The Great Esoteric Tradition of Devotion To The Adept-Realizer – Up? Beyond the Beginner’s Spiritual Way of Saint Jesus and the Traditions of Mystical Cosmic Ascent via Spirit-Breath

Spiritually Realized Adepts are the principal Sources,
Resources, and Means of the esoteric Way. This fact is not a
matter of controversy among real Spiritual
practitioners.

The entire Spiritual Way is a process based on the
understanding of attention, or the understanding of the
inevitable and specific results of attachment to, or
reaction to, or identification with every kind of
conditional object, other, or state. This Spiritual
understanding is expressed in a simple traditional
formula:

“You become whatever you
meditate on.”

Since the most ancient days, this understanding has
informed and inspired the practice of real practitioners of
the Spiritual Way. Likewise, and on the basis of this very
understanding, Spiritual practitioners have affirmed that
the Great Principle of Spiritual practice is Satsang, or the
practice of life as self-surrender to the bodily Person, the
Transmitted Spiritual Presence, and the Realized State of a
Spiritually Realized Adept of whatever degree or stage.

The traditional term “Guru” means “One Who
Reveals the Light and thereby Liberates beings from
Darkness”. This term is also commonly interpreted in a
general sense to mean “teacher”. Thus, Adepts have
certainly been valued simply as “gurus”. However,
the function of instruction can be performed by anyone who
is properly informed—and, indeed, even the specific
function of Spiritual Instruction is secondary to the Great
Function of the Adept.

Adepts inevitably Instruct others, but the function of
Instruction is then passed on through good books, and
through informed others, and so forth. The Great Function of
the Adept-Guru is, however, specific only to Adepts
themselves, and this is the Guru-Function supremely valued
by Spiritual practitioners since the most ancient days.

SATSANG

The specific Guru-Function is associated with the Great
Principle of Satsang. Therefore, since the most ancient
days, all truly established Spiritual practitioners have
understood that Satsang Itself is the Great Means for
Realizing Real God, or Truth, or Reality. That is to say,
the Great Means of Realization in the Spiritual Way is to
live in, or to spend significant time in, or otherwise to
give attention to the Company, Form, Presence, and State of
an Adept who is Realized in one or another of the esoteric
stages of life.

The Essence of the practice of Satsang is to focus
attention on the Realized Condition of a true Adept.
Therefore, the practice of Satsang is the practice of
ego-transcending Communion with the Adept’s own
Condition, Which Is Samadhi Itself, or the Adept’s
characteristic Realization.

Based on the understanding
of attention, the Spiritual Motive is essentially the
Motive to transcend the limiting capability of attention.
Therefore, the traditional Spiritual process is an effort to
set attention Free by progressively relinquishing attachment
and reaction to conditional objects, others, and states.

This conventional effort is profound and difficult, and
it tends to progress slowly. Therefore, some few adopt the
path of extraordinary self-effort, which is asceticism.

The traditional Spiritual process, begun in the
context of the fourth stage of life, is an effort to set
attention Free by progressively relinquishing attachment and
reaction to conditional “objects”, others, and
states. (Aletheon)

However, the Adepts themselves have, since the most
ancient days, offered an alternative to mere self-effort.
Indeed, the Adept-Gurus offer a Unique Principle of
practice. That Unique Principle is the Principle of Supreme
Attraction.

SELF-EFFORT AND ATTRACTION

Truly, the bondage of attention to conditional objects,
others, and states must be really transcended in the
Spiritual Way, but mere self-effort is a principle that
originates in the separate self. Therefore, the process of
the real transcending of bondage to conditions is made
direct if the principle of independent self-effort is
replaced by the responsive Principle of Supreme
Attraction.

See: The
Direct and Gradual Path

On the basis of the simple understanding of
attention—expressed in the formula: You become What you
meditate on—the ancient Essence of the Spiritual Way is
to meditate on the Adept-Guru, and to be Attracted beyond
the self-contraction. Through sympathetic Spiritual
Identification with the Spiritually Self-Transmitted State
of a Realizer, the devotee is Spiritually Infused and
Awakened by the Inherently Attractive Power of That State
Itself. Even the simplest beginner in practice may be
directly Inspired—and, thus, moved toward greater
practice, true devotion, and eventual Spiritual
Awakening—by sympathetic response to the Free Sign, and
the Great Demonstration, of a true Realizer. And, by the
Great Spiritual Means That Is true Satsang, the fully
prepared devotee of a true Realizer may Freely relinquish
the limits of attention in each of the progressive stages of
life that, in due course, follow upon that devotion.

