Selections from Talks and Essays by
Da Free John on the Nature and Function of the Enlightened
Teacher
The Adept
Selections from Talks and Essays by
Da Free John on the Nature and Function of the Enlightened
Teacher.
III. The Radical Relationship:
The Relationship to the Adept Transcends the Verbal
Teaching.
Devotion to the Guru.
The Devotee Does Not Choose the Adept.
The Guru Enters the Devotee.
The Devotee Is Necessary for the Guru’s Work.
Da Free John – 1983
III
The Radical
Relationship
Right relationship to the Adept
is right relationship to the spiritual process itself. And
what this entails is nothing short of the total
transformation of the human being, not in the form of an
accelerated self-improvement but as uncompromising
self-transcendence. What the Adept offers to all beings is
God-Realization, or the Condition of True Relationship (or
Satsang). This is a radical relationship because it involves
the very Root of one’s existence. Strictly speaking, though,
it is no relationship at all, because in the Ultimate
Condition there is no separation from any other; there is no
“me” or “you” which could be related to each other. There is
only the One Being Consciousness in which myriads of
phenomena – all the countless “me’s” and
‘you’-arise.
The Adept’s Work is to draw his
devotees more and more into this Infinite Circle of Being.
He helps them to generate and cultivate, from within the
Wisdom of their own being, the disposition of heartfelt
relationship to everything, of fearless surrender to the
conditions of life. This is only possible because one’s real
Identity is never out of relationship. Only the paranoid ego
experiences itself in opposition to other egos or objects,
thereby denying and burying the Happiness that is Man’s true
nature.
The Relationship to the Adept
Transcends the Verbal Teaching
The literate mind tends to fasten
on words rather than their meaninga bias not unknown in
earlier times, as may be gathered from the Biblical saying,
“The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life” (2
Corinthians 3:6). Even though language is Man’s most
sophisticated tool for communicating about the world, it is
barely adequate when it comes to conveying subjective states
and inner experiences. And it is as good as useless for
communicating the nature of Ultimate Existence, as the
mystics and great Adepts of all times have consistently
pointed out. Yet, the verbal communication of the Adept’s
Teaching is a significant part of his Work, particularly at
a time when great store is placed on intellectual
understanding.
However, the Adept’s real Work
takes place in a different dimension. If he had to rely on
language alone, his Mission would be doomed to failure. As
it is, his verbal Teaching merely attracts the devotee’s
attention, leads him into a profound consideration of the
Adept’s argument, and thus opens him up to the benign
Influence of the Enlightened Teacher.
There
are many “teachers” in the world. There are men of
experience of all kinds. There are men of practical
experience, of worldly experience, of mystical experience.
There are men of every kind of experience. Human beings,
like all manifest beings, arise within the material or
conditional universes, the manifest, created cosmos, visible
and invisible.
They live according to the laws of
karma, the laws of tendency, function, and repetition. They
tend to live from the point of view of that from which they
seem to have come, which is the manifest universe itself.
And they acquire experience, hour to hour, life to life.
Thus, because of the essential inequalities practical and
subtle wisdom, who have realized many things about their own
adventure and their own tendencies.
But there is another process that
enters the manifest world from the unmanifest dimension.
There is a vast, unlimited dimension of existence, not
qualified in any sense, not qualified in the way this
dimension is, or in the way the infinite variety of
conditional, cosmic worlds are. And there is a movement down
out of that dimension, that realm of very Light. Living
beings appear within the human world, and in many other
worlds as well, who have come directly out of the unmanifest
or uncreated Light, the Light of the God-World. These are
the great Teachers, the World-Teachers, the Siddhas, the
Heaven-born ones. Their Teaching is not from the point of
view of experience. Their Teaching is from the point of view
of Truth, Truth already realized, the unattainable (because
it is always present) Reality. Those who teach from the
point of view of experience teach the search, because they
know on the basis of experience that they can grow, that
they can approach a subtler and subtler level of
realization. The gospel of those who arise within the
condition of the material worlds is always a form of
seeking. But the Siddhas, those who come down out of the
uncreated Light of God, speak from the point of view of the
already realized absolute Truth. They come in the
Intelligence, Power, and Form of Real God. Hence, their
Teaching is always radical. They do not teach the motives,
ways, and forms of seeking, for these are founded in
dilemma, not of Truth. And they apply only appropriate
conditions to their students, their disciples, and their
devotees. They demand only the conditions that are
appropriate to be lived, seeing as how Truth is always
already the case. Such a one, found alive among his
disciples, is the Truth in the world. And he generates in
his company the conditions of the Truth, the conditions of
the Light of Real God.
The Method of the Siddhas, pp.
