The Life of Understanding Series
Week 6
Lessons on the Knee of Listening
A twelve week course taught by Franklin JonesJanuary – April/May 1973
“Until understanding becomes a radical activity, it simply involves the observation of experience itself appearing as levels of being, bodies, realms, and experiences. This is not meditation.” In quotes I have it here. This is not what I truly mean by meditation. This is what goes on prior to the radical activity, the activity that is real insight and enquiry. So this process of observation, self-observation, is not meditation in the strictest sense and at this stage in one’s spiritual life, this student stage, the period of listening, “the individual need only observe and understand” or come to understand.
“But when understanding is fulfilled in the conscious, inclusive, transforming, cognition of experience and seeking,” perhaps here since that general time I began to use the word “re-cognition” more, that word would be appropriate to use here, the re-cognition of experience and seeking. “Then meditation will become a real impulse,” when insight arises, in other words. Then meditation in the strictest sense of enquiry, of a positive activity, of something you bring to experience moment to moment becomes a possibility.
“At this point the individual should begin to enquire and this is his meditation. This enquiry, whether or not he does it as a formal exercise.” In other words it goes on as an intelligent activity throughout the day. It doesn’t necessarily take on the form of verbal mentalization of the enquiry always. But every form of it, whether he uses the verbal enquiry or not is this same meditation in the strictest sense. “When he has the impulse to do it, formally or intensively, he should do it as I am describing it here”, this sitting in the morning and the evening and the like.
“When meditation has become radical consciousness.” In other words, when this meditation, this real meditation, has taken on its most radical form, “then abide in that consciousness, which is no-seeking in the heart, and when you act remain in this natural meditation, or enquire, as you feel inclined.”
So this little paragraph here is really a summation of the stages in the life of meditation. Its first phase is not meditation in the strictest sense. It’s the phase of the student where one listens to the Truth. Hearing the Truth and observing life is the beginning of this process of understanding and the earliest form of meditation, then, which is not meditation in the strict sense of enquiry, of this positive intelligence. It’s simply this process of hearing the Truth and observing life. This takes place quite naturally under the conditions of Satsang.
Observation tends to take place quite naturally whenever the condition of relationship is enforced apart from your own inclinations. So whenever you are brought into Satsang you reflect your own qualities to yourself. So one who’s become a student of the Truth, who is listening to the Truth, who is listening to the Guru, listening to the communication of the Truth, begins to observe quite naturally. He begins to observe himself, observe levels of being, bodies, realms and experiences. In other words, he begins to observe his own activity. He begins to observe the world and its activities. He just randomly observes everything, everything that arises, internally, externally. And it is not a motivated process of self-observation especially. It is something that takes place without much self-consciousness, as a result of being put into the condition of Satsang. And listening to the Truth. A person begins just to look at things, sense something about it. He randomly becomes more sensitive to what is going on and this begins to become little bits of insight.
As soon as he listens at all to the Guru, he begins to grasp something, usually something about it is communicated and some sort of insight takes place whenever this listening takes place, hearing in some sense always accompanies listening, or almost invariably does. But it doesn’t become profound, radical re-cognition until this process of self-observation, that is the response to the hearing of Truth has gone on, become random, generalized. Insight begins to awaken in specific areas in your own life. When you grasp this basic notion, this basic idea, this fundamental criticism of ordinary experience, that I’m talking about all the time, awakens in you, in your own life, in the midst of this process of random self-observation, in the form of practical insight in relation to your own activities, so you see this avoidance of relationship. But you really see it. You see yourself doing it. In some way that perhaps is not even particularly obvious to anyone else.
You just begin to grasp, in more and more inclusive terms as well, your own process that corresponds to this avoidance of relationship. At first it’s more or less superficial and random insights. These insights become awakened in more fundamental areas of your life and these fundamental insights begin to blend with one another so that you begin to grasp the whole activity of avoidance of relationship, always in a more and more fundamental and inclusive way. And so when listening and hearing the Truth which becomes self-observation, has been developed to the point of critical insight, fundamental, inclusive insight, that is the next line up on page 173.
That’s “when understanding is fulfilled in the conscious, inclusive, and transforming cognition of experience and seeking, then meditation will become a real impulse.” In other words, this earlier process, this stage of the student, of one who listens to the Guru and begins to take on certain of the conditions, the fundamental condition being Satsang itself, it is fulfilled when insight has become so profound. And that involved this inclusive, transforming, cognition of experience and seeking. Inclusive, transforming, cognition. In other words, it’s not just a little insight. “Oh, yeah, I can see something, oh yeah, I can see that’s true about me.” That’s when you really see it, and when you can’t help but see it. And where you see it in everything you do. When it begins to haunt you. When it becomes a fundamental realization, that’s the stage when this process of understanding has been fulfilled in a truly significant way. That’s the recognition that begins real meditation. At this point then, meditation in the sense of which I am speaking of it, real meditation, enquiry, becomes a real impulse. It doesn’t at that point suddenly become something of which you are the master. It’s at this point that it becomes possible. And it’s at this point, that it begins to awaken in a person. It’s at this point that the use of this enquiry really begins to make some sense. It’s not something anymore so much that is alien to him, that he’s going to try out on himself. Insight has become fundamental in his own life. He understands himself in this fundamental way, in his own terms. Just so the enquiry, “Avoiding relationship?” at that point also becomes obvious. It’s also an extension of his own experience, his own intelligence.
“So, at this point, the individual should begin to enquire and he will begin to enquire. He’ll already be enquiring at this point. The insight is the enquiry. It’s the living intelligence. But not he can bring this living intelligence that is already understood to moment to moment experience, to moment to moment life and awareness. And “this is meditation”. This is true meditation. This is not the motivated exercise of someone who yet knows nothing. This is the unmotivated expression of one who already understands, in a genuine way. This activity of intelligence, of the living insight, this living, inclusive insight, is meditation. Even when it’s not done as a formal exercise. In other words that quality brought to moment to moment experience, apart from the formal times when you are sitting in Satsang at home in the morning and evening, or at the Ashram or whatever. Just the quality brought moment to moment to experience is also this meditation. But “when he has the impulse or when it is appropriate as well to do it formally and intensively he should do it as I am describing it,” as I have already described. So this is the middle stage then of this life in meditation.
