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Chapter 6
Part 3
THE REVELATION OF THE UNKNOWABLE IN THE HIGHER STAGES OF THE WAY
The
Structure of Illusion and
Enlightenment – The
Four Stages of This Way of Eternal
Life – Esoteric
Practice, Initiation, and Ultimate Realization in the Way of
Divine Ignorance – The
Ilusion of God and the Reality of the
Presence – The
Most Difficult Stage – Self-Observation
and Divine Communion: The Second Stage of
Practice – The
Psycho-Physical Principles of Observation and Concentration
in the Way of Divine Ignorance – Ascent,
Awakening, and Translation: The Last Two Stages of
Practice – The
Esoteric Process of the Last Two Stages of the Way of Divine
Ignorance – Self-Realization
and God-Realization
THE REVELATION OF THE
UNKNOWABLE IN THE HIGHER STAGES OF THE WAY
The higher psycho physical practices
of the Way of Divine Ignorance begin with the spiritual
disciplines of the Way of Divine Communion: the “Breath of
God” (reception-release in the All-Pervading Presence of
Life, in coordination with the cycle of breathing) and the
“Name of God” (the special version of the conscious process
at this stage, involving intuitive and bodily recollection
of the Living Divine Presence, Who is the Transcendental
Consciousness and All-Pervading Current of Life). These
spiritual disciplines become the responsibilities of the
devotee after he has been thoroughly Awakened to the
Presence of the Divine Person in the Company of the
Spiritual Master.
The Way of Relational Enquiry is the
fully humanizing stage of practice. It begins with
self-observation and radical insight into one’s contractive,
self-meditative, or Narcissistic activity. In this manner,
the devotee matures to the point of formal responsibility
for the enquiry “Avoiding relationship?” In the second phase
of the Way of Relational Enquiry, the practice of the
“Breath of God” becomes conductivity, or breathing of the
Presence or Current of Life, in a continual internal cycle
of descent and ascent of Life-Energy. (The process of
conductivity involves technical exercises, which are
communicated privately to all devotees at this stage of
practice.) Through these conscious and technical disciplines
in Communion with the Spiritual Master, or the Living Agency
of the Divine Person, the Bodily Current of Radiance begins
to show signs of regenerative, Life-conserving reorientation
from toe to crown, rather than vice versa (which is the case
in the usual man and the devotee previous to this stage of
transformation).
The Way of Re-cognition is the
higher spiritualizing stage of the Way of Divine Ignorance.
In the process of this stage, the devotee recapitulates and
transcends the traditional esoteric awakenings of yogis,
saints, and sages in the classic spiritual
traditions.
In the three phases of the Way of
Re-cognition, the devotee re-cognizes, “knows again, ” or
literally feels through and passes beyond the experiential
contractions of the body, the ordinary thinking mind, the
subtle mind, and the ego. The Bodily Current of Radiance is
first fully reoriented to the crown, and it is later
dissolved in the centerless, directionless Bliss of Divine
Radiance Itself, prior to the body-mind.
The final phase of the Way of
Re-cognition Realizes exclusive Self-Realization, or
Absorption in the Transcendental Consciousness of the Free
soul, prior to all subjective and objective conditions. This
Realization is followed by “open eyes, ” the transition to
Whole Body Enlightenment in the Way of Radical
Intuition.”
The Way of Radical Intuition, or the
seventh and Eternal Stage of Life, begins when there is
“open-eyed” transcendence of exclusive or internalized
Self-Realization. It is the true Awakening of Whole Body
Enlightenment. As the Awakened Devotee persists in this
spontaneously God-Realized Consciousness, this perfect
Enjoyment of Transcendental Ignorance-Radiance, he is more
and more profoundly drawn into Divine Existence Itself,
prior to all phenomena, high and low.
In the case of Whole Body
Enlightenment, there is tacit re-cognition, or “knowing
again ” of all arising conditions, which are thus realized
to be only unnecessary modifications of the Divine
Condition. Persistence in such Enlightenment ultimately
becomes Divine Translation, in which there is no longer any
problematic experiential or subjective noticing of anything
arising in or as the independent body, mind, or world. Even
though all possible phenomena are eternally arising, the
independent experiential position is not presumed. Only the
Divine Condition is obvious. No independent act of attention
arises to associate with phenomena or to cause experience in
the unnecessary and changing Realm of Nature. This is the
Perfection of radical intuition. It is the native State of
Free and Unobstructed Feeling-Attention, or Love, in which
the devotee has Realized Identity with the Transcendental
Consciousness of the Divine Person-the true Self of all
bodies, minds, and worlds-and Ecstatic or perfectly
selftranscending Communion with the Eternal Radiance of the
Divine Person-the Bliss that is the true Condition or
Happiness behind all experiential phenomena.
The
Structure of Illusion and Enlightenment
I will describe the Structure in
which we appear-since Awakening to this Structure is
Enlightenment. The Ultimate Reality or Truth is the
Transcendental Person Infinite, Eternal Bliss, Prior to all
kinds of relations. That Person is Radiant Consciousness, or
Divin Ignorance-Radiance.
The same Person, although One, is
also Dynamic-expressed as an Infinitely Extended Process of
numberless kinds of Manifest Play. In that Play,
self-consciousness arises in each specific process or
apparent entity. And this self-consciousness within the
Dynamic Play of Existence cannot know or experience the
Divine Person over against itself. The Divine Person is a
Unity, Who Transcends the Dynamic Play while also appearing
to Pervade it and even to Be it. Therefore, to Realize the
Divine Person, individual beings must transcend their
manifest forms, or their independent existence in the
Play.
The Divine Person does not appear as
such to the independent conscious entities within the Play.
Rather, the Ultimate Reality seems to be a hidden
Transcendental Consciousness, over against the Universal
Drama of all phenomena. The entities intuit the Divine
Consciousness through their own fundamental consciousness,
which seems to be their essential or central condition of
existence. Therefore, they may feel that God is
Consciousness. But all of the phenomena of experience
distract the entities and seem to bind them to what is not
Consciousness.
Thus, the Divine appears to, have
divided Itself, becoming Consciousness on the one hand, and
Dynamic Manifestation on the other. But, in Truth, the
Divine is One, and this Self-Division in God is only an
illusion, created by the presumption on the part of the
entities that they are independently existing in a World of
experience, separated from the Eternal Position of
Transcendental Unity, or Bliss.
The living beings become convinced
of their independence by virtue of the distracting power of
manifest experience. They begin to turn from Intuitive
Communion with the Divine Reality, and they turn toward the
phenomena of the Play. Thus, experience continues,
reinforcing the illusion of independence, separation from
the Divine Condition, and necessary association with
phenomena.