323-24
Those Adepts who have actually
completed (and thus gone beyond) the “sadhana” or practice
based on either of the two conventional propositions begin
at last to express themselves in different terms about the
matter of Realization and Reality. They may prefer silence
(or nonverbal transmission, as in the case of Ramana
Maharshi), or they may engage in the strategy of denial of
the applicability of conventional language to the
description of That which is Realized (as was the case with
Gautama), or they may behave strangely and speak in
paradoxes or in the form of apparent nonsense (as in the
case of certain individuals in the Ch’an or Zen tradition
and in the Crazy Wisdom tradition), or they may try to
construct a language of philosophy that is compatible with
ultimate Realization (as in the cases of Nagarjuna and
Shankara). Even all of these forms of communication and
transmission may be used by Awakened Adepts, and my own
Teaching Work is an example of the use of all such possible
means.
All “Completed” or seventh
stage1 Adepts are faced with the fact that the
conventions of language and behavior (even of traditional
philosophical language and the prescribed behavior of
traditional religious and spiritual practice) are all based
on the phenomenal, psycho-physical, and thus necessarily
egoic point of view. And what the Adept would and must
communicate or transmit is the Transcendental Reality, or
Awakened Realization of the Transcendental Condition of all
phenomenal conditions.
1. Master Da Free John
has described the development or spiritual evolution of the
human individual in terms of seven stages of eternal life.
For a description of this unique model, see the Appendix,
pp. 97-103
Nirvanasara, pp.
133-34
Therefore, the Spiritual Master
communicates a Teaching that is itself a Paradox. That is,
the Teaching, or the communication of the Way of Truth, is
of such a nature that it contradicts, or upsets, or
undermines the established trend of experience, knowledge,
communication, or self-existence. Through confrontation with
the Argument of the Spiritual Master, and by practice of the
Way he establishes, individuals are confounded and
disturbed, and their ordinary destiny is interrupted. Such
is true “hearing.”2
2. “Hearing” and
“seeing” are technical terms used by Master Da Free John to
descripe the conscious and spiritual Awakenings that are the
necessary foundation of the Way that he Teaches. “Hearing”
is the intuitive understanding of the self-contraction and
simultaneous intuitive awakening to Divine Consciousness
that arise on the basis of disciplined study of the Argument
of the Adept. Hearing leads naturally to “seeing,” which is
emotional and total, bodily awakening into faith, or direct
feeling-intuition of the Divine Reality under all
circumstances.
But the Spiritual Master does not
rely on any form of communication to Awaken others. Rather,
he uses his Argument only as a goad and a guide to that
disposition of equalized awareness wherein the two-sided
body and brain is whole and “on the mark.” Those who respond
to the Argument are then welcomed into the Company of the
Spiritual Master, wherein the Divine Truth is to be Realized
directly, prior to any kind of communication, or experience,
or self-awareness.
In that Company, all communications
are undermined. All experinces come and go in that Company,
and nothing remains. The self is interupted in its games of
glory and eternal survival. Ultimately, nothing is said, no
thing is experienced or made known. The Spiritual Master
abides in the Radiance of Divine Ignorance, prior to the
body-mind, prior to Man and the World – prior to all
communication. He is more than silent, and more than speech.
And only those who are Awake at the center may intuit That
which the Spiritual Master always Demonstrates, even while
he lives. Such devotees truly “see” and “hear” the Spiritual
Master. Such devotees are truly initiated into the absolute
“Vision” of God, wherein not self or any object, high or
low, stands out from the Radiant Bliss.
The Enlightenment of the Whole
Body, pp. 244-45
The verbally communicated
Dharma3 is delivered essentially to beings who
apparently have minds, who appear to function with the
mental vehicle. So the communicated, verbal Dharma is usable
only by human beings. The Dharma in Truth, the Dharma that
is Truth, that is the Siddhi, that is the Guru-function, is
communicated to all beings in all times under all
conditions. And the Guru in Satsang is in fact not identical
to the Teaching which he gives to human beings, which stands
by itself and they can confront. The Guru in Satsang serves
all beings. He communicates Satsang in which even the frogs
may participate, and in fact many do! All kinds of
creatures, even the walls, participate in that sadhana with
the same variations of intensity that appear among human
beings who deal with the verbal Teaching.
3. The Sanskrit term
“dharma” literally means “Law,” and here stands for the
ultimaFe and necessary Way of Life. The word also refers to
the verbal Teaching whereby the Great Adepts communicate the
Divine Truth and the Way to humanity.
