No Remedy
An Introduction to the Life and Practices
of the Spiritual Community of Bubba Free John.
Compiled & edited by Bonnie Beavan
and Nina Jones in collaboration with Bubba Free John.
First edition: 6/75
NO REMEDY
Part Three: The Complications of Sadhana
THE WAY OF UNDERSTANDING
If It Has Become Complicated, Return to the Basics
As you can see, if one were not already absorbed in a
life of Divine Communion, he could very easily become
obsessed by the content of his inspection and observation in
the way of Understanding. And, in fact, that is certainly a
possibility for any student. There is one sure sign of this
kind of obsession: You become unhappy. You forget the simple
principle of this work and opt for forms of mind and action
that have nothing to do with the natural, present joy of
Divine Communion. If this occurs at any time in your
sadhana, and you find yourself confused, upset, fascinated,
or concerned to the point of chronic unhappiness, then it is
time to return to the basics. It is far, far better to be
already happy in God. So what if you dont understand. If you
are already living God, who cares?
The Guru enters into the affair of human life in order to
communicate this process and to generate it. Therefore, the
Gurus appearance is a significant event. It makes spiritual
life a graceful possibility, rather than a heroic affair for
those who have the intensity to struggle through the great
circle of the cosmos. And the fundamental condition for this
real process is Satsang itself. Satsang is the realization,
the communication, the samadhi. As one enters into direct
sacrificial relationship with the Guru, that intuition and
the conditions that serve it are established. If that
relationship, Satsang, becomes the principle of your
sadhana, it can indeed be a graceful process. If, however,
through lack of insight, you remain bound to your own
theatre, your own possibility, your own separate and heroic
spirituality, you are going to have to go through a
prolonged period of vacillating and struggling and hoping
you look great when you are announced a disciple, and so
forth. But there will be no such dramatic occasions, because
this process is simple and natural. It is Satsang
The affair of this sadhana is graceful You consider the
Gurus argument and then you meet the Guru. On the basis of
your response to the Teaching, which has made its point in
your own case, you enter into that relationship naturally,
voluntarily. The more you live that relationship, the more
it communicates itself. On the basis of that relationship,
you accept the discipline of the life-conditions and of the
Community, of service and study and this theatre of our life
together. But the process itself is very natural. It begins
with that intuitive response of essential and spontaneous
surrender to the Guru. That response becomes Satsang,
natural intuition and happiness. Considering the Gurus
argument and fulfilling his disciplines become insight,
enquiry, recognition, and radical intuition
Understanding rests upon that single principle, the
living condition of Satsang. Everything that is associated
with it is very concrete and demands responsibility of you,
intelligence, real life. There is nothing vague about it.
There is nothing confusing about the Dharma. You must simply
continue to return to its fundamentals. Any of you who take
on this sadhana as a process of Grace in this way I have
described can see it. But if you remain bound to some
possible heroic self-transcendence and overcoming filled
with endless experiences and complications, then it will
take a great long time and it will not essentially be a
process of Grace, except perhaps at random moments.
Basically, then, it is not to that graceful possibility of
Satsang that you have committed yourself, but rather to the
possibility of your own transformation. In that case you
have not essentially made Satsang the principle of your
spiritual life. To that degree, it takes a long time and
your spiritual life is very dramatic. But those who grasp it
most simply, most fundamentally, as a graceful affair,
natural and practical in its implications, are not basically
very dramatic. They are not terribly interesting to others
either, because they cant account for their spiritual life
in laudable and fascinating terms. All of that has been
undone for them
On any given day it is possible for any one of you to
pass beyond the principal mood of fear and to enjoy the
perfect Condition of absolute, unqualified understanding. It
can happen at any moment. And there is no trick to it. It is
simply a matter of Satsang. Understanding is always instant.
It is not a path that goes on and on, getting better and
better all the time. It is realized in this moment, and now
in this moment, and now in this moment. If one does that,
then ones apparent life is magnified in terms of
responsibility. But the essential event, the essential
process, is in this moment, and then in this moment, and it
is initiated at the very beginning. It is not something
towards which ones sadhana is moving. It is the foundation
principle of ones sadhana. And it is continually
reinitiated, reawakened. If it is not, then you are engaging
this possibility as a traditional or conventional path. You
are engaging it as a form of the search. You are engaging it
from the point of view of the dilemma, not of Satsang. You
are engaging it as a solution, a preoccupation, a series of
fascinations, of self-satisfactions
Everyone who truly does this sadhana enjoys intuitive
happiness. And someone who happens to become responsible for
the process in the manner I have described for disciples
will not be an object of fascination to anyone. Such an
individual does not enjoy anything that is not enjoyed by
everyone else in the Ashram. It is the samethat
intuition, that happiness, that Satsang. It is simply
implemented and magnified in different ways in his
functional life. But it is the same happiness. And if you
always move directly to that Condition, that happiness,
prior to your games, your separativeness, your fulfillments,
then you have already passed through everything necessary
for your dissolution in God. You will never gain anything
again by experience. So if it has become complicated, return
to the basicsSatsang, Grace.30
Note
30. Bubba Free John, “The Graceful Process,” The Dawn
Horse #6, Vol. 2, No. 4, (1975), pages 45-46.
No Remedy – Table of
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