Entities thus develop desires and
tendencies of all kinds, which trap them into automatic and
uninspectable association with continued experience. They
are launched on a space-time Tour of Possibility. But in
that Process, the Bliss of God-Communion is replaced by
inherent suffering, or self-possession. Therefore, as
experience develops, so also does the profound sense of
bewilderment, despair, and the feeling of entrapment. The
entity feels that it is an independent, conscious being with
form in a World, and that it is necessarily associated with
experiential phenomena. Happiness seems to require continued
experience and improvement of experience. The Real, or God,
is considered either to be perfectly interior to the World
or else to be the Perfection of the World.
Such is the puzzle or dilemma of
consciousness in the case of manifest individual entities,
or souls in manifestation. The manifest soul, or entity, is
an apparently independent consciousness (the manifest
expression of the Divine Ignorance, or Perfect
Consciousness), covered by or necessarily associated with a
body-mind and an Infinite World of relations (the manifest
expression of the Divine Radiance, or Perfect
Bliss).
The only true “solution” to this
dilemma is an Awakening that inherently transcends every
aspect or condition of the dilemma. Thus, the manifest soul
must Awaken to the Realization that it is always already and
priorly Free of all conditions of experience, or the
body-mind. Experience is not necessary, or even a Way to the
Divine Person. The body-mind is an illusion in the Play. By
association with the body-mind, the Free soul, or the
Self-which dwells in the planes of manifestation but is
inherently free of identification with phenomena-suffers the
illusion of identification with phenomena. Liberation in
Truth comes when this association produces a critical sense
of revulsion, thus permitting intuitive Awakening from the
stream of experience. This Awakening is Self-Realization,
and it is perfected in the sixth stage of manifest
life.
When there is this Awakening beyond
the distractive power of experience, the Self may then begin
to Awaken to the Single Reality, the Original Condition, the
Divine Person or Absolute Personality. The Self, first
Awakened, tends to abide within Itself, excluding
experiential phenomena-since the Play of experiential
phenomena is recognized to have been the very Process that
originally caused the Self, or Free soul, to forget its Free
Condition. However, exclusive Self-Realization does not
permit Transcendental God-Communion, or Realization of the
Divine Person, the Inclusive Ignorance-Radiance of the One
Reality. Therefore, the Ultimate Liberation comes only when
the Self yields its effort to exclude phenomena as well as
its previous effort to maintain association with
phenomena.
In the first five stages of life,
entities seek association with the various kinds of
psycho-physical phenomena. In the sixth stage of life,
entities seek to avoid association with every kind of
experiential phenomenon, while abiding in the prior Bliss of
the Self. But in the seventh stage of life, the Free soul,
or Self, is yielded perfectly into the Condition of the
Absolute Personality, or the Domain of the Divine Person.
Thus, experiential phenomena are no longer either sought or
avoided. They are simply recognized as unnecessary
modifications of the Single Reality, which is Transcendental
and All-Pervading. Thus, the Self becomes Sacrifice,
Radiance, or Love, transcending not only experience but also
the Unqualified Consciousness of the Independent Self
(separated from the Infinite Radiance of Existence).
Therefore, even the inward or exclusive Self-Position is
yielded into the Bliss of Ignorance Radiance, the Absolute
Personality, Who is the Person in the Play and the Person
Who is Prior to the Play. Then all phenomena and every
gesture of recoil from phenomena and toward Self Containment
are Dissolved in Self-Sacrificial Communion with the Divine
Person or Identity. And nothing is strategically excluded or
included, nor may it be strictly said that the soul is
either the same as God or separate from God. There is only
the Paradox of God, the Divine Person, and by virtue of
Absorption in Bliss through that Paradox, the Eternal Self
is Translated into the Eternal Domain of God, beyond all the
illusions of separation and suffering.
The Four Stages of This
Way of Eternal Life
The first three stages of the Way of
Divine Ignorance involve purification, regeneration, higher
adaptation, and sacrifice of the whole and entire body-mind
through transcendental Communion with the Living Divine. In
the ultimate ‘or perfect stage, which is named the Way of
Radical Intuition, there is absolute conservation and
dissolution of the whole and entire body-mind in the
transcendental Divine, which is intuited and heart-felt to
be the very Condition and Truth of the body-mind and the
whole world of experience.
Therefore, ultimately, the devotee
simply abides in that Ignorance and Radiance that is prior
to body and mind and all experience. He re-cognizes and sees
the dissolution of all forms, moment to moment, in Love,
which is the Radiance of Eternal Life. He exists only as
that Intensity. Everything resolves in that Intensity.
Truly, there is not any noticing at all -no body, no mind,
no experience, no effect, no dilemma, no self, no time, no
form to space, no world. He is blown out in That. His
Destiny cannot be located by any one.
Esoteric Practice, Initiation, and Ultimate Realization
in the Way of Divine Ignorance
There are many forms of esoteric and
technical practices that appear progressively in the various
stages of the Way of Divine Ignorance. These practices bear
certain similarities to esoteric mystical and yogic
exercises that were practiced in the inner circles of cults
and secret societies all over the ancient world. However,
the exercises practiced by devotees in the Way of Divine
Ignorance are not merely copies of random techniques
gathered from ancient texts. They are a new and complete
Revelation of the ancient Way, Awakened spontaneously and
progressively in the Divinely Inspired meditations granted
to Bubba Free John during his years of intense spiritual
struggle and discipline.
Therefore, the practices of devotees
in The Free Communion Church are essentially unique. They
are not described in detaill in the public literature, but
they are communicated to devotees directly as they mature in
the Way. The sequence of these exercises is of great
significance, and each devotee is instructed in the exercise
only after the mystical or yogic signs that belong to each
stage have already spontaneously appeared.
There are two other primary
considerations that pertain to the unique practice of
devotees in this Way. First of all, the practices themselves
are simply forms of technical responsibility for processes
that have already been set in motion through the Spiritual
Power or Initiatory Influence of the Spiritual Master. The
practices are not truly ways of attaining new experiential
states, but they are ways of accepting responsibility for
experiences that have already become part of the devotee’s
life.
The Process of spiritual activity is
set in motion through devotional Communion with the Person
and Radiant Divine Power that are Present in the Form of the
Spiritual Master. This is the literal and unique
circumstance and advantage of devotees in the Way of Divine
Ignorance. Devotees mature in that Company, on the basis of
initially and continuously “hearing” the Teaching and
“seeing” the Spiritual Master in his Divine
Potency.
As devotees mature, signs and
evidence of both an ordinary and extraordinary kind
appear-demonstrating readiness for new forms of
responsibility. Therefore, at critical moments on the Way,
devotees are given instructions in various kinds of esoteric
or technical practice.
