Revelation Yoga

Revelation definition:

The divine or supernatural disclosure to humans of surprising and previously unknown facts relating to human existence, the world, and divinity itself.

Yoga definition:

Yoga literally means “union”. The union can be understood on different levels: philosophically, as that of the relative, limited self with the absolute Self or I AM; religiously as that of the individual soul with the Holy Spirit; psychologically, as the integration of the personality – a state wherein a person is no longer at cross purposes with themselves; emotionally, as the stilling of the waves of likes and dislikes, permitting one to remain in all circumstances complete and whole within themselves.

By accessing and connecting with the precious human soul through meditation, I have consciously and intentionally developed Revelation Yoga to enable “union” philosophically, religiously, psychologically, and emotionally. Revelation Yoga is predicated on how the individual soul naturally shows up and functions in ordinary life and, consequently, reveals the relationship of the soul to the personality, other people, the world/ universe, and ultimately, divinity itself.

I am introducing you to the context and principles for the ascending and descending versions of Revelation Yoga. The original Revelation Yoga I have taught for many years is a form of ascending practice. After students are adequately established in the Chalice Heart soul meditation and participating in the ascending version, then I introduce them to the more advanced descending version of Revelation Yoga.

The goal of Revelation Yoga is to discover the divine, directive current (Holy Spirit) at the base of what is lived with respect to desires, thoughts, and sensations. In the ascending form of Revelation Yoga there is an expansion of consciousness from where you are to access the Holy Spirit with emphasis on the unfolding of desires, unfolding of thoughts, and unfolding of sensations. In the descending form of Revelation Yoga there is direct and immediate participation in the Holy Spirit until it is integrated in one’s life with an emphasis on the enfolding of desires, enfolding of thoughts, and enfolding sensations. Before we can participate in the directive current, we need to access it, and that is why I have taught the ascending version of Revelation Yoga prior to the descending version. In both versions of Revelation Yoga, the Holy Spirit should at least be sensed.

The ascending version of Revelation Yoga can be done with a teacher, a peer or by yourself. If you do the process yourself, it lends itself to journaling (recommended). If the practice is done authentically, it enables one to participate in the witnessing (psychic) and subtle levels of consciousness (transpersonal domains of spirituality) in a natural and easy way. By participating in Revelation Yoga, one spontaneously moves out of “thinking” awareness into “observing” awareness. By exercising and abiding in “observing” awareness, the subtle qualities of awareness and the Holy Spirit can spontaneously reveal themselves in the field of consciousness itself.

This 12-step program is not a mechanical process. After it is properly learned and integrated into your life, it becomes a way of life. You can spontaneously apply some or all the principles to whatever is happening in your life at any given time. Overall, the process enables one to have greater clarity, compassion, empowerment, and freedom in ordinary life circumstances.

*I co-developed Revelation Yoga with my long-time friend, spiritual mentor and confidant, Robert Gonzales (RIP). In his Living Compassion teaching, Robert referred to this work as “the truth and beauty of abundant needs.” For many decades Robert was a leader in the “Nonviolent Communication” teaching established by Marshall B. Rosenberg and the creator/ founder of www.living-compassion.org.

Descending Version

In the descending version of Revelation Yoga, the faculty of becoming aware by feeling (ascending version) continues to be used, and the practices require creative visualization and some memory. With directed guidance from the teacher in descending Revelation Yoga, the student is able to reconnect with the original motivating current by using images.

Directed guidance has the specific advantage of promoting the play of a sensitivity considerably broader than that of the daily consciousness. The entirely symbolic aspect, generally not understood by the student, gives him or her total freedom of expression. Unconscious of what they are describing, participants allow what was hidden to become apparent. Directed guidance techniques thus present the possibility of bringing into play all the functions, from the highest supraconscious to the deepest subconscious. Under certain conditions, this allows motivating currents (holy impulses) beyond all mental, affective, or sensory expression to be manifested. At this level, creative visualization can be used, in one form or another, to introduce vivid living states of consciousness unknown to the usual experience. If intellectual comprehension occurs, it will be welcome because it allows the student to understand what is being put forward here, but it by no means replaces practice. Though the first results may be superficial, practice should be maintained until the goal of the practice is clearly experienced.

In the descending practice of enfolding the desires, a desire is selected, and the attention directed to fulfilling it in the imagination. It is important to remember, however, that the goal of the practice is not to “real-eyes” the desire but to become aware of its underlying current. Even if the current is unconscious, the attention is still centered on it. When the desire is lived in our imagination, this allows the desire-tension to disappear, which causes an underlying current to become perceptible, which also can be rendered objective for the consciousness. In contemporary psychology, this current is often considered the source of the desire. But, when the current has been clearly experienced, which eases the tension at this new level, another underlying current can be perceived, which, in turn, appears to be the source of those that preceded it. This too can be made objective as a specific current, although it may be difficult in the beginning. Later, further nuances will be perceived.

