NO REMEDY
Part Four
The Three Stages of God-Realization
Sadhana is not accumulative. The forms of your practical
enjoyment of the Company of Bubba Free John are always being
undone, continually maddeningly, by the Force of his very
Presence as God. The moment you grasp your sadhana, it falls
away. As soon as you can hold to its form, you yourself are
dissolved
Thus, at last, in both the way of Divine Communion and
the way of Understanding, there comes a time when, through
no effort of your own, but sheerly by the Grace of the Guru
in God, you fall into continuous and perfect contemplation
of the very Heart of Consciousness, Real-God, the very
Conscious Condition at the core of all things, worlds,
beings. If you have engaged the fourth stage of sadhana in
the way of Divine Communion, you have been involved in the
sacrifice of your entire egoic existence through the stages
of contemplation of the Guru as Amrita Nadi, the Form of
God, with his Feet in your Heart and his Head or Crown of
Unmanifest Radiance above your head, above the body, the
mind, and the world. If you are a disciple in the way of
Understanding, you have been involved in the conventional
re-cognition or knowing again of all forms of
contractiongross, subtle, and causalto the point
of perfect intuitive absorption in the Divine Light, the
Radiance of Consciousness. But now, in either case, suddenly
and maddeningly, you are lost in very Consciousness itself.
Every shred of the conventional ego, every possible form of
limited identity, disappears in perfect Consciousness, your
very Self. It is a wild, absolutely ecstatic kind of holding
on to that perfect Prior Nature. You realize God in the form
of the Perfect, Unqualified, Unmanifest Consciousness, to
the exclusion of all manifest forms that arise, not only
your own dissolved subjectivity but the gross, subtle, and
causal worlds themselves
In the traditions this first stage of God-Realization is
known as jnana samadhi, absorption in perfect Knowledge,
realization of the Self-Nature. It involves an utter and
thorough reversal of the usual trend of manifest life. At
the instant of such realization, and continually from this
moment on, the bottom drops out of the worlds. To the man
enjoying this perfect absorption in the Self or
Heart-Nature, the worlds have suddenly disappeared. His
conventional life continues, but he is not implicated in it.
He is lost in the contemplation of Consciousness itself,
exclusive of all the forms that may appear. In the
traditions this stage of God-Realization is not seen as the
beginning of perfect Existence, but as an end, as a goal in
itself. The traditional man of such Knowledge may lock
himself into it forever, for what seems eternity, closed off
and shut out of any perception or cognition of the worlds.
The image of a man sitting in deep meditation in a cave,
away from society and all the noise of the world, describes
perfectly the jnana samadhi even of the devotee whose
ordinary life persists. Wildly, paradoxically, beyond
explanation of it, he is so absorbed in Consciousness itself
that he has no knowledge of the persistence of his
conventional life in form. One great modern jnani has
compared it to walking in your sleep: you have no knowledge
of your action now, and no memory of it later. Except that,
in this first stage of God-Realization, you never come out
of the “sleep”!
But you do know, and you do stand aligned to, the
Condition of Satsang itself, Divine Communion with Bubba
Free John in God. The influence of the true Guru is not
limited to any appearance, any speech, any vision. It is
direct, perfect Communication. Even your very
Heart-Consciousness is thus informed by the Condition of
Communion with your Absolute Nature, the Guru, who is
present not merely as the exclusive Reality or Core of
existence, but also as the generative, Infinite Light of the
worlds, and as the worlds themselves, the very World. So the
whole force of that Communion with the Guru is now the
vehicle of the Gurus Teaching; and the Guru will not allow
you to remain locked in Self-absorption forever. Even that
must be undone in the course of sadhana, which has now been
utterly transformed. The sadhana of God-Realization no
longer involves any kind of conventional, subjective
effortthere is no subjectivity left to imagine it is
doing thatbut a natural, effortless, spontaneous
unfolding of the perfect Nature of God
The first transitional period in the undermining of all
limitations in God-Realization is what Bubba calls “open
eyes.” Not only in formal meditation, but also in life
itself, there occurs a spontaneous “intuitive leap” in which
suddenly the manifest worlds and ones ordinary circumstances
appear again to Consciousness. In jnana samadhi God is
realized as That from which all arises, but exclusive of all
that arises. It is a forceful holding on to that Condition,
and a kind of subtle refusal to participate in life as God.
