“The spiritual company of all devotees will also be present after my death, as during my life, to quicken the sadhana of all who enter into the truly spiritual, intelligent, and devotional sacrifice to me. I am not present apart from the Divine. All who approach me approach only the Divine. The withdrawl of my human influence will change nothing. My human influence is here only as long as it is necessary to establish the Way itself. Thereafter, the Way must be lived, since only that will prove the Way, and not amount of my lingering could change that obligation. And my death cannot and will not change it. The Way is the same after my death as before my life and during the whole of my life”.
Chapter 10.
DURING MY LIFE AND AFTER MY DEATH
While Bubba was busy each day compounding his description of the nature of the meditation of the true devotee, he was also preparing all his devotees to take responsibility for maintaining his Ashram Community and communicating the availability of Satsang to the world. He had made it clear that he would no longer accept daily responsibility for these functions after the first week in July, and he began to talk to his devotees about how they should manage their lives and functions without his constant personal influence. On June 7, Nina Jones read the following letter from Bubba to the Ashram. He was present during the reading, and afterward he answered a number of questions.
During my life in this human form I am busy drawing devotees to myself by exposing them constantly to the Siddhi and Person of the Lord. I am only showing them the Lord in all the forms of his marvelous and ordinary Activity and in the very Form of his Presence. Bubba Free John is nothing and no one. He does not acquire anything or anyone for himself. He is only an instrument for the revelation of the Siddhi and Person that is God. This Siddhi and Person is always being revealed to my devotees. They see this revelation in the theatre of their lives and in my own form. They see it thus because they are my friends and lovers. Because they are always turning to me, I am always showing them the Lord and communicating his demands, favors, and enjoyments. The Lord is eternally Present and Active, and I am making him known. When this life of Bubba Free John is abandoned, the Person and Siddhi of the Divine will continue to be manifested to my devotees in exactly the same way I have made known to them while I live. And the Community of my devotees will remain in the world as my very incarnation. It will continue to serve as the fundamental and living instrument whereby my work will be extended beyond my lifetime.
My devotees enjoy a perfect alignment with God. The Siddhi and Person of God is my gift to them. After my death my devotees should gather together in groups and, as much as is practically possible, maintain constant contact with one another until they feel the Siddhi of the Divine Presence communicated to them and felt by them all. During this period they should gather in any of the principal Satsang Halls I have set aside, and at the site of my burial, as well as in the places of my former residence. During a brief period shortly after my death all that I have always shown to them will be newly confirmed, independent of my bodily and personal presence.
Thereafter, the Community as a whole should accept responsibility for this work. The Satsang Halls, my former places of residence, and my burial place should be kept as special places of contact for all who enter and live in this Community. But my devotees themselves will be the special instruments of this work beyond my lifetime. It is my expectation that I will not leave behind me a special individual who can assume conscious responsibility for my work as a whole. Rather, the total Community will share my complex functions at the level of life, and the spiritual functions will be performed through the Community as a whole by the action of the Divine Siddhi which I have regenerated here. Thus, the practical work should be shared by many, and organized much as it will have been during my lifetime. The sources of the Teaching should remain in the form of my books, other collected writings, and recordings of my talks. Devotees who have the responsibility for instruction should make use of these sources and keep them always available in published forms.
My biography, recorded Teachings, photographs, and the like will remain a source of contact with the function of Teacher after my death. And the persons and places I knew in life will also remain as agents of this contact. But I will not remain personally in contact with the Community or any devotee after my death. Even in death I will yield utterly to the condition of the Siddhi and Person of God, and, therefore, I will remain only Perfectly Present. This Siddhi and Person is the same I have always shown, through and independent of my personal form. Therefore, what will remain behind me will be a Community, not a cult. The Divine will remain immediately and directly Present through the agency of my total Community of devotees.
Among all future devotees I may be acknowledged as Teacher, one with the Divine Guru, and recollected along with the body of Teaching. But no cultic relationship to my possibly continued personal presence after death will be necessary or appropriate in order for devotees to enjoy the Siddhi and Person of the Divine which will always remain in the Satsang of this Community. (They should meditate on me outwardly as Teacher, and inwardly, when appropriate, as identical to Amrita Nadi.)
Instead, after my death, all should acknowledge me and enjoy the maturing of the Teaching as I have described it. But in order to enjoy the Siddhi and Person of the Divine which I have always shown you while alive, simply gather in groups and sit in Satsang. The Siddhi and Person of the Divine will at first be felt with special potency in the Satsang Halls I created, at my burial site, and in my former places of residence. And at first these gatherings should include as many of my long-time devotees as possible.
