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VISION MOUND
Volume 2, Numbers 1 &
2
JULY/AUGUST 1978
Part IV: Right Association
Truth or God May Be Sought inside or
outside the Body, but Only Radiant Sacrifice or Love as the
Whole Body Is the Way of Truth and God
The Way of Divine Ignorance as a
whole, as well as each of its specific stages or degrees of
responsibility, represents a single, present, intuitive, and
ultimate Act. The entire affair is the awakening of the
necessary potential and obligation of our birth-the
fulfillment of the Law, which is sacrifice. That fulfillment
is love, the sacrifice of and as the whole and entire
body-mind, through feeling, into Infinity, both prior to and
via all relations, under all conditions.
There is no right or ultimate
subjective, interior Goal, and no absolute satisfaction of
independent consciousness in any realm, high or low. The
true Way is simply the sacrifice of and as the whole,
simultaneous being, through unobstructed feeling, or Radiant
sympathy with what is always already the case. And what is
always already the case is intuited in the confession of
Ignorance, or the Love of God which precedes
thought.
Therefore, it is this primal Act,
this sacrifice or love, that is constantly obliging us at
every stage of the Way. We are not merely to turn or recoil
within, but we are to be free as attention in and via all
relations, under all present conditions. We are not to react
and to prefer, but we are to be perpetually responsive as
unobstructed feeling in the midst of all relations, under
all conditions. We are not to indulge inner motivations or
desires for satisfactions within and without, but we are to
serve. We are actively, intuitively, and radiantly to bring
effective life, energy, or love into the plane of all
presently arising relations and conditions.
To be a sacrifice in this Way is not
to intentionally bring an end to oneself or any one or
thing. It is to participate responsibly, freely, intensely,
and unqualifiedly in the unqualified, prior, and always
present Condition of Ignorance-Radiance. It is to feel
without obstruction, to feel as the whole body to Infinity,
via all relations, under all conditions. It is to sacrifice
the whole body into its prior Condition in Truth.
The life in Truth is the life of
love, of service. The Way of Divine Ignorance is the Way of
love, or service-the Way of the fulfillment of the Law by
Grace of the Revelation in Truth of the Condition of all
conditions. Practice of the Way does not Realize any
ultimate Object as a result of love or service. Love itself,
service, whole body sacrifice through feeling in action, the
Law itself, is the fulfillment and Truth of the
Way.
At last we become perfectly
responsible for perfect Sacrifice. The Enlightened devotee
lives the life of service without obstruction, recoil, or
holding on to self and body. Such a one is neither a
conventionally inward nor a conventionally outward
personality. He or she is not any longer compulsively
distracted toward some inner Object, nor among outer
objects, seeking some other Object. There is simply love,
the Radiance of Ignorance, the radical Sacrifice of and as
the whole and entire bodily being, or “I,” into Infinity,
without withholding. When that Sacrifice of entire love, or
total freedom from recoil, inwardness, and both bodily and
psychic independence and dependence is simply the case-on
the basis of radical intuition of the Condition of all
present arising, including the primal act of
self-differentiation at the heart-there is conversion or
translation of the conditional bodily being or “I” into the
unqualified prior or Divine Condition of all manifestation.
That is Divine Translation, or Dissolution into the Infinity
of Radiance, and resumption of the Condition and
Responsibility of Absolute Divinity or Truth.
Therefore, devotees in the Way of
Divine Communion, or devotees in any stage of the whole Way
of Divine Ignorance, should hear this argument. The inner,
subjective life is not the proper field of attention. It is
not glamorized in this Way, but only inspected and
understood. It is undermined through radical insight. That
insight is constantly served or given a living form by
functional disciplines that intentionally frustrate and
require the inspection of old adaptations or accumulated
tendencies. All of these disciplines may be summarized under
the principal discipline of service-which frustrates the
subjective or learned demands of our past experience and
adaptation. Through study, or listening to the argument of
the Teaching to the point of present “hearing,” we enjoy the
capacity for these functional disciplines, or the life of
service, the life of love, or free feeling-attention. And
the “heat” generated via these disciplines must be
consciously directed, by the attention freed through
“hearing,” so that it functions actively as love,
unobstructed feeling, or service, via all relations, under
all conditions. That love, which is Radiance founded in
Ignorance, is constantly to be brought to the Spiritual
Master, in whose Company it is drawn into Divine Communion
and Transcendental Absorption. And, through all the stages
of practice, that love or service in Communion, via all
relations, under all conditions, becomes a more and more
perfect sacrifice of the whole body. Therefore, at last
there is no turning within, and no strategy without, but
Dissolution in Ignorance-Radiance Itself.
All devotees should consider this.
Service is the Way, the whole life. It is the feeling
sacrifice of (and as ) the whole body. Therefore, do not
neglect this obligation for the sake of mere thinking,
sensation, inner illusion, or personal self-indulgence. Do
not give yourself up to dramatization of reactive emotions,
preferences, and childish demands. Accept the discipline
through “hearing.” Become active as feeling-service. The
meditations that develop over time are only forms of further
responsibility for this very act or disposition.
Everything accumulated is ultimately
thrown to Infinity in this Way. But that Dissolution depends
on radically intuitive insight, not effort. And all the
apparent efforts or acts of devotees are, when true, simply
forms of feeling into Infinity, founded on insight. Service
or love is to throw the whole and entire bodily being into
Infinity. It is not an act performed on oneself or ones
body. It is simply to feel into Infinity via all relations,
under all conditions. It is to look, and feel, and be, and
act happy. It is the Infinite Pleasure of love. It is not
humorless self-mortification, but humorous relaxation into
the Infinite, beyond all recoil. The whole Way of Divine
Ignorance is training for the ultimate priesthood of this
Sacrifice. And every devotee must perform this Sacrifice
alone in the Presence or Company of the Spiritual Master,
who is the present and eternal Divine, the Condition of
every body-“I”.
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