Evolution

Scientific
Proof of the Existence of God Will Soon Be Announced by the White
House! Adi Da Samraj

Chapter
10: The Ultimate Passion of Man

The
Evolution of Man and the Sacrifice of the World

Man
is only a brief design in the numberless evolutionary stages of the
World. And the individual human being is only a moment, a specimen, a
partial realization of Man. The individual is not made for his own
sake, but to be a sacrifice toward Man-so that Man may fulfill his
evolutionary destiny. And Man is not made for his own sake,
but to be a sacrifice toward the ultimate evolutionary process of the World. And the World is not
made for its own sake, but to be a sacrifice to the unqualified and eternal Divine.If the design of Man is
examined, he is revealed to be a composite of all previous creatures, environments, and experiences. His body below
the brows is a machine of animals and elemental
cycles. He is full-made of horses and crocodiles, honey bees and
swans, sardines and earth forces,
redwood and fruit palm, Amazon, Pacific, solar fire, Everest, weather
of water and air, all the usual
stars, and antique ocean mammals leaning away from Earth. He is not
truly unique below the brows. He is, rather, a summation of all that
came before him and everything that he already knows.

But
Man is also a new stage in the event of time. His newness or
uniqueness is hidden in the brain. His
lower or vital brain, including his rudimentary speech and thought,
is part of the summary and reflection
of the past. But the middle range of his brain, beginning with the
higher verbal or abstract mental
functions, is the doorway to the future. And above the thinking and
imaging function of the middle brain is the naked mass of yet
unadapted purity, the higher brain, which Communes with Light. This higher brain is the structural cauldron of the
present and future evolutionary changes of Man and what is beyond Man
in the scheme of the World.

The
individual is only a moment, and his structural adaptation of the
whole body-mind to its poten­tial above the brows is generally
quite modest, if it occurs at all. Man, at any moment, is the
sum­mary of what has been. Therefore, the millions or billions
of men and women who live and die in every generation may add a fraction
of development to the destiny of Man. But the Teaching of Truth is also given to all, so that the
principles of structural evolution may be grasped and fulfilled by at
least a few in every generation. Thus,
the realization of these few is also added to Man, and all future men and women may be raised up by
such means.

The
Spiritual Master is given the task of communicating the Laws of
evolution and of sacrifice to his own
generation, so that Man may be raised up in God. And the Spiritual
Master himself advances the evolution
of Man by a difficult process of personal psycho-physical
transformation. But what he realizes cannot be added to Man until
many representatives of mankind embrace the Way of Truth and submit to the process of
transformation and sacrifice.

The
individual is a sacrifice to God through Man. Man is a sacrifice to
God through the World. The World
is a sacrifice to God in every present moment. Therefore, all things
and beings are a present, past,
and future sacrifice toward a Condition that no one in time can
appear to have Realized Per­fectly-since everyone in the present
summarizes the past, and a few, at best, demonstrate an Awaken­ing to the future and ultimate
Condition. But even the Spiritual Master generally appears to others
in the bodily form of the present state of Man.

Even so, the
radical Realization of the ultimate Destiny of the World is possible
in the present and in the case of any individual who will give
himself up to the Divine in Truth. This is also the Teaching and the
Demonstration of the Spiritual Master. Most individuals are content
to pursue an ordinary personal destiny, by exploiting what Man has already become.
Such individuals live a basically subhuman life, and they add nothing
new to Man. Others are not content unless they can exceed themselves. But unless they transcend the old creature and
enter into the development of the higher brain,
they do not exceed the present state of Man. Therefore, only a few
individuals in every genera­tion
enter into the evolutionary module of the higher brain, through which
the whole body is bright­ened in the universal Field of Light.
Such individuals work changes in themselves by exploiting the potential of Man. But until what they
do is also communicated and lived by greater numbers of individuals,
even their experiment is not added to the Incarnation of Man.

Therefore,
the Spiritual Master appears, to communicate the Way of the
transcendence of self and the transcendence
of the present stage of Man-so that mankind may more generally
fulfill the higher trend of evolution, rather than fall
back upon itself in regressive self-possession and exploitation of the elemental Man. However, the
Spiritual Master is also full of Transcendental urgency. He also communicates to Man. He reminds Man that even Man is a
moment, a process, grotesque when seen in
himself. He reminds Man that his beauty and happiness are in his
Ecstasy, his sacrifice toward what
is yet to come and what is Perfect. He reminds Man that his true
Destiny is not in his own evolutionary fulfillment, but in the
fulfillment of the sacrifice of the whole World, which includes everything before and after Man, as
well as Man himself.

