“So you’re all in The Mummery. That’s part of the profound participation that you must understand. It’s not just the story of My Life in the past, somehow poeticized and so forth. It is a living liturgy, a present-time reality on many levels, always will be experienced differently by different individuals or differently at different times in the community altogether. It must constantly be re-enacted, but it must also in its re-enactment be participated in with greater and greater focus and greater and greater understanding, so that you go through The Mummery , you go through the passage, not merely in that ritual event, but in your practice altogether.”
A Mastered Life, – December 29, 1995
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The Realizer Beyond the Door
December 25, 1987
DEVOTEE: We were talking several weeks ago in our study course about The Basket of Tolerance about the essays you’ve written about myth and how myth should provide the even images that psychically draw one into a sense of, into the actual matter of the actual practice and participation, even psychic participation . . .
HEART-MASTER DA: Myth is theater in some sense.
DEVOTEE: Right.
HEART-MASTER DA: But then in some religious traditions myths become absolutized. The myths become the truth. Whereas myths are a kind of theater in which truth is pointed at, suggested, conveyed somehow through a variety of images, you see. So myth can convey the power of Truth and orient people toward the Truth. You see that’s the true function of myth. But you get down to the twentieth century and the question becomes, you know, is it myth? If it’s myth then it’s not true and then that’s the end of it, you see. It gets forgotten just what the function of myth is.
Myth is sacred theater. It’s theater of the mind in some sense, but additionally it has cultural force. So myths are there to be performed somehow. And they have been traditionally in the form of ritual and religious traditions and then in secular traditions they get performed one way or another in the arts. Here in the twentieth century, myths have fallen into doubt because an early opinion appeared that suggested that myths were Truth. Absolute somehow. So now they have to be denied, from the conventional point of view.
HEART-MASTER DA: The Mummery is myth in some sense. But perhaps the better word is archetype. It has psychic force as you say. It’s a vehicle for the communication of Truth. Real Truth, Truth Itself, that’s a matter of Realization through sadhana. But myths rightly understood are a natural accompaniment of religion, religious culture. So that’s why The Mummery is a fundamental sacred artifact in this Communion. There to be performed. It is, in fact, a form of ritual in its performance. Sacred theater. And it conveys the process and the Reality of Truth as considered in this Way of the Heart.
DEVOTEE: Love-Ananda, the other interesting about The Mummery is that it is archetypal. It is a myth in a certain sense. But the thing that gives it real power is the fact that you, your demonstration throughout your life, demonstrated what’s written in The Mummery. So it is, it’s not just a myth. It is prophetic (MASTER DA: Right.) in a very real sense.
HEART-MASTER DA: It’s a real myth! (Mild laughter.) It’s myth in the great sense, you see. And as great myths have an association with Reality, real facts of existence, even real historical facts, so does The Mummery. And it, of course, is associated with Realities on many levels, including Realities associated with my own life, the process of my own life, the adventure of my own sadhana, my Teaching Work, my life altogether. It’s really a profoundly complex prose opera or sacred form. It’s meanings are really inexhaustible, exist on many levels, you see.
Other religious traditions engage in their ritual of sacred performances this time of year and they have sacred texts which are laden with myths obviously. In Christian churches all over the world today, tonight, tomorrow they’ll be engaging in performances of sacred theater in their own tradition, referring to the New Testament, re-enacting scenes that refer to their tradition, the presumptions and beliefs and their tradition and so forth. And in many places they will actually do performances including theatrical performances, musical performances of one kind or another, dance performances. A variety of sacred arts are introduced in such settings, you see. Well, in our own Way then we have our sacred performance associated with this time of year.You all can identify with Raymond Darling in the sense of participation.
PRACTITIONERS: Yes.
HEART-MASTER DA: In his circumstance, his disposition and so forth. And his adventure which is the adventure of Realization. So in that sense you all are Raymond Darling too, in that sense. And perhaps men might tend to identify with Raymond and women with Quandra.
But on the other hand, you see, Raymond is an archetype that transcends the sex sign in particular. He’s the individual engaged in the adventure of self-transcendence to the degree of perfect Realization. So it’s anyone–male or female. And Quandra in some sense is obviously a women and so on. But on the other, as indicated at the very beginning of The Mummery in that piece that was read before the performances began. The significance of Quandra is clearly indicated.