Likewise, just as the practices are
forms of responsibility for experiential processes that are
already in motion, all practices are associated with forms
of the conscious process. That is, the various practices are
themselves simply ways of responsibly adapting to higher
aspects of psycho-physical existence in the Play of Life but
the essentially spiritual responsibility in the Way of
Divine Ignorance is the one of transcendence of experience,
or the limiting conditions of the soul. Thus, as phenomena
arise in the practice of the esoteric exercises under the
Influence of the Radiant Power of the Spiritual Master,
their force is penetrated and transcended by radical
insight, Awakened in the devotee through
“hearing.”
By all of these means, devotees grow
in their experience and mature in their responsibility for
experience, until they becomell naturally, or natively and
spontaneously, capable of living as thej Perfect
Transcendental Sacrifice of the Free soul, or Awakened Self,
into the Divine Self, Whose Person, or Body-Mind, Includes,
Pervades, and Transcends all phenomena.
The Illusion of God and the Reality of the
Presence
0bjective or independent self,
world, and God are the conventional illusions. The primal
incident is differentiation of the One and Present Reality,
which is Infinite Consciousness, from Love, Radiance, Light,
and Vibratory Life, or all the Infinite Eternity at once.
But in the instant of differentiation the most primitive
archetype of all knowledge appears. It appears as a simple
presumption of independent existence, consciousness, and
pleasure over against all kinds of relations or objects,
high and low. To account for all of it, the Truth is called
God-apart, the Creator-Parent. And the infinite numbers and
kinds of relations and worlds between self and God are
viewed as a vast stream of objective conditions that are
other than self and God, even as self and God are other than
one another in this scheme of presumed knowledge.
Those who are awakening in the Way
of Divine Communion and maturing in the stages that follow
it are shown a Revelation of the Real Condition that
precedes our reactive and born presumptions. By this
Revelation they are relieved of the binding implications of
all experiential knowledge and logic.
The Real Condition, Realized in
Ignorance through hearing and through Revelation in
Communion with the Spiritual Master, is the Reality of which
all presently arising conditions, subjective or objective,
high or low, are only unnecessary and illusory
modifications. The Reality is the Truth of the subject, the
independent self, the whole body. It is also the Truth of
the whole world, or all possible worlds. And it is the Truth
of God. It is very or Real God. The Real is the Source of
all present and possible arising and nonarising. But it is
not creative, active, reactive, or other than any
arising.
It is not the generative Creator. It
is the Truth of the presumption of the independent Creator.
The “Creator God Parent” is an idea men presume in their
knowing, but such a God is not Truth or Real God. Real God
does not actively or independently create, sustain, or
destroy any differentiated condition. Real God, the Divine
Person, Who is Truth, the Condition of all conditions, is
utterly and eternally free under all apparent conditions.
God is Realized only when we are liberated from the tyranny
of our born presumptions of self, and world, and
God.
Those who enter into the Way of
Divine Communion through “hearing,” and who prepare
themselves for the simple and direct Revelation of the
Divine in the initiatory Company of the Spiritual Master,
are engaged with that Process whereby the lies of born
experience are undermined and transcended. In the instant of
Revelation they are relieved from the illusory presumptions
of independent self, world, and God. The import of this
relief or liberation is demonstrated more and more as they
proceed to maturity in the stages of practice. In
the Way of Divine Communion it is
shown through the Revelation of the Divine as AllPervading
Presence, which attracts the whole bodily being into
Communion, wherein all conventional distinctions lose their
binding force.
There is no radically separate
Creator interior to or over against the world any more than
there is an absolutely independent subject-entity behind the
thought process in the case of any human individual.
Individuation and action are attributes of the whole body of
man and of the great visible and invisible Cosmos or Process
of changes in itself. Creativity or activity, positive or
negative, is a characteristic of the arising process itself,
whether apparently subjective or apparently objective. It is
not some radically independent Cause that is also the Divine
Truth. As long as there is differentiation or knowledge, the
Real may seem to be outside us as independent Creator, and
the world may seem to be outside us as the independent
creation, and we may also seem to be independent creatures,
but all such distinctions are obviated when there is direct
Revelation and Communion with the Real Condition or Truth of
all appearances.
The Truth of Man, the Cosmos, and
the presumed Deity is the single, prior Condition of all
conditions. Therefore, it is not by strategic action
relative to conditions but by persistent intuitive
identification with the Real Condition that illusions and
illusory, motivating presumptions become obsolete and cease
to be binding, or even noticed. For this reason, the whole
Way of Divine Ignorance, beginning with the Way of Divine
Communion, rests on Revelation, through hearing and
intuitive demonstration, wherein the Real Condition becomes
obvious and the obstructed or loveless life of problematic
seeking and self-possession becomes obsolete.
All differentiation is unnecessary.
The process wherein present conditions arise is a Mystery
that may not be observed. It is instant, uncaused, not
radically other than no-event, no-thing. Since we do not
know what a single thing is, the arising of things is not
radically different from no-arising. Ignorance is the Truth
of both arising and no-arising. We need not escape the
present world or become unconscious of our conventional
bodily life in order to Realize this Truth. It is always
already the Truth, whatever the conditions. Therefore, we
need only listen to the Teaching of Truth until the
suffering of our ordinary presumptions becomes obvious, and
we are free to hear and feel the Truth.
How or why there is any arising at
all cannot be independently or objectively known. But if the
Condition of all present arising is Realized, then there is,
in Truth, no present arising-arising conditions are no
longer radically different than no-arising of conditions. If
the Condition of all present conditions is intuitively
Realized, then presently arising conditions cease to bear
the force of implication or necessity. Persistence in such
Realization is Happiness. The primal gesture of
differentiation is ineffective and ultimately obsolete in
this Way.
The “Unknown” is not that which is
as yet not known. The true Unknown is the eternally
Unknowable. We are in touch with this Mystery of the
Unknowable whenever we are confronted by anything new or
experientially and conceptually unfamiliar to us. But we are
in direct Communion with the Unknowable only when the
disposition of Ignorance has been Realized to be the
ultimate and eternal Condition of “I, ” the independent self
or whole body. “I” cannot ever know what a single thing is.
“I” may come to know, experientially and conceptually, a
great deal about any thing. But what any thing is is not
ever grasped in any perception, experience, or
conception.
Therefore, Ignorance is Truth.
Ignorance is Communion with Real God. The Unknowable is
Reality, the Real Condition prior to all that is known and
knowable. The Revelation of the Unknowable is given directly
to devotees who become a sacrifice through unobstructed
feeling in the Company of the Spiritual Master. The
Happiness of that Revelation is the Enjoyment of all
devotees who will serve and feel to all others without the
affliction of self and other that is common to those who
have not Realized God in Truth and in the spiritual sense.
The Most Difficult Stage
In the Great Process of the Way of
Divine Ignorance, body and mind are ecstatically released or
surrendered into Life, or the Fullness of Divine Radiance.
Thus, as the Process matures, the structures and functions
of the body-mind first awaken and then become a sacrifice
into their Source-Condition.
