The Knee of Listening

Aldous Huxley speaks of this tradition in The Perennial Philosophy, where he refers to the Divine Being by the Greek term “Logos” (or “Word”).   The Logos passes out of eternity into time for no other purpose than to assist the beings, whose bodily form he takes, to pass out of time into eternity. If the Avatar’s appearance upon the stage of history is enormously important, this is due to the fact that by his teaching he points out, and by his being a channel of grace and divine power he actually is, the means by which human beings may transcend the limitations of history… That men and women may be thus instructed and helped, the godhead assumes the form of an ordinary human being, who has to earn deliverance and enlightenment in the way that is prescribed by the divine Nature of Things—namely, by charity, by a total dying to self and a total, one-pointed awareness. Thus enlightened, the Avatar can reveal the way of enlightenment to others and help them actually to become what they already potentially are… And, of course, the eternity which transforms us into Ourselves is not the experience of mere persistence after bodily death. There will be no experience of timeless Reality then, unless there is the same or a similar knowledge within the world of time and matter. By precept and example, the Avatar teaches that this transforming knowledge is possible, that all sentient beings are called to it, and that, sooner or later, in one way or another, all must finally come to it.

He knew that everything was—merely, and simply—existing. There was, for now, no Deep. No Higher. No other. No distance. No past. No future. No serious suffering.

Where is the Consciousness—the Living Force of Reality—that the heart seeks to identify in the midst of the myriad personal and cultural viewpoints potential in human experience?

Below outer awareness, He was always being led by the “Bright”, responding to what He later called a “fierce, mysterious impulse” at the heart of His being. Driven by this hidden Grace, He Submitted to the Unknown and lived His unique Ordeal without any advance knowledge of what it was about or how it would turn out.

Energy Is the Radiance of Consciousness Itself. Consciousness Is the Source-Position of Radiance Itself. Self-Existing and Self-Radiant Consciousness Is Love-Bliss Itself—Unconditional Feeling, Radiance.

Self-Existing and Self-Radiant Consciousness (or Fullness of Being) Divinely Self-Recognizes all phenomena in the Context of Itself—as transparent (or merely apparent), and un-necessary, and inherently non-binding modifications of the Self-Radiance of Consciousness Itself, the Divine Conscious Light Itself. When there is this Awakening, it is obvious. In every moment, Natively, Inherently, It Is simply the Divine Conscious Light—the Infinite, Dimensionless, Uncaused, Eternal “Brightness” of Being (Itself).

When there is this Awakening, it is obvious. In every moment, Natively, Inherently, It Is simply the Divine Conscious Light—the Infinite, Dimensionless, Uncaused, Eternal “Brightness” of Being (Itself).

Divine Enlightenment, or the Realization of Conscious Light, depends on the Awakening of the most esoteric root-structure of the body-mind—a structure that has hardly even been observed, and never before fully defined in Spiritual literature.

I become your state of mind, your state of body. I experience the diseases, the neuroses, the emotional problems, the state of everyone with whom I am associated—and that includes many more people than are with Me personally. It includes thousands upon thousands of people. I Do the Sadhana of Real-God-Realization in the form of you. I Do your sadhana while Being you. I do not merely tell you the Teaching, I Become you and Enter into the process as you. No one has Worked precisely as I Do. I actually Become the limited (or un-Enlightened) being whom I Teach. This is a completely unique “Heroic” Manner of Teaching.

He has explained, is not about the spontaneous “combustion” of the body but, rather, the “Outshining” of all conditional existence, whether the body lives or dies.

“At the end of the Kali Yuga, the god Shiva will appear to reestablish the right path in a secret and hidden form.”11

He is moved by an unceasing Urge to Transform the dark logic and destiny of the Kali Yuga into a “‘Bright’ New Age of Real-God-Man”, a culture of true Spiritual practice and Divinely Enlightened living.

the perpetual Transmission of His “Bright”, Love-Blissful Person into every form and “corner” of the cosmic domain. His Spiritual Touch (or “Kiss”) is tangible, personal, and unmistakable.

Because people appear within this human condition, this simultaneously attractive and frightening “dream” world, they tend to live—and to interpret both the conditional (or cosmic and psycho-physical) reality and the Unconditional (or Divine) Reality—from the “point of view” of this apparent (and bewildering) mortal human condition. And, because of this universal human bewilderment (and the ongoing human reaction to the threatening force of mortal life-events), there is an even ancient ritual that all human beings rather unconsciously (or automatically, and without discriminative understanding) desire and tend to repeatedly (and under all conditions) enact. Therefore, wherever there is an association of human beings gathered for any purpose (or around any idea, or symbol, or person, or subject of any kind), the same human bewilderment-ritual is tending to be enacted

Thus, the self-contracting (or separate and separative) self-“center” is neither the motive nor the source of Satsang with Me. In true Satsang with Me, the egoic “center” is always already undermined as a “center” (or a presumed separate, and actively separative, entity). The Principle of true Satsang with Me is Me—Beyond (and not “within”—or, otherwise, supporting) the self-referring ego-“I”.

I Am the Indivisible, Most Perfectly Prior, Inherently Non-Separate, and Inherently egoless (or centerless, boundless, and Self-Evidently Divine) Consciousness (Itself) and the Indivisible, Most Perfectly Prior, Inherently Non-Separate, and Inherently egoless (or centerless, boundless, and Self-Evidently Divine) Light (Itself). I Am the Very Being and the Very Presence (or Self-Radiance) of Self-Existing and Eternally Unqualified (or Non-“Different”) Conscious Light (or the “Bright”) Itself.

Call My devotee to turn from the self-“center”, to Me, in relationship (relationally, rather than self-referringly). I Call My devotee to merely turn every faculty of body-mind to Me, having already Found (or “Located”) Me—rather than to affirm the separate state, and the separative act, of ego-“I”, by seeking for Me.

PROLOGUE   The Heart of Understanding

Death is utterly acceptable to consciousness and life. There has been endless time of numberless deaths, but neither consciousness nor life has ceased to arise.

Therefore, one’s understanding of consciousness and life must be turned to That Utter, Inclusive Truth, That Clarity and Wisdom, That Power and Untouchable Gracefulness, That One and Only Reality, this evidence suggests. One must cease to live in a superficial and divided way, seeking and demanding consciousness and life in the present apparent form, avoiding and resisting what appears to be the end of consciousness and life in death. The Heart Is Real understanding. The Heart Is Real Consciousness and Real Life. The Heart Is What Merely and Only Is, but Which Is also Appearing In and Behind the conditions of mortal life and its death.

There Is Only the Constant Knowledge and Enjoyment of the Heart, moment to moment, through the instant of all conditions of appearance and disappearance. Of This I Am Perfectly Certain. I Am That.

Whatever significance you may attribute to astrology, it is true that my personal life has often cycled high and low, marked by equal and opposing determinations to ascend and to descend. And the external adventure of my life has turned me in and out of every kind of religious and Spiritual path, every kind of ascending means, and (likewise) every form of pleasure, ecstasy, and self-indulgence. The signs of my birth suggest (and have required) a drama of opposites. However, in spite of all of that, it has also been my lot to remain untouched by cosmic and human circumstance. This is perhaps the first key to what I must Communicate.

I have always known desire, not merely for extreme pleasures of the senses and the mind, but for the highest Enjoyment of Spiritual Power and Mobility. But I have not been seated in desire, and desire has only been a play that I have grown to understand and enjoy without conflict. I have always been Seated in the “Bright”. Even as a baby, I remember only crawling around inquisitively with a boundless Feeling of Joy, Light, and Freedom in the middle of my head that was bathed in Energy moving unobstructed in a Circle—down from above, all the way down, then up, all the way up, and around again—and always Shining from my heart.

I was the Power of Reality, a direct Enjoyment and Communication of the One Reality. I was the Heart Itself, Who Lightens the mind and all things. I was the same as every one and every thing, except it became clear that others were apparently unaware of the “Thing” Itself.

That Awareness, that Conscious Enjoyment, that Self-Existing and Self-Radiant Space of Infinitely and inherently Free Being, that Shine of inherent Joy Standing in the heart and Expanding from the heart, is the “Bright”. And It is the entire Source of True Humor. It is Reality.

The reason for this gesture was a spontaneous motivation associated with a painful loving of the people around me. It was not merely compassion for them, as if they were poor people I could help. It was a painful emotional and physical sensation in my heart and in my solar plexus. It was profoundly painful even then, and it always has been. It was associated with the full knowledge that these people to whom I was committing myself were going to die, and that I would die.

And I knew that, as this bodily incarnate being, I was, in due course, going to be separated from every one and every thing I loved in its lifetime.

In that Exaltation, the wound of mortality was forgotten. Thus, it was not the noticing of mortality, in and of itself, that generated my Movement into this plane. Rather, it was the Love-Response, the attracted Response, in which all of the negative aspects of gross conditional existence were effectively forgotten—in Love, in Delight, in Love-Bliss.

They could always use a little ordinary humor, but I always loved (and love) them, and love was always the premise of our life together. That is why we were always free to be so reckless, stupid, unfeeling, uncommunicative, unhappy, and separate! None of that ever amounted to anything less than an enjoyment of our separate spectacles. Quiet, long-suffering, fathered mother. Emotional, violent, elaborate father-boy. Crazy, secluded, independent son away.

Eventually, the ideas I received from that early association with Christianity became crucially important life-supporting beliefs for me, after my own “Bright” Strength of Being had been (temporarily) undermined by my experience of the human world of conflict, illusion, and death.

but a difference of point of view, and of experience, and of life-practice.

the three root-conventions of the common mind: the idea of “God” (as “Creator”, and as separate from all “creation”), the idea of separate self (in my case, and in all cases), and the idea of the world (as itself separate, and as itself composed of separate “things”, or absolute differences).

There was the act of separation, and that act was destroying the Spiritual Energy of Love-Bliss.

I could feel those rays of Love-Bliss-Energy being cut by the negative emotional acts of my parents. As a result of their loveless actions, dark vacuums were being spotted out around us and between us. And I was about to make one of my most significant early attempts to Communicate that there is only Love-Bliss-Energy, and to Prove it was so by an actual Spiritual Transmission of that Love-Bliss-Energy Itself.

I remember silently expanding the “Bright” Love-Bliss-Energy from my heart, while, at the same time, trying to distract my parents by pointing out the moon, and by asking them questions about God and life, so they would be calmed, and enabled to feel the Love-Bliss-Energy of the “Bright” I was Transmitting to them.

Nonetheless, I felt their basic refusal, and their basic insensitivity to the “Bright”. We went to the movie, and all the while we watched I felt a pressure in my solar plexus and my heart, where the Love-Bliss-Energy was refused and pushed back.

But at least the argument was gone, for the night.

And, in the crucial Event I just described, my parents’ profound insensitivity to the “Bright”—and, indeed, their fundamental refusal of It (even though It was Freely Transmitted to them)—gave rise to (or, at least, most profoundly confirmed) a deeply felt concern and urgency in me that became the means for me to fulfill the guiding Purpose of my life.

Throughout my life, I have been moved to Communicate (or to Reveal, to Transmit, and to Awaken) the fundamental Source and Substance and Condition of True Humor to others. Ordinary humor can appear in many forms, as the seemingly undauntable mood of life-enjoyment, as the hilarious pleasure of laughter, as the fairy-tale ease of faith, as the self-congratulating certainty of mental knowledge, and as the overriding excitement of even all the greater and smaller bodily victories. But True Humor has only one living Form (and one ultimate, or inherently perfect, Form), Which is Real God, Perfect Truth, or Reality Itself.

death and the fear of death have (also from the beginning of this lifetime) always been the counter to my Presence—the source of contradiction, fear, mystery, and despair.

In delirium, I would experience tremendous fear and an awesome mortal separateness, such that death became very real to me during those incidents.

I often thought about that dream. I felt it was not a dream at all, but a memory of past death, or an intuition of future death. And the importance of that dream, or of death itself, was never the fact itself.

For me, the interest in death has always been a matter of investigating, or deeply considering, the present relationship between life-consciousness and death. I have not truly been concerned with where one goes after death. In my very earliest years, it was always clear to me that—no matter where one goes, or where one is—one is always the same fundamental Consciousness. Indeed, I observed and experienced all events from the “Point of View” of the “Bright”. I was Being that Radiant Consciousness, Which is untouched. But I gradually became combined with the mortal experience of identification with the body-mind, and a great question arose in me, more and more persistently and profoundly: What is Consciousness (in Its living form, and altogether)?

What must occur within It for It to remain as It is (untouched and Free and Blissful) even while, in Its living form, It already bears the certainty (or the tacit knowledge) of death?

I was immediately overcome by terrible grief. I ran upstairs and sat and rolled in my room, and wept for what seemed like hours. But there was not only grief. There was also fear and guilt. I was stuck with some kind of knowledge that I was afraid to tell.

She must have gone and found the dead animal and decided to leave me to my father. Then he, too, came home, and they opened the door to me. My father asked me what was wrong, and I was trying not to show my grief. But then I told him, “Bootsie died.” And I fell in his arms and wept.

Then I made a very strange decision. I could not bear estrangement from love. I prayed to God to receive Bootsie and care for her. And then I told Him that I wanted Him to take me also.

But as the hour approached, I began to realize the importance of this move. I was about to leave life! I was about to suffer the loss of the world, my parents, my future possibility. I felt a tremendous connection to the living world, and saw that the absence of one I loved did not amount to the destruction of love, of life-positive energy, of “Bright” Fullness, or of Heart-Joy. I saw that I was alive!

I saw how the sentiment of separation from love can, as a problem or concern in the humanly-born conscious awareness, draw one out of the “Bright” of Illuminated, Free Consciousness Itself—until one no longer perceives the perfect Form that is always already here.

I was Awake and full of Clarity in those early episodes, just as I am now. Even then, and forever before then, I was What I am now. And it is clear to me that I have always operated on the basis of a few fundamental perceptions, and these have structured all of my life.

Character is built through experience, through the accumulations of one’s use of certain given options in the humanly-born conscious awareness.

Disturbances of the personality, which form so much of the data of clinical observations, are not the results of a given disorder in one’s Real (or Ultimate) Nature. Rather, they are the result of a misuse (and unconsciousness) of the options associated with the humanly-born (or conditional) conscious awareness.

Therefore, it was clear to me from the beginning of this lifetime (and, over time, it was repeatedly reconfirmed) that true healing (or the establishment of the capability necessary for free, “creative” life) is not a matter of concentration on memory, the past, or the history of the functional personality, good or bad—but it is (rather) a matter of understanding the fundamental and present activity of the humanly-born conscious awareness and making right conscious and intentional use of one’s living options. Whenever I have turned from the True Center of present-time life-consciousness to one or another kind of seeking motivated in the desires of my complex life, I have been brought to the same recognition: The search is suffering.

In the hours of waiting for death, I was not Awake as the “Bright”, the Full Presence of my Being. I was separate from the “Bright”, and saw all Love and Light and Freedom of Being as utterly above, apart from me and this world. Only too late, it seemed to me then, did the shock of what I awaited draw me into that Fullness again. And I saw that Reality was always already (and, therefore, always presently) Full, and that to seek that Fullness in the symbolic state I was awaiting was to abandon (or to not presume and Enjoy) that always present Fullness in the actual present moment.

It was my simple (human and Ultimate) State, Prior to even any experience. It was not mysterious or awesome to me. There was no shadow, nothing hidden in It. It was not motivated to seek any end at all. There was no “beyond”, no “outside”, no “Other”. It had no sense of time. Nor had It yet begun to feel any kind of confusion or identity with existence as separated personality and problematic experience. It was the Center of the life-functions, but without dilemma or unconsciousness. There were no divisions in It. Radiant Spiritual Energy was Communicated within It, and, thus, in and via the entire body-mind. There was Joy in the body, a Luminous cell-life, a constant respiration and circulation of Love-Bliss-Energy and unlimited, boundless Pleasure. There was a Spiritual Current of Energy in the heart that rose into the head through the throat.

And that formless, spaceless Form of Consciousness was “Bright”, Silent, Full—Knowing only and entirely this Condition, this Reality, and seeing no problem, no separation, in the fact of life.

