THE METHOD OF THE
SIDDHAS
“One-Pointedness” From The Method of the Siddhas –
1978
Author(s): Adi Da Samraj
THE METHOD OF THE SIDDHAS (1978)
Part I: The Method of the Siddhas
CHAPTER 9
One-Pointedness
DEVOTEE: When in Satsang, Ive started to have this
experience of being drawn into some kind of trance, almost
like a sleep, and Ive been trying to deal with it, but I
dont know whether I should hold back, hold onto it or let
go.
FRANKLIN: It makes no difference. Why does this
experience seem to create a question in you?
DEVOTEE: I wonder if a decision or will is required, or
is it all you?
FRANKLIN: There are two things here. You have this
experience that comes on you in Satsang, and you have your
search. The experience is not what you are really asking
about. What are you observing about yourself?
DEVOTEE: Well, Im trying to get the answer. Im trying to
find out what to do. Im still searching.
FRANKLIN: And what is this searching, this getting? What
does this trying to find the answer involve? What is it you
are doing when you are asking these questions and
manipulating yourself? What are you up to all the time? What
are you doing? You are disturbed!
DEVOTEE: Yes!
FRANKLIN: That is the truth. Always disturbed. You come
here disturbed, and you go through some changes. Then you
feel very restful. Then you start wanting to wake up, but
you also want to go back to sleep “Should I do this, should
I do that?” You are disturbed! You are asking questions. You
have this dilemma. That is true. That is the whole
point.
The point is not the answer to this question, not whether
you should allow yourself to go into this trance state or
not. Such answers are only a response to this question. But
this question is what you are all about! It is this chronic
disturbance, this dis-ease, this contraction, this avoidance
of relationship, this whole process in all its forms.
And all of this is going on while you are just sitting
here! But “just sitting here” is a potent means of making
you gradually aware of your ordinary activity. That is the
point, not these experiences in themselves. The entire
process is to make you aware of your ordinary state, your
ordinary activity, to see it directly, to know it, to
re-cognize it, to know it again. Understanding is the point
of all this. Since understanding is the point, the
experiences themselves are not what it is all about, nor
your reactions to the experiences, nor your questions about
them, nor their content, nor their interpretation. What you
do about this particular experience is no more significant
than the interpretation of dreams. The having of dreams is
significant. The fact that they occur is already their
meaning. That is their significance. Their very activity,
the fact that they occurthat is the process. Apart
from the process itself, it makes no difference what a dream
“means.” It is a process in consciousness, having its own
value. So also with the process of your experiences in
Satsang. But while this process is going on, you are
disturbed. And this disturbance manifests as endless changes
in your state. You are wandering, and wondering about it. So
it begins to seem that even this simple experience, just
sitting here, has become a question! It is as if the sky
were a question! But in itself it is not a question. There
is no question. “You” are the question! Your state is the
quality of dilemma, of dis-ease. Your state is your
question.
The force of Satsang produces phenomena at various
levels. It represents itself in many ways. But the value of
it, the ultimate purpose of it, is for you to see your own
activity. If you were not always becoming a question, always
contracting, there would be nothing to ask about these
phenomena. And what is this process of becoming a question,
a fundamental dilemma? You must have listened to music
through a pair of stereo speakers or headphones. The sound
appears to arise from some point in the middle of your head.
If you become very attentive to that process itself, the
point of hearing seems to be generated in the very midst of
your head. If you become even more attentive, this point of
“hearing” will become the thing in which you are interested,
and you wont hear the details or even the sounds of the
music anymore. The psycho-physical organism as a whole
operates in very much the same way. The functional
mechanisms of perception, such as the ears, seem to “target”
phenomena. When we are weak, when we have suffered through
not living these phenomena from the point of view of Truth,
we become obsessed with this point of awareness, the target
itself. We begin to identify with it. Perception or
experience creates the self, the ego, and we begin
chronically to live in terms of this target as if it were
the source and center of life.