In this light, one of the most
obvious limitations of the traditional dharmas, which
communicate the way of Truth by identifying it with various
experiences, phenomena, symbols, and visions, is that from
their point of view none of that stuff is available to
anything less than a human being or really of interest to
anything more than a human being. All those mysticisms and
other artifacts of yoga and religion really belong, if they
belong to anything useful, to the verbal or human
communication of the Dharma. Frogs, after all, cannot do
kundalini yogaj4 There are many beings who do not
have the functional capacity to do yogic sadhana or to enjoy
realizations of the mind or superconsciousness, because
those realizations depend on the vehicle of the mind. Vital
beings less than man do not have the vehicle of the mind by
which they may transcend the mind, and therefore they cannot
do a superconscious sadhana. They cannot do yogic sadhana in
its usual sense.
4. The kundalini or
kundalini shakri is the “serpent power,” that manifestation
of the Force of Life which lies dormant in Man,
traditionally described as coiled at the base of the spine.
It may be awakened spontaneously in the devotee, after which
it ascends along the spinal axis, producing all the various
forms of yogic and mystical experience.
On the other hand, all beings may
realize the Heart, whether they are vital beings or human
beings or godlike subtle beings. So the Dharma of the Heart,
of radical Understanding, is available to all beings. It is
the ultimate Truth and condition of all beings, and it is
communicated in fact to all beings. Because the human Guru
has the vehicles useful to humanity, he seems to be serving
human beings exclusively, but in truth he is serving all
beings, and not necessarily even individuated beings. He
serves the world manifestation in total, on every level,
above the world, within the world, in the lower dimensions
of the world. And literally – it is not merely an amusing
metapho r- the walls do sadhana. Everything does sadhana.
The particles of the air do sadhana. The plants do sadhana.
All creatures, inanimate things, material things, as well as
human beings and beings beyond the human and within the
human, all of these are available to the Guru-Siddhi and the
Guru function.
The Dawn Horse, vol. 1, no. 1
(1975), pp. 4-5
Master Da Free John indicates
that the internal spiritual force is eternally Awake, but
Man is not Awake. Therefore, he recommends no efforts to
awaken this force directly, but puts all attention on the
Awakening of the individual to his or her prior, eternal,
and always present Condition via the conscious process of
radical understanding.
Devotion to the
Guru
The devotion that the Adept
expects of his devotee is one of mature self-surrender to
the Truth or Reality. Although a devotee may, at first, fall
short of this requirement, his spiritual growth is
intimately connected with his increasing understanding that
the Adept is not the body-mind in front of him. Thus, when
the Adept admonishes him, “Turn to Me and love Me,” this is
a call for the devotee to orient his whole being to the
Transcendental Person, not the embodied being that is
apparently relating to him as Teacher.
The mature devotee knows,
however, that the Adept’s body mind is literally devoid of
an ego and hence nondistinct from the Absolute Reality
itself. Therefore, when he bows to the Teacher’s physical
frame, he bows to the Great One Who is none other than his
own true Identity.
The devotion to the Guru commonly
described in Hindu and other spiritual or mystical
traditions is, above all, devotion to a source which
fulfills the spiritual search, a yogi-initiator or
great-soul who grants experiences. But I speak of devotion
to the Guru in other terms. I speak of such devotion only in
the context of true Satsang, which is prior fulfillment, the
condition of Truth. I do not speak of the Guru as one who
fulfills the yogic search for experience, but as one who
undermines and transcends both seeking and the experiential
fulfillment of seeking.
The true Guru is not different from
Truth. He is simply the function of God. He is not an idol,
a fascination. He does not attach individuals It his
conditional presence, but leads men to enjoy the Perfect
Presence and Reality in the condition of relationship. His
instrument is the relationship and mutual drama of the Guru
and his perfect devotee. This relationship or drama is the
special, immediately salvatory function and process of God.
That same Satsang is available apart from his physical
presence and after his death in the form of respectful,
intelligent, and loving obedience to his radical or perfect
Presence, his Teaching, and his Community. The Satsang he
teaches is the Eternal Principle which is the very condition
of all beings, and which was always their condition even
before the human form of the Guru appeared. While the Guru
lives he teaches that Satsang which can be enjoyed by all
even after his death, not in the special form it may be
enjoyed by a relative few during his lifetime, but which
could have been enjoyed by all prior to his lifetime. He
acts to help his disciples and devotees to realize this form
of Satsang even while he lives in the world. The purpose or
function of his life is to make this true Principle of
Satsang known, and to guarantee the perpetuation of the
Teaching and Practice of Satsang beyond his
lifetime.
The Method of the Siddhas, p.
314
Da Free John: The Guru is not other
than oneself.
Devotee: What about the rest of
humanity?
DA FREE JOHN: Neither are they.