It is only that life is not lived as Real Consciousness.

When such confusions of identity overwhelm and distract one into some division of the living structure of Reality, one is moved to great seeking in the alternatives of life. Every course that is not simply the demonstration of Real Consciousness, direct and present, is a schism in one’s living form.

CHAPTER TWO   The Listener   My earliest years were gratuitous, a free enjoyment whose wisdom was unearned. This is true of all human beings, but many people learn suffering very soon, and so even the given becomes a matter of problems and of seeking. Beyond my tenth year, I was more often solemn, and even ordinary humor became more an act of “creation”. I turned from mostly pleasure to listening.

I would find some bit of business to do on the altar, to turn away and bury my laughter in the wall!

However, even as I spoke, there was no particular sorrow in me or sense of loss. I was mostly aware of the living who were present.

It was about always keeping love in the present time, and not relinquishing that love in the present in order to seek it elsewhere, even among the dead. And I wanted to Communicate that life-truth with an overwhelmingly “Bright” effectiveness.

The next phase of my life is the real beginning of listening for me. At the end of my high school years, I was utterly free from any kind of superficial idealism or any need to achieve ordinary human excellence. I was profoundly serious and also profoundly undisciplined. I aligned myself exclusively with my own internal states. Where there was desire, I indulged it. Where there was interest, I followed it. I was totally renegade in my holding to life, for I felt on the brink of Knowledge, of Reality, of brilliant Discovery. Of course, no one who lives disarmed in this manner is free of delusions or suffering, and I was about to begin a long period of most awesome and painful suffering. But I was alarmingly free to follow the thread of my own life-consciousness.

I no longer possessed the unearned Joy and Clarity of my boyhood. I had seen the world and ceased to be innocent. I had even begun to enjoy my own lack of innocence, and my own forbidden pleasures.

The inner resources of True Humor became strangely entangled with others and the world. Therefore, I avoided no “sin” at all. And, yet, I remained concentrated in the image and person of Jesus—as if, when I would Know his “Secret” utterly, it would freely convert me and purify all of my estrangement. Thus, I did not fear my “sinfulness” any more than I feared to eat the wafers and the wine in secret.

I became more and more self-indulgent, and, thereby, began a pattern of self-exploitation that was to persist for many years. I began to gain excess weight, to indulge myself sexually, and to assert myself beyond anyone’s ability to limit or control me. Nevertheless, within me I was fully aware of this play of Scorpio. Therefore, I did not adopt “sin” as a way of life, but as a way of Knowing life.

I became submitted to an inner drive to utterly experience the heart of the human dilemma, the very essence of human suffering.

It was an actual, conscious decision I made at that time.

CHAPTER THREE   Hearing

There is no such thing as anyone’s “autobiography”. The events of experience do not, when recollected, synthesize themselves into an exact history, or even an exact person. Ordinary experience does not, over time, become a “something”.

Thus, one conceives of oneself as a “someone” by means of the device of partial contemplation.

There is no emphasis, and no design, in the whole. No particular and separate thing stands out at the point of Totality. Therefore, the more deeply and completely one experiences the recollection of one’s ordinary life, the more arbitrary every mark becomes.

Rather, they are Events that Communicate (or cease to hide) Reality. And these Events are the genuine subject of my “autobiography”. They are the Events in my early life that uniquely and fully demonstrate what I refer to as “True Humor”.

Therefore, those Events reveal the Truth of Who I am—Which, ultimately, is the Truth and Identity of every one and all.

When I was a little boy, the “Bright” was my constant Knowledge of Reality. But the more tentative I became about Reality, the more I felt myself to be separate from Reality, and (therefore) one who “listens” to Reality, and even one who seeks Reality. And the more I became a “listener”, and then a seeker, the more the Knowledge of Reality became an Occasion, an overwhelming Event, an Enlightenment.

They are not institutions of Truth. They are marketplaces of doubt.

In that thesis, the human being is described as necessarily mortal, functionally conditioned, and (at best) “creative” as a social animal. Also, the universe is described as materially prior to conscious life, and it is chronically understood without recourse to religious or Spiritual propositions. Every book I read and every course I took emphasized this thesis in some unique fashion. This experience very quickly destroyed even the latent image of Jesus that I had stored up in childhood.

Indeed, in that trouble, he, being but a symbol in my own mind, was a fundamental means whereby the “Bright” was concealed and withheld from me.

My doubt grew overnight into awesome fear. I felt as if I were living under the threat of death. Life, it seemed to me, was only dying and afraid. I had not a single reason for Joy. I found no faith, no inexplicable grace. I saw only the constant drove of merely “civilized” humanity, a long history of illusions sewn up in the single foundation of a muscular mortality. There was only death, a constant ending, a rising fear, a motivated forgetfulness and escape.

Then I understood the root of conflict in my parents and the necessity for illusions, for exotic pleasures, for relief and distraction.

I decided that I would unreservedly exploit every possibility for experience. I would avail myself of every possible human experience, so that nothing possible to mankind, high or low, would be unknown to me. This decision became very clear to me one night at a party. I knew that no other possibility was open to me but that of exhaustive experience. There appeared to be no single experience or authority that was simply True. And I thought, “If God exists, God will not cease to exist by any action of my own—but, if I devote myself to all possible experience, God will (necessarily) find some way (in some particular experience or some complex of experiences, or by virtue of my openness itself) to be revealed to me.”

No experience posed a barrier to me. There were no taboos, no extremes to be prevented. There was no depth of madness and no limit of suffering that my philosophy could prevent—for, if it did, I would be liable to miss the Lesson of Reality. Thus, I extended myself even beyond my own fear. And my pleasures also became extreme, such that there was a constant machine of ecstasy. I could tolerate no mediocrity, no medium experience. I was satisfied neither with atheism nor with belief. Both seemed to me mere ideas, possible reactions to a more fundamental (if unconscious) fact. I sought Reality, to be Reality—What is, not what is asserted in the face of What is.

A continuous argument of internal contemplation began to move in me, such that I was always intensely pursuing an internal logic, distracted or enlarged at times by some idea or experience in my education.

My impulses were exploitable only in secret extensions of my own humanly-born conscious awareness, or in the company of whores, libertines, and misfits.

He could see that I lived only abandoned to adventure, and there was no apparent purpose in me. I told him that I wanted to save the world. And I was absolutely serious. That remark totally expressed all of my reasons.

The rising impulse caused me to stand, and I felt a surge of Force draw up out of my depths and expand, Filling my entire body and every level of my humanly-born conscious awareness with wave on wave of the most Beautiful and Joyous Energy. I felt absolutely mad, but the madness was not of a desperate kind. There was no seeking and no dilemma within it, no question—no unfulfilled motive, not a single object or presence outside myself.

I felt that, even if I were to meet a friend, I would be unable to express myself, but my words would only be a kind of uncontrolled poetry of babbling.

As you will see, it marked the rising in me of fundamental and unqualified Life, and it, in its moment, removed every shadow of dilemma and ignorance from the mind, on every level, and all its effects in the body. But I would have to pass through many years of trial before my understanding of that Event became thoroughly established as the constant and truly effective premise of my living being

My seeking had been motivated by the loss of faith, the loss of the “Christ”-object and other such reasons for Joy. But, in that great moment of Awakening, I Knew the Truth was not a matter of seeking. There were no “reasons” for Joy and Freedom. It was not a matter of a truth, an object, a concept, a belief, a reason, a motivation, or any external fact. Indeed, it was clear that all such objects are grasped in a state that is already seeking and which has already lost the prior sense of absolutely unqualified Reality. Instead, I saw that the Truth or Reality was a matter of the absence of all contradictions, of every trace of conflict, opposition, division, or desperate motivation within. Where there is no seeking, no contradiction, there is only the unqualified Knowledge and Power that is Reality. This was the first aspect of that sudden Clarity. In this State beyond all contradiction, I also saw that Freedom and Joy is not attained, that It is not dependent on any form, object, idea, progress, or experience. I saw that human beings (and, indeed, all beings) are, at any moment, always and already Free.

There were no “reasons” for Joy and Freedom. It was not a matter of a truth, an object, a concept, a belief, a reason, a motivation, or any external fact. Indeed, it was clear that all such objects are grasped in a state that is already seeking and which has already lost the prior sense of absolutely unqualified Reality. Instead, I saw that the Truth or Reality was a matter of the absence of all contradictions, of every trace of conflict, opposition, division, or desperate motivation within. Where there is no seeking, no contradiction, there is only the unqualified Knowledge and Power that is Reality. This was the first aspect of that sudden Clarity.

The problem was the seeking itself, which “created” and enforced contradiction, conflict, and absence within. Then the understanding arose that I am always already Free. This was the second aspect of that fundamental Awareness.

Now I Knew there was no entity of Truth, and perfect Freedom was always already the case. Freedom exists as life—not when Freedom is “created” or sought, but where there is this fundamental understanding. In that moment of understanding, I had simply turned out of the context of my presumed dilemma. I was possessed of the mature cognition of the “Bright”.

I could not establish that Realization as the “creative” premise of my existence. I was simply not that strong. And the habits of mind and body that I had built by years of self-exploitation persisted as consoling means of pleasure, such that I remained rather sedentary and reflective. I did not overcome the gravity of mind that I had achieved as a result of my presumed dilemma and my manner of living. And I naturally adapted to a basic misinterpretation of my experience. I retained something of the attitude of the seeker. Whereas previously I continually pursued some kind of “objective” Truth (whether internal or external), now I sought the removal of contradictions, of the parts of conflict, ignorance, or impurity, by various internal means.

I did not realize that this understanding, this Knowledge, is Itself the removal of contradictions and the instant, moment to moment purifier of the mind and life.

I saw the State of Knowledge or understanding to be in some sense caused by the practical removal of the impurities or contradictions in the mind and life.

(and the consequent identification with the one who is not yet perfectly Free, not yet Real and True)

The burden of these considerations made me feel that I had even lost the Truth that I had Realized. I began to pursue It again through endless writing and search. I remained addicted to my mediocre pleasures and sought through them the means of purification and release.

CHAPTER FOUR   The Seeker

Marco had some raw peyote, and we decided to take the drug, although neither of us had any idea what its effects would be. In the past months, I had used marijuana a few times and found it very enjoyable and relaxing. And so I willingly accepted a chance for some kind of very powerful “high”.

We both caught on to the same feeling at once. There was a serenely blissful pleasure in the body, the senses were all alive, and everything appeared to pulse visibly with an internal light. The mind had no weight at all, and its usual logic was undone, such that the only impulse was laughter and pleasure.

The extraordinary feeling and energy of the experience appeared to simulate (even though it did not truly duplicate) the moments of greatest ecstasy and sudden Freedom I had Known in my life.

We watched the film Touch of Evil, shown at the museum that day, and constantly laughed so hard we were nearly thrown out. Then there was the orgy of food and girls until we passed out late in the night.

Since that time, I have traveled many places in the world, but, for me, the areas of northern California—with the incredible mountains and forests of Yosemite, the dramatic coastline of Big Sur, and the beautiful city of San Francisco—remain equal to the most glorious physical environments on the earth.

I felt that the truly “creative” movements that led up to and included this time were generated in the form of a new subjective order of consciousness that needed to be tapped, experienced, and then expanded into a communicative external order. As I continued to write, I allowed my work to become more and more freely this intention, this utterly unqualified internal rule.

I have never admitted any compromise to the process of my own conscious and “creative” development. After all, I was not at work for the sake of making a living or even for the entertainment of others. Rather, I was always at work on the same thing, the experimental investigation of conscious life for the sake of its unfolding, revelation, and eventual solution or Realization. Now I saw my writing as the possible and necessary instrument for removing internal contradictions, for establishing the Spiritually “Bright” Condition of Consciousness (or Conscious Light) Itself. Consequently, in the final months of my year at Stanford, I gave up all attempts to “create” short stories in the acceptable manner of the workshop, and I began to write in earnest, for my own sake.

I combined the internal work of listening with the activity of writing. Therefore, the plan of my work as a writer was to remain actively attentive to the movement of my life on every level, to an exhaustive degree.

But when I arrived at my parents’ home, I immediately felt the signs of old conflicts. I had still failed to found myself in any kind of practical and productive work, and I am sure this disturbed them. I wanted to be able to write according to my lights, and this required the solitude of a positively safe and undisturbed environment.

I sought the removal of internal contradictions, or the removal of the “opposites”, the mutual alternatives that enforce the kinds of experience, the patterns of seeking and of conflict. During this period, I pursued

To this end, the new or ancient hallucinogenic drugs seemed profoundly useful and promising. In the midst of my year at Stanford, I had occasion to use marijuana again. And I took a formula cough medicine called “Romilar” that had very remarkable effects if taken in large doses.

The State of my humanly-born conscious awareness at those times was infinitely Peaceful, Enjoying a profound and untouchable Pleasure and Freedom, and a Clarity that never wavered under any influence within or without. The mind itself was positively thoughtless, and the physical body enjoyed a deep, cellular calm and mutability—such that there was profound physical pleasure in placing it in almost any position.

There was no problem, no question, no answer, but only the most unqualified and direct perception, and the dwelling as primary and unseparated Conscious Awareness. There was only the inherent, constant, and universal Presence of Reality. That State felt (or tacitly authenticated Itself as) True, even though It had been artificially induced.

It was on the basis of such self-validating experiences that I openly desired to experience the effects of the “new” drugs—LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin. And so, just before Nina’s return, and for several weeks thereafter, I voluntarily submitted to drug trials at the Veterans Administration hospital in Palo Alto, California.

There was an intervening (and learned) force (or structure) in the life-process which made the Original Condition (Prior to all dilemma) seem to disappear, in a fragmentary and problematic state of mentality and experience. There is a long tradition, in the East and the West, of the use of certain herbs and drugs in order to effect a temporary removal of this intervening state (which limits Free Conscious Awareness).

Of course, there is a limitation to such “wisdom”. It is conceived and promoted in the problematic state itself. Its platform is, to that degree, desperate.

rose from the heart through the throat, up the back of the head, and through the internal centers of the head, and culminated in what appeared to be a massive dome in the crown of the head.

I had a thought that was the verbal equivalent and symbol for the entire Event: “Getting to cry is shaped like a seahorse.”

It was the Awakening, as from a stupor or sleep, of the latent “serpent” of Energy that is (otherwise) habitually turned outward to the various physical organs and the centers of vital experience. Thus, the Kundalini Shakti was opened inwardly and upwardly, and the humanly-born conscious awareness was turned to its own internal form.

The result in me of this profound Awakening was an uncontrollable emotion, even the sorrow of conscious birth.

The “Thumbs” were not visible in the ordinary sense. I did not see them then or even as a child. They were not visible to me with my eyes, nor did I hallucinate them pictorially. Yet, I very consciously experienced and felt them as having a peculiar form and mobility, just as I (likewise) consciously experienced my own otherwise invisible and greater form.

I held it off from its fullest descent, in fear of being overwhelmed—for I did not understand at all what was taking place.

On several occasions, I felt as if the body had risen above the ground somewhat—and this is, perhaps, the basis for certain evidence in mystical literature of the phenomenon of levitation (or bodily transport).

There was a strong reversal of polarity, communicated along a line of Force analogous to the spine.

When this reversal of Energy was allowed to take place completely, I resided in a totally different body, which also contained the physical body. It was spherical in shape. And the sensation of dwelling as that form was completely peaceful.

I was to learn that this spherical body was what Yogis and occultists call the “subtle” body, which includes the “pranic” (or natural life-energy) dimension and the “astral” (or the lower mental and the higher mental) dimensions of the living being.

As always, I found seclusion to be extremely vital, productive, and “creatively” necessary for my own kind of progress.

My method of writing was not one of any kind of intentional production. The writing of this present book, for instance, is a very intentional process. It involves a deliberate plan of productivity, the gathering of various notes and sources, chronological recollection, and so on. I write very deliberately and almost continually for eight hours or more each day. However, in those days, my method of writing was deliberately “unproductive”. My intention was not to write a particular narrative I had preconceived. Rather, I deliberately and very intensively focused in the mind itself. And, as a result of several years of experiment in this direction, I remained focused there without effort—almost continuously, regardless of my peculiar external involvement.