The last paragraph reads though “when meditation has become radical consciousness, then abide in that consciousness, which is no-seeking in the heart. And when you act, remain in this natural meditation, or enquire, as you feel inclined.” In other words, this enquiry itself has a radical form, just as enquiry is radical meditation. Radical meditation has its own radical form. Its own radical fulfillment, perfect form. And it’s most perfect form, its very form, its very self, very Reality itself. That is the most perfect form of meditation. That is the most perfect form of insight. The most absolute form of enquiry is to abide as the Self, or to abide in its quality to one or another degree. So abiding in that intensity that is the heart, no seeking in the heart, very Reality, very Self, consciousness without dilemma, without separation, without implication. That itself in itself is the radical form of enquiry. The radical form of insight. And so you may abide in that condition, as that enjoyment moment to moment. And that itself is the highest form of meditation.
So when meditation has become full, and when enquiry has become random, infrequent, less and less frequently necessary, but when even the subtle forms of it, have become more and more random, less frequent, less necessary, and this fullness that is the characteristic enjoyment of one who enquires becomes more and more steady, living as that, not trying to remain as that. But when it spontaneously is already there, living as that is meditation. And one who is enjoying such enjoyments from moment to moment, simply does that. And he may also randomly enquire at times and do about all the other things appropriate to the life of understanding.
And the next section begins with a capsule statement of what understanding is as a critical comment on ordinary life. It’s a summation: “The world is seeking, nothing more.” From the point of view of understanding, this is all that is going on. This is all that human beings are up to, the search, the great search, which human life is the tradition of the great search. It’s one vast enterprise, based on the same activity, the same fundamental dilemma underlies all human activity and everything that you see human beings doing, even though they have peculiar differences, not just the uniqueness that is natural to every living being, the differentiation from others, the qualities that differentiate groups of people, nations, groups within nations, religious groups, spiritual groups, economic groups, racial groups. All the games of activity are all expressions of this great tradition which is the great search. The world is seeking. The activity that is the world is this search expressed in all of the ways that it is expressed. But nothing more. This is the criticism that understanding brings to life.
From the point of view of the search, the seeker can get very philosophical, he can sweat it out for a while and begin to get a little critical of how it usually goes and he can say, “Yes, we’re all sort of crazy. We’re all wavering, we’re all missing the mark. We’re all sinners. We’re all this or that.” And he can try to refine his seeking. Transform it perhaps in a way that looks to him to be the exact opposite of the search or the exact opposite of what he is ordinarily up to. The seeker is periodically cleaning his search, restoring it, getting back to zero and starting over again, either by purely negative ways, through suffering and death or getting back to zero by making himself lean again so he can start out fresh. The seeker very often is a revolutionary. He makes dramatic changes at times in his life.
But understanding is not a revolutionary activity or point of view. It’s always a radical one. A perfect turnabout. So from the point of view of understanding, nothing but the search is going on in life. Absolutely nothing, so it’s not a matter of refining what’s going on in the world and making it a little leaner and turning it towards some spiritual ideal perhaps rather than its worldly so-called materialistic ideal. It’s not a matter of just changing direction in any revolutionary or mediocre way. It’s a matter of a radical turnabout because the only thing there is in life ordinarily is the search and it only becomes something other than that when there is the most radical re-cognition, the most radical perception or understanding of the activity of life itself. So “the world is seeking. Nothing more.”
The next sentence defines seeking itself. “And all seeking is suffering and separation as conscious creations.” This is the nature of the activity of the search then, which is always motivated in dilemma. The search is always consciously, or responsibly creating suffering and separation as experience. The history of human experience is essentially one of suffering and separation in all of its myriad forms and these are its own creations. Suffering is not what is happening to the seeker and that’s why he is seeking. Suffering is what the seeker is creating. Now by consciously here I mean responsibly. If the seeker were to perceive or to examine his own suffering, examine the adventure of his life, he would discover that his suffering, his separation, his isolation, is his own creation, moment to moment. He’s doing it just as deliberately as any physical act.
So suffering and separation “are created by the perpetual activities of identification, differentiation and desire.” Seeking manifests in the forms of suffering and separation, isolation and dis-ease. But the qualities, the various kinds of suffering and separation that tend to manifest are themselves expressions of these fundamental qualities in conscious life, which are the qualities of identification, differentiation and desire, which I have talked about in a number of ways. Identification is this whole drama of separate self-sense, in its subtlest forms, not just as self-imagery. That self-imagery has more to do with the quality of differentiation or mind or thought. But self-sense prior to imageries. Just the self-sense itself, which is always what is dramatized when you become selfish, or working from the point of view of yourself as an entity. So these qualities of suffering and separation are built on first of all, the separate self-sense in all its form but as an essential quality, as an essential activity in consciousness. The fundamental contraction at one level of consciousness is this separate self-sense just as at the physical level it can take the form of a sensation, a cramp of some sort in the psyche it takes the form of the separate self-sense. That is why Maharshi says the “I” thought is the first thought.
The next activity of which suffering and separation are the manifestation is the activity of differentiation. Distinction, difference, other. Wherever there is an other, there is fear. This whole process of differentiation or thought. Examine the process of thought. Thought is just momentum of differentiation. Just as you are never, barely for an instant, without this separate self-sense of an omnipresent condition of consciousness, thought is also hardly ever interrupted in the waking state and it is always in the form of differentiation, that’s all thought is. Thought is differentiation. It’s the generation in consciousness of the sense of differences, either between two or more things. This over against this. Thought is always in the form of a distinction. So the separate self-sense or what we commonly call ego and now differentiation or thought.
So ego, thought and the third mentioned here is desire, which is generated by these two. What is the activity of the entity, separate one, in the midst of his endless activity of differentiation or thought. It is movement, motivated, desire, always motion. A particular motion. People don’t move non-particularly. You always move in a particular way. Movement is always directed. It’s always in the form of desire. Motion that is without desire is motion without particularity, without specific direction, or goal. So it’s absolute motion. Motion without desire. It’s perfect motion. It’s without a center, as well as without a goal. So it is the absolute being. The perfect God. That’s the only form of desirelessness ultimately. But desire as we ordinarily know it is particular motion, motivation. It’s this entity, separate self-sense, acting through some mode of differentiation, some quality of thought. So, the ordinary life from moment to moment is the separate self-sense involved in the qualities of thinking or differentiation. Moving, particularly motivated, living as desire.