She is the illusion of conditional existence. Not only that which is to be transcended, but in some sense it is that force which even allows you to transcend yourself. Which gives you the Grace of that transcendence by a unique revelation. The revelation of death, the sign of the utter transcendence of conditional existence through its own relinquishment of its own position, to the Transcendental Divine Position, its own submission to it.
This is the unique sign in The Mummery and is a unique representation of Grace, then. Even though it is Grace operating through a kind of a tragedy in some sense, you see. The tragedy is overcome in the final stroke. Hm?
DEVOTEE: The interesting thing about The Mumery that I was feeling as I read the last scene a number of times, it does sound like a tragedy in a certain sense but rightly understood there is no tragedy involved in it whatsoever.
HEART-MASTER DA: It’s about the transcendence of tragedy.
DEVOTEE: Right, exactly.
HEART-MASTER DA: All throughout The Mummery, as in that scene that Emily was dramatizing, the mortal vision is expressed. The inherent limitation of conditional existence is signaled many times over and over again throughout the book. And that is a tragedy.
Human existence is in some sense a tragedy, then. So, the book is about the overcoming of just that. The dropping of the egg is that gesture. It’s the ultimate mystery of the book. It is the ultimate Mystery. It’s the Mystery of Realization Itself.
And, as you may have noticed, it’s gotten at through renunciation. For Raymond Darling to Realize the Truth, to be set Free, he had to be required to be a renunciate. He had to suffer the loss, the dissolution of the essence of existence. He found the essence of existence and was clinging to it and lost that. And through the encounter with that he Realized the Truth. So, by becoming a renunciate he Realized the Truth. By accepting it.
Remember I said to you recently about sorrow and grief. It is overcome by the acceptance of the loss. So, Raymond Darling went through this terrible ordeal of loss in which he was set free by voluntarily associating with the loss. By being committed to it. By allowing it, accepting it, wholly, completely, relieving himself of all his reserve, all his impulses to dissociate from the fact of it, you see. So, he fulfilled the point of view expressed in that brief passage at the beginning of the book which is associated with a quotation from The Yoga Vashitha. The world illusion dies, but that is a kind of a Grace. It is the ultimate Grace. It requires great Renunciation, a great Ordeal. And that is the necessary ordeal associated with Realization.
In some sense it seems like this ordeal was forced upon Raymond, you see. But on the other hand in the very beginning he sat down to do work and he slapped his own knee, you see. That was his volunteering for the Ordeal.
It seemed like Raymond’s own life got mapped out by Dad’s book. It became the ritual done at the Saint and Ear in the church at the end. Raymond didn’t merely suffer it. He transcended it. His participation became complete. But it was an ordeal, a terrible ordeal, you see. And that’s the necessary process associated with Realization. So as I’ve said, renuncation and Realization are coincident. There is no Realization without renuncation. There is no Realization without the ordeal of Realization, without sadhana.
DEVOTEE: Love-Ananda, also in Raymond’s life, as in your life, the key to it all was a deep love for Quandra. Deep, deep, deep love like in the beginning in that scene, the meal, he knew that in order to see Quandra again he had to go through everything was being put forward to him.
HEART-MASTER DA: But his sign was the Absolute refusal to relinquish the feeling disposition. He did not relinquish it. He endured it completely to the point of perfection. Perfect Realization. And he persisted in that, in contrast to everyone else, in contrast to Evelyn Disk, for instance, you see, or the more casual worshippers, the apparently casual worshippers like Moode Thom, Pascoe Moon and so on–those who only waited for him, those who associated with him through ritual, not through that Heart commitment which he himself expressed.
So they try to steal an answer from him, they try to figure it out, you see. Puzzling, puzzling and still remaining independent, self-possessed. The Truth of Raymond Darling was expressed in his sign of the refusal to relinquish the feeling disposition. The refusal to be overwhelmed by the mortal signs, the limited signs of conditional existence, which he is constantly observing throughout The Mummery.