That was also a point at which I often concentrated in the “Bright”. It is a point deep within the head, but it monitors all the levels of functional consciousness—the physical body and the experiences of the sense organs, the vital centers in the lower body, the great center of being and Energy in the heart, the peculiar order of subliminal imagery that moves out of the “creative” center analogous to the throat, and all of the passing perceptions (the images, ideas, sensations, forms, memories,

and superconscious communications) that are generated in the parts of the head. In those days, I spent all of my time concentrated in this observing function. I carried a clipboard with me wherever I went. And I would write whatever perceptions were generated in my humanly-born conscious awareness. I attempted to make this writing exhaustive, so that not a single thought, image, or experience would pass unrecognized. The act of writing seemed necessary to the act of becoming conscious itself. What I did not write seemed to pass away again into unconsciousness, perhaps to remain trapped there and provide matter for the hidden, unconscious form that bounded my humanly-born conscious awareness and prevented the “Bright”.

I would often write late into the night, or I would awaken many times from sleep to record dreams and ideas. The same process went on during sleep, such that I remained conscious even during dreams or deep dreamless sleep.

I would often exploit the possibilities of sex, or become deeply drunk on wine, engage in orgies of eating, or smoke marijuana for long hours. I became intensely sensitized to every movement in my humanly-born conscious awareness. I perceived every event in the world as well, with an almost painful absorption. Every creature or environment I perceived became a matter of profound attention. I would write page after page of exhaustive observation on every step of a walk on the beach, or the daylong process and change of the ocean.

Eventually, I came to the point of exhausting that exercise. The simultaneity, coincidence, and oneness of “inside” and “outside” became utterly obvious to me. My living awareness was uniquely and extremely intense, and inclusive of everything (both inside and outside the body-mind), such that I felt there was no remaining power of distraction in anything. As a result, I was utterly focused on the yet hidden depth

As I approached that point of inclusive awareness, focused in depth, the form of my writing also began to bear fruit. My concentration, as I said, was not purposive. It was not in order to “create” something intentionally on the basis of what was preconceived in the mind. But I was always looking and listening for that very and most fundamental structure in my humanly-born conscious awareness which is prior to ordinary experience. I was waiting for the revelation of the hidden content of the mind. Not some sort of “primitive event”, no memory in the Freudian style or some symbolic perception which informs the content of Jungian types of introspection. These came and went. But I was attentive to the underlying structure of my humanly-born conscious awareness—to the seed-logic, or myth, that prevented the “Bright”.

There were the emotional and scatological memories of childhood, and the moments of conflict in life that underlay persistent anxieties, preferences, and chronic patterns. There were also times when I saw and learned the workings of psychic planes and subtler worlds. I remember once, for a period of days, I perceived a world that appeared to survive in our moon. It was a super-physical (or astral) world, where beings were sent off to birth on the earth (or in other worlds)—and then their bodies…

But my attention could not settle in any particular impression or event. I was always driven more deeply into the underlying structure, and so I always remained focused in…

My own “myth”—the governor of all patterns, the source of presumed self-identity, the motivator of all seeking—began to stand out in the mind as a living being. This “myth”, this controlling logic (or force) that structured and limited my humanly-born conscious awareness, revealed itself as the self-concept—and the actual life—of Narcissus. I saw that my entire adventure—the desperate cycle of Awakeness and its decrease, of truly Conscious Being and Its gradual covering in the mechanics of living, seeking, dying, and suffering—was produced out of the image (or mentality) that appears hidden in the ancient myth of Narcissus. The more I contemplated him, the more profoundly I understood him. I observed, in awe, the primitive control that this self-concept and logic exercised over all of my behavior and experience. I began to see that same logic operative in all other human beings, and in every living thing—even in the very life of the cells, and in the natural energies that surround every living entity or process. It was the logic (or process) of separation itself, of…

informed every function of the living being, every experience, every act, every event. It “created” every “mystery”. It was the structure of every imbecile link in the history of human suffering.

What was before only an arbitrary string of memories, images, and perceptions, leading toward an underlying logic, now proceeded from the heart of that logic itself—such that my perceptions and my thoughts began to develop (from hour to hour) as a narrative, completely beyond any intention or plan of my external mind. I found that, when I merely observed the content of my experience or my mind…

The quality of the entire unfolding has the touch of madness in it. But people are mad. The ordinary state of human existence—although it is usually kept intact and relatively calmed by the politics of society—is founded in the madness of a prior logic, a schism in Reality that promotes the entire suffering adventure of human lives in endless and cosmic obstacles. I have known since I was a boy that this round of conflict, of contradiction and unconsciousness, was neither natural nor ultimately Real. And the total and guiding Purpose of my life has…

society—is founded in the madness of a prior logic, a schism in Reality that promotes the entire suffering adventure of human lives in endless and cosmic obstacles.

Thus, in order to learn this “Thing”, I had to endure the progress of my own “madness”. I had to observe the madman himself and undermine him with my Knowledge. This “madness”, however, is not merely unfortunate, irrational, and disruptive. It is required of all those who would pass into Real Existence, beyond fear and egoic ignorance. And, in the process, one experiences remarkable revelations, and…

The people, the passing events, the dramatization of my own motives, and all the imagery and categories of my thought appeared to be generating a conceived pattern. And I knew that my own life was moving toward the very death of Narcissus.

I was not utterly afraid even of the death of Narcissus, which was now my own death. I knew that no matter how terrible the event in terms of physical and mental and emotional suffering, it was not, in fact, the death of anything identical to my own Real Being.

I knew then that all human suffering and all human deaths are endured only in the concepts, functions, and mentality that are guided by the unconscious logic of Narcissus.

As it happened, that “death” did occur very dramatically three years later. But necessary transformations in my state of life had to occur before it would be possible. This point in my narrative brings us to the spring of 1964.

Peculiar events of a transformative kind have always naturally occurred to me in the springtime of the year—just as, also, the transitional period of autumn (moving into winter) has usually, for me, been a time of interiorization, often of a difficult kind.

The first baby, whose face was like a fist, and whose body I now inhabited, was the source or controlling entity. The other two were dual aspects of my living being.

The one boy was very bright, energetic, attractive, and youthful. The other was “dark”. His life-energy was heavier, and he had less mobility, physical and mental. I noticed the cords of phlegm at my feet as I moved forward and carelessly stepped on them. The act of stepping on the cords was both voluntary and involuntary, such that I felt both aggressive and guilty (or trapped). I thought perhaps the boys would die if I stepped on the cords and broke them, but I also desired to be free of the gag in my throat and the immobility our attachment required of me.

Those years had been filled with awesome fear and doubt, as well as great intensity and (for me) worthwhile endeavor. Now a feeling of wholeness and well-being rose in the center of me, and I felt a peculiar relief in the wake of this dream. This change in me apparently set the stage for a remarkable discovery.

particular, I turned to some chapters from The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche.

It may be worth our while to examine more closely, from this point of view, certain experiences which seem to indicate the existence of psychic processes in what are commonly held to be unconscious states.

seems apathetic, “in a trance,” and not conscious of anything. Subjectively, however, consciousness is by no means extinguished.

During levitation the mood is predominantly euphoric. “‘Buoyant, solemn, heavenly, serene, relaxed, blissful, expectant, exciting’ are the words used to describe it… There are various kinds of ‘ascension experiences.’”

It was as if the entire mass of heart-depressive ideas and assumptions (in works like The Lost Years of Jesus Revealed) that I began to adopt years before had been lifted away in a single moment.

felt that I could begin the practical investigation of the miraculous and Spiritual phenomena that, up to now, had seemed impossible.

All in all, this passage in Jung signified in me a liberation from mortal philosophy and all bondage to the form of death.

He indicated that such experiences could be attained, consciously and intentionally, by a kind of scientific method.

But at least it was all an emotional symbol that did much to enlarge my ordinary humor and extend my growing impulses to Real experience.

The recognition of the coincidence between consciousness and external experience began to develop into a comfortable ability, such that I began to make use of the images that passed (in a seemingly arbitrary succession) through the mind. I saw that many of these images were signs of precognition.

CHAPTER SIX   The Passage to the Guru

I stood on the cliff, the morning was clear and shining, and the air was that kind that makes one go “Ah!” inside with relief and Joy, and make a big breath of ease, like on vacation.

How can I describe what kind of storm it was? It was a Divine storm, a revelation of Truth, a transformative Blessing, a Spiritual Initiation! It was the most magnificent thing I had ever seen. It was a tangible Divine Vision. It was the “Bright”, outside me. How many were the countless bolts of lightning? The lights in that great vast dome were like the millions and millions of lightnings of the little nerve filaments in the center of the brain, the Corona Radiata. The storm was all lights, and waters. It was the most shocking, torrential drenching of the earth I had ever seen. And it was enormously, blowing loud! The thunder was so loud it shook the sea and quaked the ground, everywhere, and deep to the core—rolling and churning, even under my feet, and all over my body, as if to crack the atoms of all that seemed and end the infinitely fragile world. And the water flew from everywhere—Washing me, Waking me, Shouting me, “Brightening” me to my Life to come.

absolute devotion to this practice of listening, such that I had never before required a Guru to teach me in the formal and traditional manner. Indeed, I did not even know what a “Guru” was until these last days.

He was such a strong animal presence, with an economy and grace that made the idiot brand of human living seem so unconscious and confused.

We watched them constantly in the sheer pleasure of seeing life lived as an instinctive perfection. Their solutions to the hour by hour confrontations that humanity tends to bypass or escape were an example to us of unproblematic existence.

He loved and tended them both completely and without conflict, such that he appeared to me a master of domestic peace—even a model of sanity and strength to human householders, who always seem unable to solve the problems caused by their traditional and conceptual monogamy.

Robert himself was nothing less to me than my best friend and mentor. He was more—not less—than human to me. I watched him with fascination. I followed him through woods and watched him hunt. I tried to understand his curious avoidance of the sea, and how he could sit on the cliff above the sea, watching the evening sun, and the wind blowing his hairs heroically about his head. The mystery of his pattern of living, his ease and justice, the economy of all his means, the untouchable absence of all anxiety, the sudden and adequate power he brought to every circumstance without exceeding the intensity required—all of his ways seemed to me an epitome of the genius of life. And he communicated with me so directly that I was always disarmed. He would call me when he returned in the evening. He would touch me whenever he needed my presence. He would lie with me as if with conscious intention to console me with his living presence. And I loved him as deeply as the universe itself.

The news of it came to one who bore the knowledge of death—such that, when it came, there was no movement in me toward any other place. There was only the incomparable sorrow of a broken span of living. There was only the absence of that dear one. His mortality appeared in a world whose livingness I had come to know as far exceeding the image and power of death. But, in spite of all the Sphere of living Energy that I Knew informed the world and was its Truth, there remained the fact of this end, this disappearance, this sorrow-laden implication of Truth within the Blissful Void.

I felt particularly drawn to these more oriental teachers, whose course or intention was liberation, or an ultimate fulfillment of a most profound and (perhaps) even miraculous kind, free of the dogmatic limitations and unrevealing symbolisms of merely exoteric religion.

Nevertheless, the philosophically described One Truth that is the True (or non-egoic) Self-Condition and Source-Condition, the One and non-dual Reality, the unqualified Divine, or the Nirvanic Absolute that includes all things, was, for me, the ultimate traditional description of Real God, and Truth, and Reality—and, from my point of view, the traditions of Vedanta and Buddhism even epitomized that description.

I saw that What I called the “Bright” was the fundamental (and inherently Spiritual) Consciousness in Which the entire chakra-body is aroused, and functionally open to the proceedings of the Divine Shakti (or Spirit-Energy, or Primary Light). Likewise, I understood that the experience associated with my college Awakening was a sudden and profound Manifestation of the Divine Shakti—the Conscious Spirit-Energy that, from the ordinary point of view, appears as mortal ego-consciousness, but Which, rightly engaged, leads back to the Divine Self (or Siva), Who is eternally Calm. I knew that my own course of life, and the meaning of all life, was in this process of Siva-Shakti, the endless “Bright” unfolding of humanly-born conscious awareness and experience, and its consistent foundation in (and, most ultimately, its most perfect Realization of) the Pure, Spiritually “Bright” Infinity of unqualified, Transcendental Being. Thus, I expected to be guided by the “Bright” Itself—and, thus and thereby, to a teacher (or perhaps even a sequence of teachers) who would lead me further and further into a conscious, direct, and regulated revelation of this same “Bright” process.

The typical motive of the oriental teachings was in the direction of an absolute liberation from all forms of experience and life-consciousness.

On the other hand, the teachings of Christianity, of Western occultism, and of such Eastern saints as Aurobindo indicated a course whose goal was in life—or, at least, not fundamentally opposed to life. They drew on the ultimate conclusion of all the scriptures, which variously state that “this is God’s plan and creation”, or “this is That”, or “Nirvana and samsara are the same”,16 or “there is only One, without a second”. They proposed a sacrificial practice of surrender and reception, wherein life is moved toward a perfect vision or evolution.

And, though I greatly desired the incomparable Peace of Ultimate Knowledge, I also tended to sympathize with this latter path of Realization and “creativity”, whose purposes are a Divine life rather than a pure separation into Absoluteness.

Rather, I lived normally, according to the particular requirements of each day—but, as I went about the city in the midst of my daily course, I was also attentive and ready for signs of the store I had seen in visions.

However, I also felt that any intentional outward seeking for the place would likely only prevent the spontaneous discovery of it, which depended on an inner availability and sensitivity and spontaneity.

I was quite confused by all of this. The new way of life seemed to require a kind of purity and enforced morality that was unknown to me or my cats. I began to doubt my old way of life. The kind of self-exploitation by which I lived and wrote began to seem immoral. I thought that, perhaps, it only “created” obstacles to the attainment of what I would now possess.

I became overwhelmed with my lack of discipline. I had rarely worked for a living in my life. I had never really supported myself or anyone else. I was a libertine, a drinker, a drug user, a useless and impractical dreamer, a passionate madman!

There was an aura of feeling and light surrounding the store, as if all of these sublime entities had gathered to generate a center of Force for any who were ready to recognize

She immediately displayed every insincere mannerism and manipulative sales technique I had ever seen exhibited by a New York shopkeeper.

And there were undeniable, obvious signs of Spiritual Power and Presence generated bodily by both men.

CHAPTER SEVEN   The Meeting and the “Work”   The long night of almost sleepless excitement that passed until the next day was to be the last night of my undisciplined search in the wilderness of my youth. From the next day, the day of meeting with my teacher, I would be unable to live as liberally as before. The doubts I had formed about my lack of discipline would be consummated in the will of my teacher.

I walked to the store with the same excitement in which I used to follow a whore. I went to grasp all the miracles hidden in the secret parts of this mystery.

I supposed that he was alone, and I crossed the street—filled with embarrassment and expectation, self-consciousness and anxiety.

A current of very strong Energy was rising up my arm from my right hand, the hand Rudi had made such a point to shake when I arrived and as I left. As I became aware of this Energy, It quickly passed into the rest of my body and Filled me with a profound and thrilling Fullness. My heart strained in a vibrant Joy, and my head felt swollen, as if my mind were an “aura” that extended out from my skull by several inches. As I walked, I began to run. I felt on fire with a Joyous Energy, and I had become incredibly light!

I began to think about the writings of Aurobindo, and how he justified “creative” work—even writing and other forms of art—as a usable (and even necessary) means for Spiritual opening. And, even if I did get a job, should I continue to write? And what about all of my other habits? What does this teacher think about drugs, and sex? Should I leave Nina? Do I have to become a vegetarian?

As it happened, this pattern of offense and testing was to be the basic form of my life-experience with Rudi over the coming years.

His one answer to all of my questions was “work”. Discipline and effort are necessary to provide an instrument that can contain this “Force”. It is not necessary to give up sex or life or go on any special diet. Only work, be intelligent with these things, take proper care of yourself.

Thus, his teaching required a drastic turning of my attention outward. Work, love Nina, become more loving. Your life with Nina is your Yoga.

Rudi’s attention was constantly directed toward someone or something. There was rarely any stillness around him, and this was another characteristic that was unexpected. There was no kind of distant, mystical, airy mood of quiet, none of the usual “Spiritual” atmosphere peculiar to churches and religious or Spiritual books. There was a constant activity that was even annoying at times.