This is the activity from moment to moment, of the ordinary man and he’s not doing anything else. This is the waking state. This is what individual life is in this plane of existence. It isn’t anything else. Nothing arises that’s not essentially included in this description of existence. But the results of this mode of activity are always forms of separation and suffering or limitation. That’s all that can be accomplished with that machine that I have just described. Nothing else can be manufactured by it other than limitation and separation because it always begins with that. It never assumes anything more fundamental than separation because the separate self sense is its germ. It never assumes anything more fundamental or inclusive than differentiation, than suffering or limitation because its very mind, its very psyche is separations, differences, distinctions and limitation. So all that desire elaborates is the drama of separation, which is the image of the separate self-sense or ego and the drama of limitations, which is the outward expression of the whole process of differentiation or mind. So all that is accomplished by the life of seeking, which is the only thing that is going on, is suffering and separation, limitation and distinction. This is the continual accomplishment and this is all that is accomplished and all activity is of exactly this same nature, and that is all that is ever done. Nothing else is ever done and nothing is ever realized except this fundamental quality that I am describing, of limitation, differentiation, distinction, separation, isolation. This is the only cognition. This is the only form of awareness. This is the one quality of conscious existence that we say beings enjoy, so-called, in this realm of life.
There are many, many qualities, so-called, or perceived and experienced, from hour to hour. That is why people continue to think that it’s all leading somewhere different and they continue to thrive on the search. But the more sensitive you become, the more you become aware that there is only one form of cognition or awareness and that is this structure of limitation. And that is all that is felt, truly, from moment to moment and it’s only when consciousness returns to this zero of the one thing known from moment to moment in the ordinary sense that this insight that I’m talking about arises that breaks the bondage. It’s only when you’ve become so limited, when you have no options truly. When you realize that the one quality of knowledge and experience and existence from moment to moment is as far as I’ve described it, it’s at that moment that you truly are confined. You have no games to play that you can depend on any longer because you know all games are essentially based on the same impulse, the same structure and realize ultimately the same vision, the same cognition. So when you are truly locked in to this one form of existence, which is ordinary suffering, the search. It’s in that entrapment, that isolation of real re-cognition, that the whole process is undone.
That’s why I continue to stress that there is a crisis in consciousness involved in spiritual life, because you must come to this zero of re-cognition in which you see the one thing cognized, the one state lived, in which you see the search as your very condition. It’s only when you’ve returned to this condition of suffering without recourse, it’s only when you have fallen into your own limitation, that the insight can arise as I have described it. So there must be a crisis. There’s a purifying dis-ease involved in spiritual life. There is a crisis. There (is) are qualities of suffering, so-called, or limitations, that are awakened in the spiritual process that cause discomfort and ultimately you must fall into perfect discomfort. You must die in exactly the way I’ve described it in the book. Not necessarily in such an event. Such a psycho-physical crisis that I described there. But something of that nature must arise. It must be a perfect crisis in consciousness in which this one form of ordinary knowledge is seen perfectly and known to be your condition from moment to moment. Knowing that you have no way out of this in the ordinary way. That the search does not lead outside of it. At that point all of the hopeful forms of the search, even the hopeful forms of it, become unavailable to you. Not just the negative forms. It’s not like a conversion experience where all of a sudden you are going to become good from now own. It is a moment of realization in which you know you have no options, no alternatives, either to be good or to be bad. Neither to exploit yourself nor to become spiritual. When you have no turning possible, when no direction means the Truth, and only when this crisis becomes your actual condition, when you truly are suffering, not when you are throwing your suffering away, not when you are forgetting it, but when you are truly realizing your suffering. And I mean this in a very literal way. You must realize your own suffering. You must have the profound vision and conscious realization of your own suffering. Your own ordinary condition. It is only at that point that this turn-about is generated.
Alright, so the next line in this particular paragraph reads, “These are the mechanism of the avoidance of relationship.” In other words, this whole affair that I am describing and using the term avoiding relationship or the avoidance of relationship to describe, is based on this tripartite or three-formed activity of identification, differentiation and desire. The forms of the avoidance of relationship are all forms of these three. Everything that is the avoidance of relationship is either a quality of the separate self-sense, a quality of differentiation or thought, or the quality of motivation or desire. There is nothing that is the avoidance of relationship nor is there anything that is human activity that is not one of these three qualities, one of these three functions. There is nothing that is ordinary human activity that is not one of these three.
“And these three are continuously performed in the various levels of being” or of life, psycho-physical life and prior to that even, “corresponding to what are called the chakras or the circuit of creative centers and the various bodies, realms and experiences.” In other words, this activity of identification, differentiation and desire, this activity of the avoidance of relationship, this activity of suffering and separation and limitation, is taking place at every level of existence, at every level of function. It is not as if we have some subtle functions that are free of this like the chakras or the internal system. It is not like its free so all we have to do is turn away from our gross existence into our internal life and we are away from all that ordinary activity of the search and suffering. No, this activity is performed in the chakras as well. Start meditating on the chakras and you will be doing the same thing that you are doing when you are walking down the street playing your number in the world. And you’ll find you are doing the same thing in dreams. That you are doing the same thing in deep sleep. That you are doing the same thing in all states of consciousness. In all worlds where you could possibly have experience.
