No Remedy, 1975
Bubba Free John (Adi Da Samraj)
Since there is no technique of inwardness to which I subscribe prior to what looks like a very concrete activity inquiry, what you’re supposed to be doing within seems very vague and confusing perhaps, and that’s because you’re very vague and confused and that you have no method by which to go inside that’s very concrete, then all you can do is look at yourself inside and it’s vague and confused and the force of that sadhana is one that tends to let you see things and you can’t see anything so brilliantly and clarified within if you haven’t been given some structure to rehearse.
All you will see is confusion, your random activity, your obsessions and this is good and prior to the coming forward of real intelligence on the basis of insight in Satsang, there’s no technique and no particular recommendation that I want to make for inward activities. I don’t recommend that you meditate or anything. I recommend that you see this whole strategy of meditation, so desire to meditate and so forth become absorbed in inward states, but I don’t recommend any meditation, any meditative practice, any sort of pattern to rehearse within so you get to look at that instead of where you’re really at within.
Prior to real in sight and inquiry, it is better for the individual to be brought face to face with his bullshit without a single thing to prevent his observation of it and of course it’s confusing because there isn’t anything else to see. All that there is in the usual man is this effort in dilemma, this effort, this endless strain of strategies and arbitrary fixed ideas and impressions and motivations, self-concepts, philosophies.
It’s just a bag of nonsense that has no simple structure that makes no sense but rather than trying to make sense out of that nonsense then and try to clarify all those things that appear prior to insight, it’s better for you to be continually reminded of the essential argument of the teachings and disciplines of the guru, of the guru himself, be reminded of him, and the relationship to the guru and of the community and the functional life and so forth.
That is sadhana. That is the condition of sadhana prior to inquiry and not any technique of self-watching or self-manipulation toward some spiritual goal or toward some sense of peace, some manufactured peace rather. The conditions are very simple as stated in this description I just read to you. Consider the guru’s argument. Enter into unobstructed relationship with the guru. That is Satsang.
Satsang is not believing all kinds of bullshit about the guru and always thinking about this bullshit, this image of divine guru, philosopher guru, knowing a little bit guru, whatever your image. That is not Satsang. Satsang is the relationship to the guru. In other words, enter into unobstructed relationship to the guru. Don’t believe something about the guru. Enter into relationship with him. He will show you who he is when you stop obstructing, when you stop turning from the guru.
Then you see who the guru is. Turning to the guru is not a matter of having an image that you believe in first, but is simply turning, responding on the level of that intuitive awareness of the guru, that intuitive sense of the guru’s condition, responding on the basis of that happiness that is known in the guru’s company when you’re not busy crunching. Consider the guru’s argument.
Live in Satsang with the guru. Assume his disciplines within the community and this becomes insight, not by having you think about yourself all the time but by frustrating you, by frustrating the whole movement of dramatization that is your life.
It creates a mirror. It beings about self-observation at random moments, not during moments of concentrating on yourself and thinking about it all and waiting to see it, but in those moments when that whole contraction or concentration of awareness is relaxed, this self-observation appears. So it’s not some method of observation, sense of self-watching that you’re being told what to do. It’s not that that becomes insight. It’s all of these conditions that you’re being asked to do.
Satsang, steady personal conditions, service, that is what you are being asked to do on the basis of your response to the teacher, the argument of the guru and his presence. When insight arises, then you’ll see what insight is and when insight has become conclusive to the point of consciousness, not to the point of knowing something about yourself, but to the point of free consciousness, when there’s consciousness left over after all the bullshit has absorbed everything, when there’s some consciousness left over, then that consciousness comes forward and becomes your intelligence.
But in the meantime, there is no consciousness left over. It’s all being used up, so how can I appeal to it? I’m not appealing to your consciousness, absolutely not. I’m appealing to you and you are of the nature of consciousness absolutely and when you enter into relationship with me and give me the opportunity to argue with you, and when you assume my discipline to the point where it frustrates the automatisities of your life, then you begin to enter the world.
