Conscious Exercise and the Transcendental Sun – Epilogue

The sun, or fascinating light, the
visible vibration that can absorb us, is the principal
symbol of religion and all the ways of extraordinary
knowledge. The sacred practices of prophets, magicians,
mystics, yogis, saints, and all ordinary believers are
devoted toward knowledge of the Source Light or Creator
Vibration via regressive absorption or return through the
descended and progressively solid and vibratory hierarchy of
manifest light. Even the various modern sciences, which
pursue knowledge independent of the transformations of the
experimenter and knower, may be said to be enterprises that
investigate the mysteries of light, or vibratory effulgence.
And, on the basis of all experiments, whether mystical or
scientific, men are close to agreement on the universal
concept and presumption that all appearances, forms, bodies,
beings, thoughts, all events are emissions and
transformations of universal and even eternal Vibratory
Force or Light.

For this reason, we may say that
light, or vibratory brightness, is the most universally
venerated object among men. The Light of lights, seen and
heard, is the principal idol to which our ways of knowing
lead. To be sure, light, even most subtle or ascended, even
the highest Light itself, is a great Principle of
manifestation and of knowledge, but it is not Truth or very
God and Reality.

Light is a great temptation. It is a
mystery commonly entertained over against the idea and
experience of darkness, or no-Radiance. In earlier times,
life in the world was viewed as a great warfare between
ascended powers of light and descended powers of darkness.
And the theatre of life in the world was to be solved by a
great Day, or a great impulse of Awakening, wherein those
who had maintained allegiance to the highest Light would be
returned, via the way of lights, to the domain of Light,
above and beyond this world. And those who had been firmly
committed to darkness would be excluded from Light, perhaps
forever, in the domains of darkness, even the absolute
Darkness below this world.

There is still an ultimate, factual,
and temporal correspondence between such ideas and the
theatre of universal physics. That correspondence has been
all but forgotten in the cult of modern scientism, which
excludes pre-scientific presumptions the way early church
councils excluded the “heretical” wisdom of the ancient
world. That wisdom which flourished in lights for eons
remains latent in all men, even if it is now repressed by
the dogmas of official experience. And that wisdom is
returning now, reawakened through the service of those in
whom the benighted popular and official consciousness is
only superficial in its blinding effect. Even so, for those
who are awakened to the super-physics of all light, Truth,
the very Reality, which is salvation or Happiness, is not
itself Light or any light in the exclusive sense. Light
itself is ultimately resolved in a Principle that includes
and is prior to both light and darkness. The Truth of life
is not the victory of light over darkness. The Truth of life
is not its physics of manifestation, or any kind of
experiential destiny. The Truth of life is Unqualified,
prior to all distinctions. It is not realized via the way of
the knowledge of lights, or in the objective Shine and Sound
of ultimate Brightness. It is intuited via the Wound or
Mystery of Paradox, the irreducible profundity of absolute
Ignorance. One whose enjoyment is Truth is thus free of all
complications, even all the changes that appear in the
manifesting Light. Such a one is eternally purified by the
Realization that, no matter what arises, high or low, bright
or dark, he does not know what even a single thing
is.

This having been said, it is
appropriate to consider what is the proper relationship
between the practice of conscious exercise (or even all
conscious activity) and the direct or progressive knowledge
of the subtle, transcendental Sun or Light. In the older
cultures, the visible sun and its light were and are
worshipped and concentrated upon for the sake of physical,
mental, psychic, and spiritual transformation. As such, the
sun is viewed as a kind of icon, a living symbol in the
universe for the Divine Sun or Prior Light that is Creative
relative to the world. However, such practices, as well as
their more esoteric counterparts, which conceive of the Sun
within and subtly above for the same purpose, are
expressions of a view of the world and of conscious
existence in which Light (the Sun itself) is acknowledged as
Truth and its emanations (sunlight) exploited as a method or
way to Truth.

I do not propose that those who do
conscious exercise use or seek the symbol of Light in this
way. Although the Principle of Light may be senior to the
Principle of Life, it is itself secondary to the Principle
of the Awareness of both Life and Light. And all three of
these Principles, which together form the foundation of
every kind of esoteric and extraordinary knowledge, are
fundamentals of the World-Process. They are not identical to
Truth, or the Real, which has no description and is not an
extension of the world, or any convention of knowledge, high
or low.