Therefore,
the Spiritual Master is most profoundly devoted to the Awakening of
individuals and Man and the
whole World to that Process of Sacrifice that transcends not only the
past and present but also the future of all evolution of
self, of Man, and of the World. His Teaching ultimately exceeds all evolutionary prescriptions. He moves
his devotees through the structures of self, of Man, and of the World, until these devotees can be
the Sacrifice of even the World itself. Therefore, his Teaching, his Demonstration, and the ultimate
demonstration of his devotees is the one of Perfect Ecstasy, or the Sacrifice of self and Man and the
World into the Condition that is Divine.

To
such devotees, the Spiritual Master Communicates and Reveals himself
in that Form which is beyond Man, and he also is Revealed to be the
Sacrifice of even that Form, beyond all consolations and attainments.
This is what moves us to Love. And we may be the Liberation of self
and Man and the World, if we will abandon all
withholding, fear, and doubt-and if we will turn out from all
subhu­man, human, and superhuman
self-possession into the Ecstasy of Worldlessness.

Chapter 10:
The Ultimate Passion of Man

The Higher Culture of Man Depends on the
Higher Nervous System of Man

The
functions of the autonomic nervous system (traditionally called the
“flesh,” or the “realm of the senses”)
are enlivened by the universal Life-Current, but they are generally
stimulated by the casual influence
of ordinary or “natural” functional associations, since our
attention tends to be fixed in the lower or grosser bodily
processes). But if the Life-Current can be directly stimulated in the
central nervous system
(traditionally called the “soul” or, simply, the
“psyche,” or the “mind”), and then directed
upwards and toward rather than downwards and away from the brain, the
higher structural functions
of the body and mind will be activated and permitted to grow by
adaptation.

This
process inevitably produces the immediate phenomena we recognize as
the mystical states associated
with religious and otherwise illumined consciousness. But if the
process is made continu­ous
over time, it produces the phenomena of the higher evolutionary
development of the yet hidden structural potential of Man. These
phenomena include- higher mental (or brain-mind) development at the level of genius capacity in both
the abilities of the right hemisphere of the brain (such. as in the arts) and the abilities of the left
hemisphere of the brain (such as in the sciences and other
intellectual disciplines). There is also the
potential development of higher physical abilities, such as superior health,-longevity, natural healing
power, and so forth. Likewise, higher psychic phenomena, usually called extrasensory abilities,
develop-and they may enter into areas of psychic participation in the
play of the universe beyond Earth,
beyond the solar system, and even beyond the plane of material visibility. And there is also the
ultimate potential that the body-mind of Man, in the case of both individuals and the species as a
whole, can ultimately be transcended to the perfect degree, so that
it is Translated out of the gross
material plane altogether.

All the phenomena I have suggested or
described here are not only possible-they have already been proven, in the experience of countless
spiritual Adepts throughout human history. I myself am one in that
line of experimenters, and I can attest to the actuality of mystical
and evolutionary phenomena. Indeed, I am prepared to help others to
realize and demonstrate these very same things, if they will consider
the Truth and practice the higher cultural Way of adaptation to Life.

What
is more, the processes I have suggested or described depend on the
transference of human attention
from exclusive orientation to the functional extremities of the lower
body-mind, so that the realm of attention also naturally includes the
functional extremities of the upper body-mind. And this total
process depends on the granting of full and bodily feeling-attention
to the universal All-Pervad­ing
Current of Life-Energy.

The
higher evolutionary process l is traditionally been served by
individual understanding of the instructions
of an Adept, and by individual acceptance of the guidance of an Adept
during every stage of
practice. And the Adept himself, by higher psycho-physical means,
stimulates the central nervous system of others (both in
itself and as a means of changing the mental and bodily being via the autonomic nervous system). This
process is known in the traditions of religion as spiritual
trans­mission. For these reasons, spiritual
Adepts tended and still tend to accept disciples or devotees, and also to create a community or culture
of such individuals. Such “cults,” or communities of
practice,

have always
been the necessary instruments of the higher adaptation of human
individuals and, ultimately, of all mankind. The world
should understand this and value it, rather than ignorantly work to
suppress the appearance of the higher destiny of Man. The spiritual
communities or true cults of spiritual
practice are the higher servants of mankind, and it is time this
whole affair became better known in the world, rather than
remained hidden as a result of persecution, suppression, and popular
stupidity.