The most difficult stage is the one
of transition from Lawless, subhuman existence to the
responsible beginning of spiritual life in the Way of Divine
Communion. After that, the whole affair is more creative and
freely voluntary. Thus, in the earliest stages of life,
where personal, moral, and religious preparation is
developed, much attention still remains in reactive and
self-indulgent physical, emotional, and mental patterns. But
as the stages of true practice of the Way develop, there is
less and less of the mechanical and self-conscious
attachment to the structures of the body-mind.
As the Way of Relational Enquiry
develops, the entire lower body-mind becomes Awake in the
prior Fullness of the Divine. Thus, social, dietary, sexual,
and other areas of habit and obsession gradually relax and
are sublimed through ecstatic Communion with the Divine. As
a result, by the time the devotee makes the transition to
the Way of Re-cognition, there is no longer any overriding
need to indulge such habits, and he can easily and naturally
maintain a daily practice that is wholly regenerative,
moderate, and free of the accumulating effects of
enervation, toxicity, distraction, reactivity, doubt, and
unlove.
Self-Observation and Divine Communion: The Second Stage
of Practice
The second stage of practice in the
Way of Divine Ignorance is named the Way of Relational
Enquiry. It is accepted as a responsibility by mature
members of the esoteric order of The Free Communion
Church.
Practice develops in two stages in
the Way of Relational Enquiry. In the first stage, random
verbal enquiry is added to the moment to moment practice of
Divine Communion (as established in the Way of Divine
Communion). That process of enquiry is founded in true
self-observation of the habit of reactive recoil and the
chronic orientation toward separate, separative, and
subjectively oriented bodily attention. Thus, enquiry is
made in the form “Avoiding relationship?” in the midst of
the conditions of living, and in the midst of meditative
Communion with the Living Divine. By such means, the
individual is continuously and more and more profoundly
reestablished in whole bodily Communion with the
All-Pervading Divine Life.
The second stage of practice in the
Way of Relational Enquiry requires maturity in all previous
levels of practice, and the development of Divine Communion
as an essentially wordless and thoughtless gesture of the
whole bodily being. Thus, at this stage, instruction is
given in the beginnings of the process of bodily
conductivity of the Radiant Current of Divine Life, and the
ascension of attention into the higher structural range of
the body-mind.
The Psycho-Physical Principles of Observation and
Concentration in the Way of Divine Ignorance
The practice of the Way of Divine
Ignorance is founded in Paradox. There is no direct method
for removing either behavioral tendencies or the obsessive
stream of thinking. Nonetheless, these patterns must be
mastered and undone, since they are the essential content of
the motivated, compulsive, and illusory display of egoic
suffering, or subjective differentiation.
It is simply that they cannot come
to rest by attacking them directly. Such only reinforces the
subjective pattern itself, by establishing a double-bind
pattern in which the subjective being works against
itself.
To try to stop thinking itself is
the same as to try not to think a particular thought. Try
not to think of a tree. It is impossible, because you must
keep the thing in mind in order to try not to think
it.
The same is true of the strategic
attempt to control the entire thinking mind itself. Try not
to think. It is impossible, because the thinking process
must be kept intact in order to intend not to think. If you
remember not to think, you may keep up an effort that makes
the mind blank, but you will not bring an end to the
intention of thought itself. You will only frustrate your
own intentional and automatic thought process.
This simple functional observation
is the ultimate key to actual control of obsessive
subjective activity-indeed, to responsible control of all
life-processes. To seek to control any living process
directly only reinforces the process itself. This is felt as
an irreducible double-bind, the tacit sense of dilemma. Such
a state is constantly motivated and remotivated to seek its
own solution, but it remains forever in the condition of the
problem.
There are two laws at work in the
situation of living processes that should particularly be
observed in this case: (1) What is initiated (or set in
motion) tends to continue in motion (or in evidence) until
diverted or replaced by another initiated motion. (2) What
is not used tends to become obsolete. On the basis of these
two laws we have the options of two primary modes of
operation in any functional situation: (1) concentration,
and (2) observation.
The stream of subjective appearances
or impulses is a stream of motions or tendencies to either
mental-emotional or physical action. The tendency of
subjective motion is constant, until the process that
initiates the subjective illusion, or the illusion of
independent consciousness, becomes obsolete. Therefore, what
tends to arise from moment to moment is not the cessation of
the stream of subjectivity, but, rather, changes in its
tendency of motion. Until we are utterly or radically
responsible for subjective motion (as thought and impulse),
we do not cease to initiate or continue the process.
Therefore, the pattern of subjective thoughts and impulses,
or feeling-stresses, is itself continuous, but it is
constantly changing.
Our egoic mind is a pattern of
countless motions, founded in many kinds of experience or
reactivity, kept in a constantly stimulated and changing
condition by the presently arising events of the total
living experience. Therefore, subjective motion will not
tend to cease, but always tends to continue and to change.
Even physical death does not bring it to an end, since
physical death is superficial or external relative to the
field of energy in which the subjective process is
initiated. The subjective process does not come to an end as
a result of any objective or circumstantial change. Rather,
like the physical body, it arises as a result of a
reactionresponse at the level of light, or the field of
Awareness, rather than as a result of solid, elemental, or
material events, which are themselves only lower vibratory
versions of the light itself. The thought, desire, or
feeling impulse-the present tendency or direction of
subjective motion-tends to change eventually, even
momentarily, but subjective motion itself tends to be
continuous, throughout life, after death, and throughout the
eternity of time and space.
The ordinary method for controlling
subjective motion is concentration, or the prolonged
maintenance of a single intention of thought. But this does
not tend to bring thought or intention itself to an end. On
the contrary, it reinforces it. However, it does tend to
prevent changes in the motion of subjectivity for a finite
period of time. It fulfills the natural law: What is set in
motion tends to remain in motion unless deflected or
interrupted. Profound concentration on a single subjective
motion prevents other tendencies from becoming effective. By constantly reintending the intended
motion over time, other subjective motions are prevented
from replacing it. (Therefore, although other tendencies of
motion continue to arise, they are cancelled or immediately
replaced by the intended and re-intended motion or
thought.)
Such is the secret of both
meditation and ordinary effectiveness. However, as already
suggested, this method does not bring an end to subjective
motion-since it is itself a form of intended subjective
motion – but it does control and direct the process toward
specific ends, either in the world of objective activity or
in the subtle worlds of mind and higher subjective or
mystical-intuitive knowledge.
If, however, there is to be ultimate
freedom and responsibility, there must also be an end to the
compulsive continuation of subjective motions. To such an
end, the method of concentration will not be the means. It
is not itself a way of ceasing to initiate subjective
motion, since it is only a way of continually intending a
specific subjective motion. Even so, individuals constantly
seek to overcome behavioral, mental, and egoic patterns by
the method of concentration-and they are
frustrated.
