Reality and the Principle of
Retreat
A
Beezone Exercise
Read
original talk – The Principle of Retreat, May, 7,
1986.
ADI DA SAMRAJ:
It has fundamentally been a struggle (of Mine) to draw
people beyond the egoic limitations of the body-mind, of
conditional existence altogether.
Therefore, people must practice the two fundamental
disciplines and practice them on the basis of real
understanding and spiritual awareness.
Those two disciplines are the discipline of the
body-mind.
and
The Discipline of Attention, or the transcendence of
attention, which includes everything that we call Ishta Guru
Bhakti Yoga,1 or
The Conscious Process.
Conductivity is the servant of the conscious process.
The first discipline is the discipline of the body-mind
simply.
The discipline of attention follows, because the first
discipline frees energy and attention.
The second discipline, then, is what you do with free
energy and attention.
The discipline of the body-mind is the first response of
those who listen to Me.
Having heard Me to a significant degree, they begin to
take on conservative disciplines of the body-mind.
As soon as such disciplines are taken up on the basis of
self-observation and self understanding, more and more
energy and attention begins to be released from confinement
to the body-mind, the activities of the body-mind, the
motive of the body-mind, or egoity, or self contraction.
The discipline of the body-mind is based on
understanding.
As energy and attention are released on the basis of
self-understanding and the discipline of the body-mind,
hearing begins to awaken, and the responsive recognition of
the Master, reception of the Transmission of the Master, and
the development of real meditation follow.
Thus, our Way is based on these two disciplines, or what
I would call the Principle of Retreat.
There is no practice of this Way of life without these
two disciplines.
I have been struggling with listeners and devotees of a
kind for many years, trying to awaken self-understanding in
them, trying to move them to these two disciplines, trying
to move everyone to renunciation and meditation, ultimately
to renunciation and Realization in the fullest sense.
You have all seen what a difficult and terrible struggle
that has involved. The ego is at war with that possibility.
Even though it may be momentarily inspired by this
possibility, in the next moment the mechanics of the
body-mind, the purposes of egoity, intervene again-attention
moves back into the destiny of egoity.
This apparent ego must constantly be addressed by the
Teaching and the Transmission of the Master.
However,
It is not enough simply to be addressed by the Teaching
and the Presence or the Transmission of the Master.
The individual must be equipped with means to effectively
use those Gifts, and those means are contained in the
Principle of Retreat.
Those means, in other words, are contained in the two
basic principles of practice – the discipline of the
body-mind and the discipline of attention.
EVEN FOR A MOMENT
These disciplines begin to be used, or are used at least
momentarily, even in the first contact an individual has
with the Teaching and the Presence and Agencies of the true
Heart- Master. Even something as simple as going to a
public lecture involves the Principle of Retreat,
because at least during that time when the consideration of
the Teaching and the presentation of the Presence or
Transmission or Agency of the Master are being made, every
individual is practicing the discipline of the body-mind,
renunciation, if only for that hour or two. They are sitting
in one place and they are directing the mind to the
consideration that is being presented to them.
The first Principle of Retreat, then, is already intact
in some rudimentary form in that first contact. The second
Principle is likewise practiced from the beginning. By
controlling the body and the mind, at least to that degree
for that hour or two, most individuals are granting energy
and attention to the Great Consideration.
They are granting energy and attention to the Agencies
and the very Transmission of the Heart-Master for the period
of time in which devotees present the Teaching as well as
their own demonstration, leelas, forms of the Murti of the
Heart-Master, and so on.
Thus, the Principle of Retreat begins with the first
contact, and from that moment really all that occurs is that
the Principle of Retreat is progressively magnified.
That is all that this process is about. Just as the two
aspects of the Principle of Retreat or basic practice are
there in the first occasion, every occasion thereafter in
which the individual has contact with the Teaching and the
Transmission of the Master is, or should be, associated with
the Principle of Retreat.
It is not sufficient at any moment for our institution or
community to simply present the Teaching and the Master, the
leelas and so on, without involving the listener in the
Principle of Retreat.
Unless such means are given, you invite either reaction
or mere enjoyment, cultic attachment – everything that is
not about practice.
The offering of the Teaching and the Presence of the
Master, even through Agency, are always to be established
with the simultaneous granting of means.
The presentation of the Teaching and the Master must
always be associated with the circumstance of retreat, if
only in the most rudimentary form.
The Principle of Retreat must always be present.
“You can spend years and years
on end, as many have, without growing because you are simply
indulging in being (fascinated) by the Teaching
itself or the Presence and Person of the Master
Himself”
Establish the listener in the Principle of Retreat, by
one means or other.
The listener must discipline the body-mind to give you
his or her energy and attention.