This
is a time when the traditionally esoteric Teachings and practices of
religion can become the common
basis of the higher evolutionary culture of Man. But it will occur
only if the level of public intelligence
is raised toward this possibility. Therefore, please listen to my
argument and understand. Abandon what is false in the practice
of human life, but embrace what is benign and true. And begin to support and serve the
communication and implementation of the Way of Truth in your own life
and that of the public in general.

Mysticism and Evolution

The
earliest or most immediate effects of the stimulation of the higher
or central nervous system of Man
by the Universal Life-Current are personal, subjective, and mystical.
For this reason, this process
and its various natural phenomena have traditionally been maintained
within the exclusive province of exoteric and esoteric
religion.

However,
the ultimate significance of this process is not merely as a means of
individual salvation or release
via internal or subjective experiences. Rather, the ultimate
significance and value of this process is evolutionary, or an
instrument of the growth, transformation, and self-transcendence of Man
(and thus of mankind).

The
earliest and most immediate effects of this process are subjective,
internal, psychic, and mysti­cal. Therefore, this process has
traditionally been found attractive by those who desire release from
this world via the inwardness of the human psyche. But all such
experiences are deluding, unless properly understood, and, in any
case, they represent nothing more than limited forms of knowledge about the experiential condition of
Man.

The
ultimate and long-term development of this process, as a cultural
affair of humanity as a whole, is
not merely mystical, personal, psychic, and associated with
experiential knowledge. Rather, the ultimate
and long-term development of this human cultural process is
evolutionary and physical. That is, if this process is engaged
with right understanding, and in devotion to the Paradox of the Living Reality rather than to the
vagrant possibilities of personal and merely internal experience,
knowledge, or release, then the subjective, intellectual, and
mystical effects are transcended, and evolutionary transformations of
the broadly cultural and literal physical conditions of Man (both individually
and collectively) are increased.

In the evolutionary acculturation of
mankind, the Radiance of the Living Reality pervades the total body-mind of Man, thus permitting
growth and transformation, and, at last, even the translation of Man into the Radiant Domain of Love,
Life, and Ecstatic Transcendental Consciousness that tran­scends the self, and the mind, and the body of every human
individual and every group of human individuals.

The
mystical and evolutionary processes of human development have been
practiced and transmitted by
various kinds or degrees of Adepts throughout human history. Certain
founders of religion (such as Jesus and Gautama) were practicing
Adepts of this kind. Other religious founders or leaders, such as
Mohammed and Martin Luther, were not practicing Adepts, but they were
inspired men of insight or prophetic urgency, whose personal
activity was entirely within the domain of exoteric religion. But most practitioners or Adepts of the mystical and
evolutionary science were active outside the realm
of “Everyman,” and they were known only within the esoteric
“inner circles” of the religious and
spiritual traditions.

Lesser
Adepts are individuals who have enjoyed remarkable mystical
experiences and attained a degree
of Wisdom that is helpful or useful to individuals who are less
developed than themselves. These lesser Adepts serve the
awakening of idealism and functional discipline in ordinary people, and the level of experience to which
they lead their followers is generally limited to mystical
devel­opments of the Life-Current in the
autonomic nervous system and the central nervous system.

However,
the highest Adepts serve the awakening of radical insight and
responsibility in others, and they
guide others through and beyond personal and subjective mysticism,
into the domain of the evolutionary transformation and
ultimate self-transcendence of Man. Therefore, the Work of the highest Adepts is fundamental to
human culture as a whole. And the process developed by
practitio­ners in the Company of such Adepts ultimately transcends
both the autonomic and the central ner­vous
systems of Man through perfect devotion to the Radiant All-Pervading
Life-Current and Tran­scendental
Consciousness that is the Truth of Man and the World.

Therefore,
the value of the esoteric spiritual process is not mere subjective
mystical experience. Traditional
and, especially, oriental schools of mysticism tend to ascribe
independent significance and
reality to internal or subjective phenomena, so that mystical
experiences become an end in themselves. But such experiences are
only symptoms and early signs of the larger process, and they only signify and depend upon higher
physical events in the structure of Man (particularly in the central nervous system and the organs
of the brain core). Personal experiential mysticism, or internal self-watching, thus remains an
appropriate preoccupation of human beings only in the period of
transition or growth beyond confinement to the lower functions of the
human body-mind. The true and ultimate value of the esoteric
spiritual process is the evolutionary physical (or total psycho-physical)
and cultural adaptation of the human body-mind (or total
personality). And such evolution­ary
cultural and total physical (or psycho-physical) transformation
becomes the prime interest only after we mature beyond fascination
with internal or subjective mystical phenomena, higher or ex­traordinary kinds of knowledge, and all of the lower or
conventional rituals of the ordinary physical, emotional,
and mental experience of the subhuman “Everyman.”

