Advaita Non Dual Talking School and The teachings of Ramana Maharshi

MASTER: This is an essay for
the Three Ways book, or the Dreaded Gom-boo book, and this
new booklet. Also it seems to me this essay would be
appropriate to read this weekend at these occasions. I don’t
know how it could be done cause its quite long. But …
there’s not only the Mainland, there’s all of these other
Centers and so on. I don’t know how it would be communicated
to them. But if it could be, that would be useful to read it
before this sitting occasion on Saturday.

Also this booklet that we’re
contemplating, you’ll all have to see how the Dreaded
Gom-boo book works out. Whether all of these recent
materials should be included in it, and then decide whether
its useful to select out some of these things to make
another booklet or not, I don’t know. So the new booklet is
just an idea, I don’t know if its useful.

So this essay is called
What
Is the Conscious Process
(The Master reads the essay).

after the reading of the essay the talk
continues……

Sri Ramana
Maharshi

I mention him at the end of this
essay, “The mere “I” thought is not now an indicator of the
Great One”. The “I” is Narcissus, more than a thought, but a
profoundly complex pattern of destiny. Now perhaps this
would remind you of the teaching of Ramana Maharshi, who
recommended to people, simply to concentrate on the “I”
thought and observe and intuit the consciousness, or the
condition in which that is arising. Well, for him, this made
complete sense. For him the whole force of egoity, the whole
force of the “I” had been transcended. And from the Advaitic
point of view, the “I” thought is a pointer to the Atman,
which is ultimately identical to the Paramatman, or
Brahman.

In the case of lesser teachers, the
recommendation to concentrate upon the source of the “I”
thought would be considered to be a perfectly and sufficient
recommendation, sufficient for instant enlightenment,
Maharshi was not a fool, you see. He knew full well that the
ordinary individual, concentrating on the “I” thought,
feeling into, or intuiting its source, was still ego bound.
So therefore he presumed that this method was a sadhana, a
lifetime practice, that would gradually dissolve the force
of the ego. In other words he didn’t belong to the talking
school. He didn’t mean to concentrate on the “I” thought,
see that consciousness underneath that and realize that’s
Atman, that’s Para Brahman, that’s Brahman and now you’re
enlightened, now go and be enlightened, you see. No. That
wasn’t his sense of teaching. But rather he followed the
traditional Advaitic approach in the general structuring of
his philosophy. He knew full well that the ego is a great
force, and that the “I” is the ego.

But from his Advaitic point of view,
he thought a good technique for people, instead of
fulfilling the motivations of the ego, the motivations of
the “I”, to constantly fall back from the activity, and rest
in the Atman. Doing this over time, would purify the “I”,
undermine the ego, dissolve the ego. And eventually this
meditation would become self-realization. So it is implicit
in his teaching that the ego must be transcended. He’s not a
representative of the talking school.

Also you should understand the
Maharshi did not presume the role of a teacher. People asked
him what he had realized, and what was it all about, and how
could they realize it and so forth. And he spoke in the
terms he did. He didn’t elaborate beyond that, all of the
kinds of associated means and processes and so on, which
would have to be communicated to people, if your going to
presume the role of a Siddha in their company, or counteract
a total teaching for their benefit.

Now I’m aware of the fundamental
truth associated with Advaitism, and the teaching of Ramana
Maharshi. I’m also aware of the implicit realities that are
behind this Advaitic recommendation. Those implicit
realities or realities of the ego, are there to be undone,
there to be overcome. They can’t be overlooked. You cannot
reduce the Advaitic recommendation to the academic or
logical exercise of the talking school. And therefore I have
elaborated a complete teaching, that involves all of the
kinds of disciplines that must necessarily be associated
with life and practice if the ego, the force of “I”, the
force of Narcissus is to be transcended. And I have
established this practice in my company, and have accepted
the role of the Siddha in your company. So this produces a
much more elaborate culture of practice that is suggested in
Maharshi’s company, and is altogether outside the kind of
mediocrity that belongs to the talking school.

But to consider further the
implications of this notion that you can trace the “I”
thought back to its source – in the case of the beginner,
the ego-bound individual, as I’ve said here, the “I” thought
is not merely a thought. It is the name for a whole complex
of existence. The “I” thought exists only in the plane of
waking consciousness. What about the rest of it? It exists
subconscious, unconscious, walking, dreaming and sleeping,
bodily, emotionally, and so on.