That’s why it is said that those who after death, who because of their super purity or whatever, their qualities, are born, or manifest, have manifest experience in some higher worlds that appear like heavens compared to this world. They must still go through the process of realization or understanding, of radical knowledge and become liberated into the true form. Even though they are in these heavens, so-called, conditional heavens of the cosmos. No matter where you can go you will be doing the same thing. In my own experience, all the yogic career, and all the visionary phenomena, all the going to other worlds, and all of these fantastic experiences, they were all expressions of the same activity. This is one of the things that was overwhelming about it for me. Nothing was changed by these events. Nothing was changed by my appearing as a God in a golden world. I was doing the same thing. I was in the same state. I was having to go about the same thing that I would do here. I was having to go about the same process of intelligence, of understanding, of re-cognition, of realization, of liberation, of Truth. I was having to make the same demands on myself, the same inner tapas of spiritual discipline was required of me in some sublime world that was required of the in this world. Perhaps I was less likely to become involved in it in one of these sublime worlds because of the whole condition of consciousness that tends to be generated in such a state. It’s like being drugged or drunken or elated in a purely physical way. Your essential condition isn’t changed but your perceived condition has become such a pleasant distraction that you tend not to be intelligent. It’s like being born with a fantastic appearance, Cary Grant, Marilyn Monroe, or somebody with less problems than Marilyn Monroe, but born with absolute attractiveness and absolute ability. Really have it. To be born with millions of dollars, absolutely attractive, with all of the abilities that a human being could possibly generate. There is nothing to do. Nothing is required of you in order to survive, in order to be delighted, in order to enjoy what seems to be enjoyable in life. So the affair of real intelligence will be difficult to generate in such a person, unless he goes through a process of difficulties, of karmic transformation, or purification, through circumstance, or whatever. So it is like being born in one of the God worlds, that situation. And everybody has these experiences of knowing people who have got it made, who really haven’t got anything inside. Oh, a human archetype of a person who looks good, has everything and can do everything but who is really sort of nothing, nothing going on. No real intelligence. It’s like a computer. It hasn’t got fundamental intelligence. It’s functions are quite beautiful.
So this activity is being performed at every level of life and we don’t have a level of life to resort to that is Truth. We don’t have the chakras to resort to. We don’t have another world to resort to. We don’t have another state to resort to. In other words, the search is not appropriate. The search is always leading to an other place, an other state, in this life or outside of it. But it is always an other condition that this search is moving towards. But no matter where you could go, no matter what state you could enjoy as a condition the same activity would be going on, the same strategy, the same search, the same limitations are being manufactures. So we really don’t have any options. So the options, the usual traditional options of spirituality are no more the options of Truth than the options of a libertine who just exploits the capacity for perception and sensual enjoyment. Ultimately the only resort is this radical perception of Truth that is Truth itself. “The consciousness of the seeker is a constantly changing perception of dilemma.” But the cognition of the seeker from moment to moment is of dilemma. The dilemma is his motivation. The search is built on a prior dilemma, the search goes on because something is wrong, something is felt to be wrong. The problem already exists before you pursue the solution of it. So the search, which is the ordinary activity (of) in the human world is founded on this dilemma, this fundamental sensation of separation, distinction, opposition, limitation, a subtle sense that perhaps is not easy to describe or identify is at a the core of our ordinary experience and it is a subtle pain, a subtle limitation and aggravation, a dis-ease and this motivates ordinary conscious life. So the seeker’s consciousness or awareness or perception is just a continuous modification of this sensation. It is an elaboration of it. It is like one idea or basic form constantly elaborated or shown in different ways.
“And in all that he does” (still speaking of the seeker now), “he is always, only avoiding relationship.” No matter what he does, this is the one thing that he is doing and the one thing that he is always realizing is dilemma itself. So this paragraph, is in a capsule form, the basic criticism that the man of understanding has to wake of the world in general, of ordinary experience. This is the implication or the critical interpretation necessary for one who understands.
The next paragraph now apparently goes into discuss what understanding itself is. “Understanding is the recognition” or re-cognition, knowing again, “of seeking as the active principle of our lives.” So this is what understanding is in one sentence. That fundamentally is what understanding is. “It recognizes the effects of seeking, its qualities and sources, the areas of its operation and the methods of its functioning. It sees that seeking is the substance and entire meaning of every moment of our ordinary lives.” I don’t think there’s anything necessary for me to say more about that. It goes back to what I was saying in comment on this previous paragraph.
“But understanding itself”, it goes on, “since it is radically aware of seeking, is not seeking.” Understanding is not itself a form of the search. It is the radical re-cognition or knowing again of everything that is the search. Therefore “understanding is prior to and apart from every kind of seeking and the whole drama of ordinary life. Therefore, it not only sees all life as seeking, but enjoys itself as fundamental reality prior to all seeking.” So understanding is not simply the perception or obsession with this whole affair of suffering and seeking. A fundamental aspect of the intelligence that is understanding in relation to the processes of existence is a critical re-cognition of ordinary activity. But this understanding itself, the consciousness that is this understanding, that is enjoying this fundamental insight, is prior to all of the effects, and all of the activities, and all of this avoidance of relationship, this whole drama of ordinary life.
So this conscious enjoyment that is also manifesting as this intelligence is that very conscious enjoyment that precedes the search. It is that fundamental reality that exists, prior to and beyond all of the multiplications of suffering. So this understanding, this real consciousness, “perceives no seeking, non-avoidance, non-separation, unqualified relationship and unqualified consciousness.” These are the qualities in so far as they can be described. These are the qualities of real enjoyment, of radical consciousness, of our real nature, prior to the search, and apart from the whole life of seeking. They are no-seeking, just as ordinary life is only seeking. They are non-avoidance, just as ordinary life is only the avoidance of relationship. Non-separation, just as ordinary life is only separate self-sense and the creation of separation. Unqualified relationship, just as the avoidance of relationship is always realizing qualification or separation from relationship in the condition of relationship. And unqualified consciousness, just as the ordinary life is only endlessly qualified consciousness, endless multiplication of limitation, differentiation, though, separate self-sense, desire.
“The enquiry (“Avoiding relationship?”) is the form of understanding.” In other words, this intelligence, this real insight that develops in the process of Satsang, of listening and hearing and insight. Its form, its expression, if you could sculpt it or picture it, or say it, find an equivalent of it, it would be this enquiry. It is just an extension, an illumination of the whole affair that is this insight. It is the capsule of that whole intelligence. It is a potent form, much in the way that mantras are spoken of in itself contains the implication of the entire process of radical intelligence and realization, of real consciousness. So it is the very form of understanding, just as there is the very form of God or Reality. It is the expression of condition or form in which this understanding, this intelligence persists in one who understands.
“When understanding has in fact developed as insight, as a result of hearing the Truth and observing life, then it is brought to life directly in the form of enquiry.” This enquiry I am describing. Let me go back to this sentence again. “When understanding has in fact developed as an insight, as a result of hearing the Truth and observing life.” In other words, Satsang precedes this whole affair, Satsang is always its condition. Satsang is that condition in which self-observation develops in this precise way that I am describing. Life with the Guru, in other words, is the condition that becomes this knowledge, this understanding. Then this enquiry, this intelligence, is concretely and consciously, positively brought to life directly in the form of enquiry. In other words, when this insight is alive now we are at this middle stage of real meditation and the whole affair of listening and hearing has become an inclusive, profound understanding.