Gradually the force of that profoundly subtle avoidance of
relationship wears down, and when that wearing down process
is complete, then the eyes open to the rising world.
Consciousness realizes itself in relationship not only to
the Absolute Divine in the unmanifest, transcendent
Condition of Satsang, but also to the manifest conditions,
in the context of that same Satsang, Divine Communion
In traditional language, “open eyes” marks the
realization that the Conscious Nature of the individual, the
Self or Atman, is in fact identical to Brahman, the Great
Consciousness, the Nature and Condition of all the worlds,
including the various bodies or forms of the individual ego
and its manifestations. The devotee, now living as the Self,
realizes his identity as Brahman, the World-Consciousness in
the midst of all that arises, rather than merely as Atman,
isolated in the Conscious enclosure or root of
subjectivity
So this “opening of the eyes” marks the beginning of the
process that establishes the devotee in the second stage of
God-Realization. Once you have begun to sacrifice your
essentially inward Self-contemplation, you are returned to
the rising world, to appearing qualities, forms, and events,
to life. And life now has radically different implications
for you than it did before you were drawn into that first
and necessary exclusive enjoyment of God as your own pure
Consciousness. Now, you begin to see the world literally as
a dream. You can see that it has no intrinsic reality
whatsoever. All that appears is only a modification of your
own Divine Nature, Brahman, the Absolute Consciousness of
Existence. This second stage of God-Realization, this
condition of being returned to the world in God, is thus a
condition of profound, consuming enjoyment of Reality in the
midst of all conditions
But it is not yet realization of Reality itself. You
still have to do sadhana, even in this mad and conscious
ecstasy of God. There is yet more to be undone. In fact, the
transition into stable enjoyment of “open eyes” marks only
the beginning of the sadhana of the true devotee in the way
of Understanding
One of the great paradoxes of this process, as it
proceeds in devotees of Bubba Free John, is that they
maintain the essential forms of sadhana that they engaged
conventionally and subjectively before the advent of
God-Realization. The devotee in the way of Divine Communion,
then, maintains an essentially active and sacrificial mode
of sadhana, whereas the devotee in the way of Understanding
proceeds naturally through the mode of critical, intuitive
inspection
So what happens next, if you can even speak of this
sublime transition in those terms, is establishment in the
second stage of this Divine life, the realization of God as
That of which all qualities and events are the modifications
only. A traditional term that describes this enjoyment is
sahaja samadhi, absorption in the God-Condition naturally,
effortlessly, easily, in all the ordinary modes of life.
This is the initial stage of radical intuition for the
devotee in the way of Understanding. While the devotee in
the way of Divine Communion is engaged in sacrificing all
that arises to the Divine Form as surrender to the Guru, the
devotee in the way of Understanding naturally engages in the
critical inspection of what arises. His sacrifice is
intuitive, a form of discrimination in consciousness. Along
with this inspection, he may be given responsibilities for
natural, sacrificial service to the world itself. Truly, now
that he has yielded in consciousness his tendency to
inwardness, the devotee begins to engage in perfect service
to the world. And this service will go on forever
By now the devotee is no longer moved to enjoy
Consciousness inwardly or exclusively, but there remains the
tendency to enjoy it in itself. There is still a felt
distinction between Consciousness Itself and what arises.