You cannot, as was said at the
beginning of this essay, remove tendencies of behavior and
of thinking, including the ego illusion, the illusion of
independent consciousness itself, by direct efforts that
only manipulate the egoic or subjective processes of
conceiving, thinking, perceiving, feeling, desiring, and
acting. Concentration is a method of effective and chosen
use of the force of subjectivity and mind. It may
temporarily bypass a particular tendency of thought or a
complex impulse to action, but it cannot bring an end to
subjective motion itself.
Therefore, any subjective motion
that has been previously established in the complex
subjective order will inevitably return to motivate us in
the future. Even if contrary concentration is willfully
maintained to the point of trance, the motive or tendency we
seek to avoid will arise again in time.
Therefore, meditation, which is
founded in concentration, is not sufficient for
Enlightenment. It cannot achieve Enlightenment, or prior and
radical Freedom in Truth. It is simply a conventional and
useful method for using our born functional
capacity.
How, then, does the reactive,
subjective, egoic, moving, impulsive, independent
experiential drive itself come to rest as a matter of
ultimate responsibility? If the illusory and irresponsible
motion of subjectivity is to cease, it must simply not be
initiated! This way sounds simple, but what will you do
about it? The conventional response or wisdom is to try to stop thinking and motivated existence (rather than
simply not thinking, not presuming an independent
consciousness or any independent object). But the effort to
stop what is otherwise already and irresponsibly initiated
is only the way of concentration. It does not radically
cease to initiate the motion of subjectivity. It only tries
to stop or prevent the already mysteriously initiated
subjective tendencies or motions.
The true or ultimate and native
means is not the direct one of concentration, which depends
on the law that whatever is set in motion tends to remain in
motion. Rather, the true means is the natural, free, or
prior intuitive presumption of mere observation, which
depends on the law that whatever is not used tends to become
obsolete.
Whenever we are consciously present
as simple awareness of arising motions (or internal and
external objects arising to the egoic witness), we are not
then principally active to initiate, continue, or bring an
end to any arising tendencies. Therefore, we do not then
reinforce the presently arising pattern of subjective
motion, nor do we reinforce the pattern of subjective, egoic
arising or motion itself.
The Way of Divine Ignorance, in each
of its four fundamental stages, is founded in the process of
free feeling-attention, or mere intuitive observation of the
whole process of the present arising of gross, subtle, and
causal objects to present awareness. The conscious process
in each stage is a version of this native disposition, which
is not in conflict with present tendencies, but neither is
it possessed by present tendencies. It is the key attitude
of every stage. True observation, which is the foundation of
the various forms of the conscious process in the midst of
experience, does not create, intend, support, or oppose any
arising, any subjective tendency or motion, or any moment of
differentiation and objectification. Observation does not
intend. It is not a form of subjectivity, but of prior
intuition. Concentration, which includes all forms of
meditation, conductivity, and so forth (as well as the
meditative or intentional aspects of the application of the
various forms of the conscious process) is intentional.
Concentration is the principle, the primary functional or
intentional structure of egoic experience, or the motion of
subjectivity, the play of consciousness and all objects
(internal or external).
Paradoxically, the attitude of
observation, or the intuitive rather than the intentional
disposition, is not in itself a sufficient practical
foundation for Realization of the whole Way of Divine
Ignorance. In this Way, intuitive observation is always
linked to and presently combined with various forms of
responsible concentration of the whole bodily being. Thus,
in every stage of practice, free feeling-attention, or mere
observation, is linked with Lawful concentration, or
appropriate and responsible activity of the whole bodily
being. This dynamic combination of observation and
concentration is the natural process wherein the whole
bodily being is economized, or turned to its Lawful,
sacrificial form, and also utterly or radically transcended
or obviated at the same time. There is no appropriate
element of irresponsibility at any stage of the process. It
is always, from the beginning, a matter of radical
responsibility for the whole affair of arising experience,
through responsible intention, or concentration, and
intuitive responsibility for attention, or mere
observation.
Mere observation, or free
feeling-attention, is not itself a form of subjective motion
or intention. It is merely to observe arising motions. But
true or intuitive observation cannot itself be intended. It
can be obstructed, or made ambiguous. It can be temporarily,
and even then only apparently, put to sleep, or “forgotten,”
under the profusion of fascinations, distractions, desires,
impulses, and all the forms of knowledge, high and low. But
it is itself native to us at every moment. It is mere or
free attention, or natural awareness of all events, within
and without. It is always already true of us and as us, but
we are free to be present as such mere awareness or mere
presence only when we are intuitively free of identification
with all forms of subjective motion, distraction or
knowledge.
We are always already free or
present as mere awareness of any arising conditions (gross,
subtle, causal-waking, dreaming, or sleeping), unless the
pattern of subject-object conditions has distracted us to
the point of irresponsible absorption in conditions
themselves. Therefore, if we are so distracted, we will not
tend to presume our native disposition of mere awareness of
conditions, unless we are awakened to that disposition (or
free attention) via true “hearing,” or spontaneous
intuition, in which the pattern of subjective motions is
interrupted and its prior Condition revealed.
Such “hearing” occurs in the case of
those who are drawn into the Company of the Spiritual
Master; when attention is moved to concentrate in the
Spiritual Master’s demonstration and argument, there is
spontaneous awakening to true “hearing” and the disposition
of mere attention or intuitive observation. Devotees of the
Spiritual Master are those who have thus “heard” the
Teaching, and who are naturally committed to the forms of
concentrationthe Lawful or sacrificial disciplines, the
forms of love or heart-radiance, including the various
developments of the conscious process and of
meditation-which are revealed as obviously true when
attention is liberated from the subjective stream of
knowledge, or experience.
Simple awareness of arising
conditions is not willful, cool, detached, and
self-involved. It is not looking-watching, whereby neither
the egoic, subjective witness nor the witnessed objects ever
change or become obsolete. Such detachment is itself
attachment, if only to the fixed position of the presumed
and independent self-and, therefore, it only reinforces the
ego illusion and its desires or conditions. Simple awareness
is not true “observation” when it is intended. When it is
intended, it is at best a form of concentration, or
meditation. Mere observation is not a condition in itself.
It does not turn toward or in on itself. It is tacitly
disposed to whatever arises, if anything arises, subjective
or objective. It is not a method that can be taken up in
order to control or watch arising events. It is not a
strategy. It is not itself identified with any problem. It
is simply our natural, present disposition when we are
“hearing,” that is, when we are simply at rest in the
intuitive presumption of Ignorance, rather than any
subjective form, any experience, any condition, any kind of
knowledge.
