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BEGINNING WORK RELATIVE TO SELF-CONTRACTION
This is the work and relative to everything that is
self-contraction. Of course there are all the other aspects
of sadhana too, all the other aspects of practice too
beginning with study, taking on disciplines, observing
yourself pondering, using one or other of the questions. At
the beginning is very much associated with just observing
yourself, finding out about yourself. That goes on for a
while.
But you must eventually understand it and enjoy the
capability to transcend it, to break through it which is
what you’re talking about. Well this capability is basically
expressed through inquiry and certainly when there is true
hearing, when you move on to the 3.1 level of sadhana you
see, certainly at that point this capacity to penetrate,
move beyond, feel beyond self-contraction should be
there.
You should enjoy that capability. You should be able to
enter into a deeply and meditation process. You should be
able to use it in daily life and so on. When you were at the
beginning of practice earlier than that, inquiry and
pondering and so forth may not function that way so well or
so often at any rate you see because you haven’t yet fully
understood yourself. You haven’t understood yourself to the
point where you are completely capable of breaking through
your own contraction you see.
So that’s one of the signs it would be there in a
beginner then perhaps. In fact, what you are describing is
perhaps something other of a characteristic sign of a
beginner. You are observing yourself. You are becoming aware
of this contraction and how you do it, how you use it. You
use it as a way of suppressing yourself and so forth. You
are becoming aware of how you function.
More and more inquiry or pondering should and will as you
mature, become a capability to transcend the contraction you
see. Well that’s what specifically is supposed to develop as
the sadhana matures as you move on through the stages of
practice you see.
At 1.1 of practice that is true to your responsibility at
the moment, pondering is a very simple beginning kind of
practice you see. It’s more about finding out about yourself
than it is about truly transcending yourself you see.
So you’re wondering then does a time come when you
actually feel released of the self-contraction. Definitely
yes, that’s what it’s about but there is an almost limitless
amount of your self-contraction you see. At the beginning as
a beginning practitioner you are observing and working with
the self-contraction in the context of your very ordinary
human life you see.
As you move on to the more advanced stages of practice
you will be observing working with the self-contraction in
greater more subtle forms and so forth. So in other words
it’s at 1.3 of practice even you see it’s not every aspect
of self-contraction. Every aspect of self-contraction is
completely vanished you see because there are dimensions of
the self-contraction that are not, that haven’t been
incorporated into your sadhana yet you see. Self-inquiry for
instance for a beginner is a way of feeling beyond
self-contraction or the avoidance of relationship so what
replaces this self-contraction is a feeling of relatedness
rather than contraction from relatedness you see.
So self-inquiry basically works in that fashion then for
a beginner instead of this self-contraction of the avoidance
of relationship that is dealing with relatedness appears,
this openness, this relatedness is enjoyed you see. But
that’s not the end of the process. The feeling of
relatedness itself is the ultimate form of the
self-contraction. It’s the primal form, the first form of
self-contraction so that, the feeling of relatedness itself
you see is still contraction in some very fundamental subtle
sense.
It is still itself a contraction, even though it feels
better in all the aggressive contraction in your body and so
on you see. It is still itself a subtle form of contraction.
So that isn’t transcended perfectly until you advance in the
practice into the level six and the level seven and so on
you see. It’s not that as you grow all of a sudden you have
this capacity to be completely free of all contraction you
see. Or you have this experience rather of being always free
of self-contraction.
Now what you enjoy by going stage by stage is an
increased capacity to deal with it, an increased capacity to
do sadhana, to keep on going by moving beyond and so on. The
sadhana must go on to divine self-realization you see. It’s
only in that case that everything conditional, everything
limited, everything that is contraction is transcended.
Nonetheless, in the earlier stages of practice certainly
there is release of contraction. I’m sure you’re probably
already enjoying moments of it and aspects of release of
certain forms of contraction in your own way because you’ve
come to some understanding. You have found some impulse to
practice. You have become weary to develop certain kinds of
discipline in your life and so forth. These are already
releases of a kind you see and yet you are still aware of
limits.
You have to go on with the sadhana then and the sadhana
becomes more and more a capability not only to observe the
fact that there is contraction but to feel beyond it. When
that capacity is there, in some basic sense what I am
describing then is here, the capacity to feel beyond
contraction in some basic sense is what I mean by here so
you’re wondering about whether that ever happens. Yes,
that’s when it happens you see.
At the present time you’re mainly just observing that
there is contraction and when you by going on with the
sadhana and are persisting in it and enjoy beyond the
capacity to feel contraction you see, then that in some
basic sense is what I mean by here and that is simply a
matter of maturing. There’s going on with it, continuing
with it until it starts becoming effective.
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