In Raja Yoga we have an image, which is from an ancient, ancient time. An image of the three faces of ourselves; an image of the three aspects that we must take on in order to be healed, in order to be free, in order to become whole again. They are ancient archetypes. And in the world of legend and mythology. these are called Brahma, Vishnu and Shankar. These are old, old images and they represent the process of that healing of the inner self.
One part of it shows someone very old, someone who has done it all, seen it all, been it all. And there he sits in quict simplicity, in the clothes of the grave, in just a white shroud. Imagine this very very old person sitting in a white shroud, ready to die, but yet not dead. And this is the symbol of re creation. Just before death, re creation takes place. Re-creation in the moment of extreme old age, sitting in a shroud and opening the self to just information. Let me learn what it is. Because they say that if you know how to die, then you know how to live. And so there's the symbol of the old, old person, sitting in the shroud, making the self ready to die. And in that readiness, the self the open information, to take in the information of how to live. This is the symbol of Brahma And in each and everyone of us there is an old, old person, sitting in a shroud saying "Before I finally die, in coming to terms with my death, I find out what it means to live, what it means to be, what it is to be. I find myself coming into contact with my eternity, with my child, who is the next father of the man. Have you heard of this child who is father of the man? It comes from William Wordsworth. A child is father of the man. The old old man meeting his death, also meets his child. Because after that extreme readiness to die, comes that new birth, the new child. This is the next stage, this is the key to the thread of immortality, that carries me from my oldness to my newness. And in that symbol of just before death, it's a symbol where everything is stripped off. A person who is about to die knows "I go alone, I go empty-handed, nothing is mine". And in that dispossession of all of those illusory things that we label "mine", part of that creative state is to know that I have nothing, I have no-one. I AM ME. This is one part of it. It's the stage of simplicity, it's the stage of openness, it's the stage of learning, it's the stage of saying that in all of this time I learnt nothing. But now I must learn something before I can live again.
And then on the other hand there is a timeless man, a timeless naked man who is just sitting in a state of almost non-being. We call this one Shankar representative of everything superfluous having been shed. So on the one hand the oldness, the readiness to learn and on the other hand the nakedness. There isn't a shroud anymore, even that is not there. It's the timeless one. The old age, just before the new birth and then the timeless one with no age, no death, no birth, just timeless being. The stage in which everything, whatever has happened doesn't really matter anymore. Whatever is good, whatever is bad, it's kind of equal, timeless, beyond. A stage of being stable in your eternity. Neither young, neither old, just timeless.
These two figures sit side by side of another one. That other one is resplendent,
Vishnu
glorious, self-aware, jewelled and rich, balanced with the feminine and the masculine, in the full glory of the adult life where everything has been achieved, a state of sovereignty, tremendous beauty, tremendous power, tremendous influence, who holds the key to all things in the world, who is possession of the secrets of thought, who has understood and gained mastery over the power of thought so that no thought would ever be of no use, no thought would be meaningless. Every thought would become a practical reality immediately. This is a healed being very powerful. Whose every word becomes something beautiful in the world, something meaningful, which carries only truth, who echoes throughout the planet bringing civilisation to all places, who spreads beauty and significance, someone who has power, someone who can do anything they want they want, anything they want it's already theirs, someone who has understood what is evil and has made it disappear, knowing that it's meaningless and has relevance, someone who understands time, who stands between the timeless and that Cusp of old-age and new birth, someone who represents that in-between place of full maturity and achievement, someone who is crowned in light, someone whose very being is like diamonds and who draws wealth, not only to the self but to all other people. Such a one is healed.
This image of the three faces of the human being is the key to that process process of the healing of the inner self. Each and everyone of us can take that image, the three parts, and just take it in to the self.
