God Speaks in Lord of the Rings

Peter Jackson's epic trilogy of J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings"

Here I wish to do a strange thing. I wish to compare J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic fantasy The Lord of the Rings to the spiritual path of the soul as described by Meher Baba in his book God Speaks.

To point out moments in Tolkien’s book that I compare to the path, I use images from the Peter Jackson film version, which I think is very close to the spirit of the book. Note that this isn’t an interpretation of the intentions of The Lord of the Rings. I’m simply using certain of its images as illustrations of points about the path as Baba describes them. Tolkien’s own symbolic intentions were partially unconscious. He openly admitted that many of the characters and places simply revealed themselves to him as he wrote the book, surprising him as much as anyone else. When Tolkien’s symbolic intentions were conscious they were without any doubt taken from orthodox Roman Catholic mystical theology – a theology based on the written mystical visions of Christian saints through the ages, visions of their personal encounters with the Christian inner path to mystical union. In regard to comparing this path to that described by Baba, it is not very far fetched though. In Growing into God, an excellent new introduction to Christian mysticism, author John Marby says that the stages of the spiritual path are common to all major mystical traditions, and describe the same inner path in different symbolic terms appropriate to those cultures and times. Also it is a coincidence that has always interested me that the final installment of Tolkien’s epic, The Return of the King, was released in the same year as God Speaks. Baba, who had the books read to him twice, admitted that the stages of the path were similar to the scenes found in the book. Thus it is my contention that many of the stages of the path are in fact woven into The Lord of the Rings, sometimes consciously by its author, sometimes unconsciously. Tolkien went so far as to say that Christian meaning was so woven into the story that he consciously chose to omit any direct reference to God or religion.

So let us begin by noting several aspects and naming our figures and what they represent in the story that are relevant to the path.

Baba teaches that before a person can embark upon the subjective inner stages of the path back to itself in union with God, the soul must first gain a perfect balance of mind and heart. This he says is a process that requires numerous reincarnations as a human being, experiencing various opposites that gradually lighten its impressions. The purpose of these incarnations is for the individual to rid itself of an excess of impressioned mind, until the impressions of the mind wear thin, and he loses some intellect and gains heart and feeling.

Baba gives three stages of this maturation from mind to heart over the course of reincarnation in preparation for the path:

People with all mind and no heart such as Saruman, the crafty but heartless sorcerer.

Sarurman, the loveless but clever wizard

Those who continue to have a dominance of mind, thus remain highly rational and intelligent, but have gained some heart development and diminished the dictatorship of their intellects to some degree, but the heart is still too immature to begin the spiritual path, such as some of the men of Gondor.

Thoughtful men of Gondor

Those with a complete balance of heart and mind such as hobbits.

Hobbits of the Shire having fun at Bilbo's birthday party

Baba says that once a proper and mature balance of heart and mind is reached by consecutive incarnations as a man or a woman in the course of multiple incarnations, the soul is at last ripe for the spiritual path – meaning it is ready to embark upon the inner ‘quest’ of involution. This quest of the inner path is woven into The Lord of the Rings through the story of the hobbit Frodo.

Who is Frodo?

Here we take Frodo as the person who has, after many lives, at last achieved the balance of heart and mind necessary to begin the inner path – and is urged by a master to begin a quest. Note that only hobbits, who have much love (represented in the loving concern of Pippin and Merry) but are not particularly intellectual, having no universities or books of scholarship or mathematics or science, are the only ones suitable to become ‘ring-bearers,’ meaning here taking up the inner path of involution. The ring bearers in the full story are Bilbo, Frodo, and (for a short time when Frodo is in the hands of the orcs) Sam. This could easily be taken to represent people with increased heart and diminished mind. Frodo has reached this point and is thus symbolic of the aspirant embarking on the spiritual quest – an inner journey portrayed poetically through certain external events he endures in his line of the plot.

Boromir tries to reason with Frodo, "If you would but lend me the ring" 

To see this balance of head and heart, and the enormous intuition it gives to Frodo, consider this dialogue between Boromir and Frodo near the end of The Fellowship of the Ring.

                BOROMIR 

       Let me help you. There are other ways,  

       Frodo ... other paths that we might  

       take.

                FRODO 

     I know what you would say, and it would  

     sound like wisdom but for the warning  

     of my heart. 