No matter what phenomena arise, you habitually manipulate
them in such a way that this target becomes the focus and
apparent source or origin of your attention. This target
becomes the chronic implication of all experience. Just so,
this “trance” experience arose in your case. As usual, there
was the attempt to return to the point of view of this
target, to give it all “significance,” until the experience
itself was lost in the dilemma. The target became the
obsession. In this way, the intensity or potency of all
experience is used to reinforce Narcissus, the sense of
separate, independent self.
That target is “me,” ego, but it is also a question. It
is always in the form of a dilemma. Because it is a form of
contraction, a point, it is always separate, even from the
phenomena that create it! When this target becomes the
obsession in consciousness, the living phenomena of our
spontaneous existence are no longer clear. If you are
focused compulsively upon the target of the sound, you cant
differentiate the patterns of music any longer, you cant
enjoy the sound, you cant turn to the source of sound, you
contract from it continually. So the sense of existence as
this contracted point is the dilemma. When we speak from the
point of view of self, it is always as dilemma. And when we
begin to perceive, to turn back to the spontaneous world
from this point of view, everything seems mysterious,
threatening. Then every thing assumes the form or quality of
a question. And there is a continual return, folding back in
on that target or point again and again, until this activity
is re-cognized, known again.
When re-cognition takes place, this “point” is seen to
have no fundamental and fixed or necessary reality. It is
simply a functional means of organizing phenomena. The
apparent implication, the self, the ego, that “point,” is
unreal, a temporary and dependent event. It is a secondary
creation. It doesnt actually and presently exist as the form
of consciousness. It is purely a functional phenomenon, a
psycho-physical habit. But this habit persists, until there
is a turnabout in consciousness, from compulsive orientation
upon this point, this target, to what is prior to that.
What is the nature of sound and of hearing prior to that
target? Before there is the avoidance of relationship,
before there is this contraction, with its sensation of
self, what is the nature of consciousness? The whole
psycho-physical mechanism is a mass of these targeting
agencies. From top to bottom, inside and out, the whole
life-process amounts to this sense of a point, a target, and
men identify compulsively with that, so that they begin to
live from its point of view, forgetting entirely the origin
of this point.
Now, Satsang is like the origination of sound. It is
received by men in the ordinary way, through this targeting
mechanism, and they compulsively try to manipulate or orient
themselves in relation to the experiences of Satsang, so
that they can continually regain the sense of this point,
this target, this ego. As if that were the significance of
these experiences! But when they remember they are in
Satsang, when they turn to the origin of this phenomenon of
Satsang rather than upon this target of experience,
something happens quite naturally in consciousness. It is
not at once illumination or perfect knowledge. It is a
spontaneous and momentary release of the separate point of
view. It allows the force that is being communicated to fill
this mechanism, to harmonize it without the compulsive
contraction, the compulsive creation of this point of view.
Over time, this fullness begins to become a kind of
intelligence, an effortless receptivity, a new event in
consciousness that begins to see this activity perfectly, to
see this contraction as it is, as contraction.
The avoidance of relationship is a purely secondary
activity that is suffering, that is dilemma, that is not
real, not itself Reality or the present and true condition.
It has only a conventional value, but no ultimate reality.
One who understands begins to fall from this compulsive
activity into openness, no-contraction, and such is true
Self-Knowledge. The true “Self” or Reality is not a point,
it is not the implication of experience, it has no
significance in time, it is not limited to any visible form,
any form of energy or light, it is not located in space, it
has no center, and no bounds. So, Satsang is the
communication of that Truth, the force of that Truth, to
those who are still living this contraction.
The virtue of Satsang is that it communicates its own
nature. It makes this activity of contraction obsolete by
various means. It begins by creating in the devotee a
gradual re-cognition of his own activity, in the midst of
Satsang, in the midst of the force of life, of Truth.
Therefore, temporarily, this activity goes on, this
questioning, this wondering, this self-manipulation, even
while some other things are going on that are in themselves
quite natural, intelligent, or extraordinary.