LIMITS

Of course, actual Spiritual Identification with the
Realized Spiritual Condition of an Adept is limited by the
stage of life of the devotee, the effective depth of the
self-understanding and the ego-transcending devotional
response of the devotee, and the stage of life and
Realization of the Adept. And some traditions may tend to
replace the essential and Great Communion that is true
Satsang with concepts and norms associated with the
parent-child relationship, or the relationship between a
king and a frightened subject, or even the relationship
between a slave-master and a slave. However, this Great
Principle that Is Satsang is the ancient Essence of the
Spiritual Way—and true Adept-Gurus have, therefore,
since the most ancient days, been the acknowledged principal
Sources and Resources of true religion and the esoteric
tradition of Spiritual Realization.

POPULAR IDEAS

Particularly in more modern days, since Spirituality has
become a subject of mass communication and popularization,
the Spiritual Way Itself has become increasingly subject to
conventional interpretation and popular controversy. In the
broad social context of the first three stages of life,
self-fulfillment is the common ideal. Therefore, the common
mood is one of adolescent anti-authority and anti-hierarchy,
and the common search is for a kind of ever-youthful
ego-omnipotence and ego-omniscience.

The popular egalitarian “culture” of the first
three stages of life is characterized by the politics of
adolescent rebellion against “authority”. Indeed,
a society of mere individuals does not need, and cannot even
much tolerate, a true culture—because a true culture
must, necessarily, be characterized by mutual tolerance,
cooperation, peace, and profundity. Therefore, societies
based on competitive individualism, and egoic
self-fulfillment, and mere gross-mindedness actually tend to
suppress and even destroy right culture. And right cultures
are produced only when individuals rightly and truly
participate in a collective, and, thus and thereby, live in
accordance with the life-principle of ego-transcendence and
the Great Principle of Inherent Oneness.

TABOOS

In the popular egalitarian “culture” of the
first three stages of life, the Guru and the developmental
culture of the Spiritual Way are more or less taboo, because
every individual limited by the motives of the first three
stages of life is at war with personal vulnerability and
need. However, the real Spiritual process does not even
begin until the egoic “point of view” of the first
three stages of life is understood and the ego-surrendering
and ego-transcending Motive of the fourth
stage of life begins to move and change the
body-mind.

Those who are truly involved in the ego-surrendering and
ego-transcending process of the esoteric stages of life are
no longer at
war with their own Help. Therefore, it is only in the
non-Spiritual “cultural” domain of the first three
stages of life that the Guru is, in principle, taboo. And,
because that taboo is rooted in adolescent reactivity and
egoic willfulness, “anti-Guruism”, and even
“anti-cultism”—which denigrate, and defame,
and mock, or otherwise belittle, all
“authorities”, and even all the seed-groups of
newly emerging cultural movements —are forms of what
Sigmund Freud described as an “Oedipal”
problem.

In the common world of humankind, it is yet true that
most individuals tend to be confined to the general
“point of view” associated, developmentally, with
the unfinished
“business” of the first three stages of life.
Thus, in the common world of humankind, even religion is
reduced to what is intended to serve the
“creaturely”, and rather aggressively exoteric,
“point of view” and purposes of egoity in the
context of the first three stages of life. And even if an
interest in the esoteric possibilities develops in the case
of any such character, that interest tends to be pursued in
a manner that dramatizes and reinforces the “point of
view” characteristic of the first three stages of
life.

CHILDISH AND ADOLESCENT APPOACHES

Until there is the development of significantly effective
self-understanding
relative to the developmental problems associated with the
first three stages of life, any one who aspires to develop a
truly esoteric religious practice will, characteristically,
tend to relate to such possible esoteric practice in either
a childish or an adolescent manner. Thus, any one whose
developmental disposition is yet relatively childish will
tend to relate to esoteric possibilities via emotionalistic
attachments, while otherwise tending to be weak in both the
responsible exercise of discriminating intelligence and the
likewise responsible exercise of functional, practical,
relational, and cultural self-discipline.