They, along with you, may temporarily be living as if they
were other and separate, but the Guru does not. “Others”
function as others. Being others, they create circumstances
or apparent conditions for you to enjoy, for you to suffer.
The Guru is not an “other,” nor does he live as an other in
any sense. One who sees an individual whom others claim to
be functioning as Guru may consider him to be an other, like
himself. But he has only failed to recognize that one as
Guru. The Guru is one’s own nature. Absolutely, not
symbolically, the Guru is one’s very consciousness. This is
the literal truth of one who appears as Guru in human form.
He is not an other. Therefore, others have no role
whatsoever in the transformation that is Truth. Only one’s
own Self performs that role.
One’s relationship with the Guru,
which is Satsang, depends on the subtle recognition of the
Guru as Truth, as one’s own Nature, the Self. That
recognition does not necessarily appear at the level of the
mind, as mental certainty, or in the form of some sort of
visionary or psychic perception. But there must be a subtle
recognition. That genuine recognition has no explanation, no
mental force in many cases. But that recognition is what
allows the relationship between Guru and disciple to be
enjoyed as it is, as Satsang, rather than the usual
communication of “others.”
The Method of the Siddhas, pp.
302-303
The first obstacle, and the primary
obstacle, to spiritual life is the relationship to the Guru.
It is also the fundamental condition, content, and source of
spiritual or real life. If it were not for that, everybody
could become spiritual by the mere practice of some method
or another. They would read books, they would manipulate
themselves with arbitrary beliefs. But spiritual life is a
relationship, a living demand. It creates an obstacle from
the very beginning. And that obstacle provokes the crisis
and fundamental sacrifice that real life
requires.
Nothing is offered but Satsang.
Nothing is given but that relationship, because it is Truth.
Those who finally live it as the condition of life receive
everything, because that relationship is the medium of
Truth. Everything rests on a man’s ability to realize that
relationship.
The Method of the Siddhas, pp.
200-201
All of the great Siddhas, the
realized ones, who have taught in the world, have given
Satsang to their disciples as grace. That was their
essential activity and gift. They did not come to give a
method, to give a conceptual teaching only, to create a
myth, a structure for the mind,some sort of mentality. They
brought themselves. They entered into relationship with the
world, with their disciples. That relationship is the very
structure and outward sign of the process I have described.
That is spiritual life. That process is spiritual
life.
The Method of the Siddhas, p.
226
The Guru is not just a human person
who can have human effects on you. The Guru is active,
present as that Siddhi. The Guru is communicated to you
under all conditions, twenty-four hours a day. Once that
contact is established, once that relationship is
established, that Siddhi communicates itself under all
conditions, in all states.
No Remedy, p. 26
There is no end to the numbers of
living beings who can do this sadhana. The sadhana of
relationship to the Guru is a condition which the disciple
must realize and live. Since the Guru always, already enjoys
it, it takes up none of the Guru’s time. There is no
limitation to the Guru’s capacity to be that fundamental
enjoyment for all beings. The limitations are on the
disciple’s activity within the life-appearance, and on the
Guru’s apparent activity, the activity of the man of
understanding, within that same appearance. But those
limitations are only the forms of pleasure and
communication, wherein we represent our understanding to one
another. Even so, the Guru is rising above the house. He is
not this limited state. He is your own enjoyment, perfectly
known.
The Method of the Siddhas, p.
174
You must begin to grasp the nature
of Satsang. Realizing the principle of Satsang is the same
as coming into the human presence of the Guru. The mind
falls apart, and the phenomena of the Spiritual Process
arise spontaneously. It is not that you must develop a
technique for remembering the Guru in some artificial way,
but you must truly be present with the Guru, and the Guru
must truly be present to you. All of the remembering of the
Guru that you can generate will be useless, until the
principle of Satsang itself is established, until you find
the Guru always.
It is easy enough to find the Guru
when he is standing in front of you, or sitting there
talking and engaging in obvious actions that the senses can
recognize. Sitting in the presence of the human Guru and
contemplating his form, you are actually concentrating on
the perfect Nature or Reality that is the Guru, truly. Thus,
the human form of the Guru is an instrument of meditation,
because you can find the Transcendental Form of the Guru
through the obvious human presence and form. The human form
of the Guru is a Grace, it is given, it is obvious. You need
not do very much to find him, and by openly remaining with
him when you are present with the Guru, you contact his
perfect Form, and the mind dissolves.
But when you are not in the Guru’s
physical presence, you must be more adept. You must have
understood something, learned something, so that you can
find the Guru when he is not physically present. And when
you do, you notice again that the mind falls apart,
regardless of how much thinking about the Guru you may do.