But until that time no one has incarnated. There is simply carnation, meat (laughter from audience). There is no incarnation until somebody comes in, until something that is other than this elemental appearance takes over these forms. Until then there is no incarnation. There is no human being really. So naturally then, prior to this relatively conscious life of inquiry, you can have insight.
You can’t make sense out of your life. You can’t make sense out of a lot of things. You can’t pin the teaching down in the form of some sort of enlightenment. You can’t feel enlightened. You can’t really be conscious. You can only see this manifest appearance that is your own life and that only serves as a demonstration of the argument of the guru and so, during that time, you must hold on to the guru.
You must return to his argument. You must accept his discipline or his theatre, whatever is generated within the community, but not do all of this in some idiotic fashion.
(Question from audience)
What about the presence itself? The mere presence of the guru is the highest for of sitti. All the forms of sitti are actions, influences that operate upon one or another level of your functional life, so there may be a sitti made active to heal your body to change your mind, to make you have a vision, to make you see your miracle. All kinds of siddhis or influences of an exotic or extraordinary kind may appear.
But the fundamental sitti and the one who is the core of this sadhana is not itself a kind of action. It’s not definable in terms of a manifest appearance in fact but it is known in the guru’s company and tends to be associated with that reason with these qualities and activities and so forth, so I have described it in the mere presence of the guru.
In other words, it is that sitti which is simply his condition, his nature, that very consciousness that is the nature and condition of all beings, except that in the case of the guru, it is purely communicated. There is no obstruction between you and its intuition, its knowledge. Whereas, through the usual man, this same nature, this same condition is made present but it is communicated via all kinds of limitations so it is not known as that, your presence.
Satsang is the establishment of that conscious, intuitive, happy enjoyment of the guru. It is the establishment of that relationship, that connection, and the living of it from moment to moment. It’s not a psychological connection. It’s not a psychological connection specifically, a life connection. The psyche and the life are obviously turned toward the guru in Satsang and that makes these things subject to the guru’s communication relative to sadhana.
But the fundamental connection to the guru which is Satsang, is through this intuition which precedes the psyche, which precedes the life, precedes the body and the world and so it is not founded fundamentally on your reactions, your perceptions of the guru in person. It is based first on your response to the guru’s argument and teaching and on some random meetings with the guru, those moments in which it is not a matter of believing the guru in some special way.
But the way you have set aside all of the obstructions of your manifest life may have come to rest and you simply are present with the guru. In those moments you realize that happiness and that intuitive enjoyment that is Satsang and that Satsang is the foundation of this sadhana and it is enjoyed on those occasions when you enter into the human physical company of the guru but it is the enjoyment that must be present under all conditions.
It must become the foundation of your life. It must be realized to be your condition apart from the necessary at this moment physical meeting with the guru. You must realize over time that this same Satsang is your enjoyment when you happen to be alone somewhere and you are sitting in the Satsang hall or some other place, when you’re at work because that intuitive relationship to the guru is not a movement toward some manifest aspect of the guru’s presence.
Nor is it a movement found within your own manifest life. Rather it is that connection with the guru and his perfect nature. When that Satsang is established, then the guru’s argument begins to serve, begins to make its points. Then the guru’s theatre begins to serve and all of the disciplines and conditions of life in the ashram begin to serve this crisis, become very useful.
It all hinges on that relationship with the guru. Many people spend enormous amounts of time hedging on the relationship to the guru and all the time wondering about that. It’s got nothing to do with the guru. It has to do with immaturity, with failure to see the teaching relative to their own lives, their failure to see this activity.
Why should you have an obstructed relationship with anyone? That unobstructed relationship with the guru is obviously central to the whole affair of sadhana, but why have an obstructed relationship to anyone or anything? When you are spending a lot of time hedging on your relationship to the guru, it is simply a failure of self-knowledge.
