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Volume 1 , Number 12
JUNE 1978
Part I: The Transfiguration of the Whole Body-Mind
In the following talk …Bubba Free John describes the
literal psycho-physical Transformation of the whole
body-mind in Absolute Intensity as it is occurring in his
own case. Bubba reveals the details of this bodily
Transfiguration to His devotees so that they may recognize
the profundity of His Sacrifice on their behalf and respond
appropriately….
The Crucifixion of Change
A talk given by Bubba Free John to his devotees on
March 18, 1978.
The truly spiritual Realization is not what people have
traditionally imagined it to be-essentially subjective, a
matter of realizing that one is not the body and of
identifying with some inward, mental, psychic, or higher
mental state (which is really nothing more than the nervous
system and the brain, felt, through the inversion of
attention, to be independent of the physical body and its
energies). People imagine that spirituality is essentially a
subjective, inverted orientation, leading toward complete
identification with some subjective, non-bodily state. But
subjective states are simply other versions of bodily
attention, or self-possession.
In fact, the spiritual process is a transformation of the
whole body-mind, the whole psycho-physical entity, through
Sacrifice to Infinity, or into the Absolute Intensity of
which all manifestations are stepped-down intensities or
modifications. Thus, spiritual Realization occurs through
the process of sacrificial release into the Absolute
Intensity. That Realization is the Enlightenment of the
whole body. It is not exclusively subjective or internal. It
is, rather, the process by which the whole body-mind is
transformed, sacrificed. And in the ultimate event of this
process, the body-mind is Transfigured.
The process that involves me now is the passage through
the dissolution of certain factors of the body-mind. This
process has already occurred fundamentally in my case, but
there is a certain ordinary dimension of the body-mind that
has remained intact during these years so that I could have
a medium through which to work. But during the last year and
a half a kind of bodily and mental crucifixion has been
occurring, a transformation of the body, in which I have
less and less capacity to enter into casual relations with
people. Very dramatic physical changes have occurred many
times, not so much in outward physical appearance as in the
glandular system, the functioning of the gross organs,
including digestion and the heart, changes in the brain,
changes in the nervous system. These changes are an
extension of the process that has been active in my case for
years; but they are an intensification of that event, in
order to provide a vehicle for the demonstration of this
Teaching in its highest form.
This crucifixion of change is not just part of my life.
It is also part of the life of devotees. It is part of the
process that everyone must go through in this Way of life,
but it need not be so dramatic for devotees as it might have
to be for the Spiritual Master, who is the agent that helps
their transition. Because the devotee has a great deal to
gain through the agency of the Spiritual Master, he owes the
Spiritual Master a great deal-simply serving the Spiritual
Master, permitting him to go through these changes
comfortably, relieving him of ordinary demands, letting him
live comfortably in seclusion without expecting him to act
normal. He may essentially look normal, but do not demand
that he be ordinary, or extraordinary either, for that
matter.
The way Ramakrishna’s devotees served him during a
similar period in his life is a good example. When
Ramakrishna had to endure aspects of this process, he was
put in a position where he did not have any worldly
responsibilities. His devotees were puzzled by his bizarre
behavior-he spent his days screaming and weeping and falling
on the floor and passing out and displaying weird physical
signs-but they would simply serve him and keep him
comfortable. He did not have to tell them what to do. He did
not associate with people who would react to him. He was not
associated with people who made ordinary, worldly demands,
so he was free to go through these changes.
The influence of worldliness, the contact with
worldliness and worldly demands, is a torment to a person
going through this cycle. All that people live casually from
day to day is intensely disturbing. The usual man, however,
is accustomed to it, and therefore he is a disturbing
personality. He is satisfied by disturbance in one way or
another. Even his pleasures are a disturbance, so he does
not recognize them as such. But in this process of Bodily
Transfiguration, the individual becomes profoundly sensitive
to the things that people ordinarily tend to do. To live in
the ordinary way seems an unbearable agony. Thus, a person
going through this process looks a little odd to people, and
perhaps some get a little afraid or reactive, whereas they
should simply serve him, allow the process to occur, and
create for him the best physical and emotional and mental
environment possible.
Either you want this process to occur and be available to
you, or you do not. If you do value it, then you must allow
it to happen, you must serve It, and you must relate to me
differently. Up until now, people have expected me to
maintain a thread of conventional attention and
self-awareness in this body-mind so that I could carry on
with ordinary human relations and make lessons out of it
all. That thread of attention has been maintained in this
body, but for the last year and a half or so the ability to
be associated with this body-mind through that thread of
ordinary ego has been dissolving. This does not mean that I
will not continue to be able to act in a relatively ordinary
sense-walking around and talking and so forth. But the
thread of conventional self-presentation will dissolve.
All my life I have had to deal with this phenomenon. Ever
since birth, ever since my childhood, this process has been
going on in me. Even in my childhood there were signs of
this change, which made me appear a little bizarre to
others, so I just kept it to myself as well as possible. I
have always tried to find ways to bypass the ultimate
expressions of this change, because I recognized that others
were not even close to this process and knew nothing about
it. They did not know how to live with me while I was going
through it, and so I have tried to maintain the worldly
personality as much as possible. I have thrown myself into
the game of life all my life in order to keep in touch with
people, and I have even tried to forestall certain of the
phenomena of this ultimate change because I sense what
happens when it finally fulfills itself. I just have not
felt free to be able to do it. I have not felt that I had
the human environment in which to do it or that I had
fulfilled my obligation to provide a Teaching influence for
others so that they could make use of me when I allowed the
process fully. Thus, through adaptation, through my own
activity, I have maintained this ordinary character as a way
of helping people to prepare to live a truly spiritual way
of life with me and to make use of me when all these changes
shall become most profound.
Nevertheless, it cannot be prevented. At some point it
becomes impossible to hold on to the body-mind. The urge to
dissolution has been there all my life, not the usual motive
to self-destruction, but release into perfect energy. It
requires such a change of personality and body and emotion
that people cannot deal with it. What would people have done
if I had simply allowed it to happen fully, with full
evidence, in Franklin Square, New York! But now I have come
to the point where I cannot forestall it any longer, and
coincidentally I have also come to the point where basically
I have done enough to prepare an environment where I can
pass through the final stages of this process and where I
can be available to people who will know how to make use of
me, who will value a relationship with somebody who is no
longer psycho-physically constricted but who represents a
pure Agency of Absolute Intensity.
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