Native Transcendental Ecstasy

BUBBA: I want to consider with you all why human
beings seem to be obsessed with the satisfaction of physical
desires – desires for food and sex, vital contact,
acquisition in the world – and why they are compulsively and
constantly involved in conceptual thinking and daydreaming
and hallucination. I am not simply asking why people do
these things themselves. It is bodily natural to eat and to
have sex and so forth. But why do human beings become
obsessively and chronically involved in such things? Why do
people chronically desire the satisfaction of sex, for
instance? Sex is one of the human functional possibilities
that may be satisfied, indulged, enjoyed on occasion, but
why is it constantly desired? Likewise one may appropriately
think, but why is thought constant? Why are we always
involved in the things that we desire at the grossest level
of existence, at the physical, emotional, and mental levels
of existence?

If you observe yourself in times of critical obsession,
when you may become literally disturbed by your desire for
something – if you observe yourself in your living and your
desiring and your satisfying yourself over a period of time,
you may begin to see a pattern. There are times of critical
obsessiveness, and there are other times of relative relief
from obsession. If you observe yourself in these cycles, you
will begin to see that something other than the desirability
of gross physical and mental objects is involved in the
development of obsession. Obsession is not the result of the
desirability of the things that obsess you. As a matter of
fact, when you actually satisfy obsessive desire, you do not
realize a level of enjoyment comparable to your obsession.
Rather, you remain obsessed. You may exhaust yourself
temporarily, but you move back into the pattern of desire
almost immediately. Therefore, something other than the mere
desirability of what we seek creates our obsession with
it.

Obsession is the negative result of the frustration of
another desire. You may notice that it is when a critical
sense of frustration overwhelms you in your ordinary life
that you become obsessively oriented toward satisfying
yourself with sex, for example. Just so, it is the
frustration of a fundamental yearning in us that produces
obsession in general, or the obsessive orientation toward
the satisfactions that may be derived from exploitation of
the body mind. It is not merely that we have become sexually
obsessed – we are obsessed in general, or obsessively
related to all functions and aspects of the body-mind. We
are all more or less obsessively oriented toward the
body-mind in every moment.

When you sit quietly for a moment, you notice that you
are constantly thinking, constantly imagining, constantly
remembering. If you become aware of the movement in your
feeling in any moment, you see that you are constantly
involved with reactivity, constantly desiring physical
satisfaction, sexual satisfaction, food satisfaction, the
satisfaction of various kinds of company, acquisition,
success. You basically represent an unending stream of
desiring that is oriented toward the ordinary things of the
body-mind.

The obsessive orientation to the body-mind itself, our
fear of death, our desire to experience intense pleasure as
constantly or as frequently as possible through the
exploitation of the body-mind – this obsessive
identification with the body-mind is the symptom of the
frustration of the fundamental yearning of our existence.
And that fundamental yearning, we may observe, is not a
yearning toward the experiential possibilities of the
body-mind at all. On the contrary, it is the yearning for
transcendence of the body-mind.

There is no satisfaction, no pleasure that may be
realized or acquired through exploitation of the body-mind,
that in any way, approximates the enjoyment of the
transcendence of the body-mind. But the enjoyment of such
transcendence has become so profoundly suppressed and
frustrated in us, as a result of the whole complex of our
experiencing and all of our obsessive attachments in
general, that we find it impossible to fulfill this
yearning. We find it impossible in any moment to transcend
the body-mind altogether, simply and naturally. Therefore,
when that yearning that is fundamental to the heart of the
body-mind and to the body-mind in its totality is
frustrated, we dramatize the symptoms of this frustration by
pursuing pleasure through the obsessive exploitation of the
body-mind itself. Since the body-mind cannot be transcended,
it becomes the fundamental instrument through which we seek
enjoyment.

However, we will never realize that perfect enjoyment
through the exploitation of the body-mind, because enjoyment
lies only in ecstasy. And ecstasy is not realized through
the finite exploitation of any possibility but rather
through the transcendence of possibility. Our ordinary
activities can become ecstatic, or forms of God-Communion,
but only if we begin to recognize the fundamental yearning
of our existence and find a way to fulfill that yearning.
Once we begin to enter into a Way of life wherein we realize
the fulfillment of the yearning of the whole body-mind,
which is the yearning of the heart, then our ordinary
activities cease to be obsessive. Our relationship to the
body-mind itself ceases to be obsessive. It becomes natural
and orderly. The body-mind becomes a vehicle for ecstasy,
not obsession, not frustration, not complaint, not agony,
not inherent suffering.

Our very Condition is Absolute, Transcendental, Blissful.
It is without form, without limits. It is the Condition in
which consciousness is not different from energy or Absolute
Bliss. But in our living we become associated with
possibility, function, individuation, the mechanics of the
body-mind, the mechanics of experience. And the message we
acquire through that association is essentially that we are
only this body-mind, we are to struggle as it, we are to
survive as it, and we are to fulfill the demands of the
world through our identification with it.