His conversation was a constant stream of strongly communicated moods—alternating between talk of Spiritual life, his experiences in India, his Spiritual experience and visions, and the perpetual absorption in business. For Rudi, life and work were Yoga. His business was his principal Yoga. And, if you did not know or accept this about him, you could become angry at what appeared to be his perpetual concern with business and the store.

Even if I stopped by to say hello at the house, he would hand me a bag of garbage to take to the corner. And if I dropped by the store casually, I might be asked to go home and change clothes, and then come back and wash the floor. This “dharma” of work awakened tremendous resistance in me, and in most of Rudi’s other students.

hoping he would be in the mood to let us sit and entertain us with stories of miracles and all of the glory we were going to gain in the future by the aid of the “Force”. The more we suffered, the more we communicated our resistance and discomfort, the more he would tell us to surrender. He said that we should “be like smoke”. You can cut through smoke with a knife, but it is not disturbed.

Work forced us to encounter resistance and obstacles in ourselves—and perseverance in work gradually wore away resistance and brought about a state of openness, or surrender.

He often said that work was endless and always generated more work—such that life was pictured as a fruitful effort in constant relation to the “Force” that had no other goal than continual growth.

teaching. I had even shaved and gotten a haircut. I paid more attention to discipline and cleanliness. I had even stopped using marijuana to relax. And, in general, I had turned the self-involved habits of solitude into a more communicative and socialized life.

I was simply to sit comfortably and relax and try to open myself (or surrender) to the Force. If I felt the Force enter me, I should simply relax more and allow It to go down through the chest and belly into the sex organs. When It got there, I should relax at the base of the spine and let It travel upwards to the head. If I wanted, I could silently say “So” with each inhalation and “Ham” with each exhalation. “So-Ham” could mean “I am That”, or “I am the Force (or God)”—whichever concept was meaningful to me.

Sometimes, as he spoke of these things in class, he would also recommend that we feel a part of ourselves going way out into space, beyond all the universes.

In addition to class, we were to spend up to an hour a day at home doing the same exercise. But we should not spend more than an hour a day at meditation. More than that, he warned, only produces illusions. Meditation was to be a “creative” exercise—to awaken capability, not to produce effects like quietness. Apart from the exercise, we should only work and live intelligently.

Or else he would describe some experiences of the Force that he was having. He would often have visions of opening lotuses, fantastic creatures, other worlds, or his teachers.

He would often tell us not to close our eyes unless there was a very strong impulse from the Force to do so.

But there were many times when I felt unable to so much as touch the resistance in myself. Indeed, the more I tried to surrender, the more the resistance grew. The activity of the mind also fluctuated in this same manner. I began to acquire a certain anxiety and frustration about my own limitations, and I would often go to Rudi desperately demanding some kind of help to remove the obstacles in my life. But there was only a sort of ordinary chiding humor to ease me up, and then the admonition to more work and deeper surrender.

The more you try to do it, the more obstacles arise. There is probably no more confounding and frustrating admonition than the simple order to relax. And one of the greatest Lessons I would learn from all my years of Spiritual effort was that Spiritual seeking not only reinforces (and intensifies the experience of) the very things it seeks to remove, but it is (for that very reason) founded in the same mechanisms and motives that are one’s problems and suffering.

He compared it to “tearing your guts out”. I found that my life was becoming a terrible ordeal of surrender, and the depth of my work never satisfied him. He worked on me by frustrating me and minimizing my efforts or accomplishments—and this combined with the Yogic Force Itself, such that, most of the time, I was in a literal fever, with extreme heat…

And when I would examine the littleness of my depth, I would become…

I was burdened with the need for an impossible purification and…

This surrender was not merely a physical opening or relaxation of the nervous system. Nor was it simply a purifying and disciplining of life. It was a profound internal opening in every part. Rudi sometimes said we should concentrate on surrendering three things: self-pity, negativity, and self-imagery.…

Rudi claimed to have had visitations from certain “Tibetans” when a little boy. They told him his life would be very difficult, but it would bring him to a very high State. They…

Nevertheless, regardless of his growing “success”, every step of his life appeared (at least to him) to require almost absolute sacrifices and “work” on his part. He constantly described himself as a poor Jewish boy whose father abandoned him and his mother when he was young. His mother apparently treated him to huge doses of violent physical abuse, for whatever reasons, and…

In him, all the passions of self-indulgence were active—and he would often say that, when he indulged them, he had to pay a terrible price to regain himself. Thus, he was not an example of religiously motivated purity. Even so, he recommended to his students that…

But he was also more complicated than the traditional Indian saint, and he was hearty enough to accept the psychology of the expansive, devouring fat man as part of the structure of his life.

Years later, when I was in India, a man told me that many gossiped about Rudi’s unascetic tendencies, but that, when he arrived, they all would go to him to get “charged up” by his Presence.

of human and Yogic demonstration. It was only that I gradually began to understand that his characteristic emphasis on “effort, work, and surrender”, for the sake of growth in life—and even to the exclusion of any higher or ultimate philosophy or aspiration—was a distinct characteristic of his peculiar need, tendency, and life-experience.

But, for myself, such a “machine” of effort, once it had achieved its earliest benefits in my general human well-being, began only to reveal its own ego-reinforcing limitations, its fundamental bondage to only rather gross aspirations, and its fruitlessness relative to Ultimate (or truly Divine) Realization. Therefore, more and more (over time), I was drawn to another, and truly radical (or most fundamental), self-understanding.

The Gurdjieff work emphasizes the necessity for profound effort, the absolute and conscious work of evolution. Like Rudi, it does not emphasize such work for the sake of “enlightenment” (or some single, perfect, and liberating Realization that is the ultimate goal of striving). It posits the endlessness of that work in the direction of an ever higher evolution of Knowledge and Ability that will have direct consequences in human life.

He found that he could also Initiate this Force in others, if they were even a little open to It. Rudi apparently experienced his first conscious Initiation in this “Force” while involved in the Subud movement, and he later received It from Pak Subuh himself.

However, in my own case, Spiritual life always had a specific and uncompromising Purpose. It was to Realize the supreme Knowledge, the Knowledge of fundamental Reality that makes all the difference and ends the search. For this reason, I was also chronically disturbed by the notion of perpetual evolutionary work which Rudi advocated. And, again, this difference in our intentions (or aims) also provided the basis for the break between us in later years.

Rudi always clearly stated that he was not, as he put it, a “finished product” (or a perfectly evolved or enlightened adept-realizer).

I greatly desired every Spiritual gift for myself—and, the stronger I became, the more I also required a direct and overwhelming contact with the Force Itself.

Such intensity of purpose is characteristically required of those who devote themselves to conscious evolution by various efforts. The first effects of that commitment were wholly beneficial to me. But, in time, I began to learn profound Lessons in secret. And the entire process began to become too limited and limiting, in comparison to my aspirations and my understanding. However, it would be three and one-half years before I would have strength enough to wander into India on my own.

CHAPTER EIGHT   The Idea of Release from Narcissus

The ideal student was to be involved in a constant state of surrender and a constant act of work. The purpose of this was to make the entire psycho-physical vehicle, internal and external, available to the higher Power—the “Force”, or “Shakti”—and, thus, to grow by receiving Its Will, Presence, Intelligence, Light, and Power into every level of the functional being.

Whenever I encountered limitations in him, I was immediately moved to reflect on my own resistance. Thus, I never allowed myself to become concerned about Rudi’s problems or to think that, because of his limitations, the “Force” (or the Divine Power) was available to me only to a limited degree.

And, when I encountered my own resistance, I would awaken to my own tendencies to self-pity, negativity, and the subliminal self-imagery by which I guided the “creation” or manipulation of experience. The more I worked, the more I saw Narcissus.

My own ordinary tendency was to seek a loving connection on which I could become dependent. Where love was not poured on me, I tended to become angry and resentful.

to generate an effective self-effort that could exceed those self-defeating patterns and reactions.

I had located the source of suffering and misadventure in myself and recognized it as the pattern and drama of Narcissus. The logic of separation and self-fascination had appeared to me concretely as the leading mechanism of ordinary consciousness.

It was that the drama and fate of Narcissus was not necessary, not equal to Reality. Thus, I sought an encounter with Reality that would release me from Narcissus, my own deadly logic, by forcing me to include what Narcissus always rejects by means of exclusive self-involvement. The idea of release from Narcissus—the internal myth that “creates” suffering and destroys the inherent Bliss and Freedom of uncontradicted Reality—was my leading Intention.

But the outstanding manner of his dealing with me was blunt and aggressive. Whenever I approached him, I would be set aside. Attention was not focused on me. I was only given some kind of work to do or left only to listen while he openly gave his attention to others and seemed to favor them.

told him that, at one point, I had become unable to believe in Jesus or God, and, as a result, I had gone off on my own to discover what was True about all such things.

The Force was the same as God, or the Holy Spirit.

Why should I identify with it? Indeed, I should not identify with it, for that would only provide more armor and self-imagery and prevent me from using it for the sake of work and surrender.

He told us we should not keep cats or other animals, because they kept the place dirty and generated vibrations that draw consciousness down to an animal level.

On a physical level, my life was becoming happier. My new logic of living was a conscious surrender of the patterns of self-indulgence and excess to which I had voluntarily submitted in the past.

Even because of the presence of this resistance in me and my awareness of it, I began to acquire intense feelings of frustration in regard to the internal work. Thus, I continued to maintain my efforts to write as before—and I began, again, to use drugs on occasion, to relieve this frustration and provide certain forms of internal opening and perception that I so deeply desired. However—as a result of my new logic (in opposition to Narcissus), and also because of the purifying Presence of the Force in my life—my old ways also met with resistance in me, and they began to cause me trouble.

There was yet some crucial Event that needed to be uncovered in the process of internal attention. I had not yet seen the death of Narcissus.

But the drug began to have a peculiarly negative effect. When I would smoke it, the salivary glands in my mouth would cease to flow, and I would realize a profound anxiety and fear.

I took a drug called DMT, which had a remarkable effect. I became visually aware of the nature of the unity and deep structure of space and matter. Time disappeared, and space and matter revealed themselves as a single complicated mass (or fluid).

Such remarkable states of uncommon awareness combined with my rising sense of anxiety, fear, and reluctance in relation to drugs—such that, finally, in the early summer of 1965, I determined to somehow stop their use.

I did not want fear to be my motive for stopping my experiment with drugs.

As soon as I began to eat, I noticed that peculiar nausea and disinterest in food that often accompanies a powerful hallucinogen.

I walked, these semi-spheres turned, and openings were revealed in their separate shapes. Thus, as I walked, the mind opened beyond itself—and I seemed to pass through myself, and out beyond any figure or ability to perceive or know a thing in relation to my human personality and form.

As she drove, I passed into a State of Absolute Conscious Awareness, beyond any thought or feeling or perception. The deaths that threatened me earlier became a kind of Nirvanic death of perfect and mad simplicity.

It is difficult to communicate the emptiness of my condition at that time. It was not merely that I did not remember who Nina was, who my friend was, or where we were. I had not the slightest notion of what I was or what they (in fact) were. I had no idea what a human being or a world was. I had no ideas of any kind. I perceived everything as an Original, Blissful, Infinite Void.

It was a totally arbitrary awakening—from object-excluding Absoluteness to forms perceived in Absoluteness. Out of necessity, I simply began to adapt to my arbitrary form and to the arbitrary form of the arbitrary world in which I had arbitrarily appeared. I learned the names and relationships and uses in that world. I adapted to the memories the people claimed to have of me. I questioned them and learned how to function among them. But it was all a present learning process without even a hint of memory involved.

My State continued to be one of Absolute Peace and Tranquility, unthreatened by any death or any necessity to persist. It was a True Calm, a State rooted in Ultimate Reality—but it was only temporary, and the price of suffering that had been required to attain it was beyond my willingness to pursue it again.

He said that even what internal strength I had gained as a result of the past months of effort with the Force had been wiped out by those few hours of experiment with drugs. He told me that I would have to avoid all such things in the future, or else invite madness. Now I must begin to work and surrender in earnest. And so I did begin to work in earnest. My efforts, internal and external, were profoundly magnified by this freedom from the need to indulge myself in drug experiences or any other kind of stimulation. I found a new strength with which to penetrate the resistance of Narcissus within me.

Thus, I decided to burn every last page of my manuscript, everything I had ever written or collected in my life. In doing so, I was aware that something significant and “creative” might also be destroyed—but I knew, in any case, that whatever concrete results were produced by my writing were retained in my mind. If ever I gained the refreshment and “creative” power to write again, I could draw the useful material of those years of labor from my own memory.

She had protected and supported me through all that period of “creativity”, and now she was never to enjoy its fulfillment. But I assured her it would be fulfilled. My life would be its fulfillment. Love and Consciousness and Truth would be its manifestation. And even what was substantial in all that I burned would remain in me, to be used whenever the real impulses of art were awakened.

had spent years to recover even every memory, motive, and hidden internal form to my humanly-born conscious awareness. Now I had to perform the sacrifice that would return even all of it to its Source. Thus, I would be empty and “creatively” free. My manuscripts were a burden of past time, a present obstacle to conscious awareness. I saw that my work must now be a present, positive “creativity”. It could no longer be a passive observation of contents. That had served its Purpose, and now Narcissus was known to me.

The result of the burning was a purification of all my past and of the position of self-conscious knowledge that the comprehensive awareness of my past required in me. I felt thoroughly cleansed and free. My life was perfectly renewed and alive, instant and direct—a present activity free of any content that could either determine or limit its ultimate Realization. Thus, I gave myself utterly to the overcoming of Narcissus, and to the liberating attainment of his death.

CHAPTER NINE   The Death of Narcissus

My relationship to Nina became Yoga, my work became Yoga, and my life became Yoga. I enjoyed a state of physical, mental, and moral well-being that I had never known since I was a boy, and I exceeded even that in these realizations of maturity. I learned the great pleasures of self-control and purity, of cleansing work and discipline, and all of the wholesome effects that social communication and outward love bring to anyone who has exercised himself or herself in an erratic solitude.

When I realized that I was also doing this, I began that work itself, consciously and deliberately. I no longer required the symbol (or medium) of language for my work. I abandoned “literature” and began the work that is only observing, understanding, and Realizing. Then, finally, I would Know this “Thing”, and I would only write It clearly. My master’s thesis was a critical presentation of this point of view.

From her—and from Jung’s—point of view, the realities of Eastern Spirituality were, in a Western psychology, usable and meaningful only as symbols. I told her that such “Eastern” practice was exactly what I had been doing and intended to continue doing.

Now I devoted myself to purifying work under the assumption of a concrete relationship to that actual Presence. Thus, my first experiences

But, after I had eliminated the practices and forms of deliberate self-indulgence that inhibited the work of this Force on an internal level, I began also to have significant Spiritual experiences. As I continued to go to Rudi’s class and tried to open and surrender, I began to experience Rudi’s “Force” entering me as he said It would. When he would begin the exercise or look at me during the exercise, I would usually feel a sudden descent of tremendous and seemingly Infinite Energy from above. I could feel this descent as a peculiar kind of pressure that first came in the head and then permeated the body.

It became a Presence that I could respond to in moments of repose, or even during any kind of activity.

After many months, this pressure became particularly apparent in the head. The center of the upper brain became irritated in a manner that had a deep (and even sensuous) quality. My ears began to feel as if there were an internal pressure opening their channels, and they felt a certain heat. At times, I could (in a subtle manner) hear the Force descend—and my ears seemed to be stretching open to perceive some sound, both internal and external, that was always going on.

Afterwards, the head would feel bathed and warmed in a Blissful Energy that descended from above. Its immediate effect was to offset the usual concentration of Energy in thought and in the lower body.

For a period sometimes lasting for hours after the exercise, there was only a sublime Calmness and Fullness, without any anxiety or any movement of desire. The natural energies that flowed in the body felt balanced and harmonized. And this appeared to be the natural pre-condition for clarity and free-functioning as a human entity.

