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THE RENUNClATE ORDER OF THE JOHANNINE DAIST COMMUNION
All ideas about God or the Ultimate Reality correspond to
this understanding of our own depth of dimensional
existence. God is Living Fire or Light. Thus, God is
traditionally svmboled as the sun i n the sic.: and fire on
Earth. The Krishna of high Hinduism an every other Free
Adept is the sacrificial fire. God is sacrifice, since fire
is always consuming itself, and God is the place and person
and substance of all sacrifices. The Spiritual Master or the
Living Gcd 1S the Fire or sacrifice and the Being of fire.
Ts?e relationship to the Divine is the ritual of fir=
sa_rifice. It is to surrender all things, all
y’_.3t onS, and the body-mind Self into the present a-:-
all-pervading Fire, seeinc all in that Fire and __vane on
the Prasad or Gift that is given by that
This- sacrifice is to be performed constantly- as if si
aina eternally before the fire. it is to be don_
,_ _tee medium of one’s own psycho-ph%Tsical structures
and it iS to he done in all relations of that body-mind.
–a, is the essence of esoteric practice. Every
= y
s- is a version o~ ~his same process. Surrender the
re- ions of attention into the fire and surrender
at-.antion into the Transcendental Being who exists in ti’s,
_ire .
S. –
“; MASTER:
want to organize the Renunciate Order and
es`:a
:>_rmtanent v ail 1 its forms lities, including
the
u~_.s o_ this Sanctuary and the aiscannlane of living
here. :underst.anding of fire is the esoteric understanding
of the and it has implications for the ritual aspects of
rel
_ _.creel Ordeal is essentially a fire yajna, or
S
__ :;oes on eternally and that is the principal
=~ _ntiv_ty. That Sacred C’deal is to be a
sacrifice to the fire, which is sacrifice and which is t
e medium into which all sacrifices are poured. It is only
in
the fire that we understand the nature of things, whereas
what-ever we see independent of this consuming fire is seen
in
itself for its own sake and therefore is not rightly
understood. Thus, the religious process and the process of
ultimate Wisdom is to see everything in the context of the
Fire.
The Fire is not merely the elemental flame, its fuel and
so forth. The flame is a symbol for fire that is used the
context of religious activity. The fire is the next
dimension of our existence. On the one hand, we are this
elemental personality in a field or a total nature of
elemental relations. The next dimension of ourselves is
fundamentally the dimension of Living Fire, ight-radiance
that is the medium or context of all appars=t existence, all
manifest forms. And the fire contains a yet subtler
dimension, which is beyond subtlety, beyond cause and
effect, which is the Transcendnetal Being. If living beings
can realize this dimension in the context of their
rather than conventional association with outer events or
the realm f Nature in and as itself.
The Way that we consider is the Way of the
transcendence
of at cation in the cosmos and even in the dimension of
Reality that des the cosmos but remains associated with it.
This Way is the Way of the transcendence of attention in the
cosmic
and ersal or all-pervading plane of manifestation. This
radii or transcendent Way is realized via understanding,
existence then for such beings life becomes
the fire Yajna,
surrender, and recognition. Only the Transcendental
Reality is
realized in this Way. It is not that the all-pervading
and
manifest dimensions of Reality are excluded in this Way.
But when the Transcendnetal Reality, the Truth, the
fundamental Condition of existence, is Realized, it
ultimately outshines phenomena and association with
phenomena.
In the conventional plane of outer-directed attention
the ego appears. The ego is the presumed self-identity
that is based on association with phenomena or conditions of
existence. The ego is not itself transcendental beinc or
consciousness. To transcend the ego is not to become
unconscious, on the other hand, but rather it is to
transcend this convention of self-
oresumDtion that takes the form of end v?duation,
of the psycho-physical structures. The usual man or woman
pursues the fulfillment of this convention of self-existence
and
Another way is also taken up by some, which is based on
the feeling that egoic existence is a problem that must be
over-come and from which one must flee. This method of
ego-dissolution may also be applied by Man, the pursuit of
the non-
egoic state, the pursuit of no-ego through identification
the all-pervading nature of the universe.
The Transcendental-Way, however, bypasses both the
con-ventional pursuit of egoic fulfillment and the equally
con-ventional but less common pursuit of ego-dissolution.
