"Recognizing this fundamental Clear Light means `becoming' Buddha in the absolute body at the moment of death! It is said that it also means `being liberated as a Buddha in the first Bardo.' When awakening is attained, the bardo no longer continues." (1993:19-20)

Chikai Bardo, Second Stage

While the first stage of Chikai occurs in the swoon state approaching death, this second stage occurs after clinical death--usually half an hour after the occurrence. From the occult point of view, it occurs after the heart seed-atom departs from the physical body and the severance of the sutratma. The duration of this stage is a little longer than the previous one. In this stage the Clear Light seemingly reduces its intensity to some degree. It actually does so because of the obscurations of one's ignorance and karma. Although the Clear Light may not be recognized in the primary stage, there is still a chance for the awareness-principle, when awakened from its stupor or dream-like state to take notice of the Clear Light in this secondary phase of the Chikai. This is usually done with the assistance of the presiding guide, the Reciter of the "death manual," or the Bardo Thodol. The bardo ritual also helps awaken the deceased person to recognize the fact that it had passed through the portal of death and that it should now pay attention to the subsequent psychological phenomena. In the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the awareness-principle in the Chikai stage is advised to recognize its own primordial Self:

"O nobly-born, when the body and mind were separating, thou must have experienced a glimpse of the Pure Truth, subtly, sparkling, bright, dazzling, glorious, and radiantly awesome, in appearance like a mirage moving across a landscape in spring-time in one continuous stream of vibrations. Be not daunted thereby, nor terrified, nor awed. This is the radiance of thine own true nature. Recognize it." (1975:104)

Like the first stage, liberation is also offered here as a gift of the Divine Intelligence; it is, however, an incomplete liberation, not as totally or as fully as the liberation of the first stage. To ensure the attainment of liberation, as said before, it is necessary to practice meditation every day where a glimpse of the Clear Light may be seen and experienced in an altered-state of awareness in order to aid us to recognize its full power in the Chikai. Experience of the Clear Light in the meditative state help us to experience it in the Chikai state. Spiritual exercises such as visualizing one's physical body and aura surrounded with white light assists us greatly to recognize the Clear Light when it emerges from the depth of our being. Recollection of teachings pertaining to the bardo also increases considerably the chances that the soul would realize the Clear Light and to know the manner of correct approach toward the following bardos. The marifat or gnostic techniques of Islamic and Hindu mystics allows the practitioner to evoke the presence of the Clear Light, as does the techniques of Dzogchen.

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