Even from the very beginning of the book. Even seeing there is no consciousness in the room. The sun didn’t come that way very often. So, he looked at the space of the room. Looked at the wallpaper. His mind was configured by human spaces, conditional forms. But he was not ultimately overwhelmed by it. He participated in it completely but refused to abandon the feeling disposition. So that was the key to his overcoming. The key to his victory. The key to his heroism.
It’s also my sign and my sadhana, my Teaching Work and on and on, but it must also be your sign. That’s what sadhana is all about–the refusal to relinquish that disposition even though the conditional facts of existence are obviously what they are.
All the characters in the book, apart from Raymond, generally apart from Raymond, except perhaps for Quandra, all of them suffer from the mortal vision, the vision made of mind by reflection or response or reaction to the conditional signs of existence. So they tend to make a settlement with that. .
PRACTITIONER: Love.
HEART-MASTER DA: That force. That integrity. That’s the source of his victory, ultimately, but it is also that which is encountered by every character in the book which inspires all of them. Even Quandra. In some sense it inspired her to death, to the point of Grace, Gracefulness. willingness to do her part in the awakening of Raymond. His integrity is so great, his passion is so great, even the Maya of the universe responds by submission.
So this power of Heartedness is so profound, then, that even the fundamental force of natural existence submits to it ultimately through a unique sign that is ultimately Graceful.
So the original quotation, “Oh, Rama, this maya is such that she confers happiness by her own extinction. Her real nature is not perceived or known while she lives but when she is embraced for the sake of the Truth of her she dies.” That’s the point. When she is embraced for the sake of the Truth of her. That’s what Raymond did. That’s what Raymond does throughout the book. Embraces Reality for the sake of the Truth of it.
His Heart-Force is most profound. He never abandons that disposition. So even the universe submits. Even the primal power of the universe submits to that embrace and grants revelation. Grants the great opportunity, through an ordeal, yes.
But an ordeal that grants Realization, confers Happiness as it says, you see. So the ordeal of existence, in sadhana, ultimately confers Happiness as a Grace but through the ordeal of sadhana. In other words, renunciation is a necessary aspect of that process.
It’s not a matter of being consoled. It’s not the believer’s process of path, you see. Believers don’t want any difficulties in the way. They want to pray themselves out of difficulties and so forth. They only want to be consoled, congratulated, pleased, pleasurized. Have conditional existence turn out to be a kind of heaven and so forth, you see. They are not embracing the great reality for the sake of the Truth of it. They don’t embrace conditional existence. They don’t embrace any moment of conditional existence for the sake of the Truth of it, you see.
The ego associates with the moments of conditional existence not for the Truth of it but for the sake of consoling itself, being pleasurized, somehow fulfilled. So who embraces this maya or this conditional force of existence for the sake of the Truth of it? Such is Raymond Darling. The Hearted being who will not relinquish that disposition, no matter what.
Of course, his heart is broken. He is broken-hearted. He is even sorrowful at times and so on, you see. But he endures it. He has no ability, even ,to dissociate from that. It’s his very nature to be incapable of dissociating from it. to assume the more abstracted or conventional modes of disposition that characterize all the other individuals in that book. He cannot assume those positions. Not any of those positions. He remains in his own disposition consistently. Suffering it even.
So this is the secret of his victory. And his victory is in the dropping of the egg. This is how it must be understood. There is no commentary in the book suggesting how to interpret the dropping of the egg. The whole book tells you how to interpret it.
If you read it rightly, if you understand it, if you become Hearted, Heart-Alive, so passionate, then you can understand what the dropping of the egg is about.
Even before Raymond meets Quandra, his disposition is alive. Even from the very beginning, hand raised, feeling toward the lights and so forth–but he sits down to work. He submits to conditional existence. He doesn’t engage in a process of dissociation from conditional existence, he sits down to work.
He submits to conditional existence. His great sign is his Heartedness, his absolute commitment to feeling, persisting in that disposition in the face of everything. You could say he’s the incarnation of Feeling Enquiry. Or everything about feeling that becomes Feeling Enquiry, transcending even the Feeling of Relatedness. See the Feeling of Relatedness is epitomized in the relationship between Raymond and Quandra.