You may identify Satsang by a certain sign, which is that
the mind falls apart in the presence of the Guru. So if,
when you are not in the Guru’s physical presence, you notice
that the mind is falling apart, you are in Satsang. If, when
you are not in the physical presence of the Guru, you do not
experience this dissolution, this Spiritual Process, all the
time, you are not in Satsang.
The purpose of the human Guru is not
to make it easy for you to find him. The purpose of the
human Guru is to establish the principle of Satsang
independent of his physical presence, because his physical
presence is mortal and temporary. Therefore, the physical
form of the Guru must be used for its appropriate purpose,
which is to establish true Satsang in the world, not just to
make it available to a relative few who contemplate the
Guru’s physical form, because such contemplation is
temporary and brief.
The mere activity of sitting with
the Guru generates a quality people find desirable, and they
become addicted to that contact. They make an idol out of
the human Guru, because they notice that very pleasurable
things occur when they are in his physical company. But the
Guru is not present to become an idol. He is here to
instruct you and to transform the tendencies of life, so
that Satsang can be lived all the time by everybody who is
the least bit inclined to it, independent of the physical
presence of the Guru.
The Guru is always testing his
devotee to see if the devotee can find the Guru when the
Guru is not physically present. Thus, the devotee may
experience brief meetings with the Guru and then
separations. When the devotee is able to find him always,
then the Guru is satisfied. His function has been fulfilled.
The devotee’s realization of Satsang in a sense frees the
Guru of his own mortality, because the function of his
mortal presence has been fulfilled and is no longer
necessary when the devotee has begun to live independent of
the physical presence of the Guru. Not that all of a sudden
the devotee is just not interested, or thinks that the
physical, human Guru is an illusion. Rather, he feels the
principle alive in the human Guru to be omnipresent, and
this realization increases the intensity of his respect for
the human Guru.
The Guru prepares people to live
that Satsang which they could have enjoyed even before his
human appearance. Such is the true form of Satsang, not the
cultic or ritualistic enjoyment of the impression he left
behind him as a human teacher. Invariably we find that when
a Guru appears in the world and begins to Teach, he becomes
the center of a group of people, so that after his death his
human image survives as the cultic object of his Teaching.
There is no Satsang then, but only people continuing with
the imagery, and the Teaching of the Guru becomes religion,
or enthusiasm without understanding and without the true
Spiritual Process. The human Guru is an instrument of
Satsang, or the true Principle, and after his death of
course it is useful to remember and honor him, but not in a
cultic way independent of Satsang.
Crazy Wisdom, vol. 1, no. 4 (1982),
pp. 34-35
The Devotee Does Not Choose the
Adept
The potential devotee is
typically a seeker. In his escape from unHappiness and
search for lasting fulfillment, he goes from teacher to
teacher, hoping for a quick remedy or solution to his
existential problem. When he finally feels he has found the
one who could help him out of his spiritual bankruptcy, he
may even congratulate himself on his discernment and
apparent success. Yet, as Master Da Free John makes quite
clear, it is always the Guru who chooses the devotee, just
like a flame attracts all kinds of moths. He once remarked
that his own devotees were rendered to him before all time,
thus affirming a profound transcendental relationship with
every one of his devotees.
This also explains the surprising
fact that many people are perfectly able to grasp the
Adept’s argument and are even sympathetic to it, and yet
will not commit themselves to the relationship he offers. Of
course, they could do so at any given moment, provided they
were willing to fully inspect those tendencies that hold
them in a position of fearfulness, doubt, or simply lack of
determination. Without such radical inspection they will not
confront the basic un-Happiness and bondage of their
life.
One must choose to be Free,
Happy, or God-Realized. Only then does the Enlightened
Teacher have a window into which he can beam his
Light.
To
move into the presence of the Guru is not something the
disciple does. He does not actually go to the Guru. He
cannot decide one morning to go to him. He doesn’t know
where the Guru is. How can he go to the sunlight? The
disciple is somebody lying asleep in bed. He doesn’t go to
the Guru. The Guru is the sun, rising, intensifying the
light, until the disciple realizes that he is in that
presence. That realization is Satsang. And understanding is
itself true waking, true knowledge, or recognition of the
“sunlight.” All seeking for the Guru, all going after the
Guru is an activity within the dream. The Guru cannot truly
be found within the dream.
The Method of the Siddhas, pp.
172-73
All that occurs for any man or woman
is this process I have been describing. The search winds
down. The individual falls somehow into his ordinariness,
his simple suffering. Then he becomes available to Satsang.
When he begins to live Satsang as his real condition,
associated with it may be feelings that he has chosen one
Guru among others. But such “choices” are purely secondary.
