THE SUPREME ABODE OF IMMORTALITY

Here, we have finally reached the end of the spiritual journey—yet we have not reached the end of spiritual wisdom. The final supreme wisdom concerns the goal of the path more than the path itself.

According to the ancients, this goal represents the very self of the Supreme Being, where all phenomena cease. It was described as neither consciousness nor unconsciousness, yet we would be mistaken to imagine that at the end of the long journey, the soul is reduced to a state of unconscious oblivion.

Although words can scarcely do justice to it, the Vedic seers held that the supreme abode of immortality (paramapada) is filled with non-phenomenal forms of immortal existence transcending all notions of duality. The abiding characteristic of that supreme state is not rational knowledge, but divine love—which knows no reason. In that supreme abode, the one supreme self plays eternally with its own immortal forms, and it does so on the basis of divine love, which represents the ultimate expression of the synthesizing power of consciousness.

On that level of reality, all forms of duality are drowned in unity and in the ocean of divine love. The supreme state represents essentially a state of Oneness, yet contains countless virtual forms of duality. The Vedic philosophers referred to this type of virtual reality as nondual (advaita). Nonduality represents not absolute Oneness, but a state in which all forms of duality are synthesized into Oneness. In the final analysis, we cannot say much about Oneness. The supreme wisdom pertains to the virtual forms of reality inherent within the Oneness.