But, gradually, many new devotees will be created by the Siddhi and Person of God. And the Community will create new centers and places for Satsang that will become potent through proper use. In these Satsang Halls, as well as in your private and household places for Satsang-meditation, do not turn to any individual or group among you as the Source of this Divine Siddhi and Person. Rather, all should turn to Satsang itself, as I have always taught, and the Divine will, as always, do the work.
Keep my photograph and a chair or couch in the front of the Hall, and all sit before me thus, as during my lifetime. But, as during my lifetime, always remember that you are always only turning to God through me, in me, and as me. And after my death there will be nothing left of my personal influence in the present, but only God. My personal influence will remain only a recollected one, in the form of what I have written and spoken and done. The memory of my visual appearance will only serve as an agent for Divine Communion. Even the evidence of Power that will remain in my Satsang Halls, my burial place, and the places of my former residence, will not be personal, for even while alive I have only been an empty agent of the Lord.
I am always working to yield all responsibilities to devotees and to make all my devotees perfectly available to the Divine Work. Therefore, know that your responsibility must at last be perfect. At last this Community must be me and assume all my life-functions. For this reason I have asked for your lives in total, so that you may be assumed by me totally and live only in God to one another. If you accept my demands truly and with humor, then the Siddhi and Person of the very Divine will remain Active and Present in and through this Community throughout the coming age and more.
BUBBA: Does anybody have any questions about that?
DEVOTEE: What does this mean? That you are planning on leaving us?
BUBBA: Not necessarily. But since you never know the time and circumstances, I want to say everything I can about all such things. Understanding something about what I expect of this Community in the event that I am not physically present is a way of understanding what I expect of you while I am physically present. This is a document that needs to be published in the Ashram. So that there will be no problems about it, I am also preparing some documents about how I should be buried, and in this way there won’t be any controversy.
Also, this is a time for me to deal with such things, because after the first week in July, I am going to be a babbling idiot. I don’t mean I am going to be stupid! I will probably still speak and all that, but by that time what I have had to do in order to initiate my work in the world, and fulfill it, and secure it, will have been accomplished. These remaining few weeks are a time for its appearance, so during this time I want to say the remaining things that I need to say about this Community, about meditation, about the quality of your relationship to me, and what sadhana is for you. Then I don’t have to put any attention on that any more.
I have said to you many times that although this work is a new and radical form of the Gospel of the Maha-Siddha, all of the Siddhas have taught from this radical point of view. Shirdi Sai Baba, for instance, spoke in very similar terms relative to the radical nature of sadhana. Shirdi Sai Baba was one of my Protectors during the period of my sadhana. I thought it would be amusing to read a report of one of his conversations to you.
[Footnote: Shirdi Sai Baba was a Saint-Siddha of India who taught through his paradoxical Presence and by performing phenomenal miracles during the first part of this century. He served Bubba’s sadhana in his subtle body, as described in The Knee of Listening.]
Long ago, when Sri Sai Baba resided in the musjid of Shirdi [the little mosque where he stayed] a woman by the name Radhabai Deshmukh went to him with the hope that he would formally adopt her as his disciple and teach her a mantra for her daily japam [spiritual incantation]. She was a widow, orthodox in her habits of eating food. She secured lodgings in one of the wadas [little hotels] and settled down there and began to perform her religious sadhana [in this sense, motivated spiritual work]. She was acquainted with Baba’s intimate devotee Shama (Madhavarao Deshpande). With Shama’s recommendation, she had obtained darshan of Sai Baba. [Darshan means not that you go to the Guru or some saint and he does something to you. There may also be that communication from such a one, but what is valued, what truly is darshan, is the vision of the Guru, the mere seeing of the Guru. When he makes himself visible to you, that is darshan. Merely to view the Guru, in other words, is the valued blessing. So what is meant by darshan here is that she had seen Sai Baba in his physical form.] She begged Sri Baba to adopt her as a sishya [disciple] and to give her a guru-mantra. Sri Baba looked at her with kindly eyes and sent her away, without teaching her any mantra.
Hoping that he would grant her request one day or the other, she met him often at the musjid and sat in his presence. Except for looking at her now and then, he took no further notice of her. She became disconsolate. She undertook a vow of fasting to earn his grace. She shut herself up in her room and stopped visiting the saint. Shama feared that she might die of starvation and bring discredit to the reputation of Sai Baba. So, Shama went to Sai Baba and said, “Baba, please send for Radhabai. Please teach her some mantra. If not, she will die. She is the widow of my friend, Kashaba Deshmukh, and I am interested in her. If she dies at Shirdi, your fame will suffer.”