What you do in Satsang is a ritual duplication of what
you are always doing. You come here already hung-up, already
disturbed. This avoidance of relationship, this contraction
is what is always going on. And, we buy it! We continually
buy it. I often make a fist out of my hand to indicate this
activity to you, because it shows very clearly what happens
when there is this contraction. If you curl your hand in
upon itself, a sensation is created at the center of the
hand that concentrates attention. This sensation in the hand
is differentiated from every possible thing that is outside
it. It becomes the center of concentration. The same
process, generated in the psycho-physical life as a whole,
becomes the point of view toward all of this, whereas it is
only a functional reflection of various forces. At every
level of consciousness, the entire psycho-physical mechanism
is devoted to this activity, this curling in upon itself.
This is Narcissus. And all the searches of men, all the
traditional approaches men have taken to Truth, are from
this point of view, the point of view of this dilemma, this
contraction, this “ego.”
Men want to know what happens after death. What happens
after this sensation is released? Nothing! They want this
sensation of independent existence to survive. They become
frightened. All questions are from this “point” of view,
because this is the archetype of questions. This is the only
question, this is the dilemma! This is our fundamental
experience from moment to moment. So men are suffering, they
are afraid, they are self-obsessed, they are distracted,
they are unconscious, they are turned in upon themselves.
They are always turning, curling. What do you do?
I was looking at some people here earlier, while we were
sitting quietly together. Some of you are always doing
something when you are only sitting. It would be amusing to
put it on rapid film. It is an incredible ritual, an endless
dance, touching and examining your bodies, creating this
sensation of separate existence by every kind of nervous
perception. There are numberless tiny adjustments of the
physical position, endless touching of various parts of the
body, moving of the body, creasing the body, creating little
tensions in the nervous system that concentrate attention.
It is going on internally as well, with every form of
perception and thought, every possible kind of communication
from the environment and the internal functions of the
psycho-physical life. This same targeting, this compulsive
contraction, goes on and on and on and on. And what do you
think you do when you get up to leave this room? Do you
think that the strategy of your activity changes when you
say good morning to someone or when you walk down the street
or when you go to work? This same thing is always going on.
Its an endless contraction, endless self-sensation.
Sit quietly in a chair sometime. You will observe how
every moment of perception is combined with a symbol in
consciousness, a thought, an image, an interpretation, a
contraction of the field of consciousness. Always, this
target is created. So men are always “meditating,” men are
always tending to be “one-pointed.” Every moment of life is
devoted to the creation of this “point.” And this
contraction ultimately becomes terminal. It becomes
psycho-physical death, because it is endlessly intensified,
to the point of absolute contraction, so there is no longer
any flow of force. If I hold my hand clenched tightly in a
fist, increasing the tension, so that no blood will flow, it
will eventually wither. So men are dying of this one
activity. All physical pain is a contraction. Fear is a
contraction. All emotions are contraction. All thought is a
contraction of the force-field of consciousness. All that a
man ever experiences are the forms of his own contraction,
this avoidance of relationship.
So all men are like Narcissus, who sought to escape from
all conditions by separating himself from all relationships,
all confrontation, who removed himself to the wilderness of
absolute isolation, so that he was left sitting nowhere by
the side of a pond. What is more, he spent the rest of his
life looking into the pond, gazing at his own image, and
supposing it to be his loved-one, some other that he loved.
Not only is Narcissus separate, isolated, but he is
conscious only of an illusion, perpetually. All men are just
like that. There is this avoidance of relationship, this
continual contraction and meditation only upon the internal
reflection of events, this endless thinking, this endless
motivation from the point of view of the ego, the assumed
“place” of perception and cognition, so that there is no
real perception, no real knowledge.
When a man looks with eyes, he sees this point. When he
hears, he concentrates on this target. When he acts, he acts
from the point of view of this targeted center. He never
deals with the source of these perceptions, he never
communicates with the nature of events. He never realizes
that he is not the point of perception, that he is always
already one with perception itself and all that is
perceived. The origin or the “Self” of every man is not this
ego, this target, this sensation. The Self is the origin of
all these sensations. The body arises within the Self. Sound
arises within the Self. Light arises within It. All things
arise within It, but the Self is not qualified, nor is there
any separately existing self or thing.