Merely to trace the “I” thought and
feel the consciousness behind it, is not to be
self-realized, transcendentally self-realized it is perhaps
in Advaitic terms, to begin a kind of exercise that should
be associated with a whole life of disciplines and profound
practice, in which everything that is “I” would be
transcended, and the Atman would cease to be merely this
individuated consciousness.

What you must enter into through
this conscious process, is not merely the consciousness
behind thought. That is simply attention. And attention is
the fundamental, or ground mechanism of Narcissus or the
ego, as it says at the beginning of this essay, quoting from
The Liberator: “Be Consciousness as the feeling of Being,
and Realize that it is Radiant Happiness.” This ultimate
intuition breaks beyond the framework of manifest
consciousness. It breaks beyond the framework of attention,
mere attention. It is associated with the most profound
intuition. It is not like a thought in any sense then. And
it is not like attention standing off here, next to objects,
viewing whatever may seem to be arising, witnessing whatever
may seem to be arising. It is more to be likened to feeling.
It is formless, centerless. It is not something separate, or
separable from objects. It is not interior. It is not
self-conscious in the conventional sense. What’s behind the
“I” thought is merely attention. What must be realized that
is far beyond the “I”, is the feeling or Condition of
Being.

Transcendental Consciousness is the
consciousness of this feeling of Being, mere Being, Being
without qualification. The Being that is the Condition, not
only of the conscious self, but of all of its objects, all
of nature. When we’ve entered into that condition of Being,
when our consciousness is that fullness of being, then we
realize that it is Happiness, Self-Radiant Love-Bliss. It is
the Substance of the universe. It is That to which Maharshi
points in his considerations. It is That to which the
Advaitic tradition ultimately points. It is That to which
the Buddhist tradition points. In fact, it is That toward
which all traditions are pointing. But apart from the
Realization of it, all kinds of lesser conceptions and
perceptions and senses of it may substitute for
enlightenment.

And so you cannot take heaven by
storm. There is no method of immediate self-analysis that is
equivalent to Enlightenment. Self-observation, self-knowing,
self-transcendence is a lifelong exercise. It never comes to
an end. It is always going on, always developing, there’s
nothing instant about it.

The ego that is behind the “I”
thought. Its not the Transcendental Self. The Self is
Realized.

Maharshi really enquired of
everyone, “Who, who, who, who?” Well, he said yes,
“concentrate on the ‘I’ thought. Well, who is aware of the
‘I’ thought?” Well, its the ego that’s aware of the “I”
thought. Its the individual consciousness. That’s not the
end of it. He would again say: “Who? Find out who.” Well; if
you persist in that, that becomes a whole life of
discipline. It even becomes the life of submission to the
influence of the Adept, quite naturally, quite
spontaneously.

And that in fact is what occurred in
the case of his true devotees. And that is a form of the
ultimate question. Who is it ultimately that you are? Who
are you arising within? In whom is all of this arising, you
see. But its not a question with an immediate answer. Its
not really a problem to find this out. It is a process. It
is found out through a process of self-transcendence. His
questions are indicators of it. They are queries to help
people become oriented toward the profundity of
self-transcendence. And he had his peculiar way of doing
these things. And as I said, did not presume the role of the
teacher in the fullest sense, did not feel obliged to
communicate a total teaching.

He appeared within the context of
traditional Indian society. For those who weren’t ready to
be awakened very directly in his company, he presumed they
would just go elsewhere, they’d find countless numbers of
teachings, and teachers and means and so forth. He was
simply certain that ultimately, all these ways would fulfill
themselves in Transcendental Self-Realization. So his
considerations are limited to this fundamental query, this
fundamental suggestion that what you must discover is the
Condition in which the self is arising. But to discover that
condition, you must transcend the self, not merely ask
yourself a question, not merely invert upon attention
itself, because attention is the ego. The “I” thought like
any other thought arises to the ego. The ego is what must be
transcended. Merely to put attention on the consciousness in
which the “I” thought is arising, is not to realize the
Transcendental Being. It is to make a gesture toward
realization. If you made that gesture those means,
ultimately you would break through the egoic limit, the
illusion that’s associated with attention. That is a
profound complete, if if occupied the whole of your life,
then by all of process. Now we do not … we consider the
same truth, this Realization, we do not consider it in the
context of a traditional society, with a long history of
involvement with the quest for Transcendental
Realization.