Where is Raymond’s victory then? It’s in the dropping of the egg. It’s in the transcendence of even that Feeling of Relatedness. But not in a casual gesture! In absolute submission to it. To the fire of it. In other words, it’s a commitment to feeling itself, that process that even transcends his commitment to Quandra. But it’s through his commitment to Quandra, through the absolute commission of the feeling process that he transcends even his relationship to Quandra.
So the book is not about some young man who falls in love and they marry and they live happily ever after, you see. They marry and even in marrying he can’t possess her. Even then he feels the sorrow, that principle sorrow of all the joys, you see. And she dies! And in every moment of his association with her it’s contact with there is separation, there’s loss, there’s something intervening, but he continues. Does not dissociate. The Feeling of Relatedness is simply magnified. But then to the absolute degree in the context of absolute loss, of apparent tragedy, he is full.
So the truth of The Mummery is not some eternal union between Raymond and Quandra, you see. It’s about the Absolute, the Realization of the Divine Condition, the perfection of the sadhana of feeling, of being That. The Feeling of Being is what is affirmed in the dropping of the egg. Whereas the Feeling of Relatedness was the context of his sadhana.
So then self-enquiry in the Way of the Heart even transcends the Feeling of relatedness ultimately. Transcends every limitation. Therefore, it transcends the cosmic domain, which is what Quandra herself represents. She’s the very force of the cosmic domain, which relinquishs its own position in order to allow the feeling being to Realize its own fullness.
Paradoxically then Quandra’s death is a Grace. It is the sign of Grace in The Mummery. But to those who do not understand, those who do not persist in the feeling disposition, it’s tragedy. It’s misfortune. It’s totally arbitrary even. It’s casual. It’s casual separation. Casual loss. In some sense, it even seems to be demonically engineered by Bue Ma, perhaps even Evelyn Disk, you see. Even Dad who wrote the story, you see, wrote the ritual, wrote the karma.
DEVOTEE: I was even just thinking Love-Ananda how the egg–in yogic terms, the seat of the self is an oval shape in the heart.
HEART-MASTER DA: The egg relates to the cosmic egg, the egg of Brahma, the cosmic domain itself. That’s the egg. That’s what’s dropped, transcended through. So that’s what the dropping of the egg indicates.
HEART-MASTER DA: Also, you see, in the Greek Tragedy only superior individuals can suffer tragedy. Tragedy has always occurred to kings, people of social prominance and so forth, you see, a unique individual. Well, Raymond is not that, he’s an ordinary guy in a middle-class family and so forth. What’s his uniqueness? His heart-force. That’s his heroism, that’s his uniqueness, altogether.
DEVOTEE: And it’s not just an overcoming of the personality, it’s total overcoming, it’s complete self-transcendence, it’s Realization. So it goes beyond the conventional description of a tragedy. It’s high, it’s the highest form of theatre.
HEART-MASTER DA: Birth is tragedy. That’s part of the point of The Mummery, you see. Raymond accepts birth at the very beginning, accepts life, he does work, hits his knee, falls out, participates in conditional existence through an act of complete submission. So he finds submission, through feeling-submission, is led into the universe, led into the world, finds even justification for complete attachment to the world, through a love for a woman. The epitome of attachment to the world is represented in his romance, if you will, with Quandra. But then that’s taken away.
It seems arbitrarily, mysteriously, even. Why she’s dead is a mystery in The Mummery; how she got to be dead. It’s not explained, intentionally not explained, you see. It’s not a matter of explanation. It’s just so. It’s inevitable. It’s not a product of causes and effects, it’s an extraordinary gesture. It’s the death of the universe itself. It’s death itself. It’s the death of any individual’s discovery of the supreme reason to be attached to conditional existence. And the attachment between a man and a woman is the archetype for that.
A man falls in love with a woman, a man in love with a woman wants to live. Completely embraces life. There’s no disinclination towards life, is fully alive in that passionate attachment, you see. So, Raymond by his original submission finds complete reason, finds the absolute reason to just be alive, and it’s taken away, absolutely removed. Then the possibility of it’s still hung in front of him like a carrot in front of a horse, you see, dragged down through the Saint and Ear business, as if he’ll be reunited with her, you see.