In Satsang the force of this Self, this Reality, is
communicated. Just as you function on many levels, including
the solid physical being, the vital energy of life, the
psychic life, the emotive or emotional life, the processes
of thought and subtle cognition, just so, Satsang, the
communication of Truth, manifests on many levels. It
manifests as physical, human relationship with the man of
understanding and his friends, as a force, which manifests
in many ways, vital, emotional, psychic, and the rest, as a
radical condition of life, as the communication of verbal
concepts, and more. But while this communication goes on
over time, the individual begins to perceive his own
activity in Satsang. Satsang does not simply remove that
activity as if by magic. It reveals that activity. So
Satsang, the living of Satsang, which is spiritual life,
involves a crisis in consciousness, the crisis of
consciousness. Therefore, the activity that is our suffering
is not removed by magical, external and willful methods, but
it is shown, demonstrated, eventually perceived, and
finally, perfectly understood.
Even while in Satsang, there is a kind of warfare going
on in the disciple or devotee. There is this contraction.
But he is continually being drawn out of that, by the force
and very condition of Satsang, into the company of Truth.
The Truth draws him, even though he continues to contract.
And the result of that tension is a dredging up in him of
the perception of his own activity, on many, many levels. It
must take place on every level.
While talking with one of you today, I used the simile of
a well. When a man first comes to Satsang, he is like a
dark, deep well. Way up at the top, the light comes in
around the edges, but it is black, unconscious below! When
the light of the Truth shines down into it, all of these
weirdo, slithering things come climbing up the sides. All
the hidden, slimy activity begins to be disturbed, awakened,
and moved into the light. Just so, every moment in Satsang
increases the necessity for responsibility in the disciple,
because the force of Satsang isnt merely a good feeling, a
consolation, something smiling, happy and pleasant. It is
not magic. It is a living force, the force of Truth. This
force moves into the “well,” into the human function, this
circuit of descending and ascending life, and brings up the
chronic patterns of ordinary and unconscious life, revealing
them at the level of the actual conditions of life. In the
midst of this real process the subtle tendencies of life are
revealed as desires, as incredible compulsions, which, even
if they were known before, now seem to become worse. The
intensification of everything is the activity of Satsang.
And what is there to be intensified in the usual man, except
this negative pattern, this contraction? So, of course,
there are difficulties. Real spiritual life requires
everything of a person. Spiritual life is a crisis!
One who lives in Satsang experiences many revelations of
his state. Dreams become intensified. There may be
spontaneous physical movements, changes in the physical
body. Life may become burdensome at times, thoughts seem to
become endless. The individual may become disgusted with his
own game. But the whole effect of this communication of
Truth over against his own tendencies is to bring about a
consciousness of his own activity or contraction on every
level. Where this begins to occur, all of the hidden
qualities can escape into the light and be merged in the
light of consciousness. If a man maintains himself in
Satsang through the intense and perhaps protracted periods
of crisis, this whole process appearing in him will begin to
become interesting. He will cease to react to it, to resist
it, to attempt mastery over it, to do anything about it. He
will live Satsang. He will simply live this relationship and
condition that is Satsang. Self-indulgence or outward
dramatization of these patterns will cease to be his
motivation, because he will understand this activity to be a
purifying event.
So the true devotee lives this Satsang, enjoys this
communication of Truth, sees his own activity, and begins to
know what it is. An intelligence begins to awaken in which
he re-cognizes this perfectly. But none of it is a form of
magic. It is a miracle. It is a grace. It is an absolute
activity, practically unknown in the world, because the
world is devoted to this ordinary action of contraction, the
avoidance of relationship. Neither the process nor the force
of Satsang is magical. It doesnt simply “come on” to you, so
that you feel good, ready to smile at everyone, as if you
were on a drug. No wisdom is gained by that magic. You are
required to go through the purifying event, so that when you
arrive at the point of intelligence, where you can live
these human functions from the point of view of Truth, you
have the wisdom by which to do that. If the negative effects
of life were simply removed, as if by magic, without any of
your real participation, you would gradually and
unconsciously move back into the same condition. However, in
general, the participation that you are required to have in
this process tends, by the force of Satsang, to be made more
of an internal than an external one. For the most part,
instead of having to live through the latent patterns of
karmas of your life in the form of massive and unyielding
disasters, you are brought to live through them in ways that
can at least be handled, perhaps with difficulty, but they
can be handled. Much of it takes place in dreams, in
self-purifying kriyas, in various yogic processes.