The entire process is aimed at causing the superficial tension (desire) to disappear in order to cause the origin (motivating current) to become more apparent. Forgetting this goal means a failure to understand the raison d’etre of the exercise and prevents the building of the necessary conscious structures. From this mistake problems can arise: the imaginative satisfaction might cause the desire-tension to disappear momentarily (which might be taken by the student to be a solution), but the desire itself might be fixed by repetition.

Living in imagination really means picturing oneself performing the actions and even thinking the thoughts so as to create the same sensing, feeling, and experiencing as one would if the action were externally real. Care must be taken not to skip this step. The progressive transition to the level of experiencing must be respected; the game must really be played. The clearer and more precise the desire, the more are the possibilities of a clear perception of the less finite aspects of the experience.

The student should note that they do not have to limit themselves to desires that can be actually fulfilled in daily life. Other desires originate in the sub or supra-conscious which they may never have expressed in daily life – to take an extreme example, a desire to kill someone. Even though the desire with which one works is not something that has ever been fulfilled or they even wish to fulfill, the student should try to make their imaginative living as vivid, spontaneous, and non- mental as possible. It is the spontaneous, imaginative expression which is most directly related to the underlying current. In this case, it is more imperative than ever to keep in mind that, as said already, the goal of the exercise is not to fulfill the desire but to become aware of its underlying current.

When the drive or underlying current is well expressed by the desire, does it represent its total expression? Is the impulse extinguished by its realization? If the desire clearly appears to be the drive, one must use a sensitive and more unremitting attention in order to discover that behind the apparent fullness of the realization, something of the original strength of the desire still exists and with it a kind of dissatisfaction, which initially is difficult to formulate and which in comparison with the apparent satisfaction is felt to be deeper and less “concrete.” Little by little the consciousness familiarizes itself with this perception, which becomes clearer. The desire takes on a kind of relativity and is replaced by an aspect that one can identify as a need because it is more vital in comparison with the desire.

The more one explores the vital need, the more it becomes apparent as a need to fill a void. Life teaches us that even though satisfaction of a desire pleases superficially it does not really gratify the more abstract need. People often engage in a fruitless quest for ever more complete and perfect satisfactions, which continue to elude them because the underlying need remains unfulfilled. All expressions or sum of expressions springing from a more abstract motivating current can only express the current partially. And the corollary to that: Any motivating current more abstract than the level of the considered expression is only partially expressed. Anyone might have experienced this while trying to express a deep feeling. The words and gestures seem desperately inadequate in comparison with the depth of the motivating feeling. This is why the artist is so significant a figure in the world’s cultures – they give these currents more adequate external expression that most are commonly unable to do.

Even if the desire appears real, its bases are located, in the beginning, in a kind of other world, a world or level of need with its own laws and makeup which must be imperatively respected. The discovery of deeper motivations and their actualization at the conscious level brings new dimensions of experience to consciousness, which changes one’s notions of base and reality and allows a shift in values. The sense of reality, which usually pertains to the concrete world of effects, now extends to the world of causes. The more abstract the sense of reality, the more tangible and clear the perception of the base. By these steps in Revelation Yoga, the motivating current, first considered to be non-existent, then subjective, finally reaches a consciously usable objectivity.

We may ask at this point: What is the importance of the desire, which is so often able to encroach upon all of the conscious horizon, compared to the importance of its underlying current? Is it negligible? Nothing is negligible. The shifting of values does not take from the desire the right to exist; desires sometimes represent the most adequate dynamization possible at the moment a deeper motivation is attempting to become conscious.

The discovery that at the heart of all expressions of a desire there exists a perceptible and fundamentally different motivation allows the student to understand what follows. In all expressions, two types of energy can be found: one which clothes the expression in form and the other which infuses the form with life meaning and provides its raison d’etre. The consciously-lived experience is composed of both of these simultaneously, but in deeper layers they are mostly experienced separately. That which provides form is linked to subconscious functions; the other is related to supra-conscious functions. The process is a matter of complex interactions occurring between two polarities from the same base energy: the positive polarity associated with what I call Holy Spirit (not of this world) and the negative polarity associated with nature (in this world). Thus, all expression always presents two aspects: the form of support or nature aspect and the spirit aspect, which runs through it and is decisive, though it may seem abstract in comparison with the form. The former, believed to belong to oneself, is in reality borrowed from the nature world at large and is conditioned and limited by it. For practitioners related to the spirit or positive polarity, the negative or nature pole can be considered as a partner one faces, with the subconscious as one of its particular aspects. But the positive energy that radiates through the form of the expression and gives it real meaning is the intimately lived characteristic of one’s true self or soul.

The principal action is thus played in the positive polarity but does not remain unilateral. Within the conditions imposed by external circumstances, each individual exercises a degree of choice of expression, though limited by their mastery in managing the circumstances. Consequently, there is action of the negative polarity too. As the individual becomes more able to trace the motivations emanating from the deep base, the more their capacity for conscious, spirit (positive) action increases. Even before an individual has this capability, they can recognize how more or less consciously one borrows forms of expression from the surrounding world in an endeavor to arrange them in an order that best conveys what they deeply want to transmit. To be able to recognize the difference in expression between basic motivation and the form used represents an awareness that progressively entails a complete transformation of vision and values.