And I have accepted the role of
Teacher, the role of the Siddha in the company of devotees.
So I have assumed the obligation to communicate the Way
fully, and to communicate it in the company of those who
will practice it, you see. So there is a difference between
my historical role and the historical role of Maharshi and
many others, as there was a difference between Maharshi and
his historical role and all kinds of other
teachers.

The same ultimate truth is realized
by all free Adepts, and they communicate it in a particular
fashion in their time and place. Some aren’t very
communicative, some communicate in part only, some assume
the role of the Adept or Siddha in relation to devotees, and
some do not. Some function as the Siddha without accepting
the role of the Siddha. They are the Siddha by virtue of
Realization, and for those who somehow or other develop a
real practice, they make use of that though the Adept
assumes no personal responsibility. In your case there’s no
ambiguity about it however. I make this Teaching plain, I’ve
communicated all the details of its practice, I accept this
role in relationship to you, I’ve explained to you all of
the aspects of the process that takes place in my company,
and therefore its up to you, without any ambiguity, to
practice it as you will. If you will, then the kind of
process that I’ve just described in this essay, will develop
in your case, and you will see all the signs of it. If you
will not take it on, in the forms indicated in this essay
and elsewhere, then you may in some fashion be attached to
this Institution and this community, even have some
familiarity with me, but this does not necessarily mean that
the process described here will take place. The process
required your responsibility, for hearing and developing the
means of practice, which constantly, moment to moment bring
you into the sphere of my Influence. And you must maintain
that responsibility always, not merely occasionally when I
happen to be sitting with you, or when you happen to be in
my company, or when your in meditation or when you feel
good, or when you feel bad, but always you must develop the
full force of this profound practice.

A fundamental aspect of the Way is
the progressive recognition of the Spiritual Master. In
other words entering into that Company, the sphere of the
Spiritual Master’s Influence more and more profoundly. By
entering into more and more profound levels of recognition
of the Spiritual Master, beginning with obvious
acknowledgment of the Spiritual Master, as a Living Master,
but then going on to recognize and locate the Spiritual
Master as Siddha, as Siddhi, as that Influence, which is
directly present to every practicing devotee, in every
moment, not merely in occasions of being in the Spiritual
master’s human company, or being in meditation, of being in
an empowered place, or being in the community and so on, but
always. Those who truly practice begin to locate and
recognize and acknowledge this Influence in every moment of
life and meditation. it is always available. It is a
matter
of turning to it, of
acknowledging it, recognizing it, locating it, making your
practice into communion with that Influence. Therefore
allowing that Influence to transform the conditions of
existence that are arising from hour to hour, moment to
moment, not only in meditation, but in daily life. In daily
life all kinds of changes occur, all kinds of moods, all
kinds of circumstances, physical, emotional and mental
states, relations, changes in relations and so forth. Those
are just as much within the sphere of Transcendental
Influence, as any of the activities that occur in the
subjective realm of meditation. Therefore these also, you
will discover, remarkably, are constantly being changed, in
various ways by this influence.

The Influence, or Siddhi that you
have entered into is the Power and Being in which all of
nature is arising. And therefore it has its effect on all of
the apparently objective conditions of your existence, just
as it has an effect upon the subjective conditions. So in
daily life, you notice this influence making changes, if you
are sensitive and really practicing in this company, in both
the subjective and objective levels of your existence. In
meditation, you notice this influence more in terms of the
subjective changes and the effects this Influence has on you
immediate personal experience, you physical, emotional,
mental states, and those kinds of states that may arise in
meditation.

You should also begin to notice how
this Influence is operative beyond the waking state, in
dreams, in sleeping, in every moment of existence. There is
a tradition in which Adepts have asked devotees, usually
advanced devotees, to go to sleep at night, with the
intention of entering into the Spiritual Master’s company.
Sometimes this instruction is given in very specific detail,
to go to sleep with the intention in the astral or dream
form, to go to a specific location, usually the Communion
Hall, or the place of residence of the Spiritual Master,
with full visual expression and so on, during the dreaming
time. Also with the intention in the sleep state, to be
entered into communion with the Transcendental Condition and
presence of the Spiritual Master, or the Consciousness, or
Being that is the Adept and the Divine.

