THE DREADED GOM-BOO
Part III: Spiritual Transmission
CHAPTER 21
The Grace of Indifference
January 22, 1983
MASTER DA: The conditions of your life, your psychology,
your emotional patterns, your tendencies, your thoughts,
everything that you are all about is totally obvious to me
because I have been born in the same circumstance and have
struggled with the same conditions. I can consider the Way
with Westerners, therefore, people bereft of sacred society,
not as an outsider trying to implant some ancient tradition
into your lives but as one who has Awakened beyond these
limits and who can consider the Way directly on their basis.
Such is the virtue of the Adept, who comes in his or her own
time and place to consider the Way with those in his or her
generation and time and place. My time and place is really
the whole world, because the whole world is basically
suffering one disposition, the disposition that is
characteristic of Westerners.
The Way in our time is appropriately to be regenerated
among Westerners. If it can be regenerated in a true and
free form in the West, then it is certainly available to all
beings in the present world as well as to future
generations. This Way speaks just as well to those
associated with the Oriental disposition. I have gone to the
East. You could say, perhaps, that I am reincarnate from the
East, that I have lived out a destiny in another form in
other cultures, that I have played this role before. But
apart from such a possibility, which you may or may not
believe or think about or know about, that the force of this
Teaching has developed in the company of resistant
Westerners is useful also to everyone else.
Not only do I speak about the problems of Westerners, but
I speak to all the esoteric possibilities of traditional
Eastern society. Thus, this Way encompasses all past
traditions, the Great Tradition as a whole, all of mankind
in the present moment, and Westerners in particular. It is
the same Work that has been done by Adepts in the past.
Before my time, however, all Adepts were born in a
relatively incommunicative world, and thus they spoke within
the province of their time. All Adepts are born for
everyone, but until now they have been born into
circumstances of limited communication. Because of the
vastness of human communication today and the availability
of the Great Tradition, the province of my time is the whole
Earth. Everything can be considered in my place. The entire
Great Tradition can be considered in my place. The virtue of
an Adept born in the West at this particular moment is that
his Teaching is not merely for Westerners but for
everyone.
I am also here for everyone, but I am born under
circumstances of unlimited communication. Today not just
little pieces of the Great Tradition are available to us in
the form of our local, provincial religious tradition, but
the entire Great Tradition is available to us. The Great
Tradition is our heritage. We should stop thinking of
ourselves as Christians, Jews, Muslims, Taoists, Shintoists,
Buddhists, Hindus. To so limit ourselves is no longer
appropriate. Our locality by birth and our pursuit in life
does not define our minds anymore. We are born, all of us,
into the total culture of mankind, and we should therefore
think of ourselves in those terms. We no longer have the
right to provincialism, any more than we have the right to
materialism.
In my conversation with the world there are two very
basic elements of my criticism, one a criticism of religious
provincialism and the other a criticism of scientific
materialism. I criticize religious provincialism not only by
Teaching the Truth but by calling you to accept the Great
Tradition and not merely to adhere to your local,
provincial, urbanized, State-based religion as your
tradition. I also speak to the whole world when I criticize
materialism, scientism, technology, the so-called culture of
the modern era, which is bereft of the higher
Realization.
We are expected to conform to this technologically based
materialistic culture. But why should we submit to it? No
Westinghouse guidebook hung on my knee when I was born to
tell me I had to submit to materialism. On the contrary! I
was fitted with a Guidebook without words, a Guidebook about
Divine Realization, Transcendental Purpose. Nothing in me is
willing to submit to the materialistic age or religious
provincialism or scientism. I am not a blind fundamentalist.
I can see the virtues in the many traditions, what in them
is useful to mankind, but so much of it is not useful and so
much of it damns mankind and denies mankind access to
Wisdom.
I am here to criticize the complications of my generation
and of the whole world, and to introduce an altogether new
orientation to spiritual Realization, refreshed, not tied to
the concepts and traditions of the past or the mere
fractions of the Great Tradition. Yet my purpose is not to
reintroduce the old myths of the Vedic era, for example, or
the brahmanical traditions as they were, or even as they
are. My purpose is to reintroduce the principle of the great
eras, of the Vedic and Upanishadic eras in India, certainly,
but of the great era of mankind altogether, the great era of
Realization, which is beyond time and space.
As a Westerner, the Adept need not become a scholar of
the Vedic tradition and reintroduce Vedic culture to India
or anywhere else. How could one do it as a Westerner? How
would one do it as an Adept rather than as a scholar? The
Adept born in the West reintroduces the Great Principle and
the total culture of spiritual life, makes it available to
everyone, including also the Indians, therefore, who are
losing their place and combining themselves with the whole
world. It is inevitable that the culture of India will be
changed and introduced into a unified world culture. But
this unified world culture must have access to Wisdom, must
accommodate Wisdom and permit individuality, community,
freedom, cooperation, and the free human endeavor that is
coincident with our total purpose of existence. The citizens
of the new world culture must not be merely reduced to
salt-of-the-earth social activity.