In the next moment Boromir tries to steal the ring from Frodo.

At the start of the story Frodo is told by Gandalf – who we may liken here to the master, that he has inherited a dangerous ring of power, forged by Sauron at the dawn of time when the world was young, and that he must destroy it in the flames of Mordor in which it was originally caste. In other words Frodo’s quest is to return the ring to its source, and destroy it by consuming and merging it in its original flame.

Now what might this ring signify? And what might this fire symbolize?

The ring of power that rules them all, and "in the darkness binds them."

Baba says that while the course of ordinary reincarnation prior to embarking on the path has the purpose of allowing the soul to reach a balance of heart and mind, the quest of the inner planes of involution that he must now embark upon internally is one in which the limited finite mind and its connected limited ego must be destroyed completely. This destruction of the false limited ego-mind is called manonash (lit: destruction of mind).

If we take the ring to symbolize Frodo’s mind, then Frodo’s quest is actually to destroy his own mind by returning (by way of the inner path) to its source (God). The ring is his mind. To destroy it he must retrace the steps of his own evolution back to its place of origin in the fire – representing the original state of undifferentiated essence, Spirit or God. So the fire is the Spirit or Real essence from which the ring of mind was forged, meaning evolved, now to be consciously destroyed by its bearer as a fully conscious human being.

Mind is the source of great power, but the mind is also treacherous. Yet subconsciously the mind seeks its return to its source and its own annihilation – symbolized by the ring’s desire to return to its master Sauron.

Who is Sauron – the Great Eye?

Sauron, the Lidless Eye of Flame

This is the most complicated comparison to explain, and will undoubtedly be the hardest to understand, but will become more clear later I think. Sauron represents God in a particular State at the beginning of Creation, i.e. the Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer, which is State III in God Speaks and (I believe but am not positive) Ishwar in Baba's book Infinite Intelligence. God in this state does not experience his own Creation that It is Creating unless It, as a soul, takes up the first media of a finite form in evolution and then evolves full consciousness as a man. This means that God as Creator, in order to see His own Creation, must enter into His own Creation as a soul. God the Creator is thus in each individual soul, experiencing Its own Creation. Sauron is thus God in this certain aspect. And quite shockingly, this means that Sauron is actually Frodo. In other words Sauron is Frodo’s own Self, as God, Creating, Preserving, and Destroying the Illusion. Each individual, Baba says, Creates his own Illusion (his Universe) when he wakes from sleep, sustains it while he is awake, and destroys it when he returns to deep sleep. He thus expresses the three aspects, Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahesh, each day. Sauron does not see Frodo until Frodo puts on the ring – which means Frodo takes experience of the planes through his inner eye. When Frodo does this it is not so much that Frodo sees Sauron, but that Frodo is seeing his own Self (God) projected as separate through the mind. Thus their eyes meeting means God seeing Himself through Frodo.

"The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me"  — Meister Eckhart

When the ring is destroyed, meaning mind destroyed, this apparent but illusory separation between Frodo as soul and Frodo as God is destroyed along with the mind that preserves this false sense of separation. This is why, when Frodo destroys the ring, Sauron is destroyed – which means the illusory veil that causes them to appear as separate is destroyed.

Now what does Gollum represent?

Gollum, an ancient hobbit who struggles with his identity

In this illustration, Gollum represents the limited finite ego, which is attached to the mind as its precious possession.

Gollum is Frodo’s false ego self. The false ego, Baba tells us, takes itself to be anything but what it is. It identifies outward. The ego identifies sometimes with the body, saying ‘I am this separate thing,’ and sometimes as the mind, saying ‘I am these thoughts; they are my thoughts.'

Thus Gollum represents Frodo’s own ego, and his attachment to the ring represents the ego’s attachment to mind as its own or as itself.

Note that Gollum is confused about his own identity. Tormented by impressions of his past Gollum no longer even remembers his own name, which in the story happens to have once been Sméagol.

“And we wept, Precious. We wept, to be so alone. And we forgot the taste of bread, the sound of trees, the softness of the wind ... We even forgot our own name.”