My description of what takes place in the door at the end, the dropping of the egg, is a kind of asceticism, a renunciate life, freedom. It’s renunciation, absolute. No way back. No way to submit to an illusion. Even an illusion presented. Ultimately, he allows it to be so. He participates in conditional existence through feeling to the point where he absolutely agrees to what it is about in it’s limitation, without any withdrawal, without any illusions, without consolations and so forth. Then he’s completely free. It was in complete exhaustion of that process that he drops the egg. It’s not a casual gesture. It’s not a mental gesture, you see. It’s a sign of his renunciation, but it’s a sign of his Realization Absolute.
HEART-MASTER DA: You’re all in The Mummery, you’re all reciting the mummery of Saint and Ear. That’s the ritual that’s going on around Me now. And there’s no way to say that it’s any different, you see. It’s absolutely so! There’s not a one-liner even to present that suggests that it’s any different than that, not even Daniel can propose some promise or other that can distract anyone from the Truth of this present moment in My Work, in My life among you. It is Saint and Ear.
DEVOTEE: Love-Ananda, it’s been so clear to me for this entire time that literally it’s what this speech is in Your Company, because every motion of trying to come up in some egoic way to respond is flat – just flat – impossible. It’s just been so obvious through my participation in this study…
HEART-MASTER DA: I have already dropped the egg. But in some sense in your view, I am standing in the door, with the egg between My fingers, and you’re all praising Me and filing out to your ordinary lives. You’re all indulging in the ritual, in the mummery, the mock ritual, the mockery even. It’s just plain old mockery.
In other words, no one is coming forward to participate in the ordeal of Raymond Darling, the sadhana, the real process. But there are lots of individuals happy to participate in the peripheral association with Raymond Darling, or Heart-Master Da, you see, or the Teacher, Da Free John, through this ritual composition that is The Free Daist Communion. That apparently is associated with something it’s been waiting for, but it’s not participating in the Ordeal itself yet.
Of course, it’s appropriate that there be beginners, but there are only beginners. In other words, no one in that Communion, no matter how long they’ve been associated with me, even like Evelyn Disk, associated with Raymond Darling since he was a boy even, or for a long time in other words, no one is prepared to participate in that Ordeal itself, to do the sadhana, in it’s advanced and ultimate terms.
HEART-MASTER DA: You have become Saint and Ear. The Free Daist Communion is Saint and Ear.
DEVOTEE: That’s literally true.
HEART-MASTER DA: That wants to have Me standing in the church with My fingers in the door. Yes, there’s suffering, and you engage in some sort of gestures, ritualized gestures and so forth, and go about your ordinary lives.
DEVOTEE:And still what the reports that come are is a matter of affirmation of Your retirement, an affirmation of Your renunciation, which is not true. It’s a tragedy, because they aren’t accepting the reality of what’s occurred such that they could then – based on the understanding that and standing in heart-feeling, accepting the feeling You Are – renounce. There’s no position that is renounced. There’s only the affirmation that they want to give You something. There’s no position of just literal renouncing.
HEART-MASTER DA: You don’t associate Me with the One who has dropped the egg. You’re associating with Me as the one who’s standing in the door. Who’s supposed to just do that, be visible to you, be a point of reference for you in your ordinary disposition. So you’ve in some sense become ordinary church goers, you see, sitting in the pews, and listening to the lecturers or the preachers or whatever. And I’m standing there. You have My whole life, all My Teaching Work before you and so on. You discuss it, and that’s appropriate for beginners. But no one has come forward to the front of the church and noticed that Raymond dropped the egg, and has gone with him.
DEVOTEE: And then we all left before he even did it.
HEART-MASTER DA: Right, they all filed out. He was alone there. So neither the leadership, in other words Evelyn Disk, nor the general membership, all those in the pews, have even noticed Raymond’s Victory, or what it implies, what it requires of others. They’re still in the ritual of waiting, the ritual of conventional association and so on.