Each individual must grow in his or her response to this
Gift, and this growth can take place only by intensifying
these means or the application of this Principle of
Retreat.
In order to grow in this Way you must progressively
magnify the practice of renunciation and the practice of
pondering and meditation.
You can spend years and years on end, as many have,
without growing because you are simply indulging in being
amused by the Teaching itself or the Presence and Person of
the Master Himself.
This is the dilettante’s or non-practitioner’s way of
associating with these Gifts.
It is only practitioners who can make right use of these
Gifts, even if they are practitioners in only the most
rudimentary sense of being willing to control their
body-mind and energy and attention in relation to these
Gifts.
What you must do is magnify these two principles.
Hear Me and see Me and magnify your use of those Gifts –
true renunciation and pondering and meditation.
Formally practice renunciation, or discipline of the
body-mind, and formally practice pondering or meditation, or
the discipline of attention, moment to moment.
This is your calling.
Do not take vacations from these disciplines.
Do not become soft.
Do not act as if you do not hear and see.
Do not let the egoic mind convince you in your phasing
that you are really oriented toward the egoic or worldly
point of view.
Relinquish this endless phasing, this endless argument
with yourself, about the matters of practice.
Hear and see and receive the Gifts and formally establish
that practice moment to moment.
Presume that practice as a form, and self-generate that
form moment to moment.
Those who hear and see Me best do that formally and
moment to moment and do not waste any time with phasing or
arguing with themselves.
Until egoic limitations are utterly purified in the
process of practice, they are there latently and can be
stimulated by your own act of attention on them or by events
that you allow to control you.
Therefore, if you do not practice the discipline of the
body-mind and attention formally, moment to moment, you will
tend to allow these latent tendencies of egoity to come to
the surface, in which case they become the drama of your
life.
“A right approach to this Way
is necessary. There is a different kind of right approach
for every kind of individual, every stage of
practice, every circumstance of
consideration“
Why should you waste your life submitting to your
tendencies? The egoic mind wonders! If you allow it to
control you, you will be spending your life constantly
having to recycle yourself through the consideration of the
Way, constantly having to be re-trained, reinstructed,
reawakened, constantly having to hear and see again.
That is precisely the circumstance under which I have
Taught. I have had to Teach people who in one moment
appeared to hear and see and in the next moment, because of
their refusal of the form of practice, drifted back into the
latencies of the ego and needed to hear and see all over
again.
What was lacking was the Principle of Retreat, the two
fundamental disciplines of practice-consistent renunciation,
or discipline of the body-mind, and consistent pondering and
meditation, or discipline of attention. This is what was
lacking.
Do not indulge in my Company or in the Teaching.
Associate yourself with this Teaching and Transmission on
the basis of your renunciation and meditation. This is the
calling of all who listen to Me and all who hear and see Me.
My Work of Teaching is complete. Now there is a Teaching
literature and an institution of Agency to serve all others
in the future with that Gift.
Use the means that will enable the Gift to be
effective.
The Communion must formalize itself in relation to this
understanding. A basic reason for the establishment of the
Hermitage Service Order and the Free Renunciate Order is to
gather an Agency within the community of practitioners that
will constantly affirm, establish, implement, and formally,
constantly recreate the Principle of Retreat, or the means
whereby the Gift can be used.
There should be no circumstance in which any devotee or
the institution, through its representatives, offers the
Gifts of the Teaching and the Master, or the Master’s
Transmission and Agency, without doing so in a circumstance
in which individuals also accept the means for using
those Gifts.
A right approach to this Way is necessary. There is a
different kind of right approach for every kind of
individual, every stage of practice, every
circumstance of consideration.
A different approach is expected at a public lecture than
in the Meditation Hall, but it is not different in kind. The
difference is in the degree of application. Therefore, there
should be no frivolous, casual offering of these Gifts, no
unconscious service to dilettantism and cultism.
The Hermitage Service Order and the Free Renunciate Order
must exemplify the fullest practice, the fullest application
of these disciplines, or this Principle of Retreat, and they
must constantly establish these disciplines everywhere in
the community and in the work of the institution.
Now that my Work is done and that sign is given, everyone
is called to do what they will do having heard and seen.
I have done everything I can possibly do to make my Sign
to you, and now you must make yours in response.
Ultimately, you understand that the ego is the body-mind
itself.
The ego must be understood, renounced, and transcended.
Ultimately this means that the body-mind itself and all of
its associations, relations, and patterns must be
transcended.
All of it must be transcended, perfectly Outshined in the
perfect fulfillment of the Way in Translation.
I have reminded you all in the Love-Ananda Gita,
the Way that I Teach is Advaitayana Buddhism.
As Buddhism, our Way is about Nirvana.