Spiritual life is a demand, it is a confrontation, it is
a relationship. It is not a method you apply to yourself.
Your “self” is this contraction, and this contraction is
what must be undermined in spiritual life. Therefore, the
Guru comes in human form, in living form, to confront you
and take you by the neck. He doesnt merely send down a
grinning photograph, to be reproduced with a few fairy
comments for everybody to believe. The traditional images
and records of past help serve very little. At best they may
help a person move into a position where he can actually
begin spiritual life. But Truth must come in a living form,
absolutely. Truth must confront a man, live him, and
meditate him. It is not your meditation that matters. Truth
must meditate you. And that is the Siddhi or marvelous
process of Satsang. Even while Truth is meditating you in
Satsang, you are busy doing more of the usual to yourself,
waking yourself up, putting yourself to sleep, reacting in
every possible and unconscious way to the force of Satsang,
but you are being meditated.
You cannot be “meditated” by one who is not alive. Even
if you believe in one who is no longer alive in human form,
you cannot provide the necessary, living means for this
meditation. Truth must come in living form, usually in the
human vehicle of the Guru, the true man of understanding.
Spiritual life involves this marvelous process, this Siddhi,
this Satsang. If this Siddhi or living spiritual process is
not activated, it doesnt make a damn bit of difference what
exotic or humble spiritual methods you apply to yourself,
for it will always be of the same nature. It will always
amount to a form of this contraction. All of your methods,
all mantras, all yogic methods, all beliefs, all paths, all
religions are extensions of this contraction. Truth itself
must become the process of life and communicate itself,
create conditions in life, and make demands, restoring the
conscious participation of the individual. Dead Gurus cant
kick ass!
At the beginning, the position of the individual in
relation to Satsang is relatively passive, apparently
passive. The fullness of Satsang is given to him as a grace.
When this process begins in him, it acts as an intensifier
of his various internal and external activities. A practical
relationship is established with him, conditions are applied
to his life, demands are made of him. The force, the energy
aspect of Satsang intensifies, wakens and fills him. His
vitality, his health, his relations with the environment,
his life condition, these are the things that are confronted
first. Essentially, during that early period, he is
responsible for being in Satsang, responsible for
maintaining that connection, and fulfilling the practical
demands given to him through that relationship. He is also
responsible not to indulge or dramatize externally, in life,
the phenomena that are arising in him as a result of
Satsang.
People dont begin to believe any of this, really, until
they begin to have the experience. They experience Satsang
and the quality of spiritual life here as something very
enjoyable, profound, whatever. Then, all of a sudden, they
come to that first point of crisis in this work. An insane
compulsion, almost like possession, overcomes them and seems
to demand they leave this work. They wake up one morning:
“Franklin is no good, the Ashram is no good, spiritual life
is no good, none of this has anything to do with me, I
should leave and return to my previous relatively happy
existence.” If they are able to hold on through one or two
of these episodes, they begin to see it as their own
activity, not anything that truly reflects on this work, and
they become stable again in Satsang. When this form of the
crisis is thus overcome, a new one develops, just as
suddenly, and with equal force. Then they think: “The work
is good, Franklin is good, the Ashram is good, Truth is
good, spiritual life is good, but Im no good, Im not ready
for it yet, Im not an old enough soul yet, Im still full of
desires, I guess Im still supposed to seek for a while.”
This is the crisis of self-doubt. It is often topped off
with the “observation” that “Franklin hates me.” And so they
want to leave, if only for that reason! Narcissus is always
a form of contraction, of separation, of leaving. But if
they are able to pass through this one, still holding on to
Satsang, still maintaining a responsible refusal to exploit
this internal movement in a life drama, they begin to settle
stably into the real self-recognition that is spiritual
life.
