Part II – Introduction
Talks and Essays on the Art and Science of Equanimity and the Self-Transcending Process of Radical Understanding.
By Da Free John.
Only edition: 11/81.
©1981 The Crazy Wisdom Fellowship.
Foreword: The Golden Great Bright-Foreheaded Warrior by the Hermitage Order of The Crazy Wisdom Fellowship.
Introduction: The Most Difficult Stage by the Hermitage Order of The Crazy Wisdom Fellowship.
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SPIRITUAL MASTER: In that holy book the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna, a great, magnificent, heavy-belted, brocaded, gold-encrusted, and magnificent warrior looked across the battlefield to the army of the Kauravas, and suddenly a great sweat of doubt overwhelmed his being and he was afraid for his God- Realization. When he came back to his tent, on this night when the armorers were hammering for his great occasion, he found Krishna seated on a magnificent atom bomb of a seat. And Krishna said, “Arjuna, beloved, you have hoisted up your loins for my benefit and are about to fight your cousins to the death in blood. And you are going to do it. However, for a space of time, I will consider with you the principle of this occasion.”
So Arjuna came into the tent with Krishna, and Krishna spent who knows how many hours or days or weeks or months or years while Arjuna stepped aside from the great battle that was his necessary occasion, not his karma but his Divine destiny. And Krishna said to him, “Arjoonie, you gutless fool! How dare you come righteously to me when you refuse to fight!” And he reminded him of the ancient philosophy.
“You have lived many, many, many times, many times, as have all of your cousins whom you must now confront in battle. The soul is immortal. The being passes into all kinds of destinies from death to death, from life to life. I remember all of your lives. I have been with you on all the battlefields of all the sacred wars. But you have forgotten them. You remember nothing, but I remember every single moment.
“Look at this, Arjuna!” And suddenly he threw out a billion arms and a billion heads and shined a great glorious blue body surrounded by gold with a tremendous fiery white heated light right down the middle of it that blew Arjuna’s mind to eternity.
Arjuna cried out, “Show me your two-armed body!”
Krishna said, “All right,” and he reduced his form to conventional shape. And right there at the end of the book, it is reported that Krishna bent down to little old mighty Arjuna and he said, “Abandon all supports. Abandon all experience. Abandon all principles. Abandon everything possible. Abandon the whole structure of the bodily being. Abandon heaven. Abandon Earth. Abandon everything you may hold on to, including your own life, and submit to Me. I am in the heart. I may be realized at the heart of every being through surrender of feeling-attention. Through love for Me you are free, you are God- Realized, and not a single experience needs to be added to that sublimity.”
Like Arjuna, you are called by this Teaching to abandon all dharmas, all supports, and turn to God through the Communion of the heart, through the submission of feeling to Infinity, through this Satsang with the Spiritual Master that will transform your body-mind. Live in God-Communion from the heart and take into account no experience high or low.
Remove the TV stupidity from life, absolutely remove it. Do not submit to the universal doubt, the vision that the Earth is corrupt and is ultimately dominated by stupidity. Be strong. Be bright-foreheaded, God- Realized. Make the Earth sacred. To absolutely change everything is the ultimate Teaching.
But in the meantime, while we are talking in the tent here, you see, you are arguing with me. “I know you can understand, Lord, because you are powerful and all-pervading. You don’t know how hard it is for me out there. You know what it’s like making a living out there, God. And I know damn well that the Earth is insane. But I know that if I just could apply myself, that I could really have a good time, Lord. You are smart, and I know you are very compassionate, and will forgive me even though I keep sinning after my great healing!”
This is the same Arjuna who tells Krishna he wants to see his multi-armed form, but when he sees the Divine multi-armed form, he shits in his pants! What does he know about multi-armed forms? What is a multi-armed form? It is just the sense all of a sudden that your attention is exploded, and you cannot hold on to your concepts. Even mortality is beyond the reach of your ambiguous feelings.
Therefore, spiritual teaching takes time. It is a period of lessons wherein you are agitated by the Heaven-born, who is bright foreheaded but who for the time being looks like your friend and engages in the solemnity of ordinary humor until the argument is completely finished. Then you are simply told that real life is not a matter of sexual tantra, not a matter of turning your attention to the midbrain, not a matter of closing your ears and eyes and seeking the flashes of light and sound, not a matter of having visions, not a matter of being ascetic, not a matter of being loveless, not a matter of going elsewhere, not a matter of ascending to heaven. It is simply the difference between love and self-possession, between yielding feeling-attention to Infinity and contracting feeling-attention at any moment. To surrender or not is the entire test, the entire Teaching, the entire circumstance of God-Realization at any moment.
All I have to say to you after a period of fiery testing is, get back to it. Remember me in the most absolute sense that you know in the Communion Hall and confront the battle. Be absolutely strong and righteous in the world. Transcend your own stupidity and transcend the stupidity of everything that arises to your consciousness. Obliterate the non-sacred occasion of existence. Bring the Earth under the domination of God. That is the Teaching, that always has been the Teaching, that is the only Teaching, that is the absolute Truth.
When will you do it? When can we finish the eighteenth chapter? When will you stop arguing with me? In my closet I have a bright, golden-brocaded, sunny, red-encrusted, entrailed-with-blue, lighted, colorful, rainbow-smacking, absolute glory of a suit and a horse sitting under my bed who is brilliant beyond belief, with hooves of silvery golden absoluteness to cherish the Divinity and smash the hate out of every Truth-opposing renegade in the universe. I am ready for it! But until we close this book, I am obliged to be just a good old boy sitting in the tent, trying to convince you of your Destiny.
Well! You are like Arjuna who in the very beginning of the book sees the Kauravas arrayed on the battlefield, glorious soldiers with bright swords, equipped far beyond your belief with atomic power in their eyes, who can obliterate thousands of beings and worlds with a single glance and never expect to be vanquished by mere devotees who love the Divine, whose equipment is only God, and who must be fiercely strong.