At this point, enquiry itself, may be brought to experience, to awareness, moment to moment. Just as before the person was sort of randomly observing life under the conditions of Satsang, now, having matured in Satsang, he can approach life itself with enquiry, as if enquiry were his very body, his very form. Now he approaches life in this form. And life comes through this form. Life moves through this form, this enquiry, this form of intelligence constantly, and it is continually transformed, obviated, undermined by what he is, which is this enquiry.
“The man who enquires is no longer seeking but continuously understanding seeking. Seeking is no longer the form of his actions or his consciousness. Understanding has become the form and action of his consciousness.” So this man who is living in the stage of real meditation is no longer a seeker. He is no longer resorting to other places, other states. In him there is this awakened intelligence, this awakened understanding of the whole ordinary process of existence in the way that I have just broken it down to you. And so the activity that is alive in him is no longer the search but this understanding of the search, this continuous penetration and obviation of ordinary activity.
“As understanding and enquiry continue, the forms of seeking and the whole enterprise of separative life pass before the one who enquires. And continually the sources of that action and the consciousness that identifies with them are brought to the condition of understanding. By degrees the man of understanding becomes less and less absorbed in the forms of seeking and understanding and enquiry lead constantly to the reality that is their foundation. Attention gradually ceases to be involved in the seeking and the understanding itself is and to which enquiry constantly leads attention.”
So this paragraph is getting us into the third or perfect stage of enquiry by describing what happens in one who has begun to enquire in this real way. “The forms of seeking and the whole enterprise of separative life pass before him.” This is in his formal meditation, in his life in Satsang — all the qualities that his life takes from day to day. The whole affair of the search passes before him. In the world, he sees it in other people certainly but he sees it more and more fundamentally in himself. Without himself being fully wedded to that activity, even though he is still alive in it and certainly animating it to a degree, this other function that is understanding is alive in him. Seeing and obviating — dissolving this affair as it arises. So he’s seeing it arise in the whole expanse of it on every level. Even on profound internal levels. Such a person may be going through all kinds of profound internal experiences but the process of enquiry and understanding, in a real sense, is taking place even in relation to those as they arise.
So “continually the sources of that action” — this whole action of avoidance “and the consciousness that identifies with them are brought to the condition of understanding.” One who enquires is bringing everything, spontaneously into the condition of understanding so that he is only understanding — perfectly understanding, radically understanding. “By degrees the man of understanding becomes less and less absorbed in the forms of seeking. There’s a dissolution at the point of contact between awareness and these manufacture forms. It begins to break down and to loosen so that the whole process of seeking absorbs him less and less. His alternatives absorb him less and less. “And understanding and enquiry lead constantly to the reality that is their function.” In other words, the process of understanding is really making itself obsolete the more perfect it becomes. So the whole process of enquiry is leading you to that reality that is the foundation of understanding itself — that is the foundation of enquiry itself.
“Attention gradually ceases to be involved in the seeking and the understanding of seeking.” Even the understanding of seeking, which is the primary operation of the middle stage of the life of understanding is dissolved in the perfect stage of enquiry. Attention ceases to be involved in it, in this constant enquiry in even its subtle forms and “it rests” — attention rests “in that which understanding itself is and to which enquiry constantly leads attention.” And this is that very Self — the Heart. “Finally there is no seeking, no enquiry, no understanding of seeking, no event. There is no-dilemma, no suffering, no-separation. There is no identification, no differentiation and no desire. There are no levels of being, no bodies, realms or experiences. These are no longer perceived apart. They are themselves lived or known as reality and consciousness.” So there is this stage of radical intuition that I’ve talked about and one might begin to pass into it, particularly during formal meditation in which there is perhaps the mystical experience, the quality in consciousness of no-seeking, no-dilemma — fullness but emptiness, no event. But this is not itself the perfect form of the life of understanding. The perfect form of it is somehow contained in the paradox implied in the last sentence, where it’s talking about all these levels.
First of all it says “there are no levels of being, no bodies, realms or experiences.” When there are no such things of any kind, this is more or less the mystical experience of dissolution, fullness without separateness. But these things themselves, “they are no longer perceived apart,” that’s the core of it. They no longer imply separation. They no longer imply the whole adventure of the search. They are themselves lived or known as reality and consciousness. In other words, the one who understands may enjoy the sublime internal retreat from the forms of existence but he also lives the forms of existence. Except that when he lives the forms of existence it makes no difference whatsoever. It doesn’t appear to him any different than samadhi — trance samadhi appears to him. He enjoys the same state in the ordinary condition and in the trance samadhi states. It’s all the same. He is always only enjoying this one reality. His cognition, the form of his cognition (if we can call it a cognition) or knowledge is constant just as the seeker’s knowledge is constant. The seeker seems to have many, many variations of experience but actually he is experiencing one thing repetitively — the sense of limitation, dilemma. Just so, the man of understanding lives in this world, in all worlds perhaps. His experience seems complex, vast, magnificent and yet he himself in enjoying the one thing — the one perfect form of knowledge continuously. So the ultimate form of understanding is not one of regression or retreat in itself, although there may be experiences in which the forms of perception or cognition are highly simplified or turn into mystical and sublime states, but this turning from states is not the ultimate form. This pure self-awareness that perhaps is sometimes suggested in the Vedantic literature in which you cut off all forms of manifest condition is not itself the perfect form of understanding. It is only one of the possible experiences.
The Truth of understanding is this one in which things are no longer perceived apart although they may arise. In other words, in which the ordinary implication of experience suffered by ordinary men by which they generate the life of seeking — this whole affair is not generated in the man of understanding. It’s already profoundly undermined in one who is enquiring of it as it arises moment to moment, but the man of understanding, the true man of understanding, is one in whom this is already perfectly accomplished so that no matter what arises it is as if enquiry were going on. It is perfected in him so that no matter what arises he is always seeing perfectly. But his life is a paradox. He may appear in many ways. He may use this form of enquiry occasionally. His internal life, in other words, can’t truly be described or understood apart from the enjoyment of the process itself. So the only way to understand the man of understanding is to become the disciple of the man of understanding — to go through the process yourself, then the whole affair becomes your own intelligence, your own process.
