THE HEART IS THE HOLE IN THE DONUT
Bubba Free John
June 23, 1976
BUBBA: Oh yea, most born entities go through the cycle of identification with appearances quite naturally. So birth is the, even before birth, conception, begins a period of adaptation. Because even the period of gestation of the fetus represents part of the desiring of the entity. So it maintains close association with that process. But where’s there’s some special uncommon destiny involved, very often, the consciousness takes up its hold on the body only at a later stage of its development when it’s at lease available to some higher intention.
ANDREW: Bubba, would the same sort of thing be true of somebody like Maharshi?
BUBBA: Well, it would be different in everyone’s case because everyone has a different function in particular and different kind of psychic integration necessary.
NINA: So when you talk about release Bubba, that means, it seems like what you’re saying puts a whole new light on release. It is release of that, of all of that gross life of the body.
BUBBA: Right, you’re all busy developing yourselves you know, and feeling better about it all, but the sacrifice of God Realization is one in which you completely yield the mind, the body, the emotions, the life, all form entirely. Whereas you’re looking for a better arrangement for this entity. But God Realization is sacrifice. A complete yielding of your position. Having no position. Having no destiny. No form. None. You know how you snap into consciousness every now and then when you’re just about to go to sleep. Because you for a moment, lose the sense of the body, and yet are aware of it, and you jerk back into the body. Well, that’s not uncommon. Everyone, even the enlightened ones have such an experience apparently. But this tends to inform your consciousness. It really describes your consciousness. Because you identify with that, have motive in that position. An so for the usual man religion, spirituality, is a matter of creating a better circumstance for that point of view. You know, that ego. But actually enlightenment is not that at all. The process of spirituality in its perfect sense is complete dissolution of the bodily point of view, of the mental point of view, the born point of view, the form of existence. Having no form of existence. Completely releasing it. Having no position whatsoever. Complete death relative to the forms of manifestation. And yet, when this process actually occurs, death in the conventional sense ceases to bind. And there’s the realization in consciousness of the condition of existence that transcends birth., That has nothing whatsoever to do with it. That’s not limited to it That has no destiny. But the usual man is not interested in giving up the body, giving up the self, giving up the mind. He wants a position. And he’s interested in defending that position. Of providing it with as much of a consoling input as he can realize.
The Guru in human form doesn’t have a conventional function. Conventionally people want to use the Guru as some sort of symbol, some sort of cultic figure, at the center of their obsessed life, that makes them feel a little better and talks them into sadhana, and all that sort of stuff, from day to day. But that’s only a secondary possibility inherent in one who is merged in the divine reality.
The process of spirituality in its perfect sense is complete dissolution of the bodily point of view, of the mental point of view, the born point of view, the form of existence. Having no form of existence. Completely releasing it. Having no position whatsoever. Complete death relative to the forms of manifestation. And yet, when this process actually occurs, death in the conventional sense ceases to bind. And there’s the realization in consciousness of the condition of existence that transcends birth. That has nothing whatsoever to do with it. That’s not limited to it. That has no destiny. But the usual man is not interested in giving up the body, giving up the self, giving up the mind. He wants a position. And he’s interested in defending that position. Of providing it with as much of a consoling input as he can realize.
You must be completely free of the self position. The egoic gross and subtle. As much of a surrounding. You know, a desirable surrounding as he or she can grasp. But the spiritual process is one in which all of that is undone. In which there is no such surrounding. In which it is spontaneously sacrificed. And that’s the only so-called position because it’s not a position. It’s not a place. But it’s the only position, if we can use that word, in which there is no bondage. There is no limitation. There is no threat. It’s a completely absurd condition of existence relative to this life. Because in this life you must defend your place, you must secure your position from intrusions of circumstance. But in the God Realized condition, there are no conditions, no forms that need to be maintained.
Everything is discarded. Everything is completely meaningless, absurd, and stupid. Which is what it really is. Because there would be no reason whatsoever for you to appear in this form if it weren’t for your stupidity and unconsciousness and obsessiveness. Your mate desiring certain kinds of consoling conditions. If it weren’t for that, there would be no reason whatsoever for this birth. That’s the only reason you’re here. It has no meaning whatsoever apart from that. The only reason for this birth is to satisfy certain unconscious inclinations which need to be repeated in the form of experiences. Overcome that and this world means nothing. Absolutely nothing. It’s just a commercial.