That distinction is what serves or even takes the form of
his active sacrifice, or his inspection. But at last that
also must be undone. The Guru does not stand present merely
in the midst of the worlds, but as the World. And the
devotees natural and consuming absorption in his Gurus Form,
his continuing contemplation of the Guru as Amrita Nadi, the
very and perfectly non-exclusive Divine, carries his sadhana
beyond even sahaja samadhi
Thus begins the establishment in the final and ultimate
stage or degree of God-Realization, which involves the
dissolution of all inspection and all sacrifice that
involves any sort of object whatsoever, even the sacrifice
of Consciousness in itself. In fact, that is what the
transition to this third stage of God-Realization amounts
to. It is the perfect sacrifice even of the perception of
the world as illusion, as a dream, over against the Reality
of the Great Consciousness, Brahman. Now Brahman is realized
as the World, the World is realized as Divine. There is no
longer any trace of distinction, no separation
whatsoever
It is at this point that the Guru has become his devotee,
in Truth and for eternity. It is at this point that Amrita
Nadi, very God, stands present without obstruction in the
form of the devotee. Bubba calls this perfect realization
bhava samadhi, absorption in God to the point of absolute
dissolution, devotion to God to the point of perfect
God-Realization. It is Parabhakti, devotion to the Guru that
has become identical to the Gurus very existence. Nothing
has been attained. The form of the World stands present in
its natural and True Condition, Consciousness as absolutely
sacrificial relationship. God is now known and lived not
merely as That from which all arises, or as That of which
all is seen presently to be modification, but as That Only.
There is Only God.
There is a great paradox in this realization. The
traditions of God-knowledge characteristically attempt to
realize God by cutting away the world and all the conditions
of life. They attempt to attain perfect liberation from
karmic existence, from all manifest conditions, by excluding
the world and turning to the isolated Self of God, the Heart
known without qualities. But it is only when Consciousness
has risen again perfectly from the Heart to the Light and
come to stand present as the very Life of the World, in the
realization of bhava samadhi, Amrita Nadi, the Guru in
Truth, that genuine liberation has become a mans Condition.
Bubba has spoken of it:
dBhava samadhi is the third and natural evolution of the
forms of God-Realization. It is not supported by inspection
of any kind, nor even by a special action. It is free,
independent of any associated causes and any help. It
appears when all the events of the process of sadhana have
become realization, simply, truly, obviously. It no longer
has support then. In that case everything continues to
arise, but there is no medium between the consciousness and
what arises. It ceases to identify anything other than
itself. There is no force of implication in what arises
This world and this body fall away, but that does not
mean that the consciousness enters into the “soup,” into an
undifferentiated state in which nothing arises any longer.
Neither may it be said that things do arise. That destiny,
too, is not conceivable any longer, because the seed that
produces the phenomenon of the world and involvement in it
is no longer present. Thus there will no longer be anything
like this present existence in the fullness of the devotees
realization. On the other hand there will be a kind of
continued, formal existence that is generated, so-called, by
a process completely different from any we know under these
conditions. Liberation is utter liberation from all this
creativity, this world phenomenon, this binding, limiting
existence. But still it does not mean that another kind of
existence that is equally formal and individuated in some
way may not appear. In other words, a kind of heaven or
God-world Condition is eternal. Neither one form of
existence nor the other may be said to be the destiny of the
devotee. Because his existence is a paradox, he is no longer
present through the medium of the force of functions that
would enable such destiny to continue to appear any
longer
So all this will fall. But that does not mean a kind of
annihilation follows. All the worlds that you know by
experience, even subtle worlds, rest upon the karmic
principle, the ordinary creative principle or contraction
that simultaneously produces the ego sense, the mind,
bodies, experiences. All of the possible realms that may be
experienced by a conscious being in this world are part of
the same Law that produces his earthly life. Therefore the
principle by which they all arise is undone in bhava
samadhi. It does not mean, however, that there is not
another kind of existence that is eternal, that is not part