All of the great Siddhas, the realized ones, who have
taught in the world, have given Satsang to their disciples
as grace. That was their essential activity and gift. They
didnt come to give a method, to give a conceptual teaching
only, to create a myth, a structure for the mind, some sort
of mentality. They brought themselves. They entered into
relationship with the world, with their disciples. That
relationship is the very structure and outward sign of the
process I have described. That is spiritual life. That
process is spiritual life. The Siddha “lives” his disciples.
The Truth “meditates” those in Satsang, through a period of
relative passivity, until there is more experience of this
actual process, more responsibility, more consciousness.
Then, at some point in time, when this insight into the
usual pattern of activity is developed and has become real,
has become the actual intelligence of the disciple, then
perhaps this form of enquiry described in The Knee of
Listening will develop. But, apart from understanding, prior
to the time when the real process of Satsang has actually
come alive in a man, for him to enquire of himself “Avoiding
relationship?” is neither valuable nor intelligent. You can
ask yourself any question, recite any mantra, carry on any
sort of deliberate internal activity or form of
concentration, and it will have neither more nor less value
than this “Avoiding relationship?” But when this Satsang has
become fruitful in you, when this intelligence is alive,
when understanding already exists, then this apparently more
deliberate activity of enquiry in the form “Avoiding
relationship?” may become appropriate. Even so, as you will
see, it is just an extension of the thing that the
individual is beginning to see in himself as a consequence
of every moment in Satsang. The more there is of Satsang,
the more a person sees his own activity, his disturbance,
until he begins to re-cognize it, to see that there is the
avoidance of relationship, this contraction. When he knows
this utterly, when this contraction is undermined in real
knowledge, that very insight is what I have called
“understanding.” And when that understanding is alive, it
may approach experience moment to moment as enquiry, as the
conscious enforcement of this insight itself.
So Satsang is this condition, the relationship or
condition of relationship to the man of understanding. Truth
itself is communicated in Satsang. And the life of Satsang
is simply to live this relationship. It is simple enough in
concept, but when you live it from day to day, it becomes
complicated. It becomes a question, a dilemma. This is
because you dont in fact or simply abide in Satsang, you
dont live the condition of Satsang without qualification.
You continue to live this contraction, this avoidance of
relationship. You still tend to separate yourself from the
condition of Satsang. There is this tension, this drama,
this warfare in Satsang. Periodically you see again what
youve been up to, and quite spontaneously, you fall out of
this contraction into the condition of Satsang again.
Periodically you catch yourself running, contracting, moving
into your own forms, so that you see it all again and return
to Satsang.
One of the earliest manifestations of Satsang in certain
people are these kriyas, these spontaneous movements of
body, posture, attitude and breath. As a way of
understanding the difference between the force of Satsang
and the usual state of human activity, look at the
difference between these kriyas and the kind of nervous
activity that men are always performing. Examine the usual
man at “ease,” with his constant picking and grabbing and
self-conscious posturing, his endless attempts to become
comfortable while still maintaining an inner feeling of
confinement or entrapment. All of that is re-action to
outside or generalized forces. Such actions are always in
the form of reflexive, self-directed movements. But genuine
kriyas are internally and spontaneously generated. They are
movements from within outward, not a curling inward from
without. That is why these kriyas are themselves a kind of
purifier, because they tend to break or reverse compulsive
contraction. But these kriyas are not themselves profound.
They are not Truth. They are active at the level of the
psycho-physical body only. There is nothing “out in the
cosmos” about them. They are evidence of a process which is
restoring the nervous system to its natural harmony and
intensity.
Whatever arises as experience in the course of Satsang
and its meditation is not itself the point. Visions, subtle
phenomena of all kinds are themselves only images of this
“target.” They are themselves forms of contraction. They
come in order to disappear! As I have said, the man of
understanding is not endlessly engaged in all kinds of
occult phenomena, or even simple internal phenomena. That
whole affair has come to rest, and the force that contains
and supports all such phenomena is consciously alive in the
man of understanding. The “Light” of which all visions are
only a modification is consciousness itself. The man of
understanding no longer lives from the point of view of the
target in any sense. Not this gross body, not the vital
body, not the subtle body, not the subtle mind, not the mind
at all, not any form of subtlety, not any center, not any
“light” body, not any eternal body, no body! The point of
view of Truth is alive in the man of understanding. It is no
longer separate. It only manifests or appears to manifest as
all of these points, all of these functions. Therefore, such
a one also appears in all the ordinary forms. But wherever
the “target” tends to arise, it vanishes in him. He doesnt
buy it. He doesnt act from its point of view. He doesnt
dramatize it. He doesnt believe it. He never becomes it. For
him, there is never the loss, under any conditions, of
profound, direct awareness of his true nature, his real and
actual condition.