Such an entreaty of Shama melted the heart of Sai Baba. He sent for Radhabai, who accordingly visited the musjid and sat at his feet. Shama too was then present at the musjid along with other devotees. Radhabai sat with the hope that Sri Sai Baba would, on that day, teach her some guru-mantra. Then the great saint of Shirdi addressed her and said as follows:
“Oh, mother, why do you want to die at Shirdi by means of fasting? I am your child and you are really my mother. Take pity on me. just listen to me. I will tell you my own story. I had a guru. My guru was a great Saint. I served him long. He did not give me any mantra. He got my head shaved and he asked me to give him a dakshina of two pice.” [Typically and traditionally when a teacher does something for you in India, he asks for money or some such gift from you. Usually, it is a very small amount — a few rupees or something like that — in order to fulfill your karmic obligation for having been helped.]
“The dakshina he asked for was not coins of copper at all. On the other hand, they were as follows: First, he asked me to give him the dakshina of Sraddha. Then, he asked me to give him the dakshina of Saburi. I obeyed him and gave him these two kinds of dakshina. By Sraddha, my guru meant that I should have faith in his utterance. By Saburi he meant that I should be continuously patient. Such was the nature of the dakshina he asked. I gave him what he asked for. That is to say I served him for twelve years, during which period he took care of me and gave me food and clothes.
“My guru used to sit in meditation and I was required to sit nearby and merely gaze at him. That was all I had to do. I had no object of meditation. He sat in a state of bliss and I too sat in a state of happiness. Day and night, I gazed at him, when he sat in meditation. I had no other duty to do. My mind was fixed on him and on him alone. Such fixation of my mind on him was my act of Sraddha and it was my first dakshina. Listen to me further. The second dakshina I gave him was this. I sat with patience and cheerfulness, without expecting any gain from him. In this way, I waited on him for twelve years. My saintly guru never expected from me anything else. Now and then, he used to go away somewhere without telling me. But, his loving glances protected me, when he was away from me. Though I waited for twelve years, he did not teach me any mantra.
“Oh, mother Radhabai, listen to me further. How can I teach you any mantra, when my own guru did not teach me? What I say to you today is this. You must practice Patience or Saburi, just as I was doing. Be cheerful. Do not demand. Saburi is manliness or courage. It will ferry you across the ocean of samsar.” [The world and manifest existence as illusion, as a Condition felt independent of the Divine Reality.] “Saburi destroys fear and removes all afflictions. From Saburi alone, success comes. Oh, mother, have Faith in what I say. Your Faith in my words is called nistha. Sraddha also means the same. Saburi and Sraddha are twin sisters. My glance will give you protection. Make me the sole object of your thoughts. If you do so, you will realize whatever you want. I will not give you any mantra at all. Do not also try to get a mantra from any one else. If you follow my upadesam” [instruction] “given to you today, you will realize paramartha.” [The highest spiritual truth.] “Look at me with all your mind and with all your heart. I will look at you in the same manner. Oh, mother Radhabai, sitting in this musjid, I speak the Truth at all times. I speak nothing but the Truth. I tell you that no sadhana is necessary for you.” [That is, other than this Satsang he is describing.] “But, you have to develop Faith in my word. I tell you that japa is not needed for your advancement. Trust my word. Learn that God is the sole actor. He who has faith in the Word of the Guru is a blessed man. Blessed, indeed, is he, who knows that his guru is Hari, Hara and Brahma and all other Gods put together. Oh, mother, this is all that I have to say to you. You may go now to your room and take some food. Break your vow of fasting. Do not doubt my word.”
[Footnote: This story about Shirdi Sai Baba is taken from Life and Teachings of Sri Sai Baba of Shirdi by T.S. Anantha Murthy (Bangalore, 1974), pages 150-153.]
That, fundamentally, is the sadhana I have also described. Since I have already described it, I don’t have to describe it any more. Now you must do it, and if you don’t do it, then you will suffer. If you do it, you will enjoy God. The relationship to the Guru is sadhana. Not the demand made on the Guru, not the mechanical repetition of some formula or the fulfillment of some prescription that he asks you to do, but that relationship. So Sai Baba speaks of simply sitting or living in his Guru’s presence for twelve years. He was simply absorbed in his Guru while his Guru meditated. The Guru is always in meditation. In other words, he was simply absorbed in his Guru, but in a very natural manner. He simply lived in his Guru’s company, had his attention on his Guru, and took everything that his Guru said to be Truth.