DEVOTEE: Love-Ananda, I just got a feeling for what You look for in the community, and what you look for it to communicate to You, because to say You’re just retired, to just affirm Your Renunciation, is not doing anything. It’s literally walking out of the church, literally, and not participating with You, and not staying with that feeling place, and such a place that you would renounce, literally renounce, everything to You. That’s very stark to me in this moment. It’s as if …
HEART-MASTER DA: All the characters in The Mummery are called to observe this individual, participate in his Disposition ultimately, discover what it amounts to ultimately, and do likewise. But instead of that, those at Saint and Ear, they don’t do that sort of thing. They repeat the rituals over and over again, and they talk on and on. They write down with their pencils responses to the preacher’s questions and so forth.
They go on and on and on with the ritual of waiting, the ritual of conventional association and so forth. They don’t realize that the effort, the Ordeal of their hero in The Mummery, is the effort or Ordeal that they themselves must participate in. That’s the significance of Raymond coming to Saint and Ear. They’ve been waiting for him and so forth, you see. What are they waiting for? This great sign, this great message, this great opportunity, the great Truth to be said, to be demonstrated, so that they can go on. That’s what it’s really about. But that’s not what they do.
That’s My message to you! But who will do it?
In their Narcissistic looking-glass of Mummery’s faith – or any would-be-knowing science, too – the Saint-and-Ear of everyone neither hears nor sees What Is, before the eyes say “I”. Nor do such Mummers even look to see Who Stands with them – beyond the looking-glass – and languishes upon the Threshold of the sky-blue Door of life! That One, Who Is, was early-made their Captive, ancient in the Door – until the Captive came to life, and Broke! the Spell of merely -human mind! And, when the Spell was Broken!, on the Tabernacle floor – all the faulty symbols fell, that made the Everyman the ever-Mumming little ruler of Mummery’s Ruler-hating world!
Therefore, let there be no misunderstanding – or any double-mind – about the matter! Raymond’s confinement was a punishment for what he had done to the egg!
What Raymond had “done” was, by everyone at Saint-and-ear, declared to be – “Unforgivable”! And his punishment was, whether officially or unofficially, required to last for life – until he is as dead as Quandra was.
And – only then, in “safest” after-death – might, yet, be recognized. By some, or even all – whether officially or unofficially. And he might even be, post-mortemly, “Awarded”, and, symbollically, “Rewarded” – for his trouble! By a – suitably Monumental!, and honorably Funereal – Fastening! in the Holy Box, Side-by-side with Quandra! High Up! In Saint-and-Ear! Maybe! It might happen. Except, that every future is – to every present moment’s eye – the only comprehensive means to the fullest preservation of the past!
And, so, it seems – because of ego’s time-preserving time – Raymond must, by all the eyes of self-preserving views, be, forever, cited to remain in “Close Confinement”! There – in the space of time! And his only “Presence” that is to be recognized – by all the ego-minded Mumming world of Mummery’s “little play” of life-and-death – will, likely, be the comfortable reliability of his constant and forever absence! As – even now!
Of course, once Raymond was “safely” confined, Saint-and-Ear quickly recovered from the “Incident”. And all its religious doings continued, thereafter. Just as they had before Raymond’s unexpected – and deeply unwanted – arrival, among the “faithful”. And the “Incident” was never much mentioned, again – except to dismiss it, by a brief and caustic mention of that one word. “Oh yes – the ‘Incident’. That was so long ago”. And, always, the “Incident” was casually dismissed and discounted – as if it were a foreign substance. Or, at most, a freakish occurrence, due to fakery. Or, some kind of aberration, caused by an insane person – inadvertently allowed in, from the “outside”!
After Raymond was “safely confined” – and, altogether, discredited and defamed – Evelyn Disk continued, as ever before – to Pretend the Raymond-role, in all the Raymond-rites of the Raymondite “Religion”. The “real” Raymond was – with certainty, as an article and act of “religious” faith – presumed dead, and “safely” absent. And everything was accounted for – by means of Evelyn’s famous Story of the “Ape-in-the-lake”.
Evelyn himself, continued to provide all the explanations sought – and all the myths “required” – by everyone at Saint-and-Ear. And, quite simply – and easily, too, it seems – everyone forgot about Raymond. Himself! And As he Is! And where he had been sent to never be, at all!
The Ritual Sacrifice of the Captive Slave
Institutionalize Mummery