The true form of observation, or
mere awareness, is native to the devotee in moments of
”hearing” the Teaching, or in Revelations of the Divine
Reality or Presence (rather than willful presumptions of the
Divine Reality or Presence). True observation is present in
random (not strategic) self-observation, and in true moments
of the conscious process, as in Remembrance of the ”Name of
God” (or the Revealed Presence), enquiry, re-cognition, and
radical intuition. It is not observation or simple awareness
if it is a willful strategy, without the foundation of mere
or intuitive observation or awareness. Observation is not
self-watching-which concentrates upon events intentionally,
notices them, and identifies with the act and the data of
the noticing. Observation is true only in the effortless,
native moment, in which Divine Ignorance is the obvious
Condition of self and all conditions. True observation does
not merely confront or perceive a condition-rather, it is
priorly free of that condition, and, therefore, intuitively
recognizes it, feels it without obstruction, and dissolves
(through nonreinforcement) its limiting and binding force.
True observation is identical to Divine Ignorance, and,
therefore, it acquires no knowledge by association with
conditions, but abides as no mind, no experience, formless,
pristine, and void. Thus, from observation, or free
attention, which is identical to Divine Ignorance, springs
the force of love, or unobstructed feeling, which is
identical to Divine Radiance. Simple awareness, or
nonstrategic and intuitive observation, and love, or native
concentration, are the practical expressions of the Divine
Reality, or Ignorance-Radiance.
As the devotee persists in simple
observation over time, changes and new responsibilities
appear in the realm of subjective motion, concentration,
action, and meditation. The forms of the conscious process,
founded in intuitive observation (observation founded in the
intuitive presumption of Divine Ignorance and in the
Revelation of the Divine Condition), and randomly extended
as either intentional or tacit understanding, do not
reinforce the presently arising motion or intention, and,
therefore, the present tendency is weakened. Over time,
accumulated tendencies become obsolete in this manner. It is
simply that in every moment of the conscious process, or
mere observation, extended as intuitive understanding, they
are not in fact intended. Thus, as irresponsible or
automatic tendencies become weaker, new intentions (forms of
Lawful, sacrificial, or more appropriate and responsible
concentration) may be established. Thus, new levels of
sacrificial responsibility constantly appear as the devotee
matures in the stages.
As long as we live, the forms of
responsible or Lawful concentration cannot and should not
themselves be avoided-but they certainly become simpler and
fewer. The process of mere or intuitive observation does not
take place in a vacuum. There is not any tolerable or
absolute cave in which to observe and not act, as long as
tendencies (the persistence of subjective intentions) exist.
Therefore, throughout the various stages, there appear new
levels of free concentration, responsible sacrificial
intention, or love, in the extending of the forms of the
conscious process and of conductivity, both in meditation
and in ordinary action, corresponding to freer levels of
subjective simplicity.
From the very beginning of this
practice, there must be free commitment (based on “hearing”)
to a discipline of nondramatization of grosser reactive
tendencies, that is, a tacit agreement to merely observe, as
free attention, and without concern, the subjective
tendencies that previously controlled your behavior. And
this is combined with a coincident agreement to
intentionally concentrate the whole bodily being as feeling
in forms of Lawful (sacrificial, or appropriate and serving)
activity, or love. These two aspects of the primary
discipline are combined in various ways at every stage of
the Way in a process of growing responsibility or freedom
relative to the primal intention or cognition of
differentiated consciousness.
The two primary tools-observation
and concentration – are the structural principles of the
whole process of the Way of Divine Ignorance. They are the
instruments of responsibility or recognition of the
seemingly irresponsible activities or appearances of thought
and motivation, self and body, the whole display of
independent conditions that arises as experience. However,
this dynamic process that characterizes the Way is itself
necessarily founded upon radical intuitive insight into the
incident of differentiated or egoic experience. That
intutition is the presumption of Ignorance itself, granted
through “hearing.” It coincides with the tacit re-cognition
that all subjective motion, the whole play of subject and
object, is an unnecessary recoil, an unnecessary but primal
action from which all conventional actions emanate as
reactions by force of implication. The intuition of the
prior Condition of all actions, reactions, and conditions is
awake in the moment of the presumption of Ignorance. That
presumption, including the tacit re-cognition of the
non-necessity of all independent or differentiating and
subjective motion, is the necessary foundation of the whole
Way. It is Realized through listening, or profound attention
to the Realized argument and mere Presence of the Spiritual
Master, to the point of “hearing,” or feelingcommitment to
the disciplines of the Way.
Therefore, the Way of Divine
Ignorance is awakened as free attention (or “hearing”)
through mere attention (or “listening”), and it is generated
as a process or play of observation and concentration, or
free feeling-attention and responsible or Lawful,
sacrificial, appropriate action, until there is the
spontaneous cessation of differentiating intention, or
subject-object illusions, in Divine Translation. Divine
Translation is not absorptive meditation, but Translation
from the stream of independent subjectivity into the Prior
Bliss-Fullness of the Divine Condition, the Infinity of
Ignorance-Radiance, which knows no center, no independent
self, no parts, no other, and no limits.
In the Way of Divine Communion, mere
observation, awakened through “hearing,” is extended as the
conscious process of random recollection, both tacit and
intentional, of the Revealed Presence. Such recollection,
founded as it is in prior intuitive Ignorance rather than
subjective willfulness or egoic strategies in dilemma, is
pure intuitive observation rather than a conventional form
of self-possessed concentration.
In the Way of Relational Enquiry,
the conscious process of mature recollection (the “Name of
God”) has become a profound intuitive disposition that
yields the whole and entire bodily being into and through a
cycle of true self-observation (rather than selfwatching).
This matures as that degree of intuitive insight wherein the
conscious process of enquiry (in the form “Avoiding
relationship?”) may be generated at random, as a tacit and
intentional responsibility. When there is maturity in
enquiry, wherein the reactive reflex of self-possession is
continually released, then the whole bodily being may also
be concentrated in the initial phase of conductivity (which
follows naturally and spontaneously on the process of the
“Breath of God”).
Ascent, Awakening, and Translation: The Last Two Stages
of Practice
The third stage of practice in the
Way of Divine Ignorance is named the Way of Re-cognition.
Practice develops in three stages in the Way of
Re-cognition. Each stage is founded in whole bodily
Communion with the Radiant Current of Divine Life. And
growth from stage to stage is generated through the
continuous process of re-cognition, which is a form of
nonverbal enquiry into the reactive contraction or
self-binding recoil of the psycho-physical structures of the
bodily self.
In the first stage of this practice,
attention in the Life Current is repolarized to the brain,
through a special exercise of the breath in Communion with
the Radiant Divine via the Bodily Current of Life. In the
second stage of this practice, contemplation of the Radiant
Divine is made via the structural complex of the brain core.
In the third stage of this practice, the brain-mind, indeed,
the entire body-mind itself, is transcended in contemplation
of the Divine via the heart, prior to breath and
heartbeat.