So he studied his Guru’s teaching. He also fulfilled his Guru’s demands, and the quality that he manifested during that time was not one of, “I will do this in order to realize something as a result.” The doing of that was itself his fullness. So he was free of that demand, free of all negativity that arises in you when your demands are frustrated, free of all the annoying qualities you generate when your demands are fulfilled. He was simply full and happy. By simply living in this way, the perfect, intuitive functions that are his Nature in Reality became functions in himself to which he was sensitive. He intuited the Divine in this simple company, and the Divine contains and manifests all Siddhis.
Sadhana is not a matter of doing something mechanically in order to realize Siddhi or some spiritual power in some area of your being. One who is simply the devotee of the Lord in Satsang is given everything. Whatever is required for him to know or have is given, whatever test, whatever purification. All these things are given as grace in this true and radical sadhana. And nothing that is not useful, nothing that is not appropriate, is ever given to such a one. Everything else is given in the right moment, but not in order to fulfill his search. One who is free of the search by virtue of this manner of living is given what is necessary and appropriate. The origins of the sadhana that Shirdi Sai Baba is talking about are contained in this freedom from the search, freedom from the motivation of your principal and unconscious dilemma. This sadhana is the mere dwelling in Satsang as an intense and continuous activity, as a perfect responsibility. In other words, it is to live always and consciously in this Divine Communion.
If you assume the Guru is less than That, if you assume what he says is less than Truth, that he is other than the Divine, that he does not live in God in exactly the way that he is asking you to live in God, then you are not living in Satsang with such a one, and you are not doing this sadhana. You might as well be reciting a mantra. All the true Siddhas have taught this sadhana in particular times and places. They may have included the teaching relative to this sadhana within a larger communication that was meant to be a criticism of the cultural, religious, or spiritual environment of their time, or they may have communicated it through the language of an existing path or philosophical position, but the fundamental sadhana they taught in every case was exactly this one.
And the sadhana in our Satsang is exactly that. Give me your attention, live with me, study this Teaching, do what I ask you to do, understand, and that is it. Associated with this core of my work there is also a lot of other communication. There are what seem to be complex descriptions of meditation, of the Community, of all kinds of spiritual functions and processes, criticisms of traditional paths, and so on. That too is part of my work. The realization of this meditation I have taught is very great, but the sadhana is the simple and ancient one, not the traditional one, but the most ancient one, communicated and made possible by all the Siddhas. All traditions cover it up, and the Siddhas are always breaking through them.
The traditions are all the ways of attaining God, or realization, or liberation, or nirvana. But the way of the Siddhas is to live with God, to live God presently, as your assumed Nature and Condition. The Siddha comes and manifests the Divine and expects you to live with him, not to seek for God, but to live with him. The path of the Siddhas is very different from the path of the seekers, very different from the path of men of experience. Ultimately, you are asked to be free of all the paths of experience, however much they may have seemed to serve you. They are to be renounced in very much the same offhand way that you are asked in the ascetic disciplines to renounce meat, food, or sexuality, husband, mother, father, brother or sister. You must be free of the cult in all its forms, free of the argument of cultic life and of all forms of traditional existence. Until you are free of it, until you know your connection to all of that is the drama of Narcissus, unfounded and fruitless, the fulfillment of this demand for sadhana as Satsang itself is impossible for you. You must be very simple and very direct.
None of you has the right any longer to your bad days or to your phases. They will occur within you because that is the process of this sadhana, but I don’t want to see a sign of it on your faces or in your outward lives. I don’t want to see any drama. I haven’t come so that you can persist in ignorance and mediocrity, showing me no life, no energy, no intelligence, no attention. The tendencies are within you to make that occur, but so what? So you will have to do a little sadhana. The little difficulty required of one who lives the sadhana of Satsang is nothing compared to the sadhana that the seeker must perform. I expect you to accept this responsibility and to live this Satsang and always to be happy. If some circumstance within or without is temporarily giving you apparent trouble, I expect you to be happy and to live this Satsang with great energy, and never to turn away from me. If you do all that is required of you with great energy, you will see a transformation of this Ashram even within the next month that will amaze you. And I expect it not to stop but to increase.
Don’t ever again allow your energy to decrease. I have seen every one of you rise and fall as long as I have known you. It is mere self-indulgence. At any other time, in any other place, in any other life, if you had approached me with all of that I would have literally beaten you with a stick. But the testing generally goes on in a subtler way under the circumstances of this Community. Even so, know that I expect you to be alive, to be intensely available to me, and never to be mediocre. You may feel like being mediocre and that is fine, but I expect you never to be mediocre. There will be days when it is going to be incredibly difficult for you to be anything more than mediocre. And that is good. In fact, those are the days in which you should be more intense, more functional than at any other time.