Whenever the man of understanding appears, a new function
has appeared in life. The man of understanding is not
another thing to be made into a target, he is not an other
ego that has appeared to be worshipped, glorified, contained
and fitted into a cult. When he appears, a new function, a
living process has become possible, which is Satsang. But,
paradoxically, it is very difficult to get anyone interested
in Satsang, because men are devoted to this process of
contraction. From the point of view of the world, of the
search, Truth and Satsang are always rejected. Satsang
always has only a paradoxical presence in the world, because
it always works to undermine the search. Those who truly
become interested and are capable of enduring the activity
of this Satsang are those in whom the whole process of
seeking in all its forms has begun to fail in a critical
way. In such people the options of the search have begun to
subside, to die. Such people have become immobile, truly
desperate. They are not necessarily about to go into a
psychotic state! It can be a very “natural” and non-clinical
despair. But it is a critical failure. Such people become
capable of Satsang, and Satsang may also become their
opportunity.
DEVOTEE: You have said that those who live in Satsang
must be responsible not to dramatize or act out the
tendencies that are awakened and revealed in them. But I
dont think you mean they should be repressed. Would you
explain it?
FRANKLIN: We are speaking of these things as they occur
under the conditions of Satsang, not in life without
conscious benefit of Satsang. Prior to Satsang, an emotion,
an impulse would develop, and, under certain circumstances,
you just plain did it. The point of view of Satsang never
entered into your decision or your reaction. But when you
begin to live the condition of Satsang, you have an entirely
different principle of life from which to view these
phenomena. When Satsang truly becomes the condition of your
life, then, as tendencies arise, it is not a matter of
repressing or suppressing them, or of doing anything to
them. They are mechanical, internal phenomena, patterns
reflecting themselves in the force of consciousness and in
the body. The more a person lives Satsang and begins to
understand the activity that creates these phenomena or
causes them to rush up in him, the less he tends to identify
with the phenomena themselves. Then the activity and the
patterns become only interesting to him, rather than sources
of motivation. He begins to acknowledge them to be patterns
only, not “me,” not something “I” must suppress, but
patterns arising, and which he is observing. The true
disciple simply lives Satsang during that time. He doesnt
even become concerned with the patterns. He enjoys Satsang.
If some episode is causing him particular distress, mental
or physical, he doesnt suppress it, he does nothing to it.
He scrubs a floor, washes a window, types some letters, goes
to work, has a sandwich, goes to the seashore! He doesnt get
involved in that drama, either by suppressing it or
exploiting it. He does nothing about it. He enjoys Satsang!
This thing that is arising in him is only a form of
contraction. It is always a form of contraction. To “buy”
it, perform it, or to suppress it is to contract further, to
take on the form and point of view of contraction, to
reinforce it. But the point of view of Satsang is
relationship, not avoidance. So one who lives the condition
of Satsang is already free of the stress of this
contraction. He lives and is aware beyond it, living another
condition. He is already not living this contraction, and so
he has neither to exploit it nor suppress it. He is living
Satsang. Therefore, he sees this is a phenomenon only, a
phenomenon that arises in Satsang, a purifying event.
One who lives in Satsang allows the revelation of
tendencies to occur as a subliminal activity, as a display
of impressions, as a sensation, but not a necessary
motivation. Regardless of the form in which it arises in him
at the time, he carries on his practical activity. He doesnt
sit alone in his room, trying to keep from going out and
indulging all his desires to the point of bewilderment. No,
he stands up, he goes down to the Ashram, he sits in
Satsang, he sees some friends, he goes to work, he takes
himself to lifes functions, its functional responsibilities.