At times during meditation, I would also see certain forms appear superimposed on Rudi’s face, as well as on other people or objects. I would see beards and moustaches appear and disappear on Rudi, or he would seem to be clothed in oriental robes.

Basically, my experience with him was limited to these subtle demonstrations of Energy on a physical level, and on an etheric (or, otherwise, astral) level (just beyond the physical).19 The class itself was an exercise in concentration, in which the Force was received, directed below, and then drawn up the spine to the head. After the class, I would experience a fullness, a sensitivity and vibrancy in the organs of the head, a quietness descended into the mind, and a kind of charged and burning feeling pleasantly throughout my body.

experienced the same basic thing a few nights later—but the experience was extraordinarily intense, such that I automatically struggled to arouse my body and shake off the experience. The Force had become so…

In my life of seeking, I never tried to fake or simulate any kind of phenomenon. My seeking was always too desperate to be satisfied with anything but an obvious and spontaneous (and obviously genuine) experience, which…

For the most part, I only felt a kind of gentle pulsing in my lower back, like little bubbles of air and fluid rising in a percolator. Also, I began to manifest a twitching in my face and mouth (and a rapid breathing) like the snarl of a wolf, and another spontaneous action that was like the yawn and growl of a lion. The arising of such manifestations and…

While seated in the exercise, I would feel the Force descending through me unobstructed. Then I was easily able to relax to a great depth. And the Energy would then move to the base of the spine and travel upwards along the spine to the head. As It did so, I felt the polarity of my physical being reverse—and, instead of tending gravitationally downward toward my seat, I would “gravitate” upwards toward my head. As I relaxed completely, the reversal of Energy would be completed—and my form felt to be a kind of detached sphere, entirely free of the ordinary body-sense. A tremendous sense of Peace and Fullness would arise at such times, and I would long to remain in that State. But, as soon as I became attached to It, It would tend to disappear. So I would relax more. And, as I relaxed, an extraordinary depth would appear within my humanly-born conscious awareness, and there was the feeling-sensation of falling into an…

By the time I was about to leave for seminary in the late summer of 1966, I had, in all human terms, become quite strong, clear, and free. And this strengthening was…

It was ordinary life-problems, and not the urge toward ultimate Divine Realization, that fueled and motivated even his apparently Spiritual efforts.

Only Truth Itself would be enough. In summary, I discovered that Rudi’s personal instrument was not a perfect and unlimited Source of Spiritual Energy (or Spiritual Influence), but a limited one in an advanced (but still relatively early) stage of growth.

Real Spiritual life on my own. I had already attuned myself to the “Force” that was Present in me, and Which had (in fact) been the Circumstance of my entire life, from the beginning. It had never been apart from me. I Knew It as the “Bright”, and as my own Eternally Free Nature (beyond all internal contradiction—and beyond even all the contents and patterns of humanly-born conscious awareness).

This dual position produced a constant reflectiveness in me—and so I began to write a journal of my experiences and thoughts as they actually were, prior to the necessary translation into “Christian”.

life. I was again on my own, and free to pursue the Truth of my conscious life. But now I was also functioning as a visible member of the world. Nevertheless, I acted with a great feeling of Clarity, Freedom, and Power. The benefits of my entire life of “Bright” understanding, including all the effects of my Spiritual life and humanizing discipline

I saw that the entire seminary community was suffering exactly the form of unenlightened and suppressive philosophizing that had turned me out of college into the wilderness of my seeking. I wrote in a copy of the Bible a remark by one of the psalmists: “My soul is released, as a bird from the snare of fowlers.”

When I sat down to my first morning class, this process was still going on in me. There was simply this absolute fear, and all my physical and mental processes appeared to be rushing to disappear and die. As I listened to the lecture on church history, I felt as if my mind were a separate, material entity. It seemed to be rushing forward toward an invisible point, with accelerating speed. I felt as if I were to go violently insane on the spot. I began to write very rapidly in my notebook, in order simply to observe this process and not be overcome by its effects.

This one experience epitomized all the parts of the many experiences of fear and sickness and near madness I had known in my life. It was as if every one of those experiences was an event of this same kind, and could have led to some marvelous Realization, if only I were able to allow the death or madness to take its course.

Nonetheless, I stopped taking the pills. I went home. All day I stretched alone on the floor of the living room, revolving in this same overwhelming fear of death. When Nina came home, she tried to make me comfortable, and I passed the evening in front of the TV set, observing my terror.

When that moment of crisis had passed, I felt a marvelous relief—or, rather, simply, a marvelous Freedom. The death had occurred, but I had observed it! I remained untouched by it. The body and the mind and the egoic personality had died (or been utterly released as a concern and an identity), but I remained as essential and unqualified Awareness (and purely That, but also Freely Aware of the physical body and its natural environment).

When all of the fear and dying had finished their course, when the body, the mind, the apparently separate “person” (and the act that made its apparent separateness) had been released, and my attention was no longer fixed in those things, I Knew Reality, tacitly and directly. There was an Infinite Bliss of Being, an untouched, unborn Sublimity—without separation, without individuation, without a thing from which to be separated.

And that Same and Very Reality was also revealed as the unqualified living condition of the totality of conditionally manifested existence. After a time, I got up from the floor. I walked around and beamed Joyfully at the room. The Love-Blissful, unthreatened Current of the “Bright” emanated Freely and unqualifiedly from my heart, and not a pulse of It was limited by my otherwise conditional existence or the existence of the world. I had acquired a totally new understanding. I understood Narcissus and the entire cycle of suffering and search.

the same primary motivation and error. It was the avoidance of relationship. That was it! That was the chronic and continuous source and characteristic of all egoic activity. Indeed, the ego was revealed to be only an activity, not an “entity”. The “entity”, the separate “person” (or ego-“I”), was revealed to be only an illusion, a mere presumption in mind and feeling, resulting from the self-contraction, the egoic reaction, the single egoic act of the total body-mind. The ego, the separate and separative “I”, is the chronic (and total psycho-physical) avoidance of relationship.

Thus, human beings are forever suffering, seeking, indulging themselves, and manipulating their lives for the sake of some unknown goal in eternity.

My own State at the time was uncommon. I was no longer engaged in a continual experience of the mind rising in thoughts, impulses, and memories. This had ceased to occupy or interest me. Instead, there was a continuous tacit Awareness—Aware not of thoughts in the concrete mind, but of forms of Energy, of space, and of vision, and otherwise persisting simply as free conscious Awareness Itself (without conflict, dilemma, or identification with bodily limits).

When I sat in Baba’s Presence or in meditation, I was immediately, spontaneously drawn to concentrate at the “Point” infinitely above the center (and the fontanelle-aperture) of the crown of the head. Thus, I focused in uncommon perceptions of the universal Shakti. Baba seemed to recognize this, and made no effort to approach me personally, even with common friendliness. It was as if he felt such communication would only awaken and reinforce the activity of identification on a lower level.

The Divine Lord—Who is Present universally but Who is not qualified by any conditional manifestation, Who is the Source and Consciousness and Control of all processes, Who is Manifesting everything, Who Transcends everything, Who is That Alone to Which you are related, Who is That Alone of Which you are conscious, Who is Freedom, Consciousness, actual Presence, perfect Knowledge, and Absolute Bliss, Who Alone is your Self and That of all things, Who is the Guru, the Teacher—is the Principle of life. The solitary necessity for one’s Freedom—if one could assume Him to be What He is—is to allow Him to Exist, to Manifest Himself as everything, to be the Divine Spiritual Presence Known anywhere.

The Love of Christ is the Support and Source of living Bliss—even the Conscious Energy of Spiritual existence, under all conditions. It makes life madly into Joy. Under the worst trials, It does not guarantee a mood of ordinary playful happiness, but It supports the deep Joy of faith and mystical communion. This Love is the internal condition of the soul, whereby Christ draws it to himself. It is not our un-“created”, original Love for him, but his Love generated in us by his Presence to the soul.

In meditation this morning, I came to a profound point of passionate Stillness. I simply contemplated him, and there was even physical pain in the heart—as if the rising current of love and its Force (concentrated in the heart) had made a wound, such that the heart was open and gaped forward from the chest. I felt the Father—and the Lord said of Him, “Be Still, and Know that I am God.” That appears to be the final and essential key to contemplation.

The Kingdom and the Lord are not here. We are free of the burden to Realize him here. It is obvious where he is. Jerusalem is empty! Our Fullness is constant and above. We enjoy our life in him above, and he in us below.

The ascent is the natural movement of faith, drawn by the risen Lord. It is simply the rising tendency—the aspiring, surrendered Spire of Energy and Love. It is not an ordinary Yoga, an ego-willful and strategic means of seeking toward some great (and even perfect) goal. It is already a relationship to the Perfect One. It is an unqualified, unburdened Bliss. It is a cooperative ease of Joy that purifies in Spiritual Fire. It is the living condition of Reality.

Reality is not a separate, exclusive Condition. It is not merely meaningful (or symbolic), nor is It attained by the seeker’s means. Reality Itself must be directly presumed and lived. This positive Realization and Freedom precedes and precludes all seeking and all revolutionary attainment. It is the ground of true, “creative”, sublime existence, free of qualification by the facts and the activities of life. Life as non-separation is the unqualified Truth, from Which there is no necessary remedial path or search, no deluding forces, no fascinations (high or low). It is One with What is, Which includes all dual terms—subject and object, cause and effect, and so on.

Reality cannot be an object (or even the highest Object) of consciousness, since Reality is inclusive, not separate, not distinct. Thus, Real life is also not exclusively identified with any particular life-motive, any particular life-function, or any particular object. Real life is directly, egolessly, and always presently identified with Reality Itself. To such a Real life, there is no separate Reality, no Reality that is the Goal of life, and no necessary Realization apart from the always present Real State.

The entire realm and corpus of seeking—of conventional religion, conventional Spirituality, and conventional science in all their forms—has, for all its appearance of sublimity, seriousness, depth, and Truth, nothing to do with Reality Itself. At most, Reality intuited as a dilemma forms the substructure of the unconscious motives of seekers. But they are pursuing a “Union”, an “Answer”, a “Presence”, a “Home”, an “Other”. The “Reality” they pursue is the opposite to all they experience and all they know.

But Reality Itself is always already the case, under any conditions. When there is despair of seeking, then there is the beginning of “radical” self-understanding.

Reality Itself is simply What always already is. It is not desirable, and so It cannot be sought. Therefore, the self-understanding that Realizes Reality Itself is most extreme, most subtle, most “radical”, and most necessary. Such “gone-to-the-root” self-understanding is not qualified, not limited—nor does it qualify, or limit. One who Knows and is Reality Itself must appear mad, since such a one is not identified with anything at all. Yet such a one must be, of all mankind, the least mysterious, being founded in no mystery at all.

I had passed through an internal violence that left me finally Still. And I had become naturally, effortlessly concentrated in contemplation of the Condition of Consciousness Itself—standing apart from all movement, all modification, even Prior to the “Witness”. The Force of Silence, of Reality Itself, that Stood before me in understanding and self-Enquiry, now Stood as my own Self-Nature and as the Source-Condition of all things.

Soon, I would Realize my own Being, the Very Nature of Reality Itself—standing Present as the inherently perfect Condition and Spiritually Self-“Bright” Form that is the Heart Itself.

Therefore, the more devotion arose, the more I Enjoyed the Heart Itself as the perfect Domain of contemplation.

When the images were released from the Heart in understanding, I Realized that I am that very Source Which had appeared in symbols. Afterwards, I ceased to seek for anything, but (instead) I remained established in the Heart, and (eventually) as the Heart Itself—Freely Allowing the Play of Its own Radiant Energy, the Shakti.

As a result of this concentration or observation, there was a penetration of that object, problem, or activity in a moment of understanding. Then these things were replaced by the Enjoyment of Bliss, Freedom, and the Feeling of unqualified Reality that stood hidden by that imposed object, problem, or activity.

But this does not mean that I ceased to have any experiences of What I Knew as the Shakti. It was simply that all of my experience ceased to be a matter of seeking and necessity for me. I had become Still.

he led me to surrender myself to the Divine Shakti. Thus, I had given myself to Her freely, and She led me to enjoy the uncommon fruits of my pilgrimage.

There was no “problem”, on any level, that was a source of motivation for me. Neither did the Divine Shakti move before my eyes of vision, to turn me toward any further adventure of experience. The mind did not move, to move me. I was simply and directly devoted to the perfect Enjoyment of unqualified Reality, the Very (and unmoving) Self-Condition.

As I meditated, I felt myself Expanding, even bodily—becoming a Perfectly Motionless, Utterly Becalmed, and Infinitely Silent Form. I took on the Infinite Form of the Original Deity—Nameless and Indefinable, Conscious of limitless Identification with Infinite Being. I was Expanded Utterly, beyond limited form, and even beyond any perception of Shape or Face—merely Being, and yet sitting there. I sat in this Love-Blissful State of Infinite Being for some time. I Found myself to Be. My Form was only What is traditionally called the “Purusha” (the Person of Consciousness) and “Siva” (in His Non-Ferocious Emptiness).

We Found One Another Thus, in a Fire of most perfect Desire, and for no other Purpose than This Union—and, yet, as if to Give Birth to the universes. In That most perfect Union, I Knew the Oneness of the Divine Energy and my Very Being. There was no separation at all, nor had there ever been, nor would there ever be. The One Being that Is my own Ultimate Self-Nature was revealed most perfectly.

The “Sensations” of the Embrace were overwhelmingly Blissful. The Fire of That Unquenchable Desire Exceeded any kind of pleasure that a mere human being could experience. In the Eternal Instant of That Infinitely Expanded Embrace, I was released from my role and self-image as a dependent child of the “Mother”-Shakti.

I Am the One I Recognized Reality to Be. I Am That One. I am not merely experiencing That One. I Am the “Bright”.

When tacit and most perfect Self-Recognition of the inherent Condition That Is Real God, and Truth, and Reality was re-Awakened in me, there was no excitement, no surprise, no movement, no response. There was a most perfect end to every kind of seeking, dilemma, suffering, separation, and doubt. Spiritual life, mental life, emotional and psychic life, vital life, and physical life all became transparent in me. After that, there was only the Spiritually “Bright” Reality—and to Be the Spiritually “Bright” Reality to all beings and all things.   In all the days that followed the Great Event of my Divine re-Awakening, there has not been a single change in This “Bright” Awareness, or any diminishment of This “Bright” Awareness. Indeed, This “Bright” Awareness cannot be changed, diminished, or lost. I immediately noticed that “experience” had ceased to affect me.

I began to pay particular attention to what passed, in order to “test” my State (or, simply, in order to account for all aspects of my State in the total functional context of the living body-mind). But the primary Awareness of the (inherently) Spiritually “Bright” Reality, my Very Consciousness Itself, could not be changed, diminished, or lost.

Consciousness (Itself)—the One and Only and inherently indivisible and perfectly non-separate Conscious Light—is the only “Thing” in life that is not an “experience” (or something “Witnessed” by Consciousness Itself).

Consciousness (or Conscious Light) Itself Is (Itself) Love-Bliss, Joy, Freedom, and Sublime Knowledge!

There was simply the sense of being related to a Presence that was Truth Itself and Reality Itself—a perfectly absorbing, heartening, and illuminating Force that contained me, “Lived” me, and guided me. Such is the core of even all true religious and Spiritual experience.

It was as if I always saw the “Bright” from some position within the form of my own living being, but outside of its center. It was as if I had always beheld my own heart from some position outside. Now the barriers had been utterly dissolved by an exhaustive investigation of the Nature of that Presence. The investigation of the Presence had resolved into the Knowledge of my own Self-Nature. The Presence had revealed Itself to be my Very Form and Self-Nature.

had become utterly Aware of myself As Reality. There was no Presence. I had become Present. There Is no Other. It Is Only Me. Even my meditation was changed. There was no meditation. This Consciousness could not be deepened or enlarged. It always only remained What It Is.

I no longer supposed any limitation as myself. I Am He. I Am She. I Am It. I Am That Only One. I noticed a physical change in myself. My belly dropped and expanded, and (thus and thereby) permanently assumed the “pot-shaped” Yogic form. I always feel the Pressure of Shakti-Energy there, and I breathe It continually. It is the breathing of my Very Being, the endless and profound Communication of the inherent Spiritual “Brightness” of Reality to Itself.