What I am saying, then, is that all
experience is conditional, temporary, or dependent on other
conditions and Conditions. Therefore, conscious exercise is,
like all ordinary experience, to be realized in Truth in the
present, rather than exploited as a strategic way of
attaining eventual knowledge. Conscious exercise is an
ordinary discipline, founded in prior Fullness or Happiness,
not an extraordinary strategy, founded in separation and
distress. The discipline of conscious exercise may be
realized as a direct extension of a Great Process of
spiritual participation and realization in Truth. It may
then be felt-intuited in terms of the whole affair of Divine
Ignorance, Radical Understanding, and the spiritual
Conductivity of Radiance, as these have been described in
the literature of Vision Mound Ceremony.’¹ But in
that case, the process of conscious exercise, along with all
the rest of a human life, must have matured in the midst of
the radical spiritual practice of the Way of Divine
Ignorance.

To take up the process of conscious
exercise as an extraordinary esoteric practice from the
beginning is to take on the condition of a seeker in
dilemma, and to manipulate one’s life by means of an
idolater’s idea of Light. Therefore, let the formal practice
of exercise always correspond to the general level of
technical participation for which you are otherwise and
properly responsible as a devotee.

I urge you to begin by doing
exercise, even all your activities, as an ordinary
functional discipline. The exercises, as they are described
in this book, are a simple, natural, and homely practice.
You are not instructed to perform the exercises as an
esoteric method from the beginning, before your own
experience, knowledge, and intuition combine to make you
presently or already responsible for “secrets. “²
Do the exercises in ordinary ways. When you exercise,
concentrate through the whole process of breathing. Feel the
breath itself as pervasive energy, a living food. Engage the
living breath in a natural process, in which you become
filled with life on inhalation and by which you permeate and
purify the living world (including your own body, mind, and
psyche) on exhalation. This use of the breath in conscious
exercise is fundamental, but it is not extraordinarily
esoteric. It involves a natural, ordinary kind of
observation and responsibility relative to the complex
organism or whole body in which we appear. By means of the
ordinary and conscious exercise of the body in cooperation
with the living breath, or the power of feeling, established
by the concentration of the conscious mind, or free
attention, on the whole process, the whole game of
functional activity is presently and naturally aligned or
harmonized with its laws and sources.

Body, the feeling breath, and mind
are each and all identical to (not other than) energy or
life-force. Through conscious exercise, or conscious
activity in general, we affirm the lawful and functional
relationship between body, feeling, breath, mind, and
life-force. In the random and conventional activities of
men, these agencies or dimensions of human life tend to be
abused, divided, and depressed, each exploited separately,
as if they were each a something apart from the others. In
conscious exercise, and conscious life in general, they are
enacted as a single process of mutually dependent functions.
As such, they do not point to themselves or lead to
meditation on their own content, but point toward their
implied Law and creative Source. The Law of life is
sacrifice, or unqualified relationship, and the instrumental
Source of life is the Transcendental Sun or Light, the
Vibratory Radiance or Current felt to permeate body, mind,
and world with its all-pervading Presence, Spirit, or
Breath. The Truth or Condition of life is prior to all
experiential realizations of the Law and the Light.
Therefore, those who would live or “exercise” consciously
must also become devotees in Truth, or else their own
experience will bind them.

If an individual does conscious
exercise as part of a total life of spiritual practice,
under the appropriate conditions communicated in the
Teaching and in the Company of the Spiritual Master, he or
she will, in time, simply begin to observe that the
life-force, the mind, attention, the breath, all feeling,
and the body at present exist as conditions of that Light
which is also expressed and intuited as an all-pervading
Presence. For such a one, conscious life, including
conscious exercise, becomes a process of participation in
the prior Condition of that Light, through conscious
breathing of the Force of the Presence, and conversion or
sacrifice of psycho-physical (mind-body) conditions in a
cycle of reception and release. Such a one naturally and
spontaneously begins to live as sacrifice, a process of
transformation of life-conditions in which simple process of
conscious life. One who does conscious exercise is actively
concentrated upon that process itself in each moment of
exercise. He does not concentrate on some problem, such as
overweight, disease, or the need for objective God
Realization or mystical experience. Nor does he concentrate
upon specific, isolated, and technical versions of his
possible psycho-physiology. He concentrates upon the present
and total activity that is the human life-process within the
Paradox or Mystery of the infinite theatre of Existence.
Thus, he does not, in principle, exercise in order to solve
any problem. He simply lives his own process of life
consciously. He may notice that apparent benefits arise
secondary to this way of exercise, but the conscious element
of his exercise is always one in which he turns from every
problematic conception and motivation to simple attention in
the natural event of his own activity.