The
Way of the transcendence of attention is founded in
fundamental understanding of the nature of the ego and of
the Condition of
contra., tron
seeks release from the sense
of its bondage as an ego.
with
our existence. Therefore, it also depends upon the
fundamental intuition that is the disposition of Ignorance.
That disposition bypasses the conventional searches for
ego-fulfillment and ego-dissolution and engages the being
totally in devotion to the
and world, prior also to the methods that seek the
dissolution of the self and the world.
The Renunciate Order
The understanding of the true Way of Life is the
basis
for practice in the Renunciate Order, which is a unique
di-aension of the culture of this Way. The Renunciate Order
is the highest community of practice within the Esoteric
Order, free the point of view of the stages of practice and
free
of all concerns relative to the conventional reality of
Nature. It should not represent an accommodation to the
ordinariness of lesser conceptions of the Way, lesser
disciplines, stages of gradual progress toward a realized
life. The Renunciate Order is formed on the basis of a
devotional sacrificial practice that is itself based on the
highest understanding, free of all secondary concerns
be Renunciate Order should perform perpetual yajna, or
ritual sacrifice, without concern for results and without
rear’-inn to apparent results but simply as the practice of
the tra sc ndence of attention in the Divine Being. The
practice of sue-:- sacrifice is to allow the Divine to b`
existence, or ultimate Identity, and actor, or Radiant
Force. It is to
Transcendental Reality, which is prior to the
convention of self
inhere in the Fullness of that One rather than in the
realm of conceptions of appearance, the realm of effects,
the realm of causes and effects in which the universe is
considered as an effect. It is to inhere in the Fullness of
that One rather than the realm of appearance or effects, or
in the realm of
no-thingness, which is merely another convention of only
apparently independent of causes.
This understanding of the Way transcends desire and the
struggle with desire. To maintain an habitual orientation
that fulfills the conventional personality through desire is
to cling to a way of life that is based on the conventional
presumption that one is identical to what appears to be
one’s condition in the exterior plane of manifestation.
Likewise to conceive of the realm of manifest existence as a
problem to be overcome involves struggle with desires,
struggle with the mind, struggle with the disposition of
personality. Such a struggle is the logic on the basis of
which we conceive of the Way of God-Realization to be a
program of gradual attainment, whereas the Way may be
entered into directly on the basis of fundamental
understanding and the fundamental disposition of Ignorance.
The way of real life has nothing to do with stages, it has
nothing to do with the orientation to conventional
self-ful-fillment. It is simply the Way of sacrifice, the
Way o f life
of the fire yajna.
This understanding must be fundamental to the practice
everyone who takes up this Way. Within the setting of
the
Renunicate Order, because of the freedom we have in the
world, we have the capacity to generate this Way in the form
of a
existence
of
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unique demonstration. The attitude or the quality of the
disposition of this understanding is to witness and
recognize the play of possibility in the body-mind and in
the world. It is not to identify with that play and to
become concerned about it. It is rather simply to witness
it, to be aware that you are aware of it, and to recognize
it, to transcend it, through natural surrender in the
Divine, natural Remembrance.
The Spirit of the Fourth School
The practice in the Renunciate Order s to do the fire
sacrifice in all moments and to not be concerned, since all
causes and effects are merely circumstance. Tne world and
beings are controlled by and involved in circumstance, but
the devotee understands, and allows self and world to be the
fire sacrifice.
The Renunciate should engage the practice-that-is
associated with one of the three Ways that I have described
until he or she is established in the fourth school, the Way
of Radical Intuition, the Way that represents’ and depends
upon the maturity of the seventh stage of life. But
regardless of the Way, he or she should practice as or in
the spirit of the fourth school. Truly all members of the
Esoteric Order are renunciates in this sense, since the
disposition of the seventh stage of life is the basis of all
true practice even for those who are beginning this Way. But
the Renunciate Order is a radical school of practice that is
uniquely associated with freedom from worldly
responsibilities and that is devoted to the ultimate point
of view in such a way that they are
mediocre control of behavior based on a believer’s
mentality. The Perpetual Yajna
Relative to personal discipline, the spirit of
the perpetual discipline of attention or the perpetual
fire yajna must first be realized relative to all conditions
and actions.
The first thing that must be realized is the fundamental
disposition that expresses the spirit of this consideration.
This disposition must he applied to all the conditions of
existence and all the forms of activit,:y. I have describes
conventions of cross life, exterior life, life in Nature, in
terms of three basic areas of orientation. These are money,
food and sex.