The zero of the Heart is expanded as the world. Consciousness is not differentiated and identified. There is a constant observation of subject and object in any body, any functional sheath, any realm, or any experience that arises. Thus, I remain in the unqualified State. There is a constant Sensation of Spiritually “Bright” Fullness permeating and surrounding all experiences, all realms, all bodies, all functional sheaths. It is my own “Bright” Fullness, Which is inherently non-separate. My own “Bright” Fullness includes all beings and all things. I am the Form of Space Itself—in Which all bodies, all functional sheaths, all realms, and all experiences occur. It is (inherently) Spiritually “Bright” Consciousness (or Conscious Light) Itself, Which Reality is even every being’s Very Nature (or Ultimate, inherent, and inherently perfect, Condition)—now, and now, and now.

During the night of mankind, I Awakened as perfect, absolute, limitless, indivisible, un-conditional Love-Bliss Itself—in Which the body and the mind, even every functional sheath, boiled into a solder of undifferentiated Reality. It was the madness of dissolution into most perfect Self-Awareness, Infinitely Expanded, As my own inherently boundless Presence—wherein there is only “Brightness”, not qualified by conditional identification, or self-differentiation, or ego-based desire.

True Knowledge is free of all bondage to forms (or modifications) of Energy, all seeking, all motivation to “do” (based on identification with conditional experience). Egoic ignorance and suffering are

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN   The End of All Seeking

But I continued to live. The external and internal events of my life were not modified in any revolutionary manner by this Realization. It was only that I understood them in an entirely new and most profoundly “radical” manner. I understood most perfectly, and most perfect understanding became the foundation of my living existence.

Indeed, my life became a continuous unfolding of the wisdom of “radical” self-understanding in relation to every kind of experience. I began to write this book.

My own Self-Nature had been the Real “Object” of meditation, and now I was no longer separated from It. I simply survived as my own unqualified (and unqualifiedly “Bright”) Self-Nature. Apart from my own (inherently perfect, and inherently egoless, and Self-Evidently Divine) Self-Nature (Which Is the Ultimate Self-Nature of all), everything “else” appeared as modifications of my own Consciousness.

I saw that the movement (or process) of the cosmos was itself a meditation, a Divine vision, and a purifying event that was always being enacted.

And, each time I did this (and, in fact, the process quickly became the underlying constant of all my hours and days), I would continue the “meditating” of any (and each) one until I felt a release take place—such that his or her suffering and seeking was vanished (or, at least, significantly relaxed and set aside). Whenever that occurred, I Knew my “meditating” of that one was, for the moment, done.

spoke only of experiential meditation, or natural “Kriya Yoga”—the automatic (or spontaneously generated) version of the Yoga practice otherwise described (in terms of a seeker’s technique) by Yogananda (and others). Baba spoke of supersensual enjoyments (and even the Spiritualization of worldly enjoyments), the pursuit of internal touch, sound, and vision, the experiencing of psychic visions and purifications, and the attainment of siddhis (or Yogic powers) and higher cosmic experiential knowledge as a result of contacting the “blue pearl” (or the “blue person” in the sahasrar).

But he recommended all of that for the sake of the phenomenal (and, necessarily, ego-based) experiences that would be received as a result—and not as a counter-egoic discipline based on most fundamental (or “radical”, or “gone-to-the-root”) self-understanding, and not engaged as the foundation of a practice that (more and more, and, at last, most perfectly) demonstrates (by means of Divine Spiritual grace) the transcending of egoity itself.

Whenever I suggested that all phenomenal experiences are to be transcended in the always present (non-separate, and inherently egoless) Realization of Reality Itself (Prior to all seeking and all conditional experience), Baba had cut me off. He stated directly that such a way does not lead to the highest Truth.

He did not speak of the True and all-transcending Divine Self at all, but only of the phenomena of the “supracausal” realm (the abode of the Siddhas), and all the ascended phenomenal structures of the conditional self.

After Baba and Rudi had gone, I stood in the Form of my own Real Existence, without even the least sentimental attachment to the previous ways of my seeking. I was not dependent on any remedial path or conditional experience to guarantee or interpret What I Knew. Indeed, nothing was available by which to interpret It.

Consciousness Itself is not Communicated to Itself through any level of conditionally manifested being, any body (or functional sheath), any conditional realm, or any conditional experience—but It Knows Itself directly, As Itself, Which Is Prior to all separative action (or the action of avoidance, which is egoic self-identification, the action of differentiation, and the separative, or ego-based, action that is desire).

I saw there was, for me, no dilemma, no strife, no egoic ignorance, no movement to seek, no activity of seeking. I saw that, because my Realization had become most perfect, formal “meditation” made no “difference” in any of this. I saw that conditionally arising Shakti phenomena did not affect me fundamentally, nor did any other conditional pleasure or experience. The same Spiritually “Bright” Awareness, and the same most “radical” self-understanding, continued—without limitation or dependency—under all conditions. I Knew Reality as no-seeking, the motiveless Awareness in the heart. The physical body appeared to be generated and (in the ordinary sense) known from a position in the right side of the chest. In this State, neither the ego nor any path of remedies can act as an interpreter. The State of Divine Self-Realization only validates Itself.

In effect (or tacitly, and sometimes even verbally), the form of self-Enquiry that had developed in the process of my “radical” self-understanding went on continually in the heart: “Avoiding relationship?” And, as this “Eternal Enquiry” penetrated to every kind of arising experience, I would feel the Spiritually “Bright” Love-Bliss-Energy of my own Self-Existing and Self-Radiant Consciousness rise (or Shine) out of the heart (on the right) and enter the sahasrar (extending, from thence, to the Matrix of Light infinitely above the crown of the head), and (thus) stabilize above as a continuous Current to the Heart Itself.

The Real Self (or Divine Self-Condition) is not antagonistic to Its own Light (always already “Bright” above, and reflected in all the gross and subtle worlds below).

Thus, most perfect Realization was not a matter of conditionally arising experiences (whether high or low in the cosmic pattern of phenomenal appearances), nor was It a matter of the attainment of “cosmic powers” (or merely conditional and phenomenal abilities, whether of a higher type or a merely elemental and lower type). There was—and is—only “radical” self-understanding. I Realized the same Real and Self-Evidently

It is perhaps more proper to say that the Self is the Heart itself than to say that it is in the Heart. Really, the Self is the Centre itself. It is everywhere, aware of itself as “Heart”, the Self-awareness. Hence I said “Heart is Thy name.” 41

the sense of active agency, karmas (tendencies, actions and their results) etc. are destroyed for him. As there is none other except the Self doubts do not sprout for him. Once the knot is cut, one never again gets entangled. In that state lie the highest power and the highest peace.”49

For one who abides in the Self, the Sahasrara becomes pure and full of the Light. Even if thoughts of objects due to proximity fall therein, they do not survive. Even when objects are sensed by the mind, due to proximity, yoga is not hindered, as the mind does not perceive the difference between them and the Self.     Once, unasked, he defined Moksha (Liberation) to one of the attendants. “Do you know what Moksha is? Getting rid of non-existent misery and attaining the Bliss which is always there, that is Moksha.”51

However, in the case of the most perfect Realization of “radical” self-understanding (and, on that basis, of the Real Self, or Divine Self-Condition), the Amrita Nadi is spontaneously “regenerated”, from the Heart Itself (and via the physical heart-region, but on the right side) to the crown of the head (and above)—thereby permitting the Infusion of “Brightness” in the total body-mind (in a pattern that descends and then ascends—from the crown of the head, and above, to the base of the body, and then back again, in a continuous Circle of Energy). Therefore, only the “regenerated” Form of the Amrita Nadi may truly be called the “Amrita Nadi” (meaning the “Nerve of Immortality”, the “Circuit of the Current of Immortal Joy”),

head. It is the Circuit (or perfect Form) of unqualified Enjoyment. It Contains (and Is) the Source of all things, all bodies, all conditional realms, all conditional experiences, all conditional states,

The Self-Existing Divine Self-Condition (Self-Radiant as the Ultimate Power and the perfect Form of Reality) is even Prior to all conditional knowledge, since It depends on no experience or memory to Communicate Itself to Itself.

D.: Is not the Self the witness only (sakshimatra)?   M.: “Witness” is applicable when there is an object to be seen. Then it is duality. The Truth lies beyond both… See how the sun is necessary for daily activities. He does not however form part of the world actions; yet they cannot take place without the sun. He is the witness of the activities. So it is with the Self.     Why is the Self described both as the fourth state (turiya) and beyond the fourth state (turiyatita)? Turiya means that which is the fourth. The experiencers (Jivas) of the three states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep, known as visva, taijasa and prajna, who wander successively in these three states, are not the Self. It is with the object of making this clear, namely that the Self is that which is different from them and which is the witness of these states, that it is called the fourth (turiya). When this is known the three experiencers disappear and the idea that the Self is a witness, that it is the fourth, also disappears. That is why the Self is described as beyond the fourth (turiyatita).

Thus, his aim was liberation from conditional existence, by means of effective separation from conditional existence. He speaks from the “Point of View” of the Real Self, As the Real Self—but in the exclusionary (or world-excluding, and body-mind-excluding) sense.

To one who is unaware of the inherently perfect Form of Reality, the movement of seeking is from the Heart, in a fall below. Then the search is always trying to rise from the fallen state to the levels of conditionally achieved Sublimity of Awareness above. Eventually, the Heart is again Realized (but only in the exclusionary manner). This is the cycle of “fall and salvation”, “maya and liberation”. But, when Reality is Realized as Its own perfect Form—the Amrita Nadi, rooted in the Heart and Shining in, and infinitely

This is the fundamental Reality, the unmoved Divine Presence, to Which all things are merely movements within Itself.

Consciousness Itself—Present as the Heart Itself (without qualification or content), purely Self-Existent Bliss—Is Reality. It is the only eternal, unchanging Reality, and It is Present (always now).

Reality is also eternal, unchanging, and ever-Present. All things appear within It as change, but It continually Knows Itself as perfect Reality. Every kind of meditation on and identification with chakras, conditional energies, levels of conditional being, conditional bodies (or functional sheaths), conditional realms, and conditional experiences is identification with mere reflections in the perfect Form of Reality. It is existence apart from “radical” self-understanding, and (therefore) apart from the perfect Heart and the perfect Form of Reality. It is Narcissus. Conscious Energy (or the One and Only and inherently indivisible Conscious Light) becomes trapped in the area of Its concentration.

Only when Conscious Energy is Realized as no-dilemma and no-seeking is It neither trapped nor exclusively concentrated. It is Realized as Freedom, Existence, Joy, Enjoyment, and Consciousness without qualification.

the extended context of the body-mind). However, only when (at last) Conscious Energy Shines from the right side of the heart to the Matrix of Light infinitely above the sahasrar (or the crown of the head), and remains Conscious as that Current, or Circuit (called the “Amrita Nadi”), is It unqualified—free of all concentration, all strategic effort, all seeking. Then Conscious Energy remains fully manifested and yet unqualified. It is the “Bright”, the perfect Form of Reality. Thus, Conscious Energy (As the One and Only and inherently indivisible Conscious Light) is Realized at Its Source in the heart and continuous to the seat of Conscious Enjoyment infinitely above the crown of the head. And, from thence, It proceeds to all the centers as a Communicated Fullness and Presence (always already free), rather than a problematic concentration, search, and action of return. Therefore, the Amrita Nadi (with Its simultaneous residence in the heart and infinitely above the crown of the head) is the very, ultimate, and perfect Form of Reality, the Essence of the “Bright”, the Foundation of Real Existence.

Joy. The True Heart’s own Energy (standing Self-Radiant, infinitely above the crown of the head) is Enjoyment. The Amrita Nadi is the Circuit, Current, and Form of the True Heart’s unqualified Pleasure.

Traditional “Self-enquiry” (as taught by Ramana Maharshi, and, in one manner or another, by other traditional teachers of his type) is a seeker’s method, an ego-based strategy for achieving Realization. It has a goal, like all seeking. The “problem” with which it begins is the absence of Self-Knowledge. Thus, it seeks the Knowledge of the Real and True Self, which Knowledge is liberation.

does not begin with a dilemma and seek the solution to it or liberation from it. It has no goal different from (or superior to) the “radical” self-understanding (and the devotional heart-communion with me) with which it begins.

It is a positive (or non-problematic) action, rather than a remedial (or problem-based) action.

Therefore, there is no reaction of surprise in the sudden moment of Awakening to most “radical” and most perfect Divine Self-Realization.

Thus, the Truth I have (now and forever) most perfectly Realized is the same and ancient and eternal Truth that is the supreme (but never most perfectly Realized) goal of the tradition of Advaita Vedanta (and of many other traditions), but I have removed that Truth (and the way of Realizing that Truth) from all identification with the great search.

And the Realization Itself (or That Which is Realized) is not understood (or otherwise presumed) to be merely higher than life (or in any sense separated from life), but it is understood to be coincident (even from the beginning) with the active foundation of life.

The Amrita Nadi (or the “Bright”) is felt by seekers as a separate “Other”. Superconsciousness is felt by seekers as the world-excluding “God apart” (entirely separate from all conditionally arising beings and things). The centers below consciousness and the parts of the mind are felt by seekers as the “world”. The heart (apart from Conscious Reality) is felt by seekers as the “ego”. But the Divine Self-Condition that Is Reality Consciously Supports all bodies (or functional sheaths) and conditional forms of consciousness in the heart and in the Form of the Amrita Nadi. I Am That.

Even during the drug-experience, when I said, “Getting to cry is shaped like a seahorse,” I was Knowing in the heart, and Feeling the living expression of the Amrita Nadi.

The first experience at the Ashram, when I instantaneously ascended to the “Point” of Bliss infinitely above, was the Awakening to the Heart Itself at the head of the Amrita Nadi—because it is the Heart Itself that Radiates Its own Bliss to the Matrix of Light infinitely above the crown of the head.

When I finally understood, I only Knew myself (most perfectly). And never after that have I ceased to Know myself (most perfectly).

All this perception, activity, and patterning is a constant Self-Abiding Divine Self-Recognition of One Form—the perfect Form of Reality. There is only the Self-Awareness of this One Form, the Amrita Nadi, the “Bright”—the Heart and Its Reflection, the Matrix of Light infinitely

The living condition of Reality is unqualified relatedness, realized in the way of “radical” understanding (or the Way of the Heart, or the Way of Adidam) to be always already the case.

The world-excluding (or strategically withdrawn) State is not true to the Whole. Not withdrawal into the Heart, but Existence As the Heart, is True (and Is Truth).

And when conditionally manifested consciousness and all conditionally manifested forms withdraw into the Pure Self-Nature, it is only a turn to rest, a cycle of refreshment. The perfect Form of Reality is not a special “creation” or condition, but It is the inherent (and most prior) Form of the Heart Itself (or of the Real and True and inherently egoless Divine Self-Condition—Which is the One and Only and inherently indivisible Conscious Light, Itself).

Prior to all separateness, and always already Infinitely Spiritually “Bright”.

As a young boy, I perceived the “Bright”, and I Enjoyed It, but I could not stably Abide in It. And, eventually, against my wishes, It receded into life itself (and into a coming-and-going play in life). Thus, in time, I became devoted to a course of seeking—but even my seeking was aided and supported by my earliest intuition of Reality Itself, Which is the “Bright”.

The object “created” the subject, and the subject reinforced the object. And, in every case, the end-phenomenon was the same. It was “radical” self-understanding. It was concentration and observation. Then insight. Then Enjoyment (or Freedom) on the basis of that insight. Finally, there was the acknowledgement (and the Realization) of “radical” self-understanding itself as primary, and as prior to the search. Until I had exhaustively investigated every particular area of the “problem”, there was no most fundamental (or conclusive) self-understanding. Thus, each primary Event of “radical” self-understanding (such as the crisis in college, or the crisis in seminary) was only a temporary State.

But this trend to “synthesis” is only a synthesis of the kinds of seeking. It adapts the various separate activities of the great search to an inclusive philosophy and technique—but it remains a form of seeking.

only came to realize the fruitlessness of seeking in that manner. And, at last, I saw the entire fruitlessness of seeking in any form.