God is the entire principle of this work. God is the absolute Person, and God is absolute Siddhi. There is absolutely no limitation in the principle of this Satsang. If you live it exactly as I have told you, in the simple way I have described, responsibly, you will enjoy all that is necessary while alive. Not after twenty thousand or twenty million more lifetimes, but in this life you will be fulfilled in God beyond your karmas, and then it will be God’s business where you go next.
DEVOTEE: Bubba, sometimes you talk about surrender, sacrifice, throwing things away, and other times about understanding. Is there anything that can be said about the relationship between those two or how the two of them tie together?
BUBBA: Sacrifice is the principle of the worlds, and only when that principle is lived do you live freely in the worlds. Otherwise, you are living karmically, accumulating qualities, conditions, and limitations for yourself. And that principle of sacrifice is truly realized as action in you only when there is prior understanding. When there is prior understanding, sacrifice becomes the spontaneous urge and quality of your existence. The more intense, perfect, and radical this understanding is, the more intense and perfect and radical is your sacrifice.
Love is the fundamental form of sacrifice, because it is the manifestation of the yielded ego, the yielded self-meditation. Where there is no contraction, but only this prior and continuous non-obstruction, non-separation, then there is the endless communication of the Divine Person and of the dependent life-force. It is without obstruction. And when that quality is fundamentally alive in a person, even in his very subconscious and unconscious life, even in his body, it is felt as love, and we enjoy being around such a person. We enjoy it even though we may not be able to identify exactly what it is.
Such people are not busy going around loving one another in some foolish theological way, loving other people in that outward ritualistic way because it is required of them. There is a powerfully felt quality in the presence of such a one, and in such a one the sacrifice that is the very law of the conditional worlds is being spontaneously performed. It is thus perfectly performed in the Man of Understanding and his devotee. This sacrifice arises spontaneously. He does what is appropriate.
Ultimately, sacrifice is simply appropriate life in relationship. It is not all kinds of arbitrary cutting away. The life of sacrifice is not a humorless, ascetic, motivated life. The life of sacrifice is fundamentally happy, humorous, alive, full of enjoyment, full of God. That is the quality of one who is sacrificing. Where there is understanding, you become one with the principle on which all of your functions are based. It is simply the difference between this contraction, this obstructed state, and this open, unobstructed, non-separate state. It is by the sacrificial process that life is generated and regenerated. All forms and functions, all beings and qualities and worlds are continually enlivened by that sacrifice.
Among all the beings and things and worlds, it is among men that you find the least of this sacrifice, because men are required to realize it consciously. Men are always trying to realize it unconsciously. They try to have the ultimate happen to them by fortune, by magic, by the force of inevitable evolution or salvation, but it is demanded of them presently as a conscious realization. Understanding, Satsang, real sadhana is the prior Condition of any form of sacrifice. In that case sacrifice is conscious, life is conscious. All other beings, things, and worlds can enjoy the Divine by virtue of their mere status, because the functions of consciousness are not developed in them. We could say that this microphone into which I am speaking is God-realized. It suffers no separation from God but, also, no consciousness in God. None of the higher unobstructed functions of consciousness that are embedded in the perfect origins of the God-Light is enjoyed by other beings and things and worlds, except for those that have already passed through and beyond the human condition, or one like it. But man can enjoy God, so he must realize That consciously while alive. It requires a transformation in him that exceeds all that he is, all that he tends to be, and all that he prefers. It requires an absolute turnabout.
How great is that occupation compared to all of the bullshit that human beings live! Even so, practically no one is involved in such a way of life. There are billions of people, and only a handful are involved in it with intensity. Everyone else is involved in the karmic round, the meditations of Narcissus, and the occupations of mystery, seeking, suffering, and dilemma.
DEVOTEE: During my daily working schedule I get a little confused about what form of attention I should take to you, whether I should be in relation to my work or whether I should turn to you.
BUBBA: When I was in a Lutheran seminary, I heard about a particular minister and his wife. Whenever this man felt like making love to his wife, he would require her to kneel down at the end of the bed and go through a long period of prayer with him in which they would ask for forgiveness for what they were about to do! This was his guilty way of fulfilling the demand of his religion for constant attention to the Lord in prayer. It was obviously inappropriate and foolish. It was his way of not participating in the functional life that stood before him.