The message to which humanity is committed and which is
communicated to all of its new-born is not a sublime and
transcendental message. It is an ordinary message, which
interprets our identity to be the body-mind itself, this
mortal form of existence in which consciousness is
completely superficial and which is identified only with the
most superficial dimensions of the whole realm of nature –
the mechanical, elemental, and conceptual dimensions. Our
own consciousness is made unavailable to us, except in its
most superficial form, by the associations we have in the
world. We rarely contact the dimensions of our consciousness
that are wider, more free, more fluid, more energetic than
the daily superficiality of bodily experience and
conceptualization. Such contact occurs when we sleep, when
we dream, or, perhaps, when we take alcohol or drugs or use
some other instrument to heighten the pleasurable sense of
the transcendence of the body-mind, or in moments of
success, moments of sudden luck, or even in the ordinary
moments of sexual pleasure and the pleasure of food-taking.
Our capacity for pleasure is designed by society and nature
so that on very few occasions can we attain even a partial
sense of ecstasy. Only certain pleasures, essentially in the
realm of ordinary experience, are permitted, and they are
what keep us functioning more or less regularly each day so
that we can fulfill our bodily, emotional, and mental role
in the world.

But by being confined to this round, our native
enjoyment, our native inclination, our transcendental role
in the midst of Infinity is suppressed, lost, forgotten. Any
gesture toward that native enjoyment is dogmatically opposed
by the influences of the world. Therefore, we look more and
more obsessively, to find satisfaction by exploiting the
bodily, emotional, and mental possibilities of ordinary
life. But the source of this obsession that is the ordinary
design of life is the frustration of our fundamental
enjoyment, the ecstasy of our natural, or native,
Condition.

By observing yourself in the ordinary round, you can come
to realize this insight, this understanding, in every one of
your moments. And every one of your moments is more or less
obsessed, either with some particular possibility of the
body-mind or simply obsessive attachment to the body-mind
itself. What you want to enjoy is the native state of
ecstasy, absolute transcendence of limits, or freedom, but
in every one of your moments you are fundamentally
frustrated. If you are free, however, if you are already
blissful, you may also continue to function in the realm of
nature, as it is given to you to function in the present
human condition, but your association with this body-mind is
of another kind. If you are already blissful, you see, then
you do not need the satisfaction of any desire in order to
be happy, in order to feel pleasure. All of your ordinary
functions become the instruments of an already existing
fullness.

Apart from such ecstasy, we exist in negative association
with the realm of nature and with the phenomena of the
body-mind. Thus, we will constantly suffer and we will
constantly demonstrate the symptoms of the frustration of
Divine Freedom, or Native Blissfulness. All of our actions,
all of our states of mind and feeling, will be symptomatic
of that frustration. They will be obsessive, negative, and
self possessed. You, in your ordinary experiencing, can
testify to the states of suffering and frustration. You
must, through inspection of that frustration and suffering,
through the consideration of this argument, come to the
point of insight into the root cause of this round of
obsession.

Now you are looking for the cause of your suffering. You
are looking to be relieved by examining the phenomena of
experience themselves. You are looking to create an
arrangement in the body-mind itself that is satisfying. But
the body-mind is a limitation. The body-mind is mortal.
There is no way to be ecstatic and at the same time to be
identified with something mortal. Ecstasy by definition
means “to stand outside oneself,” to stand outside what is
mortal, to transcend it, to be greater than it, but also to
include it and to realize it as a superficial aspect of what
you are consciously and absolutely. If you cannot find a way
to realize this transcendental ecstasy, there is no way that
you can be happy. You will simply be obsessed, obsessively
pursuing pleasure in this life and obsessively identifying
with this mortal body-mihd. You will be obsessively
thinking, obsessively complaining, obsessively reacting,
obsessively desiring. You will be obsessively depressed.
Your capacity to love, to radiate in the world, will be
profoundly limited. Life will always be problematic.

Thus, the key to human realization is not to find some
way to become absolutely fulfilled. Rather, the key to human
realization is to find a way to transcend the condition in
which we exist. Such realization is not an artificial
discovery, not an artificial attainment. This ecstasy is
native to us. It is not created by stimulation and self
indulgence. It is not created by the indulgence of any
aspect of our functional life. Neither is it realized by
separating ourselves strategically from this functional
life. To be ecstatic is to realize the Transcendental
Condition of this functional life while at the same time
continuing as this functional life for its term. If you can
enter into this Transcendental Consciousness, then your
daily existence will become ordinary, natural, pleasurable,
something of which you are the master, not by virtue of
living as an independent self, but by virtue of your
sacrifice, your surrender – by virtue of God Communion. If
you cannot find a way to be ecstatic during the day, you
see, your whole day will be spent obsessively, and you will
constantly look to the ordinary things of life and of the
body-mind to console you.

