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So human beings in their ordinariness not only
demonstrate the fact that they identify with the body-mind
rather than with the Ultimate Reality, but they show signs
of the play of opposites physically, emotionally, mentally.
The breath changes as a sign of it. All the leading
faculties are constantly modified by the egoic or separative
presumption of being identified with the body-mind. So human
beings are full of these adaptations, and this is why
Realization, Enlightenment, which is to be established in
the Condition of Light-that’s what that means-Unqualified
Consciousness, is not something that, in the usual case
anyway, is entered into readily. It requires profound
practice that overcomes these adaptations-identification
with the body-mind itself, but everything that came about as
a result of that, all this negativity, this suffering, and
pain, psychological pain, emotional disturbance, and so
forth. These are all signs of contraction, self-contraction,
the effect of it being that the inherent Nature of Reality,
Which is Radiant Love-Bliss, Self-Existing, Self-Radiant, is
apparently an experience lost . You feel Lightless,
un-Enlightened, tending toward un-Consciousness, and
identified with all kinds of limitations that you don’t
enjoy. Sometimes you enjoy them. Most of the time experience
is mixed, with a lot of negative associations one way or
another.
The
Condition of Radiance
As an idealist you may say you are committed to this
particular intimate relationship you are involved in. You
hold very firm to that and all discussions about the matter
constantly present yourself as somebody who is happy in this
relationship loving and satisfied in it. There’s no motive
elsewhere and so forth. But if you’re an idealist, that
won’t be true. You will be either secretly or periodically,
overtly even, manifesting opposite sides. So you as an
idealist may be committed to an intimate relationship but
your idealism is weak because it is founded on egoity
therefore you will inevitably show signs of promiscuity,
unlove, dissatisfaction, reactivity and so on in such a
relationship. You will continue to phase with your devotion
and your failure of devotion.
Beyond
the Koan – Idealism
If you are not obliged by right understanding of your
practice to submit yourself in totality to the spiritual
process, you could seem to be even an advanced practitioner
at any moment. However, if you are obliged to consistently
demonstrate a stage of practice beyond your level of real
responsibility, you begin to show signs of difficulty. You
simply cannot practice any better than you practice at the
feeling level, in the emotional domain of your hidden
personality that only comes forward in difficult
confrontations. You practice no better or deeper than that.
That dimension must be brought to school. If it has not been
touched, then you are still in the domain of listening, and
listening is your discipline, then. If you assume any other
discipline, you will either show signs of obvious emotional
aberration or you will simply magnify your relatively
feelingless social personality, which looks like it has got
it all together. You will be an idealistic character who can
conform to orderly patterns rather easily. Of course, none
of that has anything to do with practice.
Your
Hidden Destiny
I notice that children often do not show signs of real
interest in anything in the universe. They often act very
dull, as if they are completely uninvolved and
unenthusiastic about anything in the universe at all. This
is a sign that they are only involved in dramatizing their
egoic dilemma.
A
Disciplined Life is about Enjoyment
The release from the imaginary disease of self-bondage.
This disease is apparently real. We do suffer. We do show
signs of the absence of equanimity. We do exhibit the
qualities of boredom, doubt, and discomfort, mental
agitation, emotional distress, physical disease, and all the
patterns of bondage in relationship. Wherever there is the
self-contraction, there is bondage in relationship.
Self-contraction is always associated with object-bondage or
object-dependency.
The
Dreaded Gom-Boo
So the process of the religious life, the God-ward life,
is moving toward En-Lightenment, or Identification with the
Divine or Native Reality. But the sign of having done so is
that you display those Characteristics, you enjoy those
Characteristics, you are the manifestation of those
Characteristics, the Characteristic of Unqualified Being, of
Unqualified Radiance, Unqualified Love-Bliss. That’s not
something you can put on with the faculties of the
body-mind, this play of opposites adapted to suffering. That
can be manifested, truly and consistently, only if there is
true Enlightenment, or inherent Identification with the
Self-Existing and Self-Radiant Reality, Which is Light. It
is Conscious Light. It is En-Lightened Consciousness,
Self-Lighted, Self-Radiant Consciousness. That is always the
Condition, no matter what the apparent experience.
So you must go through that purifying process in the
midst of self-frustration, difficulty, binding psychological
tendencies, and go beyond them. So the process is purifying
all along till the “Perfect Practice” becomes your
capability. It relieves knots, you see. And the sign, then,
in somebody who’s My devotee, who’s advancing in the
practice, is that you are feeling beyond the knots
consistently. Its noticeable by those who know you over time
that previously you showed certain kinds of signs in certain
situations, had a certain disposition, or whatever-your
egoic personality showed itself in some way-and now ten
years later, somebody who’s known you all along can notice
for you how those things have changed, they’ve disappeared,
even, you see. You may feel you’re still dealing with a lot
of it on some subtler level, but others notice all kinds of
signs in your physical, emotional, and mental qualities,
your relational qualities and so on as well, and all your
behavior, that its become-one good word for it is benign,
relatively En-Lightened, so to speak. In other words, Light
has been brought there. You released it in Communion with Me
and found the State of Light. It is Radiant, Love-Bliss, not
contracted, not negative. And so It shows Itself in
everything about you.
So you are presuming darkness or negativity. And you
notice everybody you meet, then, in the general attractions
of people, is constantly showing signs of going through
changes-different every hour, or day, or week, or year, or
whatever-they’re going through all kinds of changes that
have to do with being less than Happy, less than
Enlightened, or “Bright”. They go through signs, in other
words, of being, to one or another significant degree, not
Radiant. They show the sign of being contracted rather than
Radiant.
Condition
of Radiance
Sadhana then is not about the good life, what people
would commonly call the good life, the western idea of
self-fulfillment. Its not that at all. However, the
person who does sadhana can and rightly should and in
general maintain positive life signs, healthful signs,
positive relational signs and so forth and all these are
simply expressions of the dispositions of sadhana in
fact.
Purification
of Karma
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