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CRAZY WISDOM
Volume 6, Number 3
MAY/JUNE 1987
You Are at the Beginning, and I Am at the End
a talk by Heart-Master Da Love-Ananda
May 28, 1987
Beezone Edit –
See full talk
HEART-MASTER DA: Is everyone clear about what
God-Realization actually is?.
Did you sufficiently examine this matter of beginning
preparation?
DEVOTEE: We understand based on our study of your
teaching
and we are committed to
self-transcendence, we understand
that and the ordeal it
requires, real
transcendence.
HEART-MASTER DA: The study you engage as at beginning of
this Teaching is a process at the heart.
If such study is to become the impulse to
God-Realization, so-called, it must not be merely a motive
based on ideas but a guiding impulse of the whole being.
Study at the beginning stage is
not merely contemplation of a variety of ideas in this
Wisdom-Teaching and in the Great Tradition. Of course, you
study to acquire information, but if study is to become the
great impulse, it must be true sadhana. It must involve
self-observation and self-understanding sufficient for the
awakening of that real impulse.
The first thing to deal with is the beginning practice.
You must examine all the sequence of preparation, and see
just what your preparation is. Most of
you are putting the cart before the horse
as I see it.
After all these
years it’s amazing it should
come down to this level of conversation about the
matter? I do not demand that you
become a practitioner of this Way. However,
if you have another point of view, fine. Then go do
that. This way is not based on
any bright-eyed idealism, but on a very realistic
understanding of conditional existence and the roots of
suffering and delusion. It takes
a very serious disposition to enter into such a process. You
cannot romanticize or idealize your involvement. It is
either true of you or it is not. You must have a very
realistic appreciation of the nature of human
existence.
Idealism, like despair, is a product of self-contraction
in the face of reality, in the face of what appears and in
the face of What Is Ultimately. Romanticized or idealistic
views are something you superimpose on Nature, because to do
so consoles you in your fear. Until you truly understand
that, and then freely relinquish that disposition, that
orientation, you cannot be said to be a true practitioner of
this Way.
The first step, then, is simply to study this
consideration. Consider the
teaching argument,
do what you will in your personal life, assume
responsibility to study. Study,
ponder, observe yourself, observe your life. When it becomes
your own, then you can begin to add to the discipline. Until
it becomes your own. People will
live in a variety of ways, some more exaggerated than others
perhaps, but if you are involved in a serious consideration,
a serious study, your consideration will also be reflected
in your manner of living. Of course, it is up to you how you
work it out.
Many organizations associated with some sort of religious
message do not involve much more than a program of study.
The Theosophical Society, for instance, is one of those
organizations that began to communicate esoteric notions in
the late nineteenth century. For most people, participation
in that organization, which still exists, is a matter of
study, reading books, going to lectures. It is expected that
people are prepared. It is a beginning practice.
As I said, as a beginner you
can apply the disciplines if you like, but you need not,
therefore, call yourself a practitioner. The disciplines
make sense at every level of involvement. Even if you did
not use them especially for self-observation, you could take
them on as a habit of life if you like. You must live
somehow, so you could live that way if you like – that is
fine.
You are still struggling with your own ordinariness. You
just have not done serious study yet, nor have you yet made
a serious examination of life.
When you can really make such a commitment, then you
may move beyond the beginning
stage.
I have finished my Teaching Work. I have done my service
to you. You must carry on with the practice I have given
you. You have the responsibility
You Are at the Beginning, and I Am at the End
a talk by Heart-Master Da Love-Ananda
May 28, 1987
Beezone Edit –
See full talk
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