Similarly the ego of a human being has its true identity as God – but does not know this and seeks to identify with the mind. This forgetting of original identity is akin to the descending journey of the soul through its evolution further and further (only apparently in the dream, for the soul really never goes anywhere) from its original state as God. During this descent of evolution the growing ego gives to the soul a greater and greater sense of separateness from all things, further and further from its unconscious unified original God-state, until it finds itself apparently entirely separate from all things as a man, yet fully conscious – conscious at last as a result of this descent of evolution – but ignorant of who He really is and always was. (For a discussion of this descent according to Baba go here)

Gollum is thus Frodo’s own ego, attaching its identity to the mind, the ring, thus he follows wherever the ring goes, fearing its destruction and thus itself, trying to improve itself and follow Frodo (Gollum increasingly looking upon Frodo as his master, meaning Frodo is less and less influenced by ego). So Frodo (the advancing soul) and Gollum (his ego) travel together on the inner path, both bound to each other.

Gollum plotting to seize the ring
from "master"

Gollum often tries to deceive Frodo and interrupt his quest, even as he pretends to help or even at times tries with pride to help Frodo, but always secretly retains the desire to claim the ring as his own, to win the mind for himself as his own precious, and preserve his only identity. Baba talks about how the ego is deceptive and cunning. Frodo needs the aid of his ego, but his ego is treacherous and tied to the ring and to himself. They are all bound together, Frodo and his mind and ego – Frodo (soul) and the ring (mind) and Gollum (ego).

Gandalf says to Frodo, “And now the Ring has drawn [Gollum] here ... he will never be rid of his need for it. He hates and loves the Ring, as he hates and loves himself.”

And Frodo says to Faramir later, “This creature is bound to me. And I to him.”

So Gollum (Frodo’s own ego) must be destroyed along with the ring (Frodo’s mind), for the enslaving power of the impressions we call mind must be burned up and consumed, Baba tells us, along with the limited false ego attached to it, which is really an aspect of mind itself. If Frodo can accomplish this feat of destruction and remain conscious, the goal is reached. If he dies at that moment he destroys the ring he will be an ordinary Mukta (liberated soul). If he lives a short time he will be a Majzoob. If he lives and regains consciousness of the gross world, he will be a Jivanmukta (Perfect One). And if it is his destiny he will be a Sadguru (Perfect Master). Frodo, at the end, does survive and regain consciousness of the world. This is expressed when Frodo says to Sam after the ring is destroyed, as his memories slowly return:

“I can see the Shire ... The Brandywine River, Bag End, Gandalf's fireworks ... the lights in the Party Tree...”

When Frodo expresses disgust for Gollum (representing his own false ego) in the Mines of Moria in the first film, Gandalf explains to Frodo that Gollum should not be judged too harshly, or death be wielded, as he says that Gollum (here meaning ego) has a purpose of his own in the quest that will be made known.

Gandalf:  “My heart tells me that Gollum has some part to play yet, for good or ill before this is over.”

What is this purpose of the ego in the quest of the destruction of the mind (ring)?

Baba says that this casting off of the last traces of mind at the end of the inner spiritual path of involution is called “surrender.” Now for this surrender to occur, there must be someone to surrender. And that someone is necessarily the ego. The ego alone has the impetus of desire. Gollum must thus remain alive right up to the last instant of the quest, for it is he that surrenders – though by an act of divine intervention. If Frodo were to destroy his own ego before the end, he would render himself disabled psychologically, or become comatose and not be able to complete the journey at all. There must be some vestige of false self and desire at the end for it alone can give the motivation for the final act of letting go.

Gandalf the White

Who is Gandalf?

He is the Perfect Master, though perhaps he is a Saint or Perfect One at the beginning when he is still called Gandalf the Gray. He is not always there to guide Frodo directly, but he tells Frodo what he must do and keeps his nazaar (gaze) on him from a distance – to see he completes his quest, and loves and worries about him. He is thus the master of Frodo, and Frodo is Gandalf’s disciple.

Sam is Frodo’s disciple. He later becomes the spiritual charge-man of Frodo at the end of the story, himself also having been a ring-bearer for a time, and also follows (according to the Appendix) after Frodo across the Gray Havens many years later when his wife Rosie dies.

So now we see our parts.