(Question from audience)
I’m not talking about your relationship to yourself. I’m talking about your relationship to me, not your head and your chest and all these visiting of your sensations. I’m talking about that most direct intuition that is randomly felt in the guru’s company and which is essentially founded first of all on response to the teaching and on having examined the teaching to the point where you have fallen out of sympathy, out of obsessive sympathy with your own game of life.
Then, a little bit of that intuitive sympathy with the guru himself appears, becomes possible. All the reflections back on how well your sensations are, that’s not it. That’s you. That’s exactly what must be understood. It’s exactly that that stands between you and me.
So this Satsang, this intuition of the guru is random. It is something of which you become certain but which may not be read simply in sacro-physical terms in your own life. It can’t be really found really in the mind and in the body, in the emotions. All of these things basically are resisting it, working against it at all times. As soon as you start falling back and reading them, you lose this Satsang.
Satsang is simply that unobstructed attention to the guru, that natural spontaneous attention that is simply enjoying the guru’s company, that simple certainty of the guru’s nature and condition and when that appears for you is when it appears for you. There’s no way of being sold such Satsang. It is not available.
It may not be bought, but you may consider the teaching and you may consider all of these sensations, these obstructions that stand between you and the guru and you may consider the guru yourself, and when this becomes Satsang, then your sadhana may begin. But none of you can escape that real process of your own disillusion. This sadhana really requires your life, your involvement, your intelligence. It requires sophistication and maturity ultimately. The reason it requires all that should be obvious to you if you look at yourself a little bit.
If you see what you really tend to be up to, if you look at what your Rachel partners are up to, your human partners are up to, the games they play, what they tend to believe and buy and what they tend to realize as life, what becomes them, what they communicate, what they stand for, what they make it necessary for you to experience, look at the whole of life and you will see that it requires a great deal more than people are willing ordinarily to give to it.
But as soon as you really begin to become sensitive to the great possibility, then you start seeing all kinds of garbage, all kinds of resistance, a lot of reluctance, reasons not to do it or anything else and you will not bring yourself to that process of your own disillusion until you have fundamentally fallen out of sympathy with your own childish and adolescent life.
(Question from Audience)
Well there need not be any difference. In general, bhakti is a way of bringing the manifest vehicles into the play of Satsang. bhakti after all is an activity of one’s lower life, of the gross dimensions of one’s life and possibly of the subtle dimensions of one’s life. It’s a way of generating a phenomena of one psycho-physical life toward the guru. However, that may be done without any understanding at all. Anybody can turn on that sort of thing and think that they are becoming enlightened as a result whereas really they are just becoming obsessed, occupied, consoled and so forth.
However, in the case of someone who does live in that perfect or intuitive relationship with the guru that happiness, the trail of bhakti follows but it is natural forms, its traditional forms especially, that self-conscious game of bhakti done for the purpose of getting something from the guru or attaining a state of some sort, but once there is the establishment of that perfect or intuitive relationship to the guru, all of the qualities of your manifest existence tend to follow that, tend to surround that intuition and become part of that relationship.
Because that is so, because these faculties tend to follow, they then tend to become subject to the guru. They tend to become subject to the affair of sadhana and become mutable, transformable because they have been brought into a sacrificial relationship to the guru but that bhakti which is essentially self-sacrifice, not generation of emotions, appears most fundamentally, not in excited sort of emotionalistic forms, but it appears essentially as a while quality of life, of availability to the guru.
That’s real bhakti and it’s founded in that intelligence that intuition and based in adaptation to the guru’s expectations, his disciplines and so forth. In the midst of such a kind of bhakti, there may be moments randomly appearing of high emotion but we tend to associate the traditional idea of bhakti with continuous high emotion, continuous jerking yourself into ecstatic states through idiotic singing, whatever (audience laughter) which is amusing now and then. We did some in the bathroom but it’s certainly not the foundation of real sadhana.”
Adi Da Samraj