Seven Rungs of Light

The seven jnana-bhumikas

The text is tender with beginners: it gives us a map. Seven stages of knowledge, seven rungs of one ladder — with the marvelous joke at the top: when you arrive, no climber is left. The song climbs as it names them, a choir turning the Sanskrit into a ladder you can sing, and at Sattvapatti — the dawn of being — the healing garden grows: the zone where the book's whole practice does its work.

Mantra

Shubheccha · Vicharana · Tanumanasa Sattvapatti · Asamsakti Padartha-bhavana · Turyaga

Yoga Vasistha · the seven stages of knowledge

The seven stages of knowledge, chanted in ascent, resolving into a single Om.

Climb by resting; rise by releasing.

Lyrics

One ladder Seven rungs And at the top — no climber left at all A longing wakes before the sunrise A homesick ache for what is true Shubheccha... Shubheccha (The good desire) Now ask the question like a lantern Turn every stone of "I" and "mine" Vicharana... Vicharana (The inquiry) The clouds grow thin, the mind grows quiet Old habits loosen, thread by thread Tanumanasa... Tanumanasa (The thinning of the mind) Climb by resting, rise by releasing Every rung is made of you Seven names for one arriving The sky was always shining through Then being dawns — the first awakening Here the healing garden grows Sattvapatti... Sattvapatti (The dawn of being) Act in the world and wear it lightly Honey on fingers, nothing sticks Asamsakti... Asamsakti (The sweet non-clinging) Now things are light in shapes of things The world one taste of shining mind Padartha-bhavana... Padartha-bhavana (The melting of objects) Beyond the waking, dream and sleeping The fourth, the always, the arrived Turyaga... Turyaga (Abiding in the fourth) Climb by resting, rise by releasing Every rung is made of you Seven names for one arriving The sky was always shining through Shubheccha... Vicharana... Tanumanasa Sattvapatti... Asamsakti... Padartha-bhavana Turyaga Om No rung, no ladder — only sky

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