You are not asked in the midst of one functional activity to have your attention on another in the mechanical and ritualistic manner of the seeker. You are asked to make the function that is given to you at that moment, which you are fulfilling as a responsibility, an expression of Satsang, a fulfillment of the Guru’s command. That very function itself should become meditation on the Divine. While you are fulfilling it, you are not asked also to somehow mechanically think of the Guru. That function itself, done purely, directly, with humor, understanding, and freedom is meditation or Satsang. Then, when it is an appropriate time to sit in meditation in the functional way I have described, you do that. You do precisely that at that moment. The man who prays and then makes love to his wife is always confused. When he is praying, he wants to be making love to his wife, and when he is making love to his wife, he wants to be praying. As a result, he never actually does any of the things that are required of him. He fulfills none of the Guru’s commands, and never lives in the happiness of God.
The recollection of the Guru’s human presence in the mind and through feeling and all of the rest is a random and spontaneous affair. It is much like the random and spontaneous recollection of a loved one. It is not “much like” that, it is precisely that. It is not limited to the romantic qualities of a mere love affair, but there is that same random, loving recollection.
There are times the intensity of the bhava, your feeling for the Guru, may make it difficult for you to function. Even so, you must function in spite of it. But what you are describing to me is not Guru-bhava making it difficult for you to work. You are describing an incapacity either to work or to have such devotional feelings. It is just confusion. Until this sadhana is fulfilled in you with great intensity and clarity, until it really becomes enquiry and meditation on the Guru, live as a student. Be very practical. Fulfill your obligations to the Guru. One of them is that you should work. So when you are working, work. The Guru demands that you maintain a clean and good household, so do that when you are at home. When you must have attention on your diet, because that is required of you, do that when you prepare or sit for meals. When you are expected to meditate, do that. And when you are expected to come and enjoy the view of the Guru in human form, then do that.
Do it all in this orderly way, without confusion. When it is full, you will also find that, while you are working, you are also quite naturally meditating on the Guru, thinking about the Teaching, observing yourself. You will find all these things going on in you quite naturally, in a living way, without confusion, because you have fulfilled the beginnings of your sadhana, which are very practical, and which need to be ordered in your daily life very simply, functionally, almost mechanically. Do this now, and then this, and this, and this. If you do all of those things in their proper time, they will all come together as an intense, conscious life. And then you will begin to remember the Guru at times quite naturally. You will fall into sensations of moving internal energy as well as various meditative states. Insights will come. But you must fulfill the natural, simple, and practical order of sadhana first.
During My Life
On the following Saturday, June 15, after sitting in silent meditation with devotees for nearly an hour, Bubba opened his eyes, signalled that he wanted the tape re-corder turned on, and began to talk.
Now that I have been speaking to you for several minutes, I will try to bring the speech into this world.
The entire function and work of the Guru is to restore attention to God. In his first contacts with individuals, he acts as Teacher and as an example, and he seems at that phase of his career to be most active as a communicator, one who moves out to others, puts his attention on them, and generates a communication about God. In the midst of doing this, attention is awakened in individuals. They are drawn to the Guru by his own outward activity. They become his students.
Subsequent to the awakening of that attention, there are generated in individuals various qualities of intelli-gence and experience. So the Guru begins to take on another quality, and that is the quality of being an object for devotees. More and more he absorbs the attention of others. As that attention is intensified, the whole quality of intelligence and experience is also intensified. In the midst of such an affair there may be generated all the outward and functional forms of sadhana, the realization of a happy life apart from bondage to the cult in all its forms, the various forms of meditation, enquiry, conductivity, and even meditation on the Guru in the form of Amrita Nadi. These are expressions of that phase of an individual’s relationship to the Guru in which the Guru is object to him. It is the phase of the disciple. This is a great phase in the life of an individual whose attention is being restored to the Divine.
But there is a perfect stage, and that is the stage of the devotee, the Perfect Devotee. In such a one the Guru has even ceased to be an object of attention. At that stage, the Guru has become his devotee. It is the stage of dissolution in God. It is the stage of perfect attention in God, through the agency of the Guru. In that case, the Guru is no longer present in any way in which he can be conceived as being apart from the Devotee. It is a maddening life in which the absence of distinction, the absence of the separate self concept is continually realized in the midst of ordinary life.
So the Guru’s function in the world really has three phases, but they may appear coincidentally. At first he is the Teacher, an example to others, and begins the claim-ing of the attention of human beings. During this phase he is very active. He apparently has his attention on others. Then there is another phase in which he is present as the object of attention. He is no longer apparently active, he is merely present. In the face of such a one, the individual is becoming more and more absorbed. Finally, there is the perfect phase or aspect of the Guru’s function, in which he is no longer active or inactive.