Adolesence

And any one whose developmental disposition is yet
relatively adolescent will tend to relate to esoteric
possibilities via generally “heady” efforts,
accompanied either by a general lack of self-discipline or
by an exaggerated attachment to self-discipline. Such
adolescent, or “heady”, religiosity merely
continues the dramatization of the characteristic adolescent
search for independence, or the reactive pursuit of escape
from every kind of dependency, and, altogether, the reactive
pursuit of egoic self-sufficiency. And such adolescent
seeking is inherently and reactively disinclined toward any
kind of self-surrender. Therefore, the rather adolescent
seeker tends to want to be his or her own “guru”
in all matters. And, characteristically, the rather
adolescent seeker will resist, and would even prefer to
avoid, a truly intelligent, rightly self-disciplined, and,
altogether, devotionally self-surrendered relationship to a
true Guru, or Sat-Guru.

ESOTERIC LEVEL

Because of their developmental tendencies toward either
childish or adolescent ego-dramatizations, those who are yet
bound to the “point of view” of the first three
stages of life are, developmentally, also not yet truly
ready to enter into the esoteric process. And, for the same
developmental reasons, the principal and most characteristic
impediments toward true participation in the esoteric
religious process are “cultism”,
“intellectualism”, and
“anti-Guruism”.

PREPARED

It is not the specific Function of the Adept to fulfill a
popular Spiritual role in common society, but to Serve as
Teacher, Guide, Spiritual Transmitter, or Free Awakener in
relation to those who are already moved to fulfill the
ego-transcending obligations of the Great and Spiritual Way
Itself. The only proper relationship to such a Realized
Adept is, therefore, one of real and right and
ego-surrendering and ego-transcending practice, and that
practice must, from the beginning, be practically Inspired
by ego-transcending devotion—not childish egoity, and
not adolescent egoity.

Of course, individuals in the earlier stages of life who
are not yet actively oriented to ego-surrendering and
ego-transcending practice may be Served by Adept-Gurus, but
those not yet actively oriented, or rightly adapted, to
truly ego-surrendering and really ego-transcending practice
are generally Served only through the written Teachings of
an Adept, and through the public institutional work of the
practicing devotees of an Adept.

The Realized Adept is, primarily, an esoteric Figure,
whose unique Function Serves within the context of the
esoteric stages of life. The esoteric stages of life are
themselves open only to those who are ready, willing, and
able to make the truly developmental sacrifice of separate
and separative self that is necessary in the context of the
esoteric stages of life. Therefore, the necessity of a
Realized Adept is obvious only to those who are ready,
willing, and able to embrace the ego-transcending process of
the esoteric stages of life.

DOUBLE BIND – BEYOND THE MOTIVE OF SELF-EFFORT

Except for the possible moments in which the Acausal
Divine Person may Serve in a non-physical Revelation-Form,
the Realized Adept—or a human and living true Guru, or
a human and living true Sat-Guru, or a human and living true
devotee-Instrument of a once living true Sat-Guru—is an
absolute
necessity for any and every human being who would
practice within the esoteric stages of life. Therefore, the
necessity of a Realized Adept is inherently obvious to any
one and every one who is truly ready, willing, and able to
embrace the esoteric process of Real-God-Realization.

Any one and every one who doubts and quibbles about the
necessity of a true Adept-Guru is, simply, not yet ready,
willing, and able to enter the process of the esoteric
stages of life. And no mere verbal argument is sufficient to
convince such doubters of the necessity of a true Adept-Guru
—just as no
mere verbal argument is sufficient to make them ready,
willing, and able to truly embrace the ego-surrendering
process of the esoteric stages of life.

Those who doubt the Guru-Principle, and the unique value
and ultimate necessity of the Adept-Guru, are those for whom
the Great and Spiritual Way Itself is yet
in doubt. Therefore, such matters remain
“controversial”—and access to the Spiritual
Way and the Adept-Company continues to be effectively denied
to ordinary people by the popular taboos and the
psychological limitations of the first three stages of
life—until the truly developmental and Spiritual Motive
Awakens the heart’s Great Impulse to Grow Beyond.