“Enquiry is not a process of self-analysis.” Now the person who reads this book superficially and decides he is going to try to enquire just as you might read any book of psychology or spiritual book in which a mantra is recommended or a technique is recommended and you just sort of off-hand in a motivated way take it on and start to use it. Well a person who starts to do this with enquiry will tend to use it as a form of self-analysis. In other words, he’ll go around asking himself “Avoiding relationship?” “Oh, yeah!” “Avoiding relationship?” “Oh, yeah!” And pretty soon he’s getting really messed-up by what he’s finding about himself. Self-analysis is always discovering, always examining yourself and finding yourself out. That’s what you’re doing with self-analysis. You’re discovering your hang-ups and you’re seeing the hand-ups themselves. Self-analysis is to analyze oneself, it’s to examine one’s own qualities and analyze them, break them down into their parts. It’s to see your life of avoidance, then as a drama. Anything you meditate on you tend to adapt to its quality, you tend to take on its quality.
So using “Avoiding relationship?” in a motivated way as a form of self-analysis, is a way of continually cognizing or meditating upon your limited state. And this will begin to become depression and more of the same — more of this separation. The person who in a motivated way starts to analyze himself or perform spiritual activity or to enquire of himself in this way eventually gets into a double-bind, eventually gets upset with the whole affair and says it’s nonsense. And such a person who sort of in an off-hand way approaches the man of understanding in the attitude of the search usually leaves, eventually becomes antagonistic — he must. He becomes antagonistic to the man of understanding because his way of approaching the man of understanding is like the motivated use of enquiry. It’s a way of meditating on your own negative qualities, qualities you already contain. So one who in an off-hand way approaches the Guru, not in Satsang, not in the true and submissive form of Satsang, but baldly, openly with motivation as a seeker — he enters into the, at least he external condition of Satsang and tends to have reflected to him then his own qualities. He tends to observe himself as anyone else would, but he just meditates on these things as they arise. He just sees them. He just begins to notice his negativity. He just begins to experience his negativity, his separation but without any intelligence, without illumination, without the light of the Guru, without the benefit of Satsang as his real condition. His approach to the Guru is a meditation on his own limited qualities. It’s a form of self-analysis, of self-knowledge with a small ‘s’ on the self.
But enquiry is not a process of self-analysis any more than Satsang is a way of examining yourself. “Its purpose,” enquiry here, “is not to draw the mind into all kinds of formulations and the deep self-consciousness of endless patterns. Enquiry is not ‘concerned’ with the nature and forms of avoidance. Nor is the analytical awareness of the whole pattern of one’s life of avoidance the same as understanding.” If you were to analyze your whole life and discover in a graphic detailed way the whole drama of the avoidance of relationship in your own case, and map it out and know it absolutely — and know it down the line no matter when came up. There it is and that’s that, and that’s that. And you could label it and number it and do everything. This perfect self-knowledge is not understanding. Even if it were perfect it would not be understanding.
Enquiry is not a form of concern for your negative pattern, for your life of the avoidance of relationship. Enquiry is not a way of meditating on your own negativity. It is not a way of continually being mindful of your separative life from moment to moment, as a purpose. Do that and you will become depressed. Only know that you are avoiding relationship and you will become depressed. You will become negative. You will have to break away or something. That’s why those who approach the Guru in a false way eventually become disturbed and leave because they become oppressed with what is awakened in this condition. They become oppressed by their own self-knowledge, by their own reflected tendencies so they must get out of that, and the only way they know to do that because they are not consciously involved is to get away from the Guru. That’s the solution. Get out this Ashram. Get out of this whole affair of spiritual life. That’s obviously what to do. And they begin to notice, sure enough, you know, as soon as they leave this place they go out and get drunk or go to the movies, or whatever. They live their ordinary life without any self-consciousness, any tendency to self-observation and of course the immediate effect of that is elation or relief because the negative quality is not being held up to consciousness. And so there is a momentary release gained by separating from the Guru and from spiritual life. When you approach spiritual life from a false point of view — as a seeker.
But those who understand, who approach truly are not meditating on their negative qualities. They are understanding what arises, which is quite a different thing. Understanding obviates the present condition and looks beyond it into the real condition. If enquiry does not enjoy the condition that precedes the avoidance of relationship, then it is not enquiry. Then it is motivated meditation on the qualities of avoidance. But true enquiry is a way of going beyond the condition of the avoidance of relationship at every moment and enjoying that condition which precedes it. So, in fact we could say enquiry is a way of meditating on Truth, on the real Self, on reality on which precedes this contradiction. Although it’s not a motivated meditation on the real Self. Try to do that and you will wind up in the same way – reflecting your own qualities again.
So “one who enquires remains attentive to the question “Avoiding relationship?” He actually asks it, in other words. He doesn’t just sort of throw it in there and let it do something. He actually asks the question. His mind takes on the form of this questions. He remains attentive to it. He truly asks it and follows it. “One who enquires remains attentive to the one who receives the question.” In other words, he asks the question. And follows it. Where does it go? Who is asked? What is asked? He goes with the questions. He at once takes on the form of the question and passes with the question toward its proper object, whatever arises at the moment, which is the next part of it – “the place where the question is received.” He follows the question toward the place where it is received. He follows the question into the depth of his own awareness, which is the one of whom the question is asked and he allows the question to move into the areas that are arising in the present moment which have an affinity for this question, this enquiry “and to what arises.” In other words, the question is asked, there is enquiry, it moves into the very one in whom this enquiry is alive, into the areas of activity toward which this question is appropriately moving and finally to the qualities themselves that are arising, that are the proper connection of this question at this moment. In other words, he is really involved in the enquiry. It’s arisen in him in the real way. It’s real meditation in him in the way I’ve described not just a motivated use of this question. So it’s alive in him. It’s a form of his own intelligence and when it arises in him in formal meditation or randomly throughout the day, he’s actually involved in it and he’s involved with all the qualities that are associated with it.