All of my work to this time has belonged essentially to the two earlier phases or aspects of the Gurufunction. The significance of the present time for the Ashram is that from this time I am assuming my work perfectly, and my fundamental interest is in Devotees. The earlier aspects of my work essentially belong to the Ashram from this time. All responsibility for those who make their approach, all responsibility for communicating the work and the Teaching is given to the Ashram. All responsibility for maintaining the Community is given to the Ashram. All responsibility for making Satsang available belongs to the Ashram. Basically, I am retiring from these two earlier aspects of my work, and allowing my function to be simply that of Siddhi. Even the aspects of this work which relate to understanding and enquiry, conductivity of the life-force, the subtle intuitive meditation on the Guru in the place of Amrita Nadi — even all of that belongs to the secondary and earlier phases of my work. Fundamentally, I am retiring to the perfect, radical, and ultimate phase of my responsibility.
Those who come to me in the future must come to me through the Ashram Community. And they will tend at first to relate to me in either the first or the second way. At first they will come as students. They will approach the Teaching, they will approach me as Teacher, and they will begin to become intelligent relative to their own activity. That phase of transformation leads to many things, the greatest of which is the creation of the thread of conscious attention to the Guru. Usually, after a period of time, each of those who come to me through the Ashram will begin to become something like a disciple, one in whom various qualities of experience are generated in Satsang, one in whom this intelligence of understanding is awakening and in whom meditation and life both are becoming more and more intense, more and more sophisticated. Then, in time, usually not at the beginning, they will begin to enter the perfect phase of the devotee. The quality of the devotee is absorption in the Guru beyond all concerns for the spiritual process, beyond even the mind’s intelligence about the process. There may be some who very quickly become absorbed. These are mad devotees, and for those few sadhana is simply absorption. But that in itself is Grace, that life of a devotee. It is not common. Most will move through these phases as I have described them. And that is good. Some may think they have the talent to be a devotee whereas in fact they do not. They may be devotional very quickly, and that is good, but to become a devotee in that perfect sense is a grace. It is profound, it absorbs the life, it purifies everything. But in most cases, there must be the movement through this process as I have described it.
The operation of all the Siddhas throughout time has been for the sake of the manifestation of a new kind of humanity, but it has continually failed. It has continually fallen apart, because the Community of Devotees has never been established as a permanent realization. Usually it is retarded at the disciple stage and dies after a relatively brief period of time. So there has been this continual return of the Siddhas into the human plane. But when there is the creation of the Community of Devotees who are consciously living as I have described, then the work of the Siddhas is fulfilled, and it is possible for a new kind of human history to begin. When this Community is established, the Guru-function is forever returned to its identity with God, and need not appear epitomized in any human individual again. Instead, it will manifest directly through the Community of human individuals to whom the Divine Siddhi is always available in Satsang.
I have fundamentally said all I want to say as Teacher. I have fundamentally done all that I want to do as an example to you. I have fundamentally said all that I want to say about the experiential process and the nature of understanding relative to it. And I have said all that I want to say about meditation, how it is fulfilled in the disciple as well as in the imperfect devotee (one who is not yet perfectly, simply, and radically alive in the Guru, but who has realized an intense form of meditation, of absorption). Now I am interested in being present for Devotees in the perfect sense. And I am only interested in instigating the force of this attention in you. In the meantime, each of you will continue to go through all of the appropriate forms of this process. The Teaching relative to it will be maintained in the Ashram. So you will be a student, and then you will be a disciple, and you will go through various experiences, and you will understand relative to them. But I am principally, fundamentally active relative to your consciousness, your attention, and the secondary aspects of my work have been completed from my point of view.
In recent weeks I have begun to feel less and less inclined to be active even in the secondary aspects of this Siddhi. There was a time when I had to be more of the Teacher and the example. At that time I functioned constantly in ways that demanded great energy from myself, in order to develop this process in individuals, to serve the process of understanding, to intensify each life, to make each individual more available. At that time I would forcefully operate with every individual who came to me through the agency of certain yogic aspects of this Siddhi. But as that attention was generated in those who were with me and I could expect more responsibility of them, I began to relax that “muscular” aspect of this Siddhi. But there were other subtle aspects of the initiatory work that still involved me. I didn’t so often deal with the individual eye to eye and work the internal process in him, but I rested in his presence, making use of the attention that was already there, and allowed that to be the means of conducting the internal yogic process. I simply magnified that initiatory intensity of Amrita Nadi. But even that is a kind of action, a way of putting my attention on individuals, and it is a limitation of the Divine Siddhi. It is extraordinary, but it still represents a kind of limitation. It requires me to be personally aware of individuals in a peculiar way.