Well, devotees over the years,
frequently report random, unintentional experiences of this
kind. Similar experiences in fact occur even during waking
hours, various kinds of visionary experiences, of seeing me
in the meditation hall, or having some vision of me and so
forth, in a moment of activity. These are reported by
people. they also report all kinds of extraordinary dreams.
Now these dreams in general do not have anything to do with
me in the sense that I am personally, at the level of my
human mind and so on, aware that you are having these
dreams, although I very often am aware of them. But the fact
that somebody has a dream in which I appear to them, does
not necessarily mean that I would be able to tell them the
next day that I was aware of it. I may or may not be aware
of it. Or I may be aware of it in a different form. Or I may
be aware of it in the same form. But most of the time I
wouldn’t be aware of it, there would be no reflection in my
waking mind of it. But this does not mean that the
experience if false. It can be falsified by the individual
who just uses it for his own self-glamorization, to console
him or herself so they can feel they’re had some profound
experience. But generally the essential content of such
dreams is a feeling of entering into this communion, and
something about the meaning of the dream, will generally
have some pertinence, some significance that is real and
appropriate enough, worth remembering, worth allowing to
have some effect on you whenever it will.

Therefore since this possibility
exists, some people might try this. You should feel free to
try this. These gatherings we have on celebration occasions
are something like this. People gather in Centers and
various parts of the world, at the same time I’m sitting
here with you all. And they prepare themselves through the
devotional occasion, and use my photograph as a way of
associating with me. They are literally tuning into me,
allowing themselves to enter into the sphere of my
Influence, personally. During meditation, or perhaps in
dreams, or some other visions afterwards, they may have some
sense of coming to some place where I’m sitting with them
and so forth. During that time of meditation, they may have
visions of it, of my being in the room with them, or them
being in a room some place or other with me.

In other words the psyche may
function automatically to create some sort of association
with me that’s tangible. Whether or not that tangible
association has anything directly to do with my actual
physical location or not. It is imply something that adds a
dimension to the whole force of their alignment to
me.

Read more on the Conscious
Process

Originally published in Crazy Wisdom
magazine, Vol 1, No 3, June 1982.

BREAKING THE
CYCLE

MASTER DA: Because the basic work
that I do with people is not noticed by them very well, I
must keep reminding them of it. My Teaching Work is not
something that I do every now and then when I gather people
for instruction, but it is constant. In one fashion or
another my influence in people’s lives is always
interrupting the conventional or karmic motion of the self.
I am not motivated to give you, the karmic or manifest self,
something to be interested in, to give you visions or
extraordinary experiences that pleasurize the manifest self.
If visions arise in my company, they arise not to pleasurize
but rather to stop the flow of the grosser self. They are
possible moments of Awakening. I Teach a Way that enables
you to make use of my spiritual Influence, as well as all
the ordinary moments of life, as a process of Awakening and
transcendence, until attention is perfectly free to directly
and intuitively Realize the Condition of existence, or That
in which all of manifest conditional existence is
arising.

Particularly because you are
Westerners, you have a sort of dogged interest in
perpetuating the egoic state in every moment. The
psycho-physical personality is tenaciously reinforced in the
state of consciousness to which you have become habituated.
No other influences have interrupted the flow of egoity in
your acculturation as Westerners. Westerners do not have
time for Enlightenment. They generally think of
Enlightenment as they think of all the goods of the ego and
the pleasures of the manifest self. They view Enlightenment
as a big pleasure, one of the delights of the manifest
being. For the Westerner, Enlightenment is built upon the
conditional self, pursued by the conditional self, and
conceived as a state or object of the conditional self,
whereas in fact Enlightenment has nothing to do with the
conditional self. No “one” is Enlightened. In Enlightenment
there is no individuality, no separate person, no separate
anything. The manifest conditions of existence may continue
to arise, but they are utterly recognizable, they have no
binding power, they are tacitly recognized to be merely
apparent or unnecessary.

Ramana Maharshi is a teacher to whom
I frequently point as an example of the sixth to seventh
stage Adept. You all know the story about how he suddenly
became Enlightened when he was about seventeen years old.
Even he remarked that people should understand that
Enlightenment happened in his case because of preparation in
previous lifetimes. Thus, from his early years, his lifetime
as Ramana Maharshi is regarded as an Enlightened lifetime,
but an Enlightened lifetime that was the result of extensive
preparation nonetheless.

Just so, there must be preparation
in everyone’s case and an intense orientation toward
Realization. Perhaps the Enlightenment of most people takes
many lifetimes-how can we account for it? Fundamentally you
must understand the Way as a person who is already born or
incarnated egoically. You must be turned about, you must be
converted, and you must enter into the stream of
preparation. You must use attention and body and mind in a
different fashion if you are going to realize Wisdom and
Awaken to the Truth that transcends egoity. Without
understanding the Spiritual Master, valuing such Awakening,
and entering into the stream of practice, there is no such
thing as Enlightenment, and. Enlightenment will not be true
of you. There is no Enlightenment, no Awakening, without
fierce practice.