Once mankind has entered into the
higher culture of human adaptation, the mystical and the
evolu­tionary mechanics will be commonly experienced and
understood. And then not only will the culture of Man be founded in
higher Wisdom, but the Destiny of Man will be understood to be beyond
Man, in the Ecstasy of
ultimate self-transcendence and even the bodily or material
Translation of Man and the material World into the Radiant Domain of
Life.

The
Five Evolutionary States of True Man

The
primary cultural enterprise of the West is scientific materialism, or
the extroverted and aggres­sive
technological exploitation of the body and the world of Man.

The
primary cultural enterprise of the East is mystical
transcendentalism, or the introverted and “other-worldly”
exploitation of the mind and soul of Man.

Until
now, these separate enterprises have been granted a kind of
“holy” status-set apart from any fundamental
criticism. Thus, West and East have been conventionally understood as
irreducibly separate
cultural enterprises that must constantly be distinguished and
allowed to realize their inde­pendent
destinies. But this conventional understanding is founded on the very
logic that is forcing the present cultural and political conflicts in
the world.

In
fact, the separate cultures of West and East are products of the
ancient self-divided state of Man in his
evolutionary childhood and adolescence. And there is no hope for the
evolutionary future of Man unless
the self-divided conception of Man is overcome-along with all of the
ancient cultural divi­sions.

If
Man is understood as a whole, then he is seen in terms of the dynamic
unity of the two divisions of the
autonomic nervous system, which reflect the primal unity of the
central nervous system and the universal
Life-Current (or Light-Energy). And this understanding of Man must
become the Principle whereby we criticize the personal and
cultural divisions demonstrated by mankind.

From
this point of view, we can see that the great cultural enterprise of
the West is founded on the impulses
and functional patterns of the verbal-analytical left hemisphere of
the brain and the “extro­verted”
or sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system. And the
great cultural enterprise of the East, in contrast to the West, is
founded on the symbolical and intuitive right hemisphere of the brain
and the “introverted” or parasympathetic division of the
autonomic nervous system.

The
new great culture of the whole body of Man will and must be founded
on transcendence of these divisions
and their cultural limitations. Therefore, let us consider more of
the psychology and physi­ology of personal and cultural
self-division.

The human individual functions via a
daily cycle of dramatic changes of state. That is, the
conven­tional pattern of human experience involves a daily
passage through three common states of experi­ential consciousness. These three
states or conditions of experience are the waking state, the
dream­ing state, and the sleeping state.

Everyone
generally passes through these states as a matter of necessity, or
unavoidable psycho-physical urgency, in a regular pattern, more or
less coordinated with the rhythmic daily cycle of sunlight.
And yet we tend to think of our lives exclusively in terms of the
waking state-as if dreaming and
sleeping were secondary functional patterns that serve our general
health but have no ultimate or real
philosophical and personal significance. We tend to think that to
“be alive” is to be in the waking state,
whereas to dream or to sleep is to be in a state more like death,
where the “self” (as both mind and body) is passive,
threatened, vulnerable, undefinable, or even non-existent.

If
we examine the human individual in the waking state, we discover that
in this state, the urges and patterns
of the sympathetic (or extroverted) division of the autonomic nervous
system are generally dominant.
And, therefore, it is our attachment to “self” as waking
consciousness that accounts for our self-divided tendency to conceive
of Man fundamentally as an extroverted and analytically thinking creature. Our attachment to the waking state
causes an imbalance in our functional being. And
that imbalance is demonstrated in our personal lives and in our
cultural enterprises.

Men
and women of both the West and the East suffer and react to the same
self-dividing effect of attachment
to the “self” as experience in the waking state. However,
the Western or occidental individual
generally tends to adapt this self-divided and self-possessed state
of being to a different functional
ideal than the Eastern or oriental individual.

The
“self” in the waking state is tending to be self-divided,
self-possessed, more or less extroverted (or
oriented toward the play of bodily experience), possessed of a
personal sense of “self” as a mortal physical
being, and possessed as well by a sense of the world as a machine of
irreducible material processes. The Western or
“occidental” mode of response to this view of existence is
to adapt to it and to try by persistent analysis and
material effort to overcome all mortal limitations. However, the Eastern or “oriental” mode
of response is to try to escape the game of existence as it appears
from

the
conventional point of view of the waking state.

