THE DIAMOND THUNDERBOLT

The actual transition from mortality to immortality occurs in a single instant. It may take years or even lifetimes to prepare for this transition, but when it comes, it happens instantly—in a single flash of pure intuition.

The dawn of enlightenment requires the piercing of the veil of ignorance. The soul that is drowned in the sea of death, however, is incapable of piercing the veil on its own; it must rely on the will of God to deliver it from the cosmic womb at the appropriate time.

The Rig Veda presents an important myth—the story of the vajra, the diamond thunderbolt of Indra, the king of the gods—regarding this piercing of the veil. Indra represents the universal ego presiding over the visible universe and everything in it, and as such; he was viewed as the king of the gods, the one responsible for upholding the appearance of the visible universe.

The myth revolves around Indra’s battle with a cosmic demon called Vritra (from the root vrit, which means “to cover or enclose”). From a subjective point of view, Vritra represents the veil of pure ignorance—the field of silent darkness that serves as the basis of the thinking mind. Objectively, he represents the veil of the physical vacuum—the field of silent darkness that serves as the basis for all the stars and galaxies. In both cases, this veil serves to cover, hide, or enclose the self-luminous field of pure knowledge from which is cognized the metaphysical Logos.

According to the myth, the enclosing demon Vritra was so powerful that he could not be destroyed by any of the individual sages or gods. Indra, the king of the gods, was deemed the only one who could vanquish him—with a special weapon called the vajra (a Sanskrit term that means both “diamond” and “thunderbolt”). The diamond thunderbolt of Indra was the only weapon capable of piercing the veil of silent darkness and thereby releasing the light and sound of consciousness, which was otherwise pent up and hidden by the veil. This divine weapon represents the flash of pure intuition that removes from the field the cover of silent darkness and reveals the transcendental sound and light that were there all along.

In silent darkness, the dawn of enlightenment begins with a swirling motion in consciousness—like a cosmic whirlpool—which catches the soul. It then delivers the soul to a previously unseen, luminous point value of consciousness. Upon reaching the point value and entering into it, a miracle occurs. The awareness turns inside out and simultaneously and instantly expands to infinity. This is accompanied by the simultaneous eruption of transcendental light (param jyotih) and transcendental sound (param nada). As a result, the veil of ignorance is pierced, and the cover of silent darkness is removed in a single, instantaneous flash of pure intuition.

This flash was compared to a thunderbolt (vajra) because it pierces the silent darkness with an instantaneous eruption of light and sound that reveals the infinite landscape of the self. It may be compared to a thunderbolt in the night, the pairing of light and thunder, which reveals the landscape of the earth. The flash was compared to a diamond (vajra) because the landscape of the self displays a transparent crystalline geometry, which resembles the transparent structure of a flawless diamond, infinite in extent. For this reason, the Vedic seers sometimes referred to the body of Logos as the immortal “diamond body” (vajra-deha).

With this flash of pure intuition, the field of pure ignorance is transformed into a field of pure knowledge, the field of death is transformed into a field of eternal life, and the field of emptiness is transformed into a field of fullness. It is only at this point that the soul actually becomes enlightened and is reborn immortally. It is only at this point that we can become an immortal seer of the Logos or the Veda.