Beyond the Beginner’s Spiritual Way of Saint Jesus
and the
Traditions of Mystical Cosmic Ascent via Spirit-Breath
By The Avataric Great Sage, Adi Da Samraj
(this book was later published as Pneumaton)
The Paradox and the Great Secret
Adi Da Samraj, 1988
(03:52)
The Great Esoteric Tradition of Devotion To The Adept-Realizer
Spiritually Realized Adepts are the principal Sources, Resources, and Means of the esoteric Way. This fact is not a matter of controversy among real Spiritualpractitioners.
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 Spiritualunderstanding is expressed in a simple traditional formula: “You become whatever you meditate on”. Since 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 GreatPrinciple 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 ofInstruction 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.
The specific Guru-Function is associated with the GreatPrinciple 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’scharacteristic Realization.
Based on the understanding of attention, the SpiritualMotive 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. 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.
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 SupremeAttraction.
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 Stateof a Realizer, the devotee is Spiritually Infused and Awakened by the Inherently Attractive Power of That StateItself. Even the simplest beginner in practice may be directly Inspired and, thus, moved toward greater practice, true devotion, and eventual SpiritualAwakening 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.
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.
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.
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 activity 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 ina manner that dramatizes and reinforces the point of view characteristic of the first three stages of life.
Until there is the development of significantly effective self-understanding relative to the developmental problems associated with the first three stages of life, anyone 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, anyone 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. And anyone 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.
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.
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 theego-transcending obligations of the Great and Spiritual WayItself. The only proper relationship to such a RealizedAdept 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.
Except for the possible moments in which the AcausalDivine Person may Serve in a non-physical Revelation-Form, the Realized Adept or a human and living true Guru, ora 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 anyone and everyone who is truly ready, willing, and able to embrace the esoteric process of Real-God-Realization.
Anyone and everyone 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 theego-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 SpiritualWay 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.