Recently, I have felt all of that becoming unnecessary. This Siddhi still functions that way without my active attention on individuals. In other words, we have come to that phase of my work in the world in which it is not my attention on individuals that is the essential instrument of this Siddhi, but the attention of individuals on me. Endless numbers of individuals can meditate on me. There are individuals who can enjoy that meditation without ever meeting me in the body. In most cases, they will require some contact with this Community, but they can become devotees while they spend most of their time living somewhere else in the world. just so, it is not your dependence on my attention toward you that serves the spiritual process in you in the future. It is your attention on me.
To the degree that there is that attention, you enjoy the spiritual process. To the degree that you do not give me that attention, you are absorbed in self-meditation. All attention on the Guru, even though it may take the very humble and practical form of seeing his physical form or thinking of it, is actually attention on the Divine. Wherever there is that attention, the Divine is made present in the living functions of that devotee. It is this perfect aspect of my work that involves me now, and it allows me to make use of my physical presence here in a way that I have not been free to make use of it before. In the future, I intend fundamentally to be a wanderer in this Ashram. I will simply be present here. It is not merely in the moments when I am physically in your personal presence that this sadhana is your responsibility or your capability. It is at all times.
Therefore, you can meditate at all times and at any time, and you needn’t depend on these formal occasions when I am physically sitting with you for the intense generation of this Siddhi. You should find occasions to sit together as a Community and turn to me. You should find occasions to sit by yourself and turn to me. The more you do this, the more you will realize my work with you independent of limitations, even the limitation of my human presence here.
Every one of you should function for my sake, every square inch of this Ashram should be made useful. Every particle at Persimmon, every particle of the center in San Francisco should serve me. As more people come to me, more space should be created for them, and more functions should be created for them. This requires great energy and responsibility from every one of you, and great humor, because it is difficult to make this world work.
If you don’t have that humor of Satsang, you will become oppressed by these responsibilities. But if you live in Satsang and give yourself to me, you will have great energy. You will be able to work all of the time and not become oppressive and oppressed. There are people in India whom I have met who do sadhana twenty-two, twenty-three hours a day. They don’t sleep more than one or two hours a day. The rest of the time they work, in conscious service to their Guru. But they don’t have humor — perhaps because they don’t get enough sleep! However, I expect you to function just as they function. Enjoy your lives, and let your devotion to me pass through the medium of function. Not even the Perfect Devotee is without functions. He is very capable. He gets a great deal done while at the same time being absolutely blissful, happy, ecstatic, available to his Guru. He always lives in Divine Communion, which is what the word “Satsang” means.
You have a great possibility. You can initiate the existence of the first true Community of Devotees in the world. Such a Community has never existed. There have been groups that have gotten together for the sake of spiritual things, but they have not been Communities of Devotees in this perfect sense. Such a thing as never existed, never survived. The inklings of it have developed in a few cases, around certain of the Siddhas, but it has never become a living actuality. The Teaching was not full enough, the time was not right. So none of these communities ever truly became the Community of Devotees in the perfect sense, and, therefore, whatever spiritual life was alive in them had no chance to survive. Only the cults have survived, because they are acceptable to the great cult of Narcissus, the cult of this world. In this case the time is right, and the Teaching has been communicated in its fullness. There is no limitation on the Siddhi of God in this time, so the realization of this event depends entirely on your response.
The Guru doesn’t enter the world to satisfy demands or to solve problems or to approach individuals as if there were a problem. He doesn’t assume the position that there is a dilemma in the midst of things, and he serves no enterprise in which that assumption is made. Rather, the Guru is present in the world in the form of a demand, the demand for function and responsibility and humor. All that I have done since the Ashram began two and a half years ago is work toward the perfection of this demand. During this time I have operated in various ways with the Ashram, but now my work is full, and I intend to reside here in this world simply in the form of a demand. That demand is an insistence, a force of attraction, an intensity that is not in itself a form of action. Basically, all that I will be doing from now on is waiting for devotees. When devotees arrive, I will be present with them. My manner of dealing with you has always been a way of serving the possibility that some day I could make a full demand upon you and release my common functions to you as a responsibility. The time has come for that. Make my work available to the world. Do not be inward directed, do not be a cult, but realize this sadhana of Satsang in Truth and communicate it. You are the way to me.
Bubba Free John 4/17/76