Until something arises, this enquiry is asked. “Until something meets it, until it falls into contact with something that is arising, he only remains in the enquiry in its place.” In other words, he remains in that condition of enquiry. He enquires and he’s actually living in that enquiry. And he remains in this state until something arises, something is met, something is perceived in the field of life and consciousness that will interact with this enquiry. When this enquiry discovers what is appropriate to it, when some form of the avoidance of relationship arises and contacts it and is known through this form of enquiry. Until that actually happens, he just abides in that condition. And one who sits in real meditation is constantly enquiring. He’s constantly in the state of enquiry. He may periodically verbalize or mentally verbalize this question, but he remains in that condition throughout the time he’s sitting there because this is his very intelligence. This is his actual state. This is his conscious state. Everything else is the search. But he as one who understands is always in this condition of enquiry. And periodically he generates it in the mind as a real question and truly follows it into the whole affair of existence at that moment. So he’s always alive in enquiry.
“Finally, by his remaining in the enquiry,” by abiding in enquiry, constantly and randomly periodically generating it in the mind; “finally by his remaining in the enquiry what arises will reveal itself to consciousness as the avoidance of relationship.” In other words, by his abiding in this enquiry, what arises? And things are always arising, that’s all that’s occurring. Forms of identification, differentiation and desire are always being generated. So the qualities, some are very external, very much in life; others very subtle, but the qualities that are always being generated will reveal themselves to this enquiry. They will reveal themselves as what they are to this intelligence. “It makes no difference what arises or what is the character of the particular form of avoidance for as soon as it is consciously recognized one ceases to exist in that form of separation and avoidance.” In other words, the enquiry is not there to become mindful of the forms of avoidance that may arise in themselves and to meditate on them and to become completely obsessed with them and to think about them and feel them and see how really terrible you really are, and really get involved in what you’re up to — to reflect it in the mind and become completely overwhelmed with it. No, it makes no difference what these forms are. You are in the form of enquiry. That is your form. And whatever is arising will reveal itself as such — as the avoidance of relationship to you. They will be obviated by your own condition, your own intelligence as they arise. So the truth of enquiry is not meditation on your qualities or analysis of your limited self because wherever there is true enquiry whatever arises is obviated, is re-cognized and at that instant, wherever there is re-cognition it ceases to exist. This quality in you ceases to exist as a form of limitation and separation. It ceases to create that condition.
So where enquiry is actually alive whatever arises ceases to limit you in the ordinary sense. Enquiry is a form of the enjoyment of what is prior to the avoidance of relationship, not for becoming mindful of the avoidance of relationship itself. So there’s really no concern in him for all these things he may discover in himself. He no longer really cares. And that’s a sign of one who’s mature in this spiritual work. It’s a sign of a disciple. He’s no longer really concerned for all the crap that may be in his life. He can tolerate seeing anything and he will see everything. Everything is in everyone. And you will discover every kind of negative thing in yourself. Everything is there. Ultimately, absolutely everything is in you. So the disciple gains the strength in sadhana, the capacity for knowing himself in any kind of idiotic form that may arise. So he’s no longer concerned. He no longer is wishing, you know that this real heavy one won’t come up, you know. And he just sort of delights in these little forms of avoidance. Oh, yes, you know. These little gentles things like stealing bubble gum when he was a kid and all. He no longer wants to maintain these little gentle, you know, cognitions of his own sins. He no longer is concerned for what arises, what reveals itself to him. Because whatever arises is dissolved. It’s implications are undone, absolutely, effortlessly, in one who is intelligent in this way, in one who is this intelligence. Not just one who asks this question, but one who is the intelligence of which this question is the extension.
So this one is not concentration in the recognition of the analysis of avoidance itself. Instead one becomes aware of relationship. Relationship as the condition — non-separation as the condition, not this perception sensation of contraction and limitation. But not that. Not this contraction, this separation from others but already no-contraction. Already no-limitation. Already relationship or contact without limitation. And already the sense of relationship without its being a limitation. Unqualified relationship. Unqualified existence without this contraction. This is the sense that arises in one who enquires. “The unconscious image of separation”, which is what the ordinary man is constantly meditating on, this separate-self sense, “is replaced by the conscious awareness of relationship, of unqualified, present relationship,” of relationship as your condition, your prior condition, the condition you are already in prior to this contraction, this separativeness, this multiplication, this dis-ease, this search. Prior to that is unqualified relationship or no-contraction. And when this unqualified relationship is enjoyed most perfectly, it is like desire that no longer has an object or a source. It is a perfect exploded sphere. Absolute, unqualified relationship is also therefore perfect God realization. It’s not me in relationship, cause where there is the understanding in precisely this sense I am describing, this me is also understood. All these qualities that arise, which are all forms of limitation or separation, are all dissolved in the living intelligence that is such a one. So his enjoyment ultimately becomes the perfect, what is original, what is true, what is already the case, the real form. So unqualified relationship is simply a pair of words I am using here to describe this sense that is fundamental to one who enquires. Its perfect or radical realization is of this nature. The God form.
“Unconscious avoidance does not merely become self-conscious, as in analysis.” One who analyses himself or who is being analyzed by another mainly becomes self-conscious of his unconscious life of avoidance or separation. “Oh, yeah”, he sees all that stuff about himself. “Oh, yeah.” And maybe he gets a little motivation, a little bit of ease as a by-product of this by which he may modify his behavior in some way. But essentially self-consciousness is what he has gained. Self-meditation is what he has gained. Self with a small s. So this is not the enjoyment that is alive in one who understands.
“Rather the one who avoided relationship before becomes aware of that from which he was separated.” So one who is enquiring is not meditating on his limitation but on that from which he is always separating himself. That condition which precedes this avoidance is what he is meditating on whereas the seeker, the self-analyzer is always seeing this limitation. He never turns to the other and prior condition. But this prior conditions is what the one who enquires truly is enjoying. So he is not becoming dismal. He is not becoming more and more negative, more and more obsessed. He is always becoming more alive, more free. The implications of ordinary life affect him less and less, which wouldn’t be the case if he was simply analyzing himself.
“Instead of remaining unconscious in avoidance and separation, he becomes conscious in relationship.” So the ordinary man is unconscious in this whole process of avoidance and separation and one who analyzes himself a little becomes self conscious in avoidance and separation. But one who understands becomes conscious in relationship, which is that condition which precedes this avoidance, this contraction, this separation, this whole drama that I have been describing.