• Frodo = Spiritual aspirant who becomes a pilgrim of the path, ascending the planes
• Gandalf = Frodo’s master
• Sam = Frodo’s disciple, his companion (Gandalf tells Sam to follow Frodo)
• Sauron (the Great Eye) = Ishwar within Frodo, the Creator of the Illusion, using the power of Maya
• Fires of Mount Doom = Spirit out of which mind was originally created when Frodo’s evolution began
• Gollum = Frodo’s ego
• The Ring = Frodo’s mind that binds his soul. Through impressioned mind “. . . the infinitely free iota finds itself infinitely bound.” (God Speaks, p. 7). This means man is bound and made a slave to Maya by the impressions of his own mind. This is the sense in which the ring, here representing mind, “in the darkness binds” those who wield it.

At the start of the story Frodo is the fully evolved (through evolution) and now also matured (through many reincarnations to gain balance of head and heart) soul ripe for the spiritual path. He has a balance of mind and heart, love, and has the deep intuition that comes only with love and heart and less interfering mind.

Frodo must thus be rid of the ring of power – the finite deceiving mind that binds the soul along with the finite limited ego (itself an aspect of mind). And this is the essence of what the spiritual path is, the destruction of the false-limited-ego-mind, and realization of the True unbounded free Real Self.

So what stages of the path described by Baba can we pick out of the images of the theatrical film version of The Lord of the Rings?

The quest (representing for us the inner spiritual path) begins when Gandalf (Frodo’s master) tells Frodo what he must do, be rid of the terrible ring of power. The line “going out the door,” a refrain from a song by Bilbo, repeated by Frodo as he leaves the Shire, represents the first embarking upon the path.

Frodo parts from the others and heads for the eastern shore

At the end of the first book Frodo makes an even deeper commitment to his quest. Frodo has broken away from the others of the Fellowship, and stands afraid at the bank of the river he must cross alone (not yet knowing Sam would join him). He is trying to gain the courage to make this leap alone. As he had said to Galadriel standing by her basin Mirror in which she showed him the stakes if he should fail, “I know what I must do. I just don’t know if I can do it.” In the film Frodo at the bank recalls the moment in the Mines of Moria when he first expressed his fears and doubts to Gandalf (“I wish the ring had never come to me”), and remembers Gandalf’s encouraging words: “So do all who live to see such times.” At last Frodo gains the courage and pushes off in the boat to the eastern shore, going alone, unsure of the way. This moment brings to mind the following line from God Speaks by Meher Baba.

“When [this latent spirit] comes to the surface it shows itself as an invincible determination to marshal the entire being to the attainment of victory over the lower self, and to reject everything that is irrelevant to this great and terrible struggle.” (God Speaks, p. 194)

Baba says that those who embark upon the spiritual path have certain inner experiences. When does Frodo encounter his first experiences of the inner planes of the path?

One might easily see one type of them that we might call subtle scattered throughout the first film, when Frodo is a novice of the path. This happens each of the three times he puts on the ring of power – unintentionally the first time, incautiously the second, and dangerously but wisely the third.

Accidentally putting on the ring in
The Prancing Pony Inn

The first experience of the planes happens when the ring accidentally slips onto his finger in the Prancing Pony. Frodo immediately has a vision of the path before him across Mordor and has his first glimpse of his destination in the form of the fiery Eye of Sauron – the Creator of the ring – essentially a vision of God.

An even more vivid experience occurs on Mount Weathertop, where Frodo puts on the ring out of fear and winds up stabbed by the Ring Wraith, the terrible Witch King, leader of the nine.

The third and final incident when Frodo puts on the ring happens in the forest near the end of the first film when Frodo dons the ring to evade Boromir and escape, and again experiences the Great Eye and faints.

Frodo never again puts on the ring until the climax in Mount Doom.

But the most important experience of the path that Frodo has is not mediated by putting on the ring. It is in The Return of the King when he experiences himself as “naked in the dark” and is confronted with the “Wheel of Fire” (God) that he now sees with his waking eyes (his inner eye) as he crosses the fiery ashen wasteland of Mordor. We will come to explain this experience more later.

If we wanted to we could look upon the first three visions of the first film as Frodo traversing the first three planes of involution, which Baba calls the subtle planes, which are planes of energy.

The 4th plane and the tunnel of Shelob.

Meher Baba describes a dangerous point on the path, which he calls the 4th plane, where the aspirant must resist the temptation to use great occult powers that, if used for bad, can result in his annihilation of consciousness, causing a complete retrograde of the entire path of evolution, reincarnation, and involution up to that moment. Baba calls this point on the path “The Dark Night of the Soul.”