This is done until there is
spontaneous regeneration of the total structural mechanism
of the body-mind-but without bondage to the illusion of a
separated personal consciousness. At that point, the fourth
stage of practice in the Way of Divine Ignorance begins. It
is named the Way of Radical Intuition. And in this final and
perfect stage of the total Way, the Bodily Current of Life
is free of all obstruction in the body-mind, and so It
invades every part, from the heart, simultaneously to the
crown and to all extensions or parts of the body. There are
no forms of concentration, inwardness, or subjective
orientation toward subtle or visionary experiences at this
stage. The whole and entire body-mind is tacitly re-cognized
(or known again) in every moment, and Realized to be only an
unnecessary modification of the Radiant Consciousness that
is the Divine Self. Therefore, as this Disposition matures,
the body-mind is literally Transfigured, Transformed, and
Translated into the Radiant Divine.
Once the heart breaks open in the
Divine Identity, the brain cracks open in the All-Pervading
Radiance, and the body dissolves in Life, never to be known
again.
The Free or “uncovered” soul
itself is the seat or “Disposition ” of practice in the Way
of Divine Ignorance-not the independent ego- “I, ” not the
higher mind or psychic being, not the lower mind of thought
and will, not the vital breath or etheric energy, and not
the physical body. All of these are the “coverings” of the
soul, the “sheaths ” of the three “bodies ” or dimensions of
the manifest being, gross, subtle and causal. They are used
by the soul, disciplined by the soul, and transcended by the
soul, but they are not independently conscious principles of
intelligence and action. Bubba Free John’s presentation of
the nature of the bodies or “coverings ” in relation to the
soul is based upon direct observation of his own psycho
physical and conscious processes.
Many traditional sources confuse
the conscious principle or soul with one or another of its
bodies or “coverings. ” But traditional authorities do exist
to support Bubba’s considerations. One of these is Swami
Yogeshwaranand Saraswati, a saintly yogin with a unique
capacity for internal visualization of the physical and
superphysical anatomy of the body-mind:
“That which is termed `I’ or `Me’
is, in fact, made up of the aggregate of two Tattwas
(principles) Jada or inert matter, and Chetan or
consciousness. Consciousness abides in and is hidden in the
matter. The abode of the conscious Atman (soul) is this body
made up of material elements, and is likened to a castle.
There are three parts of this castle: the physical body, the
astral body and the causal body.
“The physical or gross body is
the main gate for approaching the soul; we have to enter by
this main gate. This physical body is made up of five
material elements and is born of past actions. It has two
parts-the grosser part is Annamaya Kosha (Food Sheath) and
the other is Pranamaya Kosha (Vital Air Sheath). Together,
they offer gross services to Jivatman, Lord of this castle.
But this physical body does not have its own strength to
serve the soul. This strength or energy comes from another
body that abides in the physical body. This is Sukshma
Sharira (subtle or astral body). This astral body is devoid
of nerves, veins, arteries or flesh and bones: it is made up
of extremely subtle vapour-like element; it is even devoid
of limbs but pervades the whole physical
body.
It is the conductor of the
physical body; in other words, all actions of the physical
body take place by the energy and the prompting of the
astral body alone. But in this prompting two types of
energyknowledge and action-are blended. By the blending of
these two forms of energy there arises a force known as
life. It is because of this life that the physical body
remains alive and performs all its functions.
“The astral body also has two
parts: Manomaya Kosha (Mind Sheath), the action
predominating part, and Vijnanamaya Kosha (Intellect
Sheath), the knowledge predominating part. It is a wonder
that this life force too does not animate the astral body,
and there is yet another body that pervades the astral body
and gives life to it. This is Karana Sharira, the causal
body (also known as Linga Sharira or Avyakta Sharira). “This
causal body is much subtler than the astral body. Although
it gives energy to the astral body, its own vitality has a
different abode-Anandamaya Kosha (Bliss Sheath). This is
like a mass of light, yet it is inert; it too does not have
its own faculty to generate life-force. ”Thus these three
parts of the castle of the soul are completely inert as
compared to the conscious Jivatman. We see this clearly in
our day-to-day life. When a living and moving body suddenly
becomes actionless and lifeless, we say in common parlance
that the Jivatman, the individual soul, has gone out of this
body. It directly proves that it is by the association of
this conscious Jivatman that the aggregate of the five
sheaths appears to be conscious. ” (Swami
Yogeshwaranand Saraswati, Science of
Soul
, 2nd ed.
[Rishikesh, India: Yoga Niketan Trust, 1972], pp.
12-13)
The Esoteric Process of the Last Two Stages of the Way of
Divine Ignorance
In the Way of Re-cognition, the
devotee is awakened to awareness of and discrimination
between the various functional dimensions of the body-mind.
These dimensions appear in the form of a hierarchy,
beginning with the causal region in the heart (or the soul
in its primal coverings or essential tendencies), extending
to the subtle region in the brain, and then proceeding or
emanating to the gross region of the living body below the
brows.
In the course of practice in the Way
of Re-cognition, the three dimensions of the single
body-mind are inspected in reverse order-from gross to
subtle to causal-in the manner of the traditional “great way
of return.” But in the course of that total inspection there
is no embrace of the inward realms as Truth or “Alternative
Reality.” The tour of inspection only makes possible the
ultimate Sacrifice of the whole body-mind in the Way of
Radical Intuition.
The gross dimension of the whole
body-mind, or bodily being, consists of two parts in dynamic
association: the elemental and the etheric. The etheric or
vital life aspect, generally associated with the nervous
system as a whole, is senior to and subtler than the grosser
and elemental aspect, which is generally associated with all
the skeletal, muscular, and fleshy parts of the body. The
etheric aspect of the bodily being is sometimes referred to
as part of the astral or subtle dimension of the whole
body-mind, but the subtle astral dimension is more properly
to be considered relative to the brain division of the
bodily being. Therefore, the etheric part is to be
understood as one half of the dynamic pair of which the
gross dimension of the whole body is composed.
Also, the traditional description of
the structure of Man generally speaks of that structure in
terms of independent and separable parts. Thus, there is the
“gross body,” the “subtle body” (or the “astral body”), and
the “causal body.” And even the major separate parts of each
division are named and considered as separable bodies. Thus,
there is the “etheric body,” the “mental body,” and the
“supramental body.” The term “body” is also often replaced
by the term “sheath,” implying a hierarchy of separable
layers. But all of this ultimately serves the subjectivist
and left-sided point of view, which would turn attention
exclusively to either the subtle or the causal dimensions of
the bodily being, and thus avoid awareness of the grosser
and mortal life. This conventional method bypasses both
awareness of the mortal plane of the grosser bodily life and
the moral obligation to enter into the Divine Reality
through sacrifice of the whole body-mind. Therefore, in the
Way of Divine Ignorance, this traditional approach or method
is both criticized and abandoned, and the descriptions of
the bodily being are made to serve an integral or holistic
understanding of the human structure.
