Marinus Jan Marijs 0102
Question: Can you explain the difference between the stage of nirvana and the state of nirvikalpa samadhi?
Marijs: Basically, nirvikalpa samadhi and nirvana are the same experience, but nirvikalpa samadhi is just for a short time and nirvana is permanent, so to speak, because if one is in nirvana, one falls back into nirvana: that is the basic level one functions in. It doesn’t mean that one cannot think or whatever, or have emotions, but that’s basic experience.
Question: And this is the highest manifestation of that developmental line of emptiness?
Marijs: Yes. There is of course the difference between temporary and permanent. These kinds of mysticism are all levels of emptiness, from psychic to high causal. They are different forms of emptiness.
Question: So this developmental line goes up in stages? In this, I believe, you follow Ken’s distinctions, starting with low subtle, going to high subtle, low causal...
Marijs: Yes, here I do use the term developmental line which is used in an other way. I mean smaller group then developmental lines which are used within different types of intelligence. Third form of mysticism is further then non-dual strangely enough. Normally spoken the form is reached up to Nirvana, is the first one encounters. At a certain stage ones comes in contact with this background, this non-dual state. And the form goes beyond that, is the third form, the form leads up to Bhava.
I would now start to make some references to what Bhava Samadhi is in relating to experiences mystics have, I do think that Christ’s Glorification belongs to that type, I do think that St Paul’s experiences on the road to Damascus was a kind of Bhava Samadhi. There is spoken of the Rainbow body, the Transubstantiate body, the immortal body of Light, the Diamond body, the Solar body, the Radiant body, all these types of experiences are related to this third form of mysticism, so basically Nirvana can not be seen as an endpoint, which sometime it is. Beyond Nirvana there is the non-dual, and beyond the non-dual you have this third form of mysticism (Bhava Samadhi) , and that’s the main idea.
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