Frodo enters the spider Shelob's tunnel, prodded by Gollum

Baba says that if one can overcome the temptations of the 4th plane, one passes to the 5th plane – the mental plane – where one is finally permanently beyond the danger of regress.

Baba says that if one is tempted by the ego and misuses the great powers of the 4th plane, he falls to stone consciousness from which the entire journey began, and begins the journey all over again. Baba does not mean one turns into a stone, but that one’s consciousness regresses to its original starting point in evolution with mere stone consciousness, and must begin to evolve all over again. In other words it is a loss of all acquired consciousness that had been gained up to that point. The soul must begin evolution all over again. But Baba says misuse of these powers and such retrograde are extremely rare, as more advanced souls watch over these people’s thoughts or take away their powers if necessary to protect them from such a terrible thing.

Note that the spider Shelob’s sting causes Frodo to become “as limp as a bone fish,” as one orc explains to another when they come upon Frodo’s limp stung body, not unlike an inanimate stone. Also notice that Shelob’s tunnel is made out of stone and contains nothing else but the bones and stench of the less fortunate. Note too how Gollum tries to taunt Frodo into the tunnel, possibly representing the ego’s temptation of the soul on the 4th plane. So Gollum (ego) tempts Frodo toward his doom.

How one interprets Frodo being stung is up to them. It does not fit with Baba’s account. But one could see it as illustration of the effects of failure to pass through the lair of Shelob, signifying the shear dangerousness of this stage, and even the loss of the ring (which really goes to Sam, but we don’t know it yet) could be seen as the loss of consciousness Baba says can occur at this juncture.

But it is not really lost. Sam saves the day in time, killing Shelob and “borrowing” the ring of power until he can fight past the orcs and safely return it to his master Frodo.

Once Sam rescues Frodo from the Tower of Cirith Ungol, after the scene in the dark tunnel of Shelob, several scenes in the story that follows Frodo and Sam start to have an uncanny similarity to certain later points of the path described by Meher Baba in God Speaks.

Exiting the tower disguised as orcs, Frodo and Sam find themselves looking out over the land of Mordor as an enormous valley. Beyond this seemingly uncrossable valley they see Mount Doom and the Great Eye.

Frodo and Sam confronted by the great valley of Mordor

This image is remarkably similar to chart VIIIA in God Speaks that depicts the 6th plane aspirant as experiencing God as separate, separated from himself across a deep fathomless valley. See bottom right of chart.

(Chart VIIIA in God Speaks, p. 191)

The highly advanced pilgrim on the sixth plane is still within the domain of duality. Although face to face with God, the "see-er" and the "seen" remain separated by a deep, fathomless valley . . . (God Speaks, p. 73)

The valley represents the apparently infinite separation between the aspirant and God at the 6th plane. Thus we may liken the scene of arriving at the sight of the valley of Mordor, with the Great Eye before Frodo and Sam, to Frodo having arrived at the 6th plane.

Frodo is wearied by the very sight of the distance, but Sam encourages him kindly, "We have to go in there, Mr. Frodo. There's nothing for it. Come on. Let's just make it down the hill for starters." And thus they begin the terrible crossing that leads to the film's climax in Mount Doom.

It is only after the final annihilation of the mind and the wearing out of the curtain of mental impressions that consciousness can function in full freedom from all impressional bindings. This means crossing the deep abyss which separates the sixth plane from the seventh plane. (God Speaks, p. 53)

In God Speaks Meher Baba says that when the aspirant reaches the 6th plane he finds himself literally seeing God face to face. He sees God with his own inner eye. There is no mediation by the mind. This is symbolized by words Frodo says to Sam in Mordor when not wearing the ring.

"I can see him with my waking eyes?"

                  FRODO
            (weak whisper)

      No, Sam. I can't recall the taste of food;
      nor the sound of water; nor the touch of
      grass ... I'm naked in the dark.
           
             (rising panic)
      There's no veil between me and the wheel of
      fire. I can see him with my waking eyes!