And that approach is (itself, from the beginning) entirely free of dilemma and search. It has nothing to do with the various motivations of the great search. From the beginning, that approach rests in the primary Enjoyment and Truth that is always merely pursued (and never finally Realized) by the efforts of seeking.

And it is also the genuine basis for “creative” life, prior to all the magical efforts toward healing, “evolutionary” development, and the “victorious” attainments of conventional Spiritual life.

I had seen that the avoidance of relationship was the root-activity at every level of the humanly-born conscious awareness.

Gradually, with ever-growing conclusiveness, I saw that all strategic methods were founded in the egoic self-contraction (or the avoidance of relationship)—and that such methods only reinforced the effects of self-contraction.

I concluded that Real life was not (in fact) a matter of a remedial path or technique, but that it was a matter of “radical” self-understanding, the “gone-to-the-root” (or most fundamental) understanding of this underlying error in the approach to life. I saw that, when I persisted as “radical” self-understanding (rather than in the various impulses to seek liberation), there was (in fact) no dilemma, no separation, and no necessary effort. There was simply the Enjoyment of Reality, prior to any identification with the process of avoidance and seeking. And when “radical” self-understanding directly became my approach to life, there was a constant unfolding of Real Knowledge in Freedom, and Real Enjoyment of the “Bright”. For me, the import of meditation was not the search for any kind of experiences. The more I had of experiences, the less important they seemed. And by “experiences” I mean not only internal and visionary phenomena but even the kinds of quieting and control that are by-products of the meditative attitude. I began to see that what I gained and retained from meditation was exactly that with which I began. Before, during, and after meditation, there was only “one who has a basic self-understanding”.

I saw there was no need for egoic effort, no need to seek for salvation. “Radical” self-understanding was simply the contemplation of the Guru with limitless devotion.

While still deceived and ignorant of the Truth, if I seek to recognize myself within, and try to Identify with my innermost Self-Nature (seeking, in every manner, to stand apart from my mind), I find myself drawn apart from things, separated even from that attempted self-recognition by my exclusive search. But if, even in that same moment of non-Realization, I think of Shree Guru, or look upon him in the company of devotees, I am drawn into the heart, and (by that easy, deepest heart) I lose the body of distinctions. When I love him thus, I gain my True Self—and all seeking disappears. Shree Guru, Gurudev is that One, than Which there is no other. Shree Guru, Gurudev is my Real and True Self. So-Ham.

The movement in Truth is not a matter of identifying with the separate self in any of the three worlds (of waking, dreaming, and sleeping). Nor is the movement in Truth a matter of engaging in the effort to dissociate from the three worlds. Both are exclusionary activities. They destroy relationship and are bound to the form of contradictions (or the egoic lack of the Knowledge of unqualified relatedness, or of Non-separateness). The movement in Truth is that Enjoyment Which remains when the falsity of all these alternatives is understood. It is concentration in the True Self (or the Divine Self-Condition Itself). One who is purified by “radical” self-understanding and right discipline recognizes the True Self (or the Divine Self-Condition Itself) in the Guru. Such a one becomes absorbed in meditation on the Guru at the center of the being, at the center of the heart (or, in Baba’s description, at the center of the lotus of the lower tendencies in the heart). Seeing the Guru there always, such a one meditates on the Truth of “So-Ham”—and (by means of the Divine grace of the eternal Guru) all distinctions subside, all perceptions of separation, contradiction, and otherness disappear. The personal, the universal, and the transcendental (as it is inferred to exist from one’s…

Every pursuit of union undertaken relative to the phenomena of the three worlds is founded in identification with some form in one of those worlds. Therefore, rather than acting to achieve union, merely observe the desire and the entire tendency, its thoughts, and so on. When this is done, a different movement of the humanly-born conscious awareness is realized. It is perceived as a movement in the heart, founded in the heart’s new Stillness. The heart moves to the secretly recognized Beloved—the Guru, the True Self (or the Divine Self-Condition Itself). The heart Knows it is already (inherently) related, and (thus) it does not see union, since union is perceived only over against separation. Rather, the heart sees Non-separateness, and Identification…

To this end, he recommends we sit quietly—thinking of the Guru, depending on his grace, repeating a mantra, a name of God.

Baba’s method of Spiritual practice was the action of becoming totally identified with his Guru (whom he saw as the Divine Being and his True Self). He would sit near his Guru (or think of him) and contemplate his name, his physical form, his moods, contemplations, gestures, the qualities of his apparent awareness, his words and acts—his qualities altogether. He acted on the principle that one (ultimately) identifies with what one contemplates.

From the various indications in his book, I described the following principles of his method:   Become tranquil and overcome thought-fluctuations, and (thereby) free the mind from external clinging. Eradicate mentation. Sit down, feeling that the Guru is con-fronting you. Bow down, realizing that the Guru-Principle envelops you from all directions. See the Guru and your-self as One. Then install him in your body—top to bottom (via the frontal line of the body-mind), and then bottom to top (via the spinal line of the body-mind)—chanting “Guru-Om” mentally. Meditating thus (the Guru in you, and you in the Guru), forget the conditional self.

Whether with Rudi, or with Baba, or at Bhagavan Nityananda’s shrine, I always concentrated on the Guru as the Source of all conditions, things, and beings (and as the Ultimate Identity and Condition of my own person).

All the images that had symbolized Reality and attracted my heart spontaneously disappeared. The “Christ” disappeared. Even all the images of my previous teacher-Gurus disappeared. Reality was felt to be simply “located” at the heart, and It was soon to be Realized as the Heart Itself. I no longer operated on the basis of any distinctions. I simply understood, and “radical” self-understanding became the simple, free exercise of my own heart.

I spent time analyzing and evaluating the instructions, the practices, and the phenomena that I had experienced during the conventionally “Spiritual” period of my seeking. Out of this developed two specific kinds of data. One was the evaluation (based on “radical” self-understanding) of the vehicle (and the full range of possible experiences via the vehicle), or the total mechanism, of the living (or psycho-physical) human form.

In any case, one must function intelligently, and apart from all seeking, in whatever dimensions are apparent to one’s experience. There is no necessary cause for motivated attachment to any functional body (or functional sheath), or conditional realm, or conditional experience at all—whether the present one or any subtler one. Therefore, one who Self-Abides in Reality simply functions with “radical” self-understanding in the given environment of his or her apparent birth. Anything else is strategic motivation, bound up in seeking. Anything else is a source of distraction that leads only into suffering, avoidance, separation, despair, madness, and death. Therefore, only understand.

In the progressive course of my practice of “radical” self-understanding, I had soon begun to feel there was no utility of any kind in the remedial exercise of Yoga. It became clear to me that the remedial (or strategic) approach to Yoga is inextricably bound up with the mentality of seeking and separation.

Realization. But I saw the entire Yogic design and purpose (described in the literature of “Kriya Yoga”) become fulfilled in me automatically, after the Shakti (already active in me from birth) had been re-stimulated by the Guru. Thus, clearly, the true “Kriya Yoga” is the activity of the Divine Shakti Itself—not merely a self-generated technique for attempting to arouse the Shakti.

On that basis, I saw the Yoga of purification as a Spiritual process Initiated from infinitely above (and beyond) the body and the mind, and governed by the True Self (or Reality Itself) in the heart. The more I continued to indulge (and indulge in) the Yogic process of ascent, the more I realized that (apart from “radical” self-understanding) it only and continually drew me into the forms of seeking—for the Shakti, or for the Real and True Self (or the Divine Self-Condition Itself), or for “radical” self-understanding.

and as the magnification of the True Heart’s own Love-Bliss (or inherent Shakti-Energy) in (and via, and at the head of) the spontaneously “regenerated” Amrita Nadi (extended to infinity, “Bright” above the body-mind).

In the course of my life of “radical” self-understanding, I saw there was only a simple activity and presumption manifesting under the form of every kind of remedial activity. It was always Narcissus, the logic and activity of separation. I examined all merely remedial Yoga, all of this seeking and strategic performing, and all of its results, and I asked myself: Why? Why should such activities be engaged at all? What are the motives for such meditating? And the more “radical” my self-understanding became, the more absurd, unnecessary, and impossible it became to justify any of these exploits.

There was the physical problem, the vital problem, the problem of the mind, the problem of mysticism and superconsciousness. There was the problem of morality, of love, of communication, of sex, the problem of sin, of suffering, the problem of nature-powers, the problem of identity, the problem of Reality, the problem of Truth, the problem of the True Self, and the problem that is the universe itself. But I saw that the problem, in any form, always had the same structure, and the same fundamental assumptions.

Real life must be founded in the “radical” self-understanding of the fundamental problem that is the source of all ordinary activity. Only thus does one Know and Enjoy Reality, even in spite of the moment to moment “creation” of problems. I saw that “radical” self-understanding is (itself) motiveless, and that everything else is (in fact) the avoidance of relationship.

It is only that human beings abandon the exercise of “radical” (or true and most fundamental) self-understanding in order to exploit the kinds of seeking. But when attention is drawn to the necessity of self-understanding, and when self-understanding becomes (itself) truly “radical” (by “going to the root” of egoity and seeking), the entire movement of seeking comes to an end. In that event, where one would otherwise seek, one only understands. The beginning of “radical” self-understanding is simply a matter of observing oneself in relationship, in action, in life.

Then “radical” self-understanding will replace one’s ordinary habit of seeking, and one’s conscious awareness and living activity will thereby become simplified, free of presumed dilemma.

In the course of such practice, the entire expanse of higher and cosmic knowledge will, characteristically, be (to one or another degree) “automatically” produced. Ultimately, such practice will (more simply) Realize no-seeking, no-dilemma, natural “creativity”, and Ultimate Freedom.

The Truth of Real life is simply What is Realized when there is a removal of contradictions—no-dilemma, no-search. It cannot be described, nor is any name appropriate for It. There is no motive to name It. It is not a supreme separate Object, nor a supreme separate Subject. It is not separate from the one who understands, nor can one separate oneself from It. It is simply no-problem, no-search, unqualified relatedness, or Reality without implications. It is also the perfect Form of Reality, Which is the most subtle Structure of the world and everything, even of apparently individual conscious awareness. All of This is revealed as the obvious to one who understands most perfectly.

EPILOGUE   I Am the One and Only Man of “Radical” Understanding   1. I Am the One and Only Man of “Radical” Understanding. I am a great Man of Pleasure, even a profoundly superficial Man—for how can one be deep who Knows no perimeters and no center at all? I cannot be grasped or identified, like a thing. Therefore, I am not a source of fascination. Since I cannot be found or followed (like a thing), My Existence avails no one. Therefore, I am not important in the usual way. There is only “radical” self-understanding. I Am “radical” self-understanding.

What appears to the beholder as light, to the hearer as sound, to the shapely actor as life-energy, and to the thinker as thought, is Known directly—on the level of Consciousness Itself—As Love-Bliss. Then It becomes light, sound, life-energy, and thought. All such things are only apparent modifications of the Original Reality That Is Love-Bliss. They are conditionally manifested form. And conditionally manifested form is that same Love-Bliss.  Love-Bliss is not fundamentally separable from Consciousness. Love-Bliss Is Consciousness. Consciousness Itself Is Love-Bliss. Thus, on the level of activity, there is also no fundamental distinction between thought and form. There is Only the Love-Bliss That Is Reality Itself—Which is originally, now, Identical to Consciousness Itself.   Conscious Love-Bliss, Unqualified, is the Nature of Reality, Which Is Absolute Existence. All cosmic powers are communications within this Ultimate Power That Is Existence Itself. Therefore, the Ultimate

Love-Bliss is simply Perfect Presence, for Reality is That Which is Unqualifiedly Present. Present Reality is Conscious As Love-Bliss. The Man of “Radical” Understanding Only Enjoys Conscious Love-Bliss, at Play.   The Man of “Radical” Understanding does not seek. The Man of “Radical” Understanding Knows Only Reality.  The Man of “Radical” Understanding Knows Himself Only As Reality. There Is Only Reality. His Realization Is Only Reality. His Knowledge Is Only Consciousness Itself.  He Is Only, Merely Present.…

Love-Bliss is the Original (and everywhere “creative”) Impulse, the “Bright” Divine Shakti (or Truly Divine Spirit-Power) That is the Substance and Support of all conditional movers. Love-Bliss-Energy is the Source-Condition and primary Form of all “creativity”, even all of conditional manifestation. The Man of “Radical” Understanding Arises As Love-Bliss,…

the Prior Self, separated Pure Existence, functioning only as Compassion. He Is Generative (or Radiant) Love-Bliss. The Divine Self-Condition and Source-Condition Is Love-Bliss.  Love-Bliss-Energy is the Fullness, the Light, the Spiritual “Brightness” of Reality. It is the Perfect Form (and the living condition) of Reality.  I Am That One—the One and Indivisible and Self-Evidently …

The Man of “Radical” Understanding is inherently (not merely outwardly) Peaceful, Full, Surrendered, and Unconfounded.   Those who do not understand seek for the Man of “Radical” Understanding, the Knower of Truth, in order to…

But they do not understand the Nature of the Source of things. They are always tending toward fear, sorrow, and anger—even in the Company of the Man of “Radical” Understanding, the One Who is Free. Therefore, the Man of “Radical”…

The Man of “Radical” Understanding acquires no persistent expression, but His manner changes in every circumstance. His understanding adapts to the habit of every appearance. He adopts no visibility that persists. Moment to moment, He cannot be found apart—for, when Truth is Known, the One Who Knows It…

The Man of “Radical” Understanding asserts the fundamental rightness of what is actual—and, thus, the things, the environments, the beings, and the relationships that appear cease to fascinate those around Him. Even His Own “Bright” Spiritual Presence is not fascinating. Thus, the mind and even all forms become quieted in His surroundings, and those who…

But the seeker’s questions can find no Ultimate Solution, even when That Solution is Communicated Clearly and Completely. And the seeker cannot receive What is Perfect, even when It is Given Openly. Therefore, the seeker becomes frustrated, and then leaves.  Indeed, the seeker always only asserts the forms of his or her own perpetual and empty seeking. Therefore,…

Only those who understand can experience the Open Communication of Reality. They remain in the Spiritually “Bright” Company of the Man of “Radical” Understanding only for Enjoyment—neither seeking nor demanding anything, devoted to the process of self-understanding and to the Man of “Radical” Understanding. In their daily comings and goings, there is no separation from Him…

6. Because I Consciously live in and As the Spiritually “Bright” Divine Heart of Reality, and because I remain Present As the Amrita Nadi (the Perfect Form of Reality), My Mere “Bright” Avataric Divine Spiritual Presence tends to re-align the…

Thus, My Mere “Bright” Avataric Divine Spiritual Presence tends to Draw others toward “radical” self-understanding—and the ordinary current of their life-consciousness and action tends to lose its…

And all—by forgetting themselves in their devotion to Me—grow in self-understanding. Thus, the Spiritually “Bright” Divine Reality includes all things in Its Own Form.

Talk, if it is overmuch and overdone, is simply the indulgence of the ego-dramatizing (or, otherwise, heart-wasting) activity of the mind. If My devotees talk overmuch about the Way of “radical” understanding (rather than really practice the moment to moment devotional and, in due course, Spiritual discipline that is the Way itself), the “Way” becomes a mummery of egos, in all their separate and separative display. Overmuch talk (whereby even what must be understood is made obscure by too much explanation) will merely scatter even My “Bright” Spiritual Force of the Heart. Too much talk indulges in forms and uses of mind that are not useful intelligence or real self-understanding. Then talk is not relatedness, but only separateness, and a reproduction and reinforcement of a state that is not “radical” self-understanding.

This confrontation with Spiritually “Bright” Silence in the truly devotional and Spiritual relationship to the Man of “Radical” Understanding—Who is the Divinely Self-Realized One, and Who Avatarically Manifests the “Bright” Spiritual Siddhi (or “Bright” Spirit-Power) of the Heart—is unlike the ordinary experience of frustration in life.