I want to discuss briefly with you now the discipline
relative to money, food, and sex. Money, food, and six are
terms that relate to certain gross activities of human
beings, but even the terms money, rood, and seq” relate to
fundamental functional aspects of the being. The realm of
money is the realm of mind. The realm of food is the
realm
of body. The realm of sex is the realm of emotion.
Therefore, body, emotion, and mind are the three areas
expressed in the form of these conventional
orientations.
Money
Realtive to money and mind, members of the Renunciate
Order should:
a. Maintain no worldly we They should do only work that
relates to their lif, in hermitage.
b. They should engage in no casual communication with the
institution or the world.
c. They should minimize conventional socializing,
including the use of TV, magazines, movies, and study or
attention to the news both worldly and institutional.
It is not that these
things should be abandoned entirely, but
they should be minimized. instead of spending time in
these
conventional entertainments, they should engage the
yajna. They should study and engage in meditation and
devotional meetings and devote more of the time that
otherwise would spent ?n casual society to the forms of
sacred society.
Food
Relative to food or the realm of the body, Renunciates
should:
a. Maintain the lacto-vegetarian diet.
b. They should accept all their food as Prasad.
Renunciates should stay, healthy but they should be
completely free of concerns for life or death. Staying
healthy is simply right preprartion of the elements of
sacrifice. Just
as you devote time. to right preparation of c.ee and
other substances for the fire ya-ina, just so, you should
prepare
own body, Even so, you need have no concerns about this
body. To maintain health is to prepare an offering in the
most
to
your
a-spicious sense, but it is not to become attached to
one’s bodily
existence for its own sake or for conventionally egoic
purposes that express the self-possessed disposition.
Renunciates should maintain bodily health just as they
rightly prepare the elements
for the fire yajna. They should be utterly without
relative to life or death, relative to the destiny of the
manifest ego.
Sex
Relative to the functinal dimension of sex and emotion,
renunciates should abandon all concern for sex. As a
renunciate you should have no concern whatsoever for sex.
Ail the attitudes in you that represent a concern for sex
should simply be abandoned, simply be witnessed. They should
not in any sense be dramatized. You should abandon all
concern for sex and allow, sex naturally to take on either
an economy in equanimity or else motiveless celibacy.
The economy of sexuality that I have described is not an
impediment. It is the right expression of sexuality. It is
sexuality lived as yajna. Therefore, the conventional
and
in this Way of life. On the other hand, they should
utterly free of self-binding concerns for sexuality, as
they should likewise be free of all the obsessiveness
associated with such concern. They should practice in such a
way that their sexuality assumes a right, free economy, or,
if it should so develop, a state of motiveless celibacy.
concern
motivated practice
of celibacy is not appropriate to renunciates
be
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sce`.'””-, DUt r)
-o:) F_’ feeJ,ng
s a c r I _ cc of tr ins _. cod. ns._-a c. En ag_ng
in
of concern =-or =ne exteal z~, .-._i__- t at~o , ~_.
-~atu”e, one should engage the process of e~. mbrance via
the breath. The breath is the feeling context of Divine
Communion. Instead of dramatizing reactive emotions, one
should engage in feeling toward the Divine via this cycle of
breath, which ail understand from your study and practice of
the Prayer of Remembrance.
The Fire Yajna
The Renunciate Order should perform the constant fire
yajna. This perpetual sacrifice is its purpose rather
than any institutional purpose. The purpose of the
Renunciate Order is to perform the fire Yajna as a total
discipline of Ashram life, both in their community with one
another and in their personal existence moment to moment.
The fire yajna is conceived not only to include the ritual
fire sacrifice of service, although it includes that aspect,
but also to include is one’s personal life and one’s
community life, which are also conceived as a fire sacrifice
in the Divine. It is the purpose of the Renunciate Order to
live and to practice constant sacrifice. The Renunciate
Order has only one responsibility, which is to perform this
fire yajna, to practice this particular
one _. a_ifa o1za -ion C7. e’T:n
:i _10_. Wti:,y ch are expressions
discipline.
The Rule of Life
We must maintain here in this Sanctuary a daily order
that is free of concerns and that allows naturalness, but
that is
constantly. The discipline of attention, rather than the
indulgence of its wandering is the primary rule, as it must
be in a hermitage or a true ashram. Every single individual
and all individuals as a group must have a rule of personal
as well as relational responsiblity that involves the
continuous discipline of attention.