In fact, there is no choice. There is only the sudden
availability of one who truly functions as Guru. In the life
of every true disciple, there has only been the sudden
communication of the Heart.
The Method of the Siddhas, p.
309
It is intuition of Reality itself
that leads a man to the Guru, and to maintain himself in his
company. All “reasons” for holding on to the Guru fall away,
and also all the reasons for not holding on to him. None of
these reasons has any ultimate significance.The affinity of
your nature, your intuition of your nature, the Heart, is
entirely responsible for this sadhana.
The Method of the Siddhas, p.
177
The Guru Enters the
Devotee
One cannot place a gift into a
clenched fist. So long as a person is oblivious to his
self-contraction, there is no space for the Adept to work
his Miracle of spiritual transformation. Self-understanding
is the key to the conscious cooperation with the spiritual
process that is continuously initiated in others by the
Enlightened being. The Adept cannot help but impinge on his
environment. Master Da Free John once observed that even the
walls must engage spiritual practice in his
company.
Understanding is fundamental to
the emotional conversion that must occur for the seeker to
turn into a devotee. The egoic contraction must be seen for
what it is – in every moment; only then can it be
transcended through the disposition of love-surrender or
radiance to infinity.
When the Guru enters the devotee,
the devotee does not become possessed by the person of the
Guru. Rather, the Transcendental nature of the Adept
coalesces with the being of the devotee so that the latter’s
natural self-possession dwindles and he becomes sensitive to
the Being-Consciousness that is his permanent true
Condition. This mysterious process is the unique gift that
the Adept brings to his devotee.
The
Guru assumes your Enlightenment. He does not mechanically
enlighten you, or give you something to do to enlighten
yourself. He absorbs you. He is you to begin with, but the
Guru in human form consciously assumes your Divine state in
every function in which you appear. He assumes it in your
very cells and literally, actively lives you. The Guru
literally meditates you. He is in a position to do so, since
he is you. The mystery of that process is how this kind of
spiritual life is generated and fulfilled It is fulfilled
from the beginning. That Satsang is perfect. The devotee, a
piece at a time, begins to become aware of the perfection
the Guru has already generated in his case.
No Remedy, p. 83
The
Siddha-Guru contacts his disciple in the Heart and at this
place behind the eyes. Once that contact is established, the
communication between the Guru and his disciple is
continuous. It is not limited to the level of life. It is
prior to life. And so it goes on and on, twenty-four hours a
day, under all conditions, in all states, even beyond death.
The contact is continuous. The communication of force is
continuous. That is why disciples continue to have
experiences of various kinds, whether awake, asleep, or in
dreams. The contact and its communications are continuous.
The karmas are continually being shuffled, awakened, run
through, intensified, purified, obviated.
There is a profound spiritual
principle involved in this relationship between the Guru and
his disciple. Once he has contacted the disciple in the
Heart, and with his own Light in the ajna
chakra,5 the place behind the eyes, whatever the
Guru does in his own body the conditional gross, subtle, or
causal functions is reflected or even duplicated in the body
or life of his disciple. Know that the thing that underlies
this whole process is this Satsang. Satsang is the perfect
relationship between Guru and disciple. This relationship
exists at the level of all the possible functions.
Therefore, it has subtle, causal, transcendent and Divine
aspects and functions as well as those which appear at the
gross levels of life. This Satsang is the condition. Once
the contact between Guru and disciple has been established,
this process of opening and the descending-ascending
conductivity of the Light has begun. It is this Satsang,
this relationship and your resort to it, that provides the
opening, that provides the circuit by which this flow is
established in your own life. So you must live this Satsang
as your very condition. That is the essential means. It is
not a “method” in the sense of the search, but it is the
means in the purely practical or functional sense for
conducting this force of Light.
5. The ajna chakra
(literally “command wheel”) is the subtle yogic center of
Life-Energy, situated between and behind the eyebrows, a
major structure in esoteric anatomy
The Method of the Siddhas, pp.
331-32
There is only one Divine process in
the world, and it is initiated when the Guru manifests and
enters his devotee. All the nonsense about the secret yoga,
about mantras and meditation has nothing to do with
spiritual life. The Lord is Present, now, in this moment. It
is when everyone forgets the Living God that mantras and
yogic techniques become important.
The Guru brings the Divine Yoga. All
the manifestations you have seen during the last few days
are what I promised you. I told you that I would demonstrate
to you this descending and ascending process of the Radiant
Life-Power. When the student lives with the Guru and begins
to understand himself and enquire, when he comes to the
point of surrender, then the Guru enters his devotee. This
is the only secret in yoga. I mean, literally, the Guru
enters his devotee.