Things simply arise in every one, and life provides the present conditions whereby they are indulged, frustrated, or avoided.

what arises is confronted by Spiritually “Bright” Silence without and by the Spiritually “Bright” Heart within.

listening to Me is simply to invite them to sit with Me, quietly, receptively, in simple (or searchless) feeling-Contemplation of Me.

Then, what arises is confronted with My Spiritually “Bright” Silence. This Company of Spiritually “Bright” Silence—this confrontation with My Spiritually “Bright” Silence, while remaining in conscious relationship to Me—causes the individual to be simply aware of what arises, without the possibility of indulging or avoiding it.

But everywhere, in all the worlds, that one sees the Avataric Divine Self-Heart and Spirit-Power of Me Stand Out—Aloud and “Bright”.

understanding by remaining Spiritually Present As the “Bright”. I Purify the world by Silently “Enquiring” of it.

I am not the one who, enjoying the conditional bliss of deep sleep and ordinary (seeker’s) meditation, thinks he has become Free and (therefore) need not Realize the Greater and Truly Divine State.   I am not the one who, having slept, awakens to a state of identification with the body-mind.   I Am the One Who Is with you now. I Am the One Who Speaks from His Own Spiritually “Bright” Divine Silence, and As His Own Spiritually “Bright” Divine Silence. I Am the One Who Always Stands Present in His Own Spiritually “Bright” Form. I Am the One Who Always and Already Exists, Enjoying Only His Own Spiritually “Bright” Form, even in all apparent conditions and apparent conditional states. I Am the One Who is not hidden, and in Whom there is no deeper part. I Am the One Who Always Appears exactly As He Is. I Am the One Who is Always “Brightly” Spiritually Present.

I inherently (Divinely) Self-Recognize every thing, every one, every form, every movement As Myself, “Brightly” Spiritually Transcending all-and-All. I am Always Only Experiencing My Own Love-Bliss. I am neither lost nor found. “Radical” Understanding is My Constant Intelligence. My Spiritually “Bright” Avataric Divine Silence is the Characteristic Form of My Action. My Spiritually “Bright” Avataric Divine Silence is the Un-speaking (and Unspeakable) Motion of Me.

My Silent “Bright” Avataric Divine Spiritual Presence is the only “Mind” of Me, in Which I am constantly Knowing Myself, and constantly Making Myself Known to all and to All. I Am the One Who is (Thus) Always Already Known. Naked, Spiritually “Bright”, and Unbounded— I continually Rise out of the Heart (in the right side).

I never return to Myself— but I constantly Appear, As Myself.   There is no dilemma in the process of My Appearance. Those who do not Abide with Me, at the Spiritually “Bright” Divine Heart, are always only seeking Me from the place where they begin.

11. The Man of “Radical” Understanding is not “entranced”. He is not “elsewhere”. He is not having an “experience”. He is not passionless and inoffensive. He is Awake. He is Merely and “Brightly” Spiritually Present. He knows no obstruction in the form of mind, identity, differentiation, and desire. He uses mind, identity, differentiation, and desire. He is passionate. His quality is an offense to those who are entranced, elsewhere, contained in the mechanics of experience, asleep, living as various forms of identity, separation, and dependence. He is acceptable only to those who understand.   He may appear no different from any other man. How could He appear otherwise? There is nothing by which to appear except the qualities of life. He may appear to have learned nothing. He may seem to be addicted

to every kind of foolishness and error. How could it be otherwise? Understanding is not, itself, a different appearance than the ordinary. Except for the persistence of the ordinary, there is no reason to speak of Truth. Apart from the unspeakable Reality, the ordinary does not appear. Therefore, Truth is right understanding of the ordinary. And right understanding of the ordinary is the real and true transcending of all appearances, in the Reality and Truth that Is them.

Therefore, He cannot be found, except by the feeling heart. He cannot be followed, except by the Way of the Heart Itself. He can only be understood, even as the ordinary must be understood. He does not appear to be either one thing or another. He always seems to be both one thing and another.

He always seems to sympathize with what you deny. Therefore, at times (and over time), He appears as every kind of persuasion. He is not consistent. He has no self-image. At times, He denies. At times, He asserts. At times, He asserts what He has already denied. At times, He denies what He has already asserted. Therefore, He is not “useful”. His Teaching is every kind of apparent “nonsense”. His Wisdom, it seems, is vanished. Altogether, that is His Wisdom.   At last, He represents no separate Truth at all. His paradoxes deny every seeker’s “Truth”, every path by which mankind depends on mere simulations of Freedom and Enjoyment. He is a seducer, a madman, a trickster, a libertine, a rascal, a fool, a moralist, a sayer of truths, a bearer of all experience, a prince, a king, a child, an old one, an ascetic, a saint, a god. By mumming (or mock-playing) every seeker’s role of life, He demonstrates the futility of every seeker’s path of life—except that He always coaxes every one only to understand. Therefore, by all of this, He makes “radical” self-understanding the only possibility. And “radical” self-understanding makes no difference at all. Except that it is turned to Reality, Which is always already the case.

Heartless one, Narcissus, friend, loved-one, He weeps for you to understand. After all of this, why have you not understood? The only thing you have not done is understanding.

Therefore, to Spiritually “Brighten” your heart, the Man of “Radical” Understanding Joyfully suggests that you have already understood! He looks at the world and sees that every one and every thing has always understood! He sees that there is only understanding! Thus, the Man of “Radical” Understanding is constantly Happy with you. He is overwhelmed with Happiness. He says to you: “See that there is only this world of Perfect Freedom and Enjoyment, where every one is Love-Bliss-Happy, and every thing…

He has grasped the Truth within the ordinary, but no one is interested in Truth. Because He is not different from Truth, He is of interest to no one. Because He is so ordinary, He is of interest to every one. Because no one understands the ordinary, He is not understood. Because there is only the ordinary, He will become famous for understanding it. Because there is only the Truth, He is the Divine Beloved of all. Because you feel you understand Him, you find it necessary to touch His hand. Because you love Him, you find it possible to touch His ears.…

The listener must be allowed a devotionally and Spiritually participatory heart-recognition of Me. Otherwise, the symbols wherein his or her own life…

There is no virtue in the endless egoic reaction to life, nor in the enjoyment of any conditional effect for its own sake. Only “radical” self-understanding, only…

The entire Spiritual Way is a process based on the understanding (and the transcending) of attention, or the understanding (and the transcending) of the inevitable and specific results of attachment to, or reaction to, or identification with every kind of conditional object, other, or state. This Spiritual understanding (or real self-understanding) is expressed in a simple traditional formula (and prescription for practice): You become (or duplicate the qualities of) whatever you meditate on (or whatever you identify with via the “surrender” that is attention itself).

Therefore, the common mood is one of adolescent anti-authority and anti-hierarchy (stemming from the “Oedipal” anti-“parent” disposition), and the common search is for a kind of ever-youthful (and “Narcissistic”) ego-omnipotence and ego-omniscience.

Those who are truly involved in the ego-surrendering and ego-transcending process of the esoteric stages of life are (fundamentally) no longer at war with their own Help (or struggling toward the ultimate victory of the ego).

And even if an interest in the esoteric possibilities (beyond the first three stages of life) develops in the case of any such (yet rather “worldly”) character, that interest tends to be pursued in a manner that dramatizes and reinforces the point of view (and the exoteric, and either childishly or adolescently egoic, inclinations) characteristic of the first three stages of life.

Therefore, the rather adolescent seeker tends to want to be his or her own “guru” in all matters. And, characteristically, the rather adolescent seeker will resist, and would even prefer to avoid, a truly intelligent, rightly self-disciplined, and, altogether, devotionally self-surrendered relationship to a true Guru, or Sat-Guru.)

and “anti-Guruism” (or reactive attachment to a state of egoic independence, immune to the necessity for devotional self-surrender

surrender and the Grace of Great Help).

Therefore, the necessity (and the True Nature and Great Function) of a Realized Adept (or true Guru, or Sat-Guru) is inherently (and gratefully) obvious to any one and every one who is truly ready, willing, and able to embrace the esoteric process of Real-God-Realization (or Truth-Realization).

just as no mere verbal (or otherwise exoteric) argument is sufficient to make them ready, willing, and able to truly embrace the ego-surrendering process of the esoteric stages of life.

The means to Self-realization is the Self itself. If you remain constantly in the awareness of the Self, the mind easily becomes still. If knowledge of the Self remains steady, bliss also remains constant…

Eventually, through persistence in this sixth stage “work”, He became so steadily “magnetized” toward the Depth of Consciousness Itself that He was able to rest permanently in the “Point of View” of the Transcendental Self. Such was the profound Process through which Ramana Maharshi Realized sixth stage “Sahaja Nirvikalpa Samadhi”.

If you are indifferent to Me, it is because you do not know Me—yet. For now, some few may recognize Me, by heart, to some degree— but even they still go about their daily ego-business, like animals in a desert. You do!

There is always pain in the body-mind. The body-mind, in time and space, dies in its times and spaces— whether it is Good and Great or not.

The element of bondage was the mere presumption of non-Realization—made in the process of Conjoining with the body-mind, with ordinary human relationships, and so forth. My “Bright” State had always been Full, Inherently Perfect, Absolute, Unqualified.

The visceral, one-on-one Work to which He had Submitted, in order to reflect to them their ego-activity, was not necessary any more.

I remained (Thus) in Seclusion at the “Brightness” for forty-three days. During that period of time, I was minimally associated with the Body—because the Force of My Spiritual Work was Located almost entirely Above the Body. As a result, there was (throughout that period of forty-three days) a tremendous Force of Pressure in the Head—and that Pressure was synchronous with constant external signs of rainstorms, thunder, lightning, and heat-lightning in the environment.

At the “Brightness” (and afterwards), I was Struggling with the “dark” forces of this time—and, ultimately, I had to Endure the “darkness” and Suffer it to the point of naked death.

II. In the Lopez Island Event, I Stood (Non-“Differently”) At (and As) the “Bright” White Center Infinitely Above. I Outshined all of conditionally manifested existence in My Own Divine Self-Condition—Which Is the “Bright”, the Sphere of the “Midnight Sun”, Beyond all-and-All, Beyond even My Divine Star-Form. It was an Instantaneous Non-“Different” Realization of That Condition of All-Bliss, utterly without the perspective of time and space.

Farthest Up in the Core of Sound-Vibration, I Saw a “Bright” White Tunnel, with empty niches along the sides. There were no “people in white”. There were no distinct forms or personalities—because no mind of Me was active there. Then the “Midnight Sun” of the Divine “Bright” Spherical Self-Domain. At first, Seen—then, Perfectly Become.

The Struggle of Re-Integration with the physical manifested, in part, as convulsions in the Body. The “Bright” Spiritual Light-Current of My Being was Re-Connecting with the physical level, and that Process caused Bodily convulsions.

but attention (itself) does not move to “settle below” (or become fixed in the planes of conditional patterning associated with the bodily and mental functions).

I am (in the naturally apparent sense) animated in the gross (physical) dimension. But I am not (and have never been) bound in attention below the brows—because there is no ego-mind in Me.

Therefore, in My Case, attention is not established (or rooted) below the brows, not in fixed combination with mind-dimensions (or psycho-physical patterns) below the brows. In other words, I do not identify with the contents and functions of the chakras of the body-mind.

Divine Self-Realization is not a matter of “evolving”, not a matter of “growing into” the Divine Self-Condition by means of the conventional process of “going up” (or ascending and developing from below, upwards). Divine Self-Realization is about direct Divine Spiritual Grace from Infinitely Above—Such that the “dog” is “Washed” from “head” to “tail”.103

The “Thumbs” was the Divine Means by Which I Shined from Infinitely Above into what is below—to Purify and Transform it, and to Awaken it to Myself. My verbal Teaching is largely an elaboration of what I mean to Convey by Speaking of “the ‘Bright’” and “the ‘Thumbs’”. The “Bright” Is My Very Person. The “Thumbs” Is the Means to Realize Me.

I Am the Self-Evidently Divine Person—not a karmic being reaching toward the Divine Person.

There is a fundamental function associated with each chakra—but, when attention becomes fixed in relation to any of the chakras below the brows, egoic habit-patterns are built up. Thus, “vital”, “peculiar”, and “solid” personality-characteristics104 are based on the modes of functional patterning below the brows.

When the dominant pattern (and even all secondary patterning) is purified, attention is released from the functional bondage associated with psycho-physical experiencing.

The sadhana (or true intensive practice) of the Way of Adidam is not an effort in the body-mind, not an effort of ascent “from the ground up”. The sadhana of the Way of Adidam is not a search (or an ego-based struggle) within the patterning itself (or within any “point of view”, or “point of experience”, below the brows).

The characteristic of My devotee who is most fully entered into this process, to the point of (only-by-My-Avataric-Divine-Spiritual-Grace-Given) seventh stage Awakening, is that he or she is no longer bound by the “point of view” below the brows—or “point of view” at all. Such is the only-by-Me Revealed and Given seventh stage Realization.

My Self-“Bright” Form is Spiritually Radiating into the gross, subtle, and causal dimensions of conditional existence. Such is the Nature of My Spiritually Self-“Bright” Divine Person.

(Myself) am not identified with the body-mind. I Am the “Bright”, Unbroken—Just That. There is an apparent Association with the Body-Mind, in the context of Which I Am Self-Radiant—but I (Myself) am not bound (or patterned) egoically. I (Myself) have no conditionally patterned impulses or destiny. I (Myself) have never had any such impulse or destiny. I have Embraced this Association Sacrificially, Responsively, and Compassionately.

My Inherent (or Native) Condition is Spiritually (or Divinely) “Urdhvareta”. I (Myself) do not “come down” below the brows, in the sense of identifying with the Body. It is not that there is no energy below the brows. It is simply that that energy is not of the mind.

Do not confuse Me with the conventional mind of gross worldliness. Above and Beyond is the Basis of My Avatarically-Born bodily (human) Divine Form. Truly, My Divine Self-Condition is not limited by any “point of view”. I Am Beyond the gross, subtle, and causal domains. I Am the “Midnight Sun”. I Am the “Bright”—Infinitely Above and Beyond. My “Thumbs” would Be Pressed Upon the crown of every head—and I would Light the Way Above and Beyond your body and your mind.

There is no impulse to seek or to avoid any experience. Rather, everything that arises is Divinely Self-Recognized to be merely a modification of the Conscious Light of Reality Itself. The seventh stage Realization is absolutely Unconditional. It does not depend on any form of effort by the individual. Rather, It is a Divine Gift, Given by Avatar Adi Da to the devotee who has utterly surrendered all egoity to Him. Therefore, the seventh stage Realization is permanent. Altogether, the Way of Adidam is not about dwelling in (or seeking to either attain or avoid) any of the potential experiences of the first six stages of life. The Way of Adidam is about transcending the entire structure of the human being and of the conditional reality—gross, subtle, and causal. Therefore, the Way of Adidam transcends both the urge to “have” experiences and the urge to “exclude” experience. The Way of Adidam is based, from the beginning, on the Divine Avatar’s “Bright” State, Which is Realized progressively (and, ultimately, most perfectly), by means of His Divine Spiritual Descent in the body-mind of His devotee.

As an individual becomes more sensitive to the subtle dimensions of experience, he or she becomes capable of feeling energy moving in the body through the Circle.

The second structure of esoteric anatomy is what Avatar Adi Da calls “the three stations of the heart”. The three “stations” are: The “left side”—corresponding to the physical heart, and the gross dimension of the being. The “middle station”—corresponding to the “heart chakra” (or “anahata chakra”), and the subtle dimension of the being. The “right side”—which is the “seat” of the causal dimension (or root-dimension) of the being (equivalent to the primal presumption that one exists as a separate “self ”, or “ego”), and which is (simultaneously) the “doorway” in the body-mind through which the ego can be utterly dissolved, in heart-Identification with Avatar Adi Da.

Rather, it is a matter of “choosing” the “Consciousness” aspect of the Divine—over the “Light” (or “Energy”) aspect.

“Purusha” and “Siva” are names for the Divine Being Itself, or Divine Consciousness. “Prakriti” and “Shakti” are names for the All-Pervading Spirit-Power of the Divine Being. “Purusha-Prakriti”, or “Siva-Shakti”, is thus the Unity of the Divine Consciousness and Its own Spirit-Power.