of the whole creative play or contraction that produces ego,
mind, body, desire, circumstance. It does not mean that
there is not another kind of existence. The devotees
enjoyment is simply not knowable at all under any of the
conditions in the realm of what we may experience. It is a
paradoxical enjoyment. We may not say definitely one way or
the other from the point of view of this world what his
destiny is
It is not possible to enjoy any eternal world while
existing in this dimension of worldsgross, subtle, and
causal. In this dimension it is all caused. Everything that
you might experience is caused. Once bhava samadhi becomes
the enjoyment, the consciousness is lifted out of that
principle of creativity that produces the gross, subtle, and
causal realms of experience. Then you may not discount the
possibility of another kind of realized existence that is
independent of creativity, which we might call the
God-world, just to have a word to refer to that paradox of
the so-called destiny of the devotee.1
dThus, the true realization of the devotee of Bubba Free
John is unspeakable God-Realization, liberation from all
forms of suffering, limitation, and ignorance, perfect
establishment in Divine existence. The great paradox of this
liberation is that it is the fruition of a life in which all
forms, from worldly life to the most prior causal
dimensions, have been embraced. They have been known and
lived. But they have been known and lived in Truth, in the
context of Divine Communion, so that the sacrifice could be
real and intelligent, not just an anxious cutting away, but
recognition in consciousness and action that no form in the
world, and not even the lesser forms of Divine Realization,
is Reality itself
And there is even a greater paradox. This perfect
realization is a Grace, but it does not really occur in the
moment when the devotee realizes it consciously and stably,
at the end of his course of sadhana. The moment of perfect
God-Realization occurs when you first enter into this
sacrificial relationship with Bubba, when you first begin
the life of Satsang or Divine Communion.
dThe totality of God-Realization is present in Satsang
from the beginning. So in that sense the fundamental
establishment of everybodys relationship to me, the real
force that enables it to become the principle of sadhana, is
in a sense everybodys moment of perfect realization, not all
that happens afterwards. What happens afterwards is like
seeing the significance of that realization relative to the
conventions that continue. You discover the realization that
is already true in you. That is true in Satsang in
principle, from the beginning. But within the conventions of
existence, there must be responsibility for all the forms
that arise. Intuitive senses may appear, but the conventions
continue to distract until the consciousness has passed
through the limitations altogether. Therefore, all these
cycles of sadhana and all the levels of inspection are
necessary and do appear in their proper sequence. The length
of time between them, however, can vary from person to
person. In general, the stages that appear in the maturity
of the disciple and then mature in the two stages of the
devotee will appear in everyones case
Until there is jnana samadhi, there is natural,
submissive distraction to everything that arises. But things
must arise in that stage also. Until they do and you can
inspect them and see that they are only the modifications of
That, you can have all the intuitive feeling about this
stage that you like, but it is only when it is coincident
with inspection that the realization is stabilized.
Otherwise, the force of the convention is overwhelming
Just so, that process of inspection must go on to the
point where it falls apart. It in itself is binding, a
representation of limited realization. So until mere
inspection has undone itself and is seen not to amount to
anything, until the quality of things arising is literally
known to have no force, no significance, until that
intuition is stabilized to the point where nothing arising
modifies it, until that occurs, all kinds of intuitions
about the Divine Nature of your own existence and of the
world may occur, and do occur naturally in people. But they
will not have the stable and specific force of bhava
samadhi.2
dSadhana in Truth is not any kind of seeking, but living
according to the Law of sacrifice. It is living the Divine
principle in the midst of all that arises. Thus, the final
paradox of the ways of Divine Communion and Understanding is
that only now, in the stable enjoyment of absolute
God-Realization, does true sadhana begin. Now it only
remains to live this perfect sadhana forever, eternally
happy as God, no matter what forms life may take, no matter
what occurs. That is all. There is only God.
d* * *d
Notesd
1. Bubba Free John, “Another Talk,” a talk to the Ashram,
February 3, 1976
2. Ibid.