You must practice fiercely, not
because what is to be Realized is not already your
Condition, but because through lifetimes of repetition you
have reinforced mechanical states of attention. Because you
have bound the consciousness and energy of being to the
conventions of conditional existence, there is no residual
attention to enable consciousness to stand apart from
manifestation sufficiently to realize its own Status.
Rather, consciousness is wasted in the repetition of states
of attention that are fixed in the process of conditional
existence. Spiritual practice must therefore be so fierce as
to provide the basis for a natural Awakening so that we may
release attention from the bond of conditional
states.

In the process of practice, the
Spiritual Master serves you in all kinds of ways, one of
which is to stop the mind through verbal Teaching, through
gestures, through Transmission of Spiritual energy. Through
the Spiritual Master flow all kinds of instructional means
that are encountered by people who respond to the Spiritual
Master and the Teaching, who are practicing daily, who will
use the spiritual Influence and not merely notice some parts
of it here and there and every now and then while otherwise
basically oblivious to it. Devotees are supposed to be those
who have attention available for the Spiritual Master and
the spiritual process, which is the process of transcending
conditional existence, transcending the body-mind-self,
transcending attention. If you are not oriented or inclined
to transcendence, then of course no amount of help in that
direction will be of much use to you.

These little satoris of the
momentary stopping of the mind are not of any ultimate
significance either. Much is made of them at the popular
level of the Zen tradition. On some level Zen is a kind of
“pop” Buddhism. Its satoris are for the common people who
are very busy in their minds. The highest form of Zen is
that which is applied by people who devote their entire life
to its practice. For such people satoris are not sufficient.
They are drawn to go beyond the moments of the stopping of
the mind and glimpses of the space of Consciousness to
Realize the Transcendental Condition of existence. Just so,
you must also realize more than moments of experience,
moments in which the mind stops, moments of
meditation.

I know how fierce the mechanics of
the body-mind are. I have had to deal with them all my life.
Even though I possessed the capacity for Enlightenment at
birth, my life became a fierce spiritual practice based on a
spontaneous but profound commitment to Realization. Such
commitment is absolutely essential for spiritual practice,
which cannot fulfill itself without such commitment and
which likewise must be fierce and profound.

You cannot be forced to practice,
nor can your practice be guaranteed. What there is of
Awakening in your case depends on your commitment. You must
really practice. You cannot mechanically repeat yourself. If
you are basically inclined to ordinary consolations and
fulfillments, hopeful of being happy in this world, then
when you feel so fulfilled, you step out of the stream of
the spiritual process. You have bought and signed for
consolation on the dotted line. If self-fulfillment is not
sufficient for you, however, then you keep going. You
persevere in the practice and you move on to the higher
stages.

Some may seem to move more quickly
to the higher stages of practice. The fact that they seem to
have more talent and natural ability for it is probably a
reflection, not only perhaps of their commitment during this
life, but primarily of their preparation in previous
lifetimes. They too will reach their cutoff point, the point
where they will tend to stop, the point where practice tends
to be sufficient for them or where further effort is too
frustrating and too offensive. Everybody reaches the point
where he or she tends to withdraw from the stream of
practice. Most people reach that point even before they
begin the practice. Either they are never moved to find
anything greater than ordinary ego-fulfillment in the world,
or they are just “fans” of spiritual life. They like the
books, but they basically resist and even resent the
interference represented by a Spiritual Master and a
Teaching and the idea of practice.

The world is not organized around
Enlightenment Wisdom, which is struggling to survive in our
time, even though paperback books about spirituality and
so-called spiritual teachers are springing up everywhere.
The Enlightenment or Wisdom Tradition is struggling to
survive. Spiritual life is mocked everywhere, and the
culture of materialism is dominant. The politics of egos,
with its materialistic force, is in charge in this world and
it always has been. The motive to Enlightenment has always
been rare. Although the motive to God-Realization has
traditionally been a cultural premise and many people have
responded to it in one form or another, more so in the
Orient than in the West, even so, the spiritual cultures
have tended to rise and fall, or become weak or
conventional, or be reduced to at most a fourth to fifth
stage esotericism, and the practitioners within those
cultures have tended by and large to be ordinary
people.