So we see Frodo going through the experience of the 6th plane as he passes through the abyss of Mordor. Compare the above words by Frodo to these from God Speaks:

This mental-conscious human soul of the sixth plane, almost void of all impressions and only conscious of mind, now is confronted with God face to face and sees God in everything but does not see himself in God because, being still conscious of mind, he takes himself as Mind. This mental-conscious human soul associates himself with mind, and is conscious of himself as Mind, and experiences himself as still something other than God. (God Speaks, p. 51) 

He "sees" God continuously but cannot see himself in God as God. Therefore he cannot reconcile his feeling-of-sight of God with his own identity with God; and thus he longs for, feels for, has pangs for union with God Whom he "sees" face to face. (God Speaks, p. 49)

Sam then says, “Then let us be rid of it - once and for all! Come on, Mr. Frodo. I can't carry it for you ... but I can carry you! Come on!”

"Then let us be rid of it - once and for all!"

And then Sam puts Frodo on his back and carries him toward the mountain.

At last we come to the entry into Mount Doom.

There is something very important to notice at the start of this scene. As Sam and Frodo reach the summit of Mount Doom, Sam spots a door carved into the side. There are even the ruins of an ancient cobbled path laid there coming out of the door.

Frodo enters the door cut for Sauron in the dawn of time when he came out
with the ring - meaning the dawn of Frodo's evolution of consciousness

In the book we learn that this was the door cut for Sauron when he exited the door after casting the ring at the dawn of time.

Frodo is thus entering through the same door to destroy the ring (mind) in the fires of Mount Doom that Sauron came out of when he created it in those same fires.

“He returns to the door from which he first came out, although in his journey [dreamt journey through illusion] he went from door to door.” (God Speaks, p. 160)

This is why I believe that Sauron and Frodo are the same person. He has retraced his steps consciously to the very door (Creation or Om Point) from which he entered the illusion when he began his evolution of consciousness in evolution.

Bringing himself straightaway to the sixth circle
Where he sees God,
His own very Self, face to face continuously (Stay With God, 1990 p. 71)

This is the final sense of circle and return in the book, of “there and back again.” It holds the deepest meaning of the entire book. Frodo has returned consciously to His real Self.

Frodo of course fails to destroy the ring, and it is only by an act of Divine intervention that his ego (Gollum) falls with the ring (mind) into the flames, symbolizing surrender, and manonash (destruction of the false limited mind with its false limited self).

With the throwing in of the ring and its dissolution back into the flame from which it was made, along with Gollum the ego, the Mountain explodes. The very next instant Sauron also blows up and vanishes forever  – meaning the illusion of separation from God is destroyed for Frodo. God and Frodo are now one.

Collapse of Baradur and destruction of Sauron

In the movie Frodo nearly falls in and dissolves along with Gollum and the ring, but grabs the ledge of the cliff. Sam pleads with him to hold on and to grab his hand, which would here mean not drop his body, which would render him a mere mukta (liberated soul) who dies at the time of liberation. By holding on, Frodo retains his body and thereby becomes a Jivanmukta, a God-realized living person.

It is then that Frodo says to Sam, “It’s gone. It’s done.” His regaining of normal gross consciousness is expressed in the lines spoken to Sam as they collapse on a rock as the pieces of the mountain rain down all around them, “I can see the Shire ... The Brandywine River, Bag End, Gandalf's fireworks ... the lights in the Party Tree...”

And the beautiful final lines of the scene are, “I’m glad to be with you Sam, here at the end of all things.” Frodo is now God-realized.

"I'm glad to be with you Sam."

Back in the shire, Frodo lives for a time as a master, along with his disciple and companion Sam, who may now be realized also – they seem like equals or near equals.

In a touching scene Frodo complains to Sam when they are alone together that his wound at Weathertop never truly healed.

This unhealed wound in the master left over from the path to God reminds me of a ghazal by Meher Baba.

“I still nurse the wound of separation within me - it has left me broken.”
(Meher Baba, from his ghazal, "The Beloved's Face")

The final scene that pertains to the path is when Frodo leaves with Bilbo and Gandalf in a boat afforded them by the elves into the West toward the Undying Lands.

Leaving Middle Earth

This scene signifies what Baba calls the fourth journey. Here the Masters Frodo, Bilbo, and Gandalf, pass together into Vidnyan or State VIII of God Speaks, fana-fillah – which is life eternal (undying) and the resting place of the masters, where there is experience of Self along with Infinite power, knowledge, and bliss, but without experience of the Illusion.

 Sailing into the West toward the Undying Lands