The Guru is not a human being. The
Guru is the Divine Lord in human form. When his devotee
becomes a true devotee, when he ceases to be a student and
surrenders, then the Guru enters his devotee in the form of
Divine Light. All kinds of extraordinary experiences
manifest as a result.
The function of the Guru is first of
all to make the student a devotee through the process of
understanding, until he comes to the point of surrender.
Then the Guru enters where he surrenders, and that one
becomes a devotee. That is the entire yoga of this Way.
There is nothing to do from that point except to surrender
to the Guru, surrender to the Lord night and day, think the
Lord, speak the Lord, act the Lord, receive the Lord in your
body and in your cells, every function of life, descending
and ascending, not as a technique, but as a woman receives
her lover.
When a woman receives her lover,
there is no doubt about it. She does not have to consult her
textbooks! The same holds with Truth, the Divine Yoga. When
the Lord enters his devotee, there is no doubt about it.
There is no technique, but only the continuation of the life
of the devotee, because the Lord is the Light that
transcends this world, that is always becoming life and then
returning to the Light again. There is no dilemma in this
world, no absence of God in this world, no goal of God in
this world. Because that is so, you will see me doing some
very strange things. True yoga is not a thing of this world.
This world is the cult of Narcissus, suppressing the ecstasy
that is natural to us.
The spiritual process must take hold
in the vital. The vital is the seat of unconsciousness and
subconsciousness. There is an aspect of the verbal Teaching
about the avoidance of relationship that does not touch the
subconscious and unconscious life. So it is only by
distracting you from your social consciousness, so that you
are not really dealing with it at all, that I can take you
in the vital. The Lord is the Lord of this world, not the
Lord of the other world only. The Lord is absolutely the
Lord of this world. Thus, there is no yoga if the very cells
of the body do not begin to intuit the Divine. When I enter
my devotee, I come down into him in the midst of life,
because it is in life, not in the subtle processes nor in
your mentality, but it is in your life that the Lord
acquires you.
The Bodily Location of Happiness,
pp. 37-38
The Devotee Is Necessary for the
Guru’s Work
There have been many Adepts who
spontaneously assumed the Function of Guru. Hitherto they
were obliged to Teach in a traditional religious setting and
through the media of a limited cultural area. Hence their
impact on the history of the world has been largely local.
In the case of Gautama the Buddha and Jesus of Nazareth,
their Work has meantime spread beyond the immediate
geographical and cultural region in which they originally
Taught. But a truly global communication of the Adept’s
Transcendental Wisdom is possible only today, in virtue of
the modern communications network and the general trend
towards cultural unification throughout the
world.
Only nowadays is it therefore
possible to establish a cosmopolitan community of devotees
that will survive the vicissitudes of a particular
geographical location or cultural enclave and in this way
preserve the Teaching of the Adept for future generations.
Since the Teaching may nevertheless undergo certain changes
in the course of time, owing to the still persisting
cultural diversity in the world, it is essential that a
sufficient number of devotees Awaken to the Enlightened
Condition. For, only in this manner could the spirit of the
letter be preserved as well.
To create such a seed community
of Enlightened devotees is the Purpose of the Adept Da Free
John. Therefore, those who approach this great Adept and
practice in the certain light of his Teaching have a sacred
obligation over and above their personal struggle for
Enlightenment: Like the Adept, they were born for the sake
of the Enlightenment of their fellow beings. Awakened to God
through the Adept’s Grace and Compassion, they in turn pass
on the fire of the Spirit to others. Without such responsive
devotees, the Work of the Adepts on this plane of existence
would have to be renewed again and again.
The
Guru adds nothing to this world, because God is always
already Present in this world. So the mere presence of the
human Guru has not added anything, fundamentally. He only
establishes a process in which people may realize their
Condition, but he has not added anything, ultimately, to the
world itself. Only the Community of devotees adds something
to the world. Only the Community of devotees represents a
change in the world, and makes something new in the world by
action.
Garbage and the Goddess, p.
30
The human Guru is brief. The Dharma,
the path, communicated by the Guru during his lifetime, will
remain. But that manifestation of the Divine function is
brief. It is the responsibility of the devotee to make use
of it while it appears. If individuals, through the
awakening of true devotion in consciousness, become a
sacrifice through Satsang with the Guru, then the Siddhi
that is the Guru will remain in the form of the Community
beyond the death of the human Guru.
No Remedy, p. 28
The Spiritual Master himself always
only lives in Truth, and at last he only vanishes in Truth,
returning his personal Influence to apparent invisibility,
leaving behind the Teaching of the Way and his Absolute or
Transcendental Influence, made alive through the vehicle of
the Church of his devotees. Therefore, if the Church of
devotees fails to come into being or to survive the death of
the Spiritual Master, the Work of the Spiritual Master comes
to an end. The Teaching may remain, but the Influence that
quickens it ceases to be fully available to the devotional
sacrifices of mankind, unless a Spiritual Master incarnates
again. Therefore, his devotees, through the whole life of
spiritual sacrifice, must continue to maintain their own
Community as an Agency for the survival of that Influence.
