Night Waters

Beyond this chamber, the temple grows quiet with the arrival of night.

The body has a daily rhythm. Light received through the eyes helps coordinate waking and sleep. Darkness allows another phase of bodily life to unfold. We can tend that rhythm through regularity, ordinary daylight, and a place in which rest is possible.

The hidden waters move while the person sleeps.

Research in human sleep has observed large cerebrospinal-fluid oscillations coupled with changes in neural activity and blood flow. The living temple has processes of maintenance beyond the reach of our continuous supervision.

Receive the image of those waters without turning sleep into an occult performance.

The body is allowed to rest. The person is allowed to relinquish control for a time. Even this ordinary surrender can teach something about the difference between tending life and trying to command every movement within it.

The nourishment of the temple is equally ordinary. Vegetables, fruit, varied sources of protein, and the nutrients required by a living body belong to its care. The colors of berries, the substance of a meal, the simplicity of water can be received without being made into a price of spiritual admission.

The mind may want a substance that will guarantee illumination. It may assemble minerals, vitamins, and regimens into a new outer court of anxious preparation.

Let the preparation return to its purpose: supporting the human being who is becoming available.

The gates of inward prayer open through attention and dedication. They remain available to people whose bodies are imperfect, tired, aging, or ill.

We continue through the quiet.

The brow becomes another threshold. The mark worn in some Hindu devotional traditions recalls spiritual sight; the yogic map places the ajna center here. Attention gathers more deeply.

The Tantric destination of Kundalini belongs to its own spiritual world: in Purnananda’s account, ascent culminates in union with Para-Shiva. We carry the image of ascent onward into the sanctuary toward which this journey has been moving.