Only those who have accepted the
discipline of religious or spiritual renunciation
sufficiently to release attention from the bond of the
mechanics of ego or body-mind can practice the conscious
process in its radical form. The radical process of
spiritual practice can be described to people, and I have
written a great deal about the radical form of the conscious
process. It need not be kept secret particularly, but it
cannot be practiced fruitfully by an individual in whom
attention is not fundamentally free. One cannot simply
communicate to people in general a sixth stage teaching, for
instance, such as the teaching of Advaita Vedanta or the
mindfulness discipline of original Buddhism, and expect that
everybody will therefore be able to practice it. Most people
must engage preliminary or supportive practices. Most people
should approach the radical Way through the lesser stages of
life, because one cannot practice the advanced levels
without an increase of available energy and
attention.

To realize profoundly the mysticism
of the fifth stage of life, for instance, you must
demonstrate a great deal of free energy. Energy cannot be
locked up in the vulgarities of the physical, outer-directed
personality. Only free energy floating in the brain permits
the subtle phenomena to arise. Likewise, you must realize
free attention to invert beyond the outer-directed mechanics
in order to focus in the phenomena of brain and higher
psyche. Just as the fifth stage is an advance over the
lesser stages, likewise the sixth stage is an advance beyond
the fifth, requiring attention free even of the subtle bond
of energies and mechanics.

Thus, this radical practice that I
communicate based on the seventh stage disposition is not
something that people can rightly, truly, fully, and
fruitfully practice without preparation, without available
energy and attention. Therefore, I have also communicated
the forms of spiritual practice that basically represent the
preparation for the most radical practice, preparation that
releases energy and attention for the conscious process,
which is the fundamental process I consider. That process in
consciousness cannot really be engaged until there is free
attention, because in that process attention itself is
encountered and transcended. If you cannot enter into the
consideration of naked attention itself, the fundamental
mechanics of the being, then you cannot practice in the
radical sense. Most people cannot. The attention of most
people is wandering in the conditions of the body-mind and
is not free to inspect and transcend itself.

Therefore, I have engaged this
ten-year display of Teaching Work, and I have written this
literature and related to people in many different ways, in
a tremendous struggle with people who are basically
disinclined to the very process I am considering with them
by virtue of the fact that on the one hand they are
Westerners and on the other hand they are mechanical beings
or egos. Such a struggle with egos is inevitable wherever
the Teaching and a Teacher appear. But it is particularly
disheartening to spend a decade at it and not have at least
some mature practitioners who are sufficiently committed and
prepared to practice in the radical sense. Such freedom for
the radical process is not easy to find. It never has been
easy to find in any cultural setting, yet it seems that
there are remarkable impediments in the West. Still, because
of the change in our time – worldwide communication,
political changes, suppression of the Orient through
political, social, materialistic, and technological
movementsbecause of all that the technological twentieth
century has created, it is necessary that the Dharma appear
in the West, which is also the source of the materialistic
movement that is overcoming the world. That a Spiritual
Master be born in this setting and do this work is therefore
necessary. In a few more decades there may not be any such
thing as the Orient anymore. There will basically be a
worldwide culture, and the esoteric and transcendentalist
cultures will perhaps fundamentally have been suppressed in
the part of the world we call the Orient.

Then the Teaching must take hold
elsewhere. Orientals themselves are moving all over the
world. The traditional homes of esoteric and
transcendentalist schools or movements are being overwhelmed
by the materialistic politics of our time. The Tibetans were
suppressed by the Chinese, Communism is taking over in
Southeast Asia, and materialistic social movements are
overcoming India. The break in the Transmission must be
mended, and the Teaching is appearing in the West through my
Work. But my Work is obviously immensely difficult and not a
very rewarding task, if we can use the word “rewarding” in
discussing the work of Spiritual Teaching.

You should see in yourself your
mechanical disinclination to the very thing that is brought
to you every day of your life. Not so much through an
intentional will, but via the mechanics of your own born
personality, you find one way or another to by-pass the
Divine Influence and the obligation to practice in every
moment of your life. This sidestepping of responsibility is
Narcissus, the self-contraction. To break the cycle and even
glimpse the transcendental circumstance of the ego requires
great intelligence and fierce commitment. The Siddhi or
perfect fulfillment of that process is rare and remarkable,
but you are given all the arms for it, all the Help for it,
all the Teaching necessary for it. How well you will use the
opportunity is to be seen.