This natural and intelligent
attention of the being, from its center, the heart, the
psychic or feeling root, involves conscious turning of the
body, the breath, and the mind into coincidence with the
cyclic reception-release process of life-energy. Body,
breath, and mind are a single, mutual, cooperative process,
each part of which must consciously be realized to depend on
(and, ultimately, to be not other than) life-energy, or
manifest light. Therefore, in the action of exercise, body,
mind, and breath are functionally and always feelingly
associated with the pervading energy in the form of
life-force. This is done by consciously moving or posing the
body, consciously concentrating the mind as free attention,
and consciously breathing the breath as pervasive feeling,
or non-personal life-force. Thus, body, mind, and breath are
consciously concentrated on the life principle, or energy,
and the process of conscious exercise becomes exercise of
the life-principle itself in a deeply felt cycle of
inbreath-outbreath, reception release, attention and
movement. This is simply practice of the prior, harmonious
condition of life as it is. Nothing is sought or directly
gained in this process itself. But those who exercise and
live thus may always be intuitively available to the
communicated Grace of the Divine, which is the Spiritual
Master and Condition of all.

What we identify as disease is, in
general, a condition of combined toxemia, enervation, and
mechanical disability, which the manifest result of not
living (exercising life) consciously, with full feeling, as
an harmonious event of universal energy. No “cure,” or
solution to specifically conceived _problem or disease, is
of ultimate significance What must occur in every man or
woman is a re-orientation to the principles, laws, real
processes, and sources of his or her functional life. Each
individual must be consciously turned away from the
principle and process of disease, the problem, the dilemma,
the motivation toward solutions, into the Principle and
Process of his actual and prior Condition. This deeply felt
and conscious turning is a matter of intuitive response to
the Teaching of the Way of Divine Ignorance, and practical
implementation of that response in the form of a whole life
of conscious and appropriate practice in the Company of the
Spiritual Master. All of the ordinary practices and
disciplines communicated by Bubba Free John through the
literature and services of Vision Mound Ceremony serve this
present turning or re-orientation to the appropriate
conditions and ultimate Condition of the human life process.
Thus, there is conscious application to diet, work,
sexuality, celebration, study, service, and the like, as
well as exercise. An apparent byproduct of all this may be
improved general health, gradual and even spontaneous
healing, elimination of toxicity, intensification and
increase of available life-force, increase in mechanical and
mental ability, and so forth, but none of that is
fundamental, or a specific goal of the practice. At best, if
such changes appear, they are testimony to the essential
correctness and lawful significance of the affair of
conscious practice itself. It is in this spirit that the
apparent benefits of conscious exercise should be viewed,
and one who does the practice should always be mindful of
his tendency to devote his total life in practice to
remedial goals.

We tend to believe that action
depletes energy and separates us from energy itself. Thus,
we consider the relaxation of activity to be the obvious
method for restoring or increasing available life-force.
Carried to its extreme, this view results in “chronic
relaxation,” better known as laziness. In fact, enervation,
or the chronic absence of energy, is not caused specifically
and necessarily by activity. Enervation is served just as
well by inactivity. Rather, enervation and every kind of
inharmonious and low level of life-energy are caused by the
failure to participate consciously and moment to moment,
from the heart, in the cooperative process of body, breath,
mind, and universal life-force in the all-pervading Divine
Presence or Radiance. Thus, enervation is established more
and more in one who is addicted to conventional and
exclusive exploitation of the possibilities of either action
or inaction. Enervation is the result of the failure to
presume or be certain of all-pervading life. One who is
addicted to action (the “rajasic” personality) does in fact
always meditate on the idea that he is using up his life.
And one who is addicted to inaction (the “tamasic”
personality) does in fact always meditate on the idea that
he is waiting for life and must not act. But one who knows
his entire life is a constant process of changes that never
end, and which is itself perfect intensity, even Unqualified
Life, Light, Consciousness, and Reality, is always engaged
in the harmonious event of conscious existence. Such is the
true “sattwic” personality, who, whether relatively active
or relatively inactive, is always consciously engaged in the
same cooperative exercise of all his functions.