The
“oriental” tendency is founded on a tacit sense that the
body-mind of Man and the cycle of ordinary
human experience contain an alternative experiential path to that
which is revealed in the waking
state. As I have tried to suggest, that alternative path is simply
the parasympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system.

In
the waking state, the sympathetic or “extroverted” division
of the autonomic nervous system is dominant. But in the dreaming
state the parasympathetic or “introverted” division of the
autonomic nervous system is dominant. In the waking state, the
verbal-analytical functions of the left hemi­sphere
of the brain are dominant. But in the dreaming state the symbolical
and holistic functions of the right hemisphere of the brain are
dominant.

The conventions of the Western way of
life exploit the extroverted or body-oriented motives of the
sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system, and the
traditional Western mind functions predominantly in the verbal-analytical
mode. Western man is Man exclusively in the waking state, without integration of consciousness
with the dreaming and sleeping states. Just so, Eastern man is Man seeking to be exclusively in
either the dreaming or the sleeping state, without full or even

partial
integration with the waking state.

The alternative personal and cultural
path that has been developed in oriental cultures since ancient times is the path of inwardness, or
the inversion of consciousness via the mechanisms of the para­sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system. That
is, the oriental method is generally a matter
of either mystical or intuitive inversion-or escape from the limiting
association of conscious­ness
with the mortal limitations of the conventional waking state.

The method
typical of oriental mysticism (and, indeed, of all traditional
mystical paths of religion, wherever
they arise) always involves the inversion of attention-turning
attention away from the bodily senses and away from the verbal
mind. The process involves various psycho-physical tech­niques
for switching the attention from the psycho-physical circuit of the
descending and outgoing motor impulses that move from the
brain to the bodily outlets of the senses, directing attention instead toward the ascending and
ingoing sensory impulses that move from the sense terminals to the brain core. When this is done
successfully, the body and the ordinary thinking mind are quieted,
and the interior mind of dream, creative imagination, and psychic
perception beyond the bodily limits of the
individual tends to awaken, producing various kinds of subjective,
mystical, and higher psychic experiences (ultimately including
telepathic association with all of the conditions in the space-time continuum).

The
goal of oriental mysticism is release from bodily limits and
projection of attention into states of mind and psyche that are at
least relatively free of conventional physical limitations. The
result is a view or understanding of existence that is quite
the opposite of the conventional Western or occidental view. It is a magical
consciousness, driven by an impulse toward singularity, or absorption
of mind and attention in nondualistic
bliss.

The
oriental path itself has two primary divisions. Oriental idealism
pursues a condition of con­sciousness
that is either mystical (or primarily visionary) or intuitive (or
primarily associated with nondualistic
absorption of mind or attention). This division (which may also
represent two stages in a single process, ultimately leading
to nondualistic absorption) is due to the unique psycho-physical anatomy of Man. Once attention is
turned from the sympathetic (or extroverted) circuit to the
para­sympathetic (or introverted) circuit, the psychic and
higher physical phenomena of mysticism appear. However,
once attention passes fully back to the brain core, the primal
Life-Current in the central nervous
system is contacted. Therefore, mystical consciousness is ultimately
followed by transcen­dence of the mystical mind in the
primal intuition of the universal Life-Consciousness.

Our
experience of the dreaming process is an expression of the relaxation
of outer or extroverted attention
(or relaxation of the verbal-analytical mental process in the left
hemisphere of the brain and the
outgoing motor process in the sympathetic division of the autonomic
nervous system) followed by the inversion of attention,
primarily toward the visually oriented mental centers of the right
hemisphere of the brain (via the sensory circuit of the
parasympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system). The process by which
mystical consciousness is developed is precisely the same process by
which everyone enters into dreams-except that the mystic engages in a
conscious exercise of this mechanism and exploits its
potential to the highest degree.

However,
just as we may pass from dreaming to sleeping, we may also pass from
mystical states of consciousness
to an apparently mindless and even bodiless state of “pure
consciousness.” This phenomenon is described in the
oriental literature of esoteric spirituality as
“liberation,” “nirvana” (or the realization of the
“quenching” of the principle of desire), “nirvikalpa
samadhi” (a samadhi, or trance state, without the conception of form), the
“realization of the Atman” (or true Self), or the “realization
of Brahman” (the Absolute Consciousness). However, the process
by which this intuitive state of self-transcendence is attained is
precisely the same process by which everyone enters into the deep
sleep state-except that the oriental seeker of intuitive
self-transcendence enters into this state without the loss of
conscious awareness.

