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and awareness (see, for example, John Welwood’s (1977) crystal account of this “transpersonal ground”). From the subtle, one no longer “gets lost in thoughts”; rather, thoughts enter consciousness and depart much as clouds traverse the sky: with smoothness, grace, and clarity. Nothing sticks, nothing rubs, nothing grates. Chung Tzu: “The perfect man employs his mind as a mirror. It grasps nothing; it refuses nothing; it receives, but does not keep.”4
Wilber discusses changes in the experience of mind and what lies beyond mind, as one transcends what he calls the Apollo complex. I’d like to add a word of caution here. In this day and age of science and high technology, some spiritually oriented approaches, in an effort to speak in scientific terms, may describe higher spiritual dimensions in terms of consciousness, energy, forces, universal laws and balance, much as physics would discuss an unfeeling cosmos devoid of compassion. Higher spiritual states may be discussed in terms of the quality, type, rhythm and content of thoughts and images experienced during meditation—to the neglect of more subtle and profound aspects such as morality, devotion, God’s personal relationship with man and His great eternal love which transcends all laws and forces.
This latter dimension of spirituality cannot be overemphasized. Just as the spiritual practice of meditation leads to an inner experience beyond mind to no thought, expandedness, peace, light and bliss, so do the spiritual practices of morality, devotion and selfless service lead to the equally (if not more) important inner experiences of profound compassion and love. Spontaneous expressions of selflessness and sacrifice toward our fellow human beings bring with them a penetrating feeling of God’s omnipresence and His personal relationship with us.
I emphasize this point in order to bring some balance to what may be a Western overemphasis on the scientific, with the danger of displacing God from the picture—and also because man’s yearning to merge with God by acquiring His qualities of virtue, truth, righteousness, peace and a selfless giving love which supports all of humanity is the path to transcendence which Sai Baba teaches. God can be experienced in meditative states by a non-attachment to thought—or “here on earth” by and through love and selfless service