reason, which is a kind of artifact of duality. We must “become” the Divine in order to understand it and in that becoming we receive our answers.
Let me know what you discover :).
Warm regards,
Puru (Joseph) Selbie