(In
ordinary sleep, the individual is bereft of the awareness of states
of mind and body, and so he feels
“unconscious,” but in the state of intuitive
self-transcendence via inward absorption, the con­sciousness remains intact, free of
mental and bodily associations.)

The mechanism of deep sleep is
associated with the shut down of attention in both the right and the left hemispheres of the higher brain. In deep sleep, the
brain yields into the central Life-Current that pervades
the central nervous system. Therefore, in the oriental process of
internalized self-transcen­dence,
it is the Life-Current in the central nervous system that occupies
and absorbs attention, and, thus,
the attention appears to have no functional locus (except that some
relationship may intuitively or tacitly be felt to exist between
the upper right side of the heart and the Transcendental
Conscious­ness in the Life-Current).

Thus,
the oriental path is described and followed in terms of mysticism
and/or intuitive and inverted self-transcendence.
And the mechanism of this process is the same one that everyone
experiences during states of dreaming and
sleeping.

We
may say, then, that oriental culture and Eastern man are founded on
the solution to the problem of
the mortal “self” by means of the exclusive exploitation of
the inverted consciousness otherwise displayed
in the processes of dreaming and sleeping. And occidental culture and
Western man are founded on the solution to the problem
of the mortal “self” by means of the exclusive exploitation
of the extroverted consciousness otherwise displayed in the processes
of the waking state itself.

The
problem inherent in this whole affair is that there are two
solutions, and these are mutually exclusive. Traditionally, you must
choose (or be born into) one or the other way of life. But, in our time of worldwide communication and blending of cultures,
we are all confronted by both possibili­ties.
Therefore, since both options confront all of us, we are no longer
truly capable of the now provincial
attitude of either Eastern or Western man. Instead, we are all
disturbed by the absence of absolutes,
and the paradox of our possibilities is overwhelmingly clear. As a
result, the simple pur­suit of either an Eastern or a
Western program of life has a quality of absurdity about it that no
one but the most culturally provincial
individual can deny.

Therefore,
we are being obliged to transcend the exclusive Eastern and Western
programs of ancient and
traditional culture. We are being obliged altogether to transcend the
self-possessed and self-divided mode of existence-in order to
realize a new and whole bodily synthesis of ecstatic personal and
collective culture.

Just
as more “creative” or more fully integrated individuals are
able to function within the mental realms
of both the right and left hemispheres of the brain, and to realize a
harmony of well-being in both divisions of the autonomic nervous
system, all human individuals must be acculturated toward more
and more inclusive and insightful levels of functioning-in the waking
state and in all other states. Every conventional state (waking,
dreaming, or sleeping) has its appropriate moment, and every part of
the body-mind must contribute to a truly human or integrated
consciousness in the waking state. The true waking state is awake whole bodily,
in a harmony, and also in every aspect of the brain-mind and the
higher psyche. And unless we thus perfect our adaptation to the
waking state, we will only seem awake-whereas we
will be asleep in our deep psychic and intuitive being, or else at war with bodily existence via an irrational preference
for the disembodied symbols of our own imagination.

The
culture of the whole body and whole brain is infinitely superior to
the culture of aggressive extroversion
and the culture of conventional religious inwardness. The true Man is
a spiritual being, yielded
in his total body-mind to the Living Reality that contains and
pervades the World-Process. The other-worldly, body-denying,
anti-sexual, anti-intellectual mysticism of the exclusively oriental man is a heresy in the whole body of
true Man. Likewise, the exclusively verbal and analytical mind, with its materialistic pride of
bodily power and its deep psychic impoverishment, is the heresy of exclusively Western man.

The
whole Man lives in a fourth state, a unity with the Transcendental
Life-Consciousness that includes
and also transcends the waking, dreaming, and sleeping states. The
whole Man transcends and
also includes every aspect of his own body-mind. He lives and grows
through self-transcending adaptation (of his own functional
possibilities) to the universal Life-Current. At last, he enters into
a fifth state, in which mind and body
are both Transfigured and ultimately Dissolved in the Radiant Bliss of the Transcendental Reality,
which is expressed as the Light of Love, projected from the heart (or the center, free “soul”
and true Self of the body-mind) and the central nervous system (or
the vehicle of the subtle
“astral” body-mind at the core of the physical body-mind).
(And this Process of true death, or bodily Transfiguration
and Translation, is the mechanism in the World-Process whereby individual existence as Man is
transcended, and individual or higher conscious existence in more highly evolved worlds or planets,
or even in the Transcendental Realm, is begun.)