At least this is the way it seems to me, but what do I know? I’m no authority on this sort of thing. (LAUGHTER) How did I get involved in this anyway? (LAUGHTER)
Do you all know what an immense burden it is to carry on an existence from day to day. There’s something about it this promising, it implies, waking up and being somebody implies a destiny of some sort that has pleasure associated with it. The fulfillment of an idea has a pleasure associated with it. And that’s all that a born existence is. You happen to feel identified with this body, and psyche and so forth. And it carries with it the implication of pleasures, consolations, enjoyments, fulfillments. And that is what binds you to it. But you don’t consider the inherent suffering also which appears one-to-one, face-to-face with all of the consolations of the same birth. Hum?
When you begin to become aware of the entire field of possibility, and experience of your born existence. That’s when you begin to realize the inherent suffering of birth. Of mere existence in form. Until that time you begin to, you think in base terms of your god-created life, or you know, your universe, mother-nature created life, however you describe it. You think of it in essentially positive terms, against odds. But when you truly see the nature of your life. What your experience is, in any moment. Then you begin to be released from your attachment to the fulfillment of existence. And it’s then that you may begin to do sadhana, sadhana in the form of the Way of Divine Communion.
STUDENT: Even then, Bubba, it seems like the only recourse is in your company.
BUBBA: No, this isn’t true, I’m a retired person. I mean obviously there is some value in intimate association with the man of understanding, or some such person. It can quicken the affair of one’s release, one’s sadhana. The Guru in human form doesn’t have a conventional function. Conventionally people want to use the Guru as some sort of symbol, some sort of cultic figure, at the center of their obsessed life, that makes them feel a little better and talks them into sadhana, and all that sort of stuff, from day to day. But that’s only a secondary possibility inherent in one who is merged in the divine reality. It’s not an obligation of such a one. But in the passage from maturity in God-Realization to dissolution in the Divine, a function arises in the apparent individual that can serve others.
Bubba Free John is an expression of such possibility. And his function is to communicate this Way. And in the time in which that communication was the burden of this one, the spiritual function through this body, and so forth, was very important. Then there comes a time in the maturity of Sahaj, in which the obligation that all beings represent, in terms of teaching, and transforming, loses all of its weight. As you will all see when such enjoyment is yours. And it ceases to be at all meaningful to transform one more human event. Or any event whatsoever. it is no longer an obligation; it is no longer interesting. It’s no longer necessary. And at such a point, that apparent individual who had a spiritual function for people in general for a time begins to drop back out of the picture of human experience.
This is not only true in the case of Bubba Free John. You see the evidence of that in his case now, but it’s true in the case of all devotees who begin to enter into the stages of God-Realization for which the Way of Divine Communion, and the Way of Understanding are the preparation, and begins to mature in the process of Sahaj samadhi. And gradually they begin to lose their grasp of the spiritual process that’s significant for everyone else. And so as devotees mature, they drop out, not because of any strategy to become spiritual. They just forget about it. I mean literally forget. They stop noticing it. It is not intention of theirs. You know, now I should drop it, they just forget it. Whenever they remember it, they go back to it, but they forget it. And the Divine itself, in the most absolute sense, has completely forgot you, (LAUGHING) You are in a state of being forgotten by the Divine and that is what we call birth. When you’ve been left to your own device, your own generation of experience.
Well, the beginnings of the way out of that is to remember the Divine. That’s your responsibility. It’s not the responsibility of the Divine to remember you, but it’s your responsibility to remember the Divine. And when you begin to remember the Divine, then you begin to enter into all kinds of intimacy with the Divine in which the Divine seems to love you and remember you and deal with you and so forth, and that’s a genuine enough aspect of the process of spiritual practice. But then at the most mature state of God-Realization, in which you are not absorbed in the Divine, but in which you are completely forgotten in the Divine yourself, which that is your very condition. And also your own outward demonstration of helping and service, sadhana and all that, begins to fall away. Because there’s no entity there. There’s no purpose. Threats just release. In which you completely forget all this insanity. It is really insanity. This dumb ass world. You know what I mean?