The Enlightened One, by contrast, does hot need
consolation. The Enlightened One functions quite naturally
in the world with humor, having realized a consciousness
that is not superficial. There is no way that one may be
mentally oriented and also enjoy the Transcendental
Realization of existence. One must pass beyond superficial
consciousness, beyond the consciousness that feels
identified with the body.

As one matures in the practice of this Way of Divine
Ignorance, or Radical Understanding, one begins to
differentiate the ordinary phenomena of the mechanical and
temporary body-mind from the Radiant Transcendental
Consciousness. It is not that one chooses the Radiant
Transcendental Consciousness and thereby excludes the
phenomena of the body-mind. Rather, the phenomena of the
body-mind are realized to be only modifications of
Consciousness. They are not things in themselves. They are
not necessary and they do not contain Bliss. Rather, they
are the modifications of Bliss. They are not the methods by
which we attain Bliss, but they are conditions that arise
within the Divine Blissfulness.

In the seventh, or fully Enlightened, stage of life there
is no lapse in this Realization. One does not exist in
unconsciousness nor in ordinary consciousness nor in
subconsciousness nor even truly in any kind of cosmic or
super consciousness. Phenomena of all these states of
awareness may arise, but one’s native Condition is
Transcendental, and it is perfectly obvious. One abides in
that Consciousness constantly – waking, dreaming, sleeping,
rising, falling. Sometimes more or less extraordinary
phenomena arise. Sometimes very ordinary phenomena arise. It
makes no difference whatsoever. One’s Condition is a
constant and Perfect Realization of the inherent
Blissfulness of the Absolute. In that disposition, one’s
relationship to the phenomena of existence is radically
transformed. Existence is unnecessary. On the other hand, it
arises without dilemma.

It is not that only those who are in the seventh stage of
life are Enlightened. Those who are in the previous stages
of life are at times entered into that same disposition of
Enlightenment. But they phase in that Realization, and their
realization of the Radiant Transcendental Consciousness is
not Absolute. It is covered over by one or another aspect of
experiential consciousness. Only in the seventh stage of
life is there absolutely nothing between the devotee and the
Radiant Transcendental Consciousness, not even a thought,
because the devotee is that Consciousness. Thoughts and
other phenomena arise as modifications of That.

Previous to the seventh stage, you see, the individual is
more or less identified with the self, or the body-mind, in
one or another of its dimensions, perhaps in all of its
dimensions. He or she is looking to break through into that
Consciousness, that Absolute Reality. Many people who have
broken through to a slightly less superficial dimension of
consciousness think they are enlightened, but Enlightenment
is true only when it is perfect, when it has penetrated all
of the possibilities of consciousness, all of the
possibilities of the body. The devotee must learn to
surrender, not only to the great affair of the existing
universe, but to his very Consciousness. All things are
riding not simply on energies but on Consciousness. He must
surrender bodily into the Blissful Current of Life Energy,
into the infinite affair of existence and all the universes,
but he must also surrender into the Consciousness.

However, you do not tend to surrender into the depth of
your consciousness. You persist in holding on to the
superficial dimension of your consciousness. As a result,
you are afraid, because you do not exist in a state of
consciousness in which the body is superficial. You exist in
a state of consciousness in which the body is you. You are
associated with the thinking mind and the levels of the
brain that are the centers of the thinking mind. The,
thinking mind, however, is not other than the physical body.
You can think, and think, and think, and try to realize God,
but you never will, you see, because to think is not to be
in a transcendent state of consciousness.

Thinking is meditating on, concentrating in the verbal
dimension of the mind, which is meshed with the physical
body, and which is likewise superficial. Therefore, we must
transcend the thinking mind, just as we must transcend
limiting identification with the physical body.

We must realize that we are not the body-mind, but we are
this Transcendental Consciousness. Until we have realized
that absolutely and presently – until that is our
consciousness, not just our belief about ourselves – until
we are that Consciousness literally, we must enter into
sacrificial, or self-transcending, Communion with the
Transcendental Reality. The conventional “I” is not the
Radiant Transcendental Consciousness in its presumption. It
is a self, a body-mind, an entity. For that entity to say “I
am God,” you see, is foolishness. When it transcends itself
perfectly, when it realizes that it is the Transcendental
Consciousness, the Divine Consciousness, the Free
Blissfulness of the Absolute, then even while it also
appears in psycho-physical form in the world in the presence
of others, it can paradoxically claim identity with God.
Then such a claim is not false. It is not foolishness. It is
not heresy. It is ecstasy.

This Realization is a literal one. It is not the dry
theorizing of the thinking philosopher, who has not realized
that Consciousness. Nor is it the hysterical witnessing of
the mystic, who has simply managed to manipulate his nervous
system to the point that he can hallucinate or prevent
physical awareness. Rather, it is a literal Realization. The
Radiant Transcendental Consciousness is our Condition. lt
does transcend the body-mind in the individual. It is the
Nature of the individual and of all individuals. It is
Divine. It is Truth.