He can permit this thing to arise in him, without distress,
without identification, because of present Satsang. When
Satsang becomes real, the actual and present condition of
your life, your relationship to these self-revealing
tendencies begins spontaneously to change. The more a man
lives Satsang, the more he begins to see how his
relationship to this process is changing, how it is
unnecessary to dramatize or live the latent tendencies.
Indeed, he sees that to live the arising tendencies, even
the apparently pleasurable ones, is the very strategy of
suffering.
At the beginning of a persons life in this Satsang, I
simply require, as a condition, that people be responsible
in certain functional and practical levels of life. There
must be a foundation for this process. Thus, when you first
arrived, various practical matters were discussed with you,
including diet, your work and responsibilities, your
environment and living conditions, the relationships in your
life, and the like. This is to be certain you are willing to
assume practical responsibility for an endlessly dramatized
life. Those in Satsang must be essentially responsible for
the processes of money, food and sex. I do not mean that one
who enters Satsang must become a sudden saint! But when he
lives it all with some sort of practical intelligence, there
is a living firmness, a foundation for this process. If
there is nothing but a hole out the bottom, every time
something is thrown in, it goes out the bottom. If you are
only ready to indulge what arises in you, Satsang will only
give you more energy for it. Such people need a parent, not
the Guru.
So I require people to take on real responsibilities at
the practical level of life. You do not require the absolute
perception of Truth in order to moderate your diet. It is
simply a practical affair. A supportive, enjoyable diet that
gives strength, keeps the body vital, keeps the life vital,
is simply a matter of intelligence. To be intelligent, you
need not first realize absolute Truth. But no one can
realize Truth absolutely who has not first become
intelligent. If a person moderates and purifies his diet,
then, in the primary activity of taking food, dramatization
is not taking place. If a person is carrying on some sort of
insanity, some gross craziness, in the forms of sexual
indulgence, I require him to understand something about the
relational necessities of his sexual life and his creative
communication of force into the world. Then he will have
some practical hold on the use of this primary function. All
of this is not in itself for ultimate reasons, but for
purely practical reasons, for the sake of the spiritual
process, to prevent exhaustion of the vital life, and the
distractions of unconsciousness, weakness, disease. Just so,
at the level of money and general conditions of life, for
purely practical reasons, I want each of those in Satsang to
be fundamentally responsible for his income, and the quality
of his environment. All of this for purely practical
reasons, not for any idealistic reasons.
Every single thing that could possibly be dramatized is a
form of contraction, of separation. And what are these
things you are concerned about “repressing”? You dont worry
about repressing or exploiting your tendency to love people,
to share life with them, and help them! There is no danger
represented by that, so there is no problem about having to
repress or exploit it. What are the things you are wondering
about exploiting and repressing? They are all negative,
destructive, separative tendencies. Therefore, from the
beginning, a little of that knowledge which is the principle
of Satsang must be clear. A person must have seen something
about his ordinary activity, his suffering, his usual state.
When he sees that, fundamentally, his usual state is his
suffering, he falls into that relationship that is Satsang.
Then all of these forms of contraction begin to lose their
force. They are undermined by relationship, whereas they are
reinforced by exploitation, suppression or repression. The
more there is this intensity of relationship in Satsang, the
less force these impulses have. They begin to wind down; the
clenching of the “fist” weakens. So dont repress it. Live
Satsang. And carry on a practical order of life. It is only
when you have the point of view of this contraction, this
dramatization of tendencies, that you have to be concerned
with repression or exploitation. If your point of view is
Satsang, all of this is only a secondary affair, only an
impulse. If you are not identical to its center, it is not
necessary to do anything about it.
Replace concern and worrying about your tendencies with
some practical activity or some pleasurable activity in the
ordinary way. You must become intelligent in how you live
this life while you are busy being responsible for it.
Sadhana or spiritual practice is not a matter of living
“uptight” all the time, preventing all of your craziness.
You must learn how to treat this psycho-physical entity from
the point of view of real enjoyment, of relationship, of
Satsang. You must increase life-pleasure in subtle ways,
through the practical enjoyment of functional activities in
relationship. This also serves to undermine that whole
process of suffering and bewilderment.
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