The Subtle
Error
SPIRITUAL MASTER There is a “subtle
error” that people tend to make in relation to the process
of conductivity and in relation to the Life-Current itself.
When the body-mind is opened to the Life-Current and
coordinated with it through feeling-attention,
breathing, relaxation, disciplines that
purify and balance the body, when all of these practices are
introduced into a person’s life, then extraordinary
experiences begin to arise. And rather than transcend these
experiences through the conscious process, individuals tend
to become enamored of them and so attracted to them that
their practice becomes meditative submission to the
potentials of experience.
The Way that I Teach, the expression
of the Realization that is fundamental to my own practice,
is the Way of the transcendence of manifest conditions of
existence-not the mere negation or exploitation of them-in
the Radiant Transcendental Being, the Divine Self. This Way
is the Way of the transcendence of attention and,,
therefore, of all the objects and states of
attention.
The traditional religious or
spiritual approaches to realization in the first five stages
of life are typically built upon the process that I have
called conductivity, and the traditional paths teach
techniques for aligning attention to the Spirit-Force, the
LifeCurrent through which feeling, attention, and the body
are devoted to the Living Principle. Thus experiences arise
hierarchically, beginning with the gross plane and moving
toward subtler dimensions of mind or mystical awareness.
This is the typical traditional path.
Our Way is not such a mystical path.
Nor is it the sixth stage path of dissociation from
phenomena. Our Way is the transcendental Way of ultimate
Realization, of Divine Ignorance or the Eternal Self, prior
to all contraction, and Radiant Love-Bliss prior to all
phenomenal conditioning, limitation, and egoity. Adherence
to this Principle of transcendence is the firm conclusion of
my life. My work over these years has been to argue that
Principle to people and to offer them forms of instruction,
forms of practice, forms of association with me that would
help them to realize the certainty of this same Principle in
their own lives.
My submission to devotees, my play
with them, and my instruction over these years have been
ways of accommodating those who have come to me, whether
they could be called true devotees or not. I have tried to
help them to realize the Truth of this Principle and enter
into the ultimate practice. And having gone through that
process now for a decade, it is as clear to me now as it was
at the beginning of this period, that the Way is to
transcend phenomenal existence, to understand the mechanism
of attention, the process of contraction, and the nature of
knowledge and experience.