Lower, Middle, and Highest

The
lowest order of humanity does not understand even the lowest kinds of
functional experience. Therefore,
they remain bound to the mechanical repetition of unillumined events.

The middling range of uncommon and
extraordinary humanity is founded on a critical understanding of the lowest kinds of functional experience. Therefore,
such individuals serve as parental or superior guides and instructors, leading mankind toward higher
possibilities. But these individuals, whom we acknowledge
as great mystics, saints, and creative or intuitive geniuses, do not
thoroughly under‑

stand
the high and highest kinds of functional experience. Therefore, such
individuals remain bound to
mechanical contemplation of the luminous events of the higher mind
and body of Man.

The highest human type is represented
by those yet rare individuals who are established in critical and intuitive understanding of all
human experience, both low and high in the structural scale of human
possibility. Therefore, such individuals have understood, and thus
transcended, even their own highest possible experience. Such
individuals represent the ultimate Destiny of Man, which is Ecstasy, Divine Love, or the transcendence of the
psycho-physical limit that is Man himself.

When
Man is transcended in the Living Truth, then all knowledge and all
experience yield to Life, and
both body and mind Dissolve in the Thrill of Divinity.

Nature and God

Nature
is a Transformer, a Play on God, Who is the Only Living One. In the
Realm of Nature, beings appear
to be born, changed, and destroyed at last, but the Principle and
Condition of their existence is
also the Principle and Condition upon which the Realm of Nature
itself is dependently set. The Realm of Nature does not give us
existence, nor can all its changes and endings negate our existence. We must surrender to the Living One
and Awaken to the presumption of unqualified existence as our very Condition. Then we will transcend our born selves, our
changes, and all the endings in store for us.
In our Ecstasy, we will be Present in the Play of Changes as the
Living One, the Master of Na­ture,
free of all fear and despair. Then we will be Happy, and we will also
manifest or serve the Will whereby
Nature itself is ultimately Purposed toward the Good and Happiness of
all beings.

The Higher Culture of Man Depends on the
Higher Nervous System of Man

The functions of the autonomic
nervous system (traditionally called the “flesh,” or the
“realm of the senses”) are enlivened by the universal
Life-Current, but they are generally stimulated by the casual influence of ordinary or
“natural” functional associations ,since our attention
tends to be fixed in the lower or grosser bodily processes).
But if the Life-Current can be directly stimulated in the central

nervous
system (traditionally called the “soul” or, simply, the
“psyche,” or the “mind”), and then directed
upwards and toward rather than downwards and away from the brain, the
higher structural functions
of the body and mind will be activated and permitted to grow by
adaptation.

This
process inevitably produces the immediate phenomena we recognize as
the mystical states associated with religious and otherwise illumined
consciousness. But if the process is made continu­ous over time, it produces the
phenomena of the higher evolutionary development of the yet hidden structural potential of Man. These
phenomena include- higher mental (or brain-mind) development at the level of genius capacity in both
the abilities of the right hemisphere of the brain (such. as in the arts) and the abilities of the left
hemisphere of the brain (such as in the sciences and other
intellectual disciplines). There is also the
potential development of higher physical abilities, such as superior health,-longevity, natural healing
power, and so forth. Likewise, higher psychic phenomena, usually called extrasensory abilities,
develop-and they may enter into areas of psychic participation in the
play of the universe beyond Earth,
beyond the solar system, and even beyond the plane of material visibility. And there is also the
ultimate potential that the body-mind of Man, in the case of both individuals and the species as a
whole, can ultimately be transcended to the perfect degree, so that
it is Translated out of the gross
material plane altogether.

All the phenomena I have suggested or
described here are not only possible-they have already been proven, in the experience of countless
spiritual Adepts throughout human history. I myself am one in that
line of experimenters, and I can attest to the actuality of mystical
and evolutionary phenomena. Indeed, I am prepared to help others to
realize and demonstrate these very same things, if they will consider
the Truth and practice the higher cultural Way of adaptation to Life.

What is more,
the processes I have suggested or described depend on the
transference of human attention from exclusive orientation
to the functional extremities of the lower body-mind, so that the
realm of attention also naturally includes the functional extremities
of the upper body-mind. And this total
process depends on the granting of full and bodily feeling-attention
to the universal All-Pervad­ing Current of Life-Energy.