We have more to do here than to be orderly. We should
certainly have no objection to order, which should be the
result of free cooperation and love of one another, but we
have more to do than be merely orderly. To reintroduce the
great principles of the ancient culture is to reintroduce
the Principle that is beyond mere order. It is to give order
right and substantial support, give it a reason for being,
beyond mere control of humanity. That new order, rightly
expressed, is not an ascetical or life-denying order, a
sex-denying, body-denying order. It is an order that
coincides with freedom, participatory consciousness, real
practice, alignment with the Transcendental Condition,
management of life functionally such that it can associate
with the Law, management of life cooperatively,
relationally, so that it expresses the Law through
self-transcending cooperation with others.
Only out of such a true disposition, which is not merely
idealistic but based in Truth, will we not only survive this
era but move into a great epoch of human society. To do so
we must overcome religious provincialism and scientific
materialism, the grand cultural impediments of our day.
Religious provincialism calls us back to previous historical
manifestations of religion, whether high or low, and
scientific materialism calls us back to an ancient and most
primitive, barbaric, vulgar, and pagan orientation toward
egoity and the religion of Nature.
We must overcome these impediments to spiritual culture.
They are the extensions of the infancy not only of
individuals but of mankind, which is suffering its infancy
and its adolescence in the form of religious provincialism
and scientific materialism. We must grow up, not only as
individuals but as a species, as a race, as a world of
beings. All the monotonous stuff by which we confront and
suppress one another must disappear.
We must not draw lines anymore around religions, races,
colors. Such distinctions are no longer appropriate. They
are an expression of hatred and intolerance. Provincial
religion creates a basis for intolerance along religious and
racial and national lines. Scientific materialism creates
another circle, another line about Man drawn up around his
body like a sack, suggesting that we are merely flesh-born
and have no other purpose of existence than fleshy
fulfillment and that we therefore should rightly be
controlled by the State so that we will not get too free,
too liberal, begin to move too much and shake ourselves
free.
We must overcome these limits, and to do so is a
revolutionary intent. The spiritual practitioner does not
cooperate with what kills Man. Not to cooperate with
destructive forces does not mean one becomes an ascetic or a
killer or a revolutionary snuffing people out. Spiritual
practice has nothing to do with any of that, either. It is
to find a place for real practice at the human level, in the
miniature scale of intimate existence, but it also is to not
cooperate with the negative features of human society. You
are not called to support negativity and you should not do
so. Do not be like the snake who heard a little bit of
wisdom and would not even hiss. Do not submit to being
destroyed, but love, cooperate, live, communicate. This is
what I advise you to do.
I do not know if you are going to do any of this. Are you
going to do any of this? Maybe you will, maybe you wont. I
am about to go out into the wilderness myself! (Laughs.) I
have had enough! I have done what I have to do. My life of
agitated interest in mankind is over. Now I am waiting for
you to use my Demonstration. I have done it. The horse
exists. The results of my life are to be expressed through
your living. The only thing I have left to do is to exist,
merely to Be. Those who are prepared know how to use me, and
those who do not should just leave me alone. Therefore, I
should be in a place where I can be left alone. Otherwise, I
will not survive to enable you to survive spiritually. You
can snuff me out now that the Teaching itself is done. But
this would not be wise. It would be a bad event. You should
permit me to disappear, to go off into the wilderness
somewhere while you all do your work and one at a time come
and see me and enter into the fold of renunciate practice
eventually.
You all have a great deal to do. Not only you in this
room, but those listening to this conversation, reading a
transcript of this conversation, have a great deal to do.
You must be active, just as I have been active all my life.
The time will come when activity is not the sign of your
life or your purpose, but you have many years yet to live
before you can resign.
I am not separating myself from anyone. I am preserving
myself for the use of others, since I need not be face to
face with people to serve them with That with Which they
must be equipped and Which they must use for the ultimate
purposes of their birth. Your birth also, you see, has an
ultimate purpose. Your karmic reasons for being born are not
greatly significant anymore. Having entered into my Company,
you have come into touch with the greater purpose of your
birth. The Great One gave birth to you for a great purpose,
and you must become involved with that great purpose just as
I have always been involved with it.
If you will do that while you let me be reserved to serve
you with the Transmission of Grace, then we will all go on
for a while, for a sufficient period of time to enable the
future generations of mankind to survive in spiritual terms.
That is our purpose, the purpose to which we should all be
devoted, I by finding a place of relative solitude and you
by engaging your responsibilities actively and rightly in
the world while cooperating with me spiritually. Such is the
machine of our future endeavor, and we should create a way
of living together to preserve that mutual process. No more
struggling with me to find out what the Teaching is, not at
all, but only accepting it and using it. What was the
dedication I suggested for this book?
DEVOTEE: “To my devotees, who made this book possible,
and to my generation, who made it necessary.”
MASTER DA: I humorously suggested this dedication for The
Dreaded Gom-Boo , or perhaps for the whole Teaching! You
all, by your previous resistance, reluctance, ordinariness,
karmic tendencies, have made my Teaching possible. I have
had to struggle with you-I could not merely pass on a few
aphorisms and sit with you. Because you resisted, I was
motivated to engage in a great conversation, which has gone
on for over a decade now and has produced this Teaching.