The Rule of Life for this Ashram should be a natural one.
It should not be uptight. It should not involve concerns. It
should allow us naturally to live with one another and to
function through the discipline of attention, and it should
be a full-time occupation.
The Renunciate Order should establish a hierarchy wherein
some serve as the directors of the Renunciate order and
others have assigned functions. If osome are practicing as
apprentices
because they are not yet members of the Esoteric Order or
Crazy Wisdom Fellowship, they should likewise, as well as
anyone else, be kept in. this discipline. They must
awaken
the same level of understanding. At the moment, such
renunciates would not function as directors of the
Renunciate Order, but the sate level of responsibility is
expected of them. Likewise the children should be kept in
this discipline and not be worldly beings who do not live
the discipline of spiritual life as it is otherwise lived in
the Ashram.
strictly maintained and that occupies everyone fully
and
to
In fact, all activities should be transformed into
s=acramental activities. Renunciates must develop an
and all the forms of their service, in fact, are
sacramental activities. There is a discipline of attention
relative to all these activities and a rule of
appropriateness relative to what you do.
Another fundamental process or aspect of this practice,
along with the fact of the discipline of attention, is
relaxation from ego-stress and eqo-usefulness, into Divine
Occupation. The discipline of attention is not some sort of
negative control of attention, such as stopping the
mind,
of body and feeling and mind. That is the discipline. It
is not a negative discipline. It is a spiritual, and
therefore wholly positive or free, discipline. It is a
matter of maintaining attention in the context of Divine
Communion rather than employing attention or allowing
attention to be employed or exploited for’ conventional
purposes, either for the reactive purposes of ego bondage or
even for the purposes conceived to
be appropriate for a conventional personality in the
relations of life.
The renunciate renounces the ego. Be or she does not
suppress the conventions of existence, but rather transforms
them, converts them. There is freedom in the renunciate,
freedom from a certain model of existence, a certain
occupation of attention. Teat from which we are free in the
context of
understanding of how every feature
of their functional existence
stopping the body stopping feeling.
Rather, it is an occupation
various
renunciation is the ego-model, the
ego-base–ego-usefulness and ego-stress. You need not be a
conventionally manifest being oriented to its destiny and
fulfillment. The conventional being still exists, but it is
oriented in a new way. It is understood in such a way that
we are not bound to it. Thus, the usual agitation of
ego-contraction, self-concern, self-possession is wholly out
of place in the conscious life of a renunciate. Likewise
even. the attitude of the useful manifest being who is here
to exploit ego-destiny and console other people who are
oriented toward the eqo-destiny has no -r)-Lace. Obviously
we are free of that motivation in this right disposition.
Therefore, our relations with others are utterly transformed
and need not anv longer express the conventional
consciousness of a self-bound personality.
The -Guru Yoga
The Renunciate order should develop the Guru Yoga in the
form of sacramental activities. The Renunciate order lives
with
J
the Spiritual Master, whom they understand as the fire
and serve or tend as e fire’ in sacrificial form. The entire
yoga of relationship to t4lae Spiritual Master is developed
in sacramental forms through murtis and so forth. The Guru
Yoga must be developed in the Ashram where the Spiritual
Master lives with devotees. Thus, renunciates must develop
the way of
right association with the Spiritual
Master under all conditions.
The Spiritual Master is not just his photograph down by
the sacramental fire site. The Spiritual Master lives all
day
long in all the ordinary modes of existence. Therefore,
renunciates must find a way to associate with the Spiritual
Master as the Fire, to relate to the Spiritual Plaster
sacrificially under all the conditions of his appearance,
under all the circumstances of their relationship with
Him.
~r;is is a high art, and those who live with the
Spiritual Master must realize it.
You must rightly recognize and accept the nature of
the
Guru’s Presence. Wher, you are sitting down by the
firepit and
she fire attracts your attention, yon. become _nt Elf’
concentrated in that one order of attention and activity of
throwing things into the fire to be consumed. The Spiritual
Master should be treated as a fajna fire, self-consuming and
all-consuming. The devotee should relate to the Spiritual
Master under all kinds of conventioanl circumstances, but
even so you should always relate to the Spiritual Master as
if you were sitting before a fire performing a yajna. To do
that artfully and naturally in
the circumstance of relationship with the Spiritual
Master,or the Living Fire as a human individual is the Guru
Yoga.