The
higher evolutionary process l is traditionally been served by
individual understanding of the instructions
of an Adept, and by individual acceptance of the guidance of an Adept
during every stage of
practice. And the Adept himself, by higher psycho-physical means,
stimulates the central nervous system of others (both in
itself and as a means of changing the mental and bodily being via the autonomic nervous system). This
process is known in the traditions of religion as spiritual
trans­mission. For these reasons, spiritual
Adepts tended and still tend to accept disciples or devotees, and
also to create a community or culture of such individuals. Such
“cults,” or communities of practice, have always been the
necessary instruments of the higher adaptation of human individuals
and,

ultimately,
of all mankind. The world should understand this and value it, rather
than ignorantly work to suppress the appearance of the higher destiny
of Man. The spiritual communities or true cults of spiritual
practice are the higher servants of mankind, and it is time this
whole affair became better known
in the world, rather than remained hidden as a result of persecution,
suppression, and popular stupidity.

This
is a time when the traditionally esoteric Teachings and practices of
religion can become the common
basis of the higher evolutionary culture of Man. But it will occur
only if the level of public intelligence is raised toward this
possibility. Therefore, please listen to my argument and understand. Abandon
what is false in the practice of human life, but embrace what is
benign and true. And begin to
support and serve the communication and implementation of the Way of
Truth in your own life and that of the public in general.

The Universe Is a Laughing Matter

A
talk

DA FREE JOHN: Shall we talk some more
about evolution?

Some
scientists today believe there is evidence that the genetic material
from which human beings developed
migrated to Earth from other planets. Do you think this is a
possibility? Where did we come from? What are we doing here? We
do not seem to have evolved directly from the ape, if at all, if we accept the latest
evidence-although current scientific thinking vacillates between
accepting Mans evolution from the ape and regarding Man as a special
intervention into the scheme of evolu­tion.
You are all human beings-what do you think? Where did you come from?

As an ape, you would have had to do a
lot of evolving to become Man, and the conventional
evolu­tionary scale does not describe much in the interval
between apes and men. Truly you cannot become Man merely by adapting as an animal.
Human beings possess functions that animals do not possess, but we
human beings ourselves have not yet adapted to or evolved those
functions. Not only did we not create them by adaptation-they
are still latent in us!

Where did
these higher or latent human functions come from, then? No animal
created them. No animal approximates the full development of the
brain of Man. Therefore, we did not acquire the higher
brain centers from the lower creatures. Certain mechanisms of the
human being can be found in animals, and we can see our
relationship to the genetic series of the world. But the unique
element that is in Man is not the product of
adaptation. Furthermore, what is truly unique about Man is even now unused by human beings. We have
yet to adapt and evolve toward what is already in us!

Can
you account for Man within the scheme of natural selection and the
adaptation of lower crea­tures?
You absolutely cannot. What exactly is going on, then? What is
evolving as Man? If lower creatures are not evolving as Man,
then something senior to the human race is trying to take birth. We have yet to adapt to the functions
we have been given, the higher functions of the human brain, which
are new in the scheme of life on Earth. Since the human race began,
only a few remarkable individuals have awakened to these
higher capabilities. Over time, however, the laws by which these functions may be developed-and which extraordinary
individuals have demonstrated in their own lives-may
become known to many people who can apply them toward the evolution
of Man.

QUESTIONER: You often speak of our
urge toward self-enclosure or death, but it must also be true that we possess an equivalent urge
toward life, or this higher process you are describing. Otherwise, if
we felt only our mortality, we probably would not continue to live.

DA
FREE JOHN: Yes. In the deep psyche you are awake. What is more, the
body is not your per­sonal
representative. The human body, your body, is the genetic
representative of all the functions and capabilities of the species that
is Man, not merely those qualities that you, in your limited
adap­tation, are willing or able to
manifest at the present time. Thus, it is not only your personal
awaken­ing to the Truth that moves you
bodily to live and to evolve. The genetic impulse inherent in the body is more profound than any
personal strength or weakness. We are the pawns or servants of the genetic motive. Man is working through us. The “Man
motive” is our controller.

Therefore,
we are not controlled by what is less than we are in the scale of
evolution except to the degree
that we are confused by existence and recoiled from Life. When we
discover the Truth of our existence,
when we therefore become Life-positive, then we are obliged by that
insight to adapt to what is inherent in us as Man but that
we have not yet acknowledged in our personal existence. When you can laugh at the animal in yourself, when you can
laugh at your present vitally obsessed state
and transcend it then you can be responsible for your habits of
living and for your moral, rela­tional
existence, and you can begin to adapt bodily to the Process of Life.
It is then that evolution begins.

The
powers of knowledge in the world today, however, are not so
Life-positive. They are possessed by
a negative view of life and the world. The problem is not