Actually, this little reluctant, resistant community of egos
has unwittingly served a great purpose. But the Teaching is
done, and so I can humorously dedicate the Teaching to you
all.
I can also dedicate my Teaching to this entire
generation, who have made the Teaching necessary, who made
it necessary for one such as I to come and struggle with
some for the sake of generating a Teaching that would then
be useful to others-and they need it, really need it! I am
not merely repeating or affirming something they already
know about. They have not the slightest clue to what I have
considered with you.
Because I have printed the Teaching in books, certain
scholarly types use the words and the concepts of this
Teaching and pretend that it was always obvious. But it has
not been obvious! The seventh stage Teaching is not obvious
in the Great Tradition. It must be communicated fresh on the
basis of the Realization of an Adept who can then also point
to the Great Tradition, point you to those fractions
associated with the Great Realization, and put all the other
pieces in their place so that you can have a rational
understanding of your inheritance and be able to use it.
The Adepts are completely necessary, but unfortunately
people like me are suppressed, manipulated, used as a pole
for the reactivity of ordinary egos. Among the things you
must do, then, is to protect me from a similar destiny.
Champion this Teaching and truly leave me alone. That most
basically describes what our institution and the entire
community of our gathering should be up to. Find a way
simply to preserve me so that I can merely exist for a
sufficient period of time to help you to survive
spiritually. Who knows how long that will be? It seems that
it will be a while, since even those who have been
associated with me for a long time now are still just
beginners. It would be useful and right, therefore, to
preserve my mere existence on this planet for perhaps ten or
twenty years, perhaps thirty years or so at least.
How are you going to do that in the midst of this time?
You must find out! You all, meaning the whole community,
should be championing this Teaching, communicating this Way,
stabilizing this institution, creating communities, keeping
the literature available everywhere, in all kinds of
languages, devoting yourselves to benign communication of
the Way and practicing it in your place. That is what we
should be doing in the future, not struggling anymore with
the beginners reluctance.
That struggle has served its purpose, which was to
motivate me to Teach, to cover all the bases, to deal with
everything. Now you have done it. That was really good! That
was really great! That was a great job you did! (Laughter.)
You are collectively an Avatar of reluctance! (Laughter.)
Very admirable-may you be praised for generations! (More
laughter.) But you have now served your purpose, and now you
must become a different kind of Avatar. It is time we made a
change.
The ultimate Indifference of spiritual life is a Divine
Grace, and you are the Agent of my Indifference. If you
continue to resist me and provoke me to Teach and deal with
your reluctance, then you do not grant me the Grace of
Indifference, or Freedom from the apparently necessary
occasion of struggling with you. Therefore, you do not
permit me the Ultimate Demonstration of the Way for your
sake. You keep me involved as an institutional character. As
if I had not already dealt with all these matters, you
require me to repeat the occasion of suffering with you and
Awakening you to the Way.
The Grace of Indifference in my case is dependent on
devotees who will liberate me from the necessity to
instruct, to Teach, to be physically present with them, to
be involved in the aggravated game of generating this
community, this institution, the individual practice of
devotees. You are the only ones who can liberate me from
this, ultimately for your own sake or for the sake of all
living personalities. And this is what you must be doing
now.
I have already told you that I am not again going to
submit myself to beginners for any reason. In principle I am
going to oblige myself not to do that anymore. Even if you
insist on refusing or failing, I am not going to respond
anymore. You must receive the Teaching and practice and
create community and institution with one another, serve the
purpose of the Way itself and fulfill it. In doing so you
grant me the Grace of Indifference. You grant me the stage
of life of pure Demonstration wherein I have no Teaching
obligation. I do not presume such an obligation anymore, but
you may try to put it on me even though I may not respond to
it.
You must accept the function of Grace relative to the
Adept at some stage and allow the Adept to be Indifferent,
or free of aggravated combining with the world and with
devotees and their reluctance and failures. Part of your
business at the present time is to provide me with a place
to merely be, without need to respond to the institution,
the community, or individual practitioners. You must take up
that work and use me purely in spiritual terms, purely as I
Am. This is a primary aspect of the work to which you should
be devoted now. I want to see the energy behind that special
form of your devotion.
The other aspect of your devotion, which is also part of
the instrument of granting this Grace, is to accept
responsibilities for practice, for communication, for the
institution, for the community. And I want to see the energy
behind all of that. I want to receive the gifts, hear the
good news, see your success, see your work, as you have seen
mine.
Such is our business in the future, and I want to see the
signs that we have actually moved into a new stage. I do not
want to feel an implicit or explicit demand that I work you
out of your problems, call your attention to your limits.
You must use the Teaching and use one another to notice
these things yourselves. Make me the subject of your
gift-giving and allow me to be purposed naturally, without
strategic intent, to merely Be and Magnify this Transmission
to you.
The Dreaded Gom Boo – Table
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