To go on with the description of
progress in the Way of Re-cognition, the subtle, astral, or
total mental dimension of the bodily being is inspected
after the inspection of the gross dimension. And this
dimension is also composed of a dynamic pair, represented by
lower mental brain functions and higher mental, or
intuitional and superconscious, brain functions.
The Spiritual Master awakens the
devotee to the central Current of the bodily being even in
the Way of Divine Communion (although the awakening is not
to the Current in itself but to the Radiance or Presence
that pervades the body-mind and the whole world). Then, as
the stages progress, the Spiritual Master awakens the
devotee further, to the bodily identification of the
Current, and to the various aspects or extensions of the
Current in the form of the bodily being itself.
Thus, in the first phase of the Way
of Re-cognition, the devotee is awakened to the gross
dimensional pair of the ethericelemental division of the
bodily being. Also, as at every stage of the total Way of
Divine Ignorance, the Spiritual Master not only awakens the
devotee to new levels of structural awareness, through both
verbal instruction and higher psycho-physical or
superphysical influences, but he gives the awakened devotee
technical responsibility for all future or ongoing
association with those levels. Thus, the devotee is not only
initiated into awareness and discrimination of the entire
gross dimension of his experience, but he is obliged to be
yogically responsible for that inspection in the future and
to re-cognize, release, or be the sacrifice of that whole
dimension of experience.
The first or gross dimensional phase
of the devotee’s technical responsibility also includes
special versions of traditional yogic application, including
kundalini yoga, kriya yoga, higher aspects of hatha yoga,
and so forth. Just so, in the second or subtle and astral
dimensional phase, the applications include special versions
of nada yoga (or shabd yoga), the yogic meditation on
internal or subtle bodily sounds and lights, which
corresponds to the upper limits of kriya yoga and hatha
yoga.8
In the third or terminal phase of
the Way of Re-cognition, the causal Root of the systematic
bodily structure is realized or located in the region of the
heart (felt to be on the right rather than in the middle or
on the left). The technical yogic aspects of the devotee’s
responsibility include observation and re-cognition of
respiration and heartbeat, but the essential awakening is
through re-cognition of the gesture of attention, or the
subtle tension of self-consciousness in the heart. This is
made possible through surrender to the Transcendental
Influence or Presence of the Spiritual Master.
At last the “eyes of the Free soul”
open from the inward tour of this Way of Re-cognition, and
the limiting power of all subjective and objective aspects
of the bodily being-gross, subtle, and causal-are thereafter
ineffective in the case of the responsible devotee. Such
individuals move on to the Way of Radical Intuition, wherein
the whole body-mind becomes a Sacrifice into its prior
Condition or Truth through the technical responsibilities
and ultimate Grace met at that stage. Such devotees are
literally Translated into the Divine or Absolute Reality,
through dissolution of the whole body-mind into the epitome
of the Current of the bodily being. That epitome is the
regenerated Spiral Current of the heart, or the Whole Bodily
Radiance of the Heart, which is Awakened only after complete
fulfillment of the technical yoga and the conscious process
of the Way of Re-cognition. It is a matter of dissolution of
the body-mind (which is polarized along the spine, toe to
crown) into the unobstructed Current that lies between the
heart (felt to begin on the right side) and the upper
terminal of the crown. And that Current is released of
obstruction, or automatic tendencies to take on causal,
subtle, and gross forms, only when the unqualified Root of
the whole body-mind is stably intuited at the heart.
Otherwise, the body-mind cannot become a true Sacrifice into
the All-Pervading and prior Reality, but will instead
meditate upon itself independently, reflecting on idols of
inwardness and self-preserving consolations, high and low.
In the worldwide literature of spiritual wisdom, the terms
gross, subtle (or astral), and causal are used in many ways,
each often unique to a particular system that is intended to
account for the various kinds of higher experience. Thus,
both subtle and causal are at times said to beside above, in
the brain regions, and a fourth, transcendental, or
supracausal dimension is often described as standing above
and beyond these. But, truly, and for the sake of right
understanding, we must refer to everything experienced via
the subtle or brain mechanisms (without reference to the
gross dimension) as subtle or astral in nature-althoughthere
are many potential levels to such experience. The center of
the true causal as well as the Root dimension of the bodily
being is in the heart, not in the brain. And the true
transcendental dimension is not at all a matter of
experience in or via this independent body-mind. It is not a
matter of any of the meditative or psychic states of
mystical and mental fascination or suspension that may be
experienced by manipulation of the gross, subtle, or causal
mechanisms of the body-mind. Rather, it is a matter of moral
and spiritual Sacrifice as and of the whole and entire
bodily being into the unqualified Reality beyond all
knowledge.
Therefore, the true transcendental
or “fourth state” (turiya), or the Realized Condition
(turiyatita),9 beyond even the fourth state, is
not within the sphere of the independent experience of the
body-mind at any level of its extension, high or low. It is
Realized only in Sacrifice of the whole and entire
body-mind, not by any experience or knowledge of or by the
body-mind. Therefore, in the Way of Radical Intuition we
become a Conscious Sacrifice, Translated into Ecstasy in the
Real through the moral and spiritual Principle and Process
of Death.
8. In this paragraph and in later
passages, the traditional names for various systems of
esoteric practice are given. The details of these yogas are
not described here, but the reader may be informed by
considering the literature mentioned in Holy Books, a
descriptive bibliography of philosophical and practical
literature containing the essence of the higher Wisdom of
mankind, selected by Bubba Free John (forthcoming from The
Dawn Horse Press). The specific practices of devotees in the
Way of Divine Ignorance have correspondences with the
traditional methods, but they also represent a special and
unique application, founded in the specific point of view of
this Revelation.
9. Turiya, literally the
“fourth,” or the “fourth state,” the “natural” state, is
the Consciousness, or Divine Ignorance, that transcends all
phenomena in the three common states of waking, dreaming, or
sleeping. Self-Realization and Whole Body Enlightenment.
Self-Realization and God-Realization
In the mature phase of the Way of
Re-cognition, the bodymind becomes Identified with its own
prior Condition, which is the Unqualified
Self-Nature.
In the Way of Radical Intuition, the
Self emerges, prior to the limits of the body-mind, and
becomes Absorbed in the AllPervading, All-Inclusive, Shown
as Everything, and Transcendental Form of God, the Absolute
Personality. Such Self-Awakened Absorption in the Ecstasy of
Divine Contemplation is the Means of Translation into the
Divine Domain. are modes of the Realization of such
Transcendence. Turiyatita is the Perfect State, or the
Divine Domain of Consciousness, prior to both the arising of
phenomena and the non-arising of phenomena, in which there
is only the Eternal Bliss of the Radiant Self of God.
End of Chapter 6
Enlightenment of the Whole Body