Renunciates who live in the Ashram of the Spiritual
Master are in fact tending the fire twenty-four hours a day.
At some point we may construct a fire pit and burn a fire
twenty-four hours a day, but you already have the fire here.
It is going
that fire. Thus, the primary form of the yajna is the
relation-ship to the Spiritual Master for those who enjoy
the circum-stance of such intimacy. Therefore, for the
Renunciate Order
I
here in this setting, the Guru Yoga is the primary
yajna.
f
all day long. You must enter
into sacrificial relationship to
There are also other murtis of the same Divine Fire. We
have the fire used in the yajnas. We have other
symbolizations
they are all to be used in the same sacred manner as the
Spiritual Master. But the relationship to the Spiritual
Master is a given constant in the setting of an Ashram of
this kind.
Thus, primarily you should all be engaged in the yajna or
fire sacrifice of the relationship to the Spiritual Master
as
moment, see hove the sacrifice is to be performed in that
Company, make the entire Ashram a circuit of human society
in which everyone is performing the sacrifice or the
sacrificial yajna tc the Spiritual Master as the Living
Fire. This is the
greatest of all traditions, that particular fire yajna
that Living Association with the Spiritual Master. In that
same Company other sacramental and meditational versions of
the same sacrifice are given.
This is why a sacred order in an Ashram is rigorously
established. Where the Spiritual Master lives the Fire is
always alive. Therefore, every feature of the place, every
feature of human activity there, must become a form of
sacrifice into the Fire, must be a way of tending the
Fire,
performing the yajna. The Spiritual Master is there all
day,
are you going to do–walk around and chew gum, act like
an idiot and think of something else? You must tend the
fire. As long as it is present, you are obliged! The
Spiritual Master is that Fire. Therefore, twenty-four hours
a day devotees are
or ways of relating to the Divine through various
forms, and
that Living Fire and see how it is
presented to you in every
is
so how can you not tend it? The Fire is
burning all day. What
obliged to perform the yajna. We have already established
the
lit, you must continue to throw things into it, engage
the process of Remembrance, do the prayers, prepare the
elements to be thrown into it, accept the Prasad, which is
constant.
The Esoteric Order
This is another brief essay about my consideration of the
Renunciate Order.
I propose that the small Renunciate Order engage
in a special intention involving a vow of discipline
based on the understanding that has already been
awakened. It is a matter of accepting entrance into the
Esoteric order on the basis of a vow of renunciation or
self-offering in which the conditions of existence are
simplified and limited to the level of a renunciate’s
discipline such as would apply in a hermitage or in the
wandering stage of life, but characterized by free
simplicity or natural austerity or balance rather than
ascetical idealism.
The vow would involve the conditions described already
including commitment to the purposes and the community of
renunciates, daily regularity of service, meditation,
sacramental activity, study and appropriate society within
the community setting. Contacts and excursions outside the
sanctuary would be limited.
Diet would be simple and straight.’ Along with this vow,
the circumstances of life would bo direct, moment to moment
surrender to and Remembrance of the Divine and dependence on
Divine Grace for both ultimate realization and the fullness
of being that allows the sacred ordeal of the discipline to
be fulfilled easily, or in a state of equanimity, free of
doubt, conflict, and reactivity.
In the past I have simply tried to awaken people to the
spiritual Way by helping them to understand and reorient
their lives as-they already were living them. I did not
suggest a renunciate discipline nor do I now suggest it for
most devotees. But the Renunciate
Order itself lives in a unique circumstance of freedom
from worldly obligations. It is associated with a
self-contained environment and lives in intimate proximity
to the Spiritual Master. This is thus, a unique
demonstration of the Way that is possible here, expressing
our unique opportunity for free existence.
Fire as a twenty-four hour presence.
As long as the Fire is
Also, my work to establish the basic culture and
institution of this Way has come to an end and I am now both
free to choose and -disposed toward a simple life without
worldly or conventional householder’s obligations, even as
all other renunciates are thus free. I propose that we
establish the Renunciate Order essentially along traditional
lines and as an Esoteric Order. We should practice the
renunciate discipline strictly. Our attention should not be
in the outer discipline. That discipline should simply
express our freedom and balance. Our attention should be in
the constant exercise of whole bodily, spiritual communion.
We can discuss how the same discipline may be implemented or
else modified within the institutional setting of the
Esoteric Order of the Communion.
January 20, 1981
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