The Enlightenment of the Whole
Body, p. 241
The Spiritual Master is given the
task of communicating the Laws of evolution and of sacrifice
to his own generation, so that Man may be raised up in God.
And the Spiritual Master himself advances the evolution of
Man by a difficult process of personal psycho-physical
transformation. But what he realizes cannot be added to Man
until many representatives of mankind embrace the Way of
Truth and submit to the process of transformation and
sacrifice.
Scientific Proof of the Existence
of God Will Soon Be Announced by the White House! p.
350
Because
this Way is so difficult to approach and realize in this
world, because of all the agencies and propaganda that
reinforce Narcissism, or self-possession, relatively few
people actually become interested in the spiritual process
that we have been discussing. However, those who do become
interested and who truly fulfill it become the agents of the
Teaching to others. They become the examples of this Way of
Life. Thus, the Way and its energy become interesting to
others. Its quality becomes interesting to others. Through
such devotees other individuals are changed and turned to
the Spiritual Master. There is a seed principle in this
process that could ultimately transform the entire world. We
do not yet see that happening, but it could. There is no law
in God to prevent it. The limits on such transformation are
created by human beings who are weak, who fall back on
themselves, who separate from the Spiritual Master, who
create alternatives to the Way in their daily lives, who
misinterpret the Teaching. So-called devotees who do not
truly surrender only corrupt the Teaching and the Way and
prevent the Work of the Spiritual Master. If individuals
would become true devotees, however, the work of the
Spiritual Master could expand quite naturally, and it would
be much easier for real spiritual changes to occur in the
world.
Vision Mound, vol. 2, no. 11
(1979), pp. 36-37
The power of the community of such
devotees who live Satsang who live by faith, is very great.
Thus, the Buddhists value the “Buddha” or the Guru, the
“Dharma” or the Teaching, and the “Sangha” or the Community,
because all three of these are the Spiritual Process. The
Spiritual community of those who come to a Guru is the true
reflection of the state of the Teaching in the world. If the
community as a whole begins to come alive, if people begin
to live to one another in the true condition of Satsang,
many things become possible and available. The great
discovery made by such a community is that the Law of
Spiritual sacrifice is miraculous, and that karma or
limitation is not the nature of things.
The true Shakti, or the Awakening
Power of the Divine, what the Christians call the “Holy
Spirit,” the initiating Grace that likewise has a name in
every other tradition, is the Divine Gift to the community,
not just the little kundalini rituals that purify the
individual. The ritual of the kundalini is the means whereby
individuals are purified so that they can live the greater
process, the Divine life, but the true Shakti is the Spirit
that descends and awakens and passes up again in the midst
of a community or even all mankind. Thus, Spiritual Teachers
always surround themselves with a community. Because the
creation of the community is equally as important as the
creation of the Teaching, you have seen me continuously
working to create the community, not just a group of a few
people who get straight, but a community. Many natures, many
entities, must appear to create the full circle in which the
Truth can manifest.
The Siddhas come not just to awaken
one or two people to some Enlightenment experience, but to
create a community in which all of the fundamental qualities
of manifest existence are established. The Guru comes to
reestablish the community and the Teaching and the principle
of Satsang.
He does not come to live forever in
the community in a mortal body. He comes for a specific
work, which is to establish the community and the Spiritual
Principle, so that it can be lived by that community through
time and so that the community will expand to include more
and more of life and the world.
Crazy Wisdom, vol. 1, no. 4
(1982), pp. 39-40
The operation of all the Siddhas
throughout time has been for the sake of the manifestation
of a new kind of humanity, but it has continually failed. It
has continually fallen apart, because the community of
devotees has never been established as a permanent
realization. Usually it is retarded at the disciple stage
and dies after a relatively brief period of time. So there
has been this continual return of the Siddhas into the human
plane. But when there is the creation of the community of
devotees who are consciously living as I have described,
then the work of the Siddhas is fulfilled, and it is
possible for a new kind of human history to begin. When this
community is established, the Guru function is forever
returned to its identity with God, and need not appear
epitomized in any human individual again. Instead, it will
manifest directly through the community of human individuals
to whom the Divine Siddhi is always available in
Satsang.
Garbage and the Goddess, pp.
224-25
Selections from Talks and Essays by
Da Free John on the Nature and Function of the Enlightened
Teacher
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