Where there is either chronic
activity or chronic inactivity, there is the constant
degenerative tendency toward enervation, toxemia,
unconsciousness, weakness of body, mind, and psyche, and
debilitation of all the subtle and gross forms of life. But
where such chronic tendencies are not lived, their chronic
destinies also start to become obsolete. Even so, one who
takes on his life as conscious spiritual practice in
response to the Teaching of the Spiritual Master never in
fact realizes his life as true practice as long as he, in
principle, practices in order to solve the problematic
conditions of his life or life itself. But when he simply
realizes the conscious and cooperative process of personal
and relational life, and when he enjoys direct intuitive
Communion with the Condition of all life, he also begins to
observe positive transformations of his apparent conditions
of existence. (And he continually sacrifices such
transformations, be they healings, pleasures, or mystical
experiences, into the Great Process and Condition, which is
senior to them, and which is the very Reality or Truth,
priorly and eternally free of all conditions.)

Therefore, exercise must be done,
from the beginning and always, as a conscious, simple,
ordinary, and functional discipline, apart from the whole
affair of problems, methods, and goals. One who exercises
and lives in this way may observe that the plan of exercises
described in this book involves rhythms of relative activity
and inactivity. But both phases are equally forms of
activity, or the motion that is life. The more apparently
active moments of exercise are analogous to exhalation in
the breath cycle. They represent not the moment of the loss
of energy, but the universal communication or release and
permeation of energy, whereby the one who exercises is also
and totally included. Just so, the more apparently relaxed
or inactive moments of exercise are analogous to inhalation
in the breath cycle. They represent not inaction or the
prevention of action, but the profound action of opening,
drawing upon, and receiving the all-pervasive energy or
universal light. Therefore, in fact, every moment of
conscious exercise is action, the motion of feeling. All
such action involves the intensifying and transforming play
of life-force. Energy is thus always being “restored,” and
body states, feeling states, breath characteristics, and
conditions of thought and attention are always being
transformed in every moment of conscious exercise and
conscious life, independent of any problem oriented strategy
to do such things.

In the actual or formal practice of
conscious exercise, there should be no daydreaming, but
constant feeling-attention to coordination of body and
breath in the play of life-force. There should be no
laziness, but devotion or complete, deeply felt adaptation
of the body to the deliberate and full display of chosen
movements and poses. And there should be no dead breath, no
small chemistry, but intentional and full use of breath as a
feeling instrument for actual and present ingestion,
translation, and transfer of felt life-energy. As such,
conscious exercise becomes a paradigm for the conscious
realization of the whole of life. The formal practice of
conscious exercise is merely a concentrated occasion or
“lesson,” whereby we are instructed in the realization of
every ordinary action as a conscious but non-formal exercise
in the same sense. A life realized and expressed by such a
discipline is always already movement in sunlight, with eyes
fixed firmly on the Sun. And the devotee of Truth is not
only so realized in fact, but also eternally and
immeasurably free, both Night and Day.

 

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1. For a proper comprehension of the
Teaching implied in this essay, you should study
The
Paradox of Instruction and
Breath
and Name, by Bubba Free
John.

2. New devotees in the Way of Divine
Communion should do the exercises in an ordinary, natural
way. Those who have adapted to the “Breath of God” should
exercise and live as that process implies. Those who are
mature in the second stage of practice in the Way of
Relational Enquiry should exercise and live in the form of
true conductivity. Those involved in the Way of Re-cognition
should modify their practice of conscious exercise in
accordance with the technical responsibilities given them at
that stage. Those in the Way of Radical Intuition should
participate in all things, including conscious exercise, to
the degree and in the manner that seems to be appropriate in
the present moment. As the responsibilities of spiritual
life increase, so should the practice of exercise be
modified according to the technical form of one’s general
practice.