As Advaitism, non-dualism, transcendence of duality, of
difference, separation, self-contraction.
By using my Teaching, you observe yourself. On that basis
you must come to this understanding, this appreciation of
the self-contraction, of the ego, of the inherently
Narcissistic nature of psycho-physical existence.
This understanding should confirm the attitude of
renunciation in you. Renunciation is confirmed in you
through self-understanding-it is not necessary for you to
selectively develop a dislike for various aspects of
conditional existence so that you can discipline them!
Blithe Indulgence
The secret of renunciation is not in repugnance. It is in
self-understanding.
True and natural renunciation lies in the observation of
the self-contraction… is unnecessary, an illusion of
bondage from which we are inherently Free if only we will
stand in the Position that is Free.
It is this understanding that is the basis for
renunciation.
If you look for reasons to renounce based on disliking
the pleasures of life, you will never find an argument that
lasts.
But if you observe the totality of these experiences in
the context of the totality of life, which is about death
and limitation, separation and loss, then you get the full
picture. In that case, you see pleasure in the context of
the total picture and you see that every address to pleasure
is submission to the bondage of that totality. It is a
blithe indulgence.
The Search
Examine these pleasures in their moment and you will see
that they are an effort of struggle, a search to eliminate
pain, boredom, doubt, and discomfort.
Individuals may imagine that when they are moved toward
sexual experience they are simply looking for or embracing
pleasure. But if you examine the source of this pursuit, you
will see that it is motivated by discomfort, by pain, by
boredom, doubt, and discomfort.
Why would you seek happiness if you were not already
uncomfortable? Observe yourself in any moment in which you
are moving to do something else or moving on the basis of
desire. Observe the state that you are in. It is always
boredom, doubt and discomfort. A state of wretchedness,
pain, and dis-ease always precedes your desiring.
Always!
Contraction is always the motivator.
Seeking is a way out of contraction.
Ordinarily, an individual does not recognize that that is
why he or she is pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain.
People do not know that the root of this search is the
self-contraction, a constant dis-ease for which they can be
responsible, that they can relinquish and transcend, that
they in fact always already transcend in the Position of
their Real Existence.
People do not know this, you see. They need to listen,
they need to hear, they need to see, they need to discipline
themselves in order to make use of what they hear and
see.
Then they will relinquish this seeking, they will
discipline the body-mind progressively, they will discipline
attention, and they will become renunciates. In other words,
they will grant attention to That which precedes the
self-contraction.
They will grant attention to its Source.
They will relinquish it in its Source, allow it to
dissolve or be resolved in its Source, allow it to be
inherently transcended in its Source.
This is the Way of Happiness.
The Search is Over
Happiness is in the transcendence of the body-mind and
the world based on self-understanding, renunciation, and
meditation.
This is the Way of inherent Happiness, Love-Ananda,
Love-Bliss, Realization, Samadhi, Nirvana, Liberation, and
perfect God-Realization.
It is the Way that I Teach, the Way that I have always
Taught, the Way that I have been Attracting individuals to
through my struggle with them all these years.
I have no more Teaching to do, no more impulse to
struggle with those who do not hear and see.
I respond to those who do hear and see and practice the
true discipline in my Company.
I am naturally, spontaneously available to them.
I have given all Gifts to devotees through these various
Agencies. It is not that I have passed on the struggle to
devotees. The Teaching Work itself is done. It is not just
that my Teaching Work is done. The Teaching Work is
done.
The era of the Teaching Work is past.
It has fulfilled itself.
It is full of Siddhi.
It has been accomplished.
It is complete.
The Work Begins
The institution is simply here to allow the Gift to be
available, and it makes this Gift available in circumstances
in which people presume a disciplined approach.
“A right approach to this Way
is necessary. There is a different kind of right approach
for every kind of individual, every stage of
practice, every circumstance of
consideration“
The institution is not here to struggle with individuals
who have no will to presume a right approach.
The Gift should be given to those who presume a right
approach, always.
The right approach should be established in the very
circumstance of the giving of these Gifts.
This Communion simply needs to carry on an orderly,
balanced presentation of its Gifts.
Equanimity must be the sign.
Only mature practitioners can represent the exemplary and
inspirational core of the sacred institution.
The equanimity represented by a core group must govern
the form of the means that I have established.
In this way, you see, the institution as a whole, like
any individual who rightly practices will become fully
balanced.
It will be established in equanimity, in real
practice.
It will expansive, effectively make its offering
in the world and individuals will respond.
When equanimity is the sign, people will find their place
in our community.
The institution must move out of the time of struggle.
That great creative effort has completed itself, and it need
not be duplicated.
The need for it must never be regenerated.
Devotees are called to preserve the Gift and maintain the
form of the means.
Does everyone understand this?
|