So this last paragraph, again gets into the descriptions of the perfect form of understanding again. “Over time enquiry realizes the form of Reality”, and what I mean by the Form of Reality is what we talked about last week. Amrita Nadi, the intuition of the Form of God, the very Reality. This is what enquiry ultimately realizes. By enquiry here I don’t just simply mean sitting down and asking yourself this question. I mean this whole process of intelligence in Satsang that I have been describing. That’s what I mean. And one who lives and becomes this intelligence in Satsang realizes the Form of Reality. Realizes God, realizes the perfect intuition as his very condition and the Form of Reality contains the sense of unqualified relationship. The sense of unqualified relationship, which is awakened and generated in one who enquires, is itself a form of intuition, of the perfect quality, the perfect Reality. So when the sense of unqualified relationship becomes perfected, it becomes the Form of God itself.
So in our work, Satsang and this process of intelligence and the spiritual process that is generated in Satsang is that whole process that becomes perfect awakening and God realization. We don’t have to insert within it any of the usual motivations of the search, the techniques of the search, the methods of the search. This process itself, of Satsang, generates the whole affair of realization, and we don’t have to throw into it any techniques along the way to create the realization. This intelligence itself and the force of Satsang that is generated within it creates all of the phenomena of spiritual life.
“One sees that enquiry is directed to the heart and is received in the heart.” I was saying before about seeing where the question goes and the one to whom it goes. Well, ultimately, it begins to be discovered in one who enquires, that it goes to the Heart. The unqualified root of one’s consciousness is where it goes to, not to a separate one. But first it’s generated and it seems to be received by yourself as this thinking one, in some way. You respond to it by seeing the forms of avoidance in some activity in life, the way you treat your wife or your husband or something. At another time, the you that receives it and the place to which it goes may be in a much more subtle kind, prior to the thoughts and spiritual manifestation inwardly as such. But ultimately it is discovered that what always receives the enquiry and what also always generates the enquiry is of an unqualified nature. It’s the very Heart. “The Heart is realized to be the point where consciousness enters into relationship.” And here I’m also talking about this opening on the right, the causal, or what becomes the turiya state. What is enjoyed as the turiya state, the fourth state prior to waking, sleeping and dreaming. It is from there, from within this subtle, unqualified nature, or Self-nature (with a capital S), that one enters into the qualities of relationship or conditional experience. Now it’s just that, the Heart is closed ordinarily, it is made unconscious, and we are moved into the patterns of life itself without Self-consciousness. So everything is just the search, it’s just differentiation, it’s just suffering.
But when the Heart is awakened, when the turiya state becomes your state while in the waking state, while in the dreaming state, while in the sleeping state, when it is your constant state, then it is also enjoyed as that point from which one enters into the forms or qualities of conscious existence. So, if one exists as the Self, in the turiya state, as the Heart, as the very Self while in the waking state or in the other qualities of existence, one sees then as the very Self, the very Heart. One doesn’t enter into the limitation or the dilemma that’s implied in the ordinary man, because in him the Heart is closed, the Heart is hardened. In the Old Testament, it’s constantly being said of Kings and such people, that their heart was hardened. It’s a very good word. The hardening or contraction of that vehicle of consciousness by which we enter into the three ordinary states is closed in one who is without understanding, without real intelligence or consciousness, in other words, then one who is conscious, one who understands, who is awake, he lives from the Heart and as the Heart. And he sees that it is from this point that one is always enjoying the various conditions of relationship, but without limitation.
“Then one recognizes the presence.” This is one of the qualities of experience that re generated in spiritual life. There is the sense of the presence, the presence of the Guru, the presence of God, the presence of Self, however it is named, whatever qualities of assigned to it.
This is one of the qualities that is generated in one who is beginning to enjoy the fundamental aroma of the life of understanding. When one recognizes the presence, consciously senses it, senses life as being surrounded always and lived, “the whole Form of the relationship over against consciousness”, the God-presence, the God-reality by which we are contained. “But at last this direct cognition becomes Self-awareness.” In other words, the limitation that’s implied in this earlier phase of the sense of God, or of Reality, the earlier stage still contains some sense of being limited, or being differentiated from the Presence the real Presence.
But at last this cognition of the presence of God or of Reality becomes Self-awareness. You begin to enjoy God without a difference. There is a phase from which we pass from a period of the enjoyment of the presence with difference in relationship to the presence and then pass into the stage of self-awareness in the Vedantic sense, in which we have no sense of the fullness at all, we have no sense of manifestation, of limitation, in which we’re constantly meditating on our own nature. But there is a further elaboration of that, the perfection of that, when we not only enjoy the Heart or the intuition of our own nature, but in which we enjoy the very Form, the perfect Form, the Divine Form of which our own nature is also an expression. “When all avoidance of relationship subsides in the Heart, and unqualified relationship is enjoyed directly, then the ordinary trend of consciousness is reversed or dissolved. The one who appears in relationship becomes aware of himself, his real, present nature and Presence as Reality.” He becomes aware of himself as that Presence. Not the limited me, that Franklin is this God among men, separate from all others, who has overwhelming power that nobody else has and never can have. It’s not the ego becoming expanded through meditation or pseudo-mystical experience, but the genuine, radical revolution in consciousness, in which the limited self is dissolved in perfect intuition. The perfect knowledge of God is one in which the self, (small s) the limited self, is unknown, undone, obviated in understanding.
So when the mystic, the true mystic, is saying, “I am God”, or words to that effect, he’s making an absolute statement about his perfect condition and the condition of all other beings. But certainly while he continues to function in the world, he is functionally unique, because men are only seeking, men are only suffering. Such a one appears unique, he appears like God incarnate and that differentiates him from all other beings. But when he is making such a statement, he is not differentiating himself from all other beings. He is identifying himself with all other beings. And that’s the difference between true awareness that’s reflected in such a statement and pseudo-mysticism of the seeker who is really just expanding his self-awareness behind these claims. “Then the thing he enjoyed before as unqualified relationship is realized to be his own nature and form.” We get another statement about the perfection of intuition. At some point, that which he felt he was in relationship, in some way, that included differentiation in a subtle sense, this very presence he realized ultimately is his very form, it is also very God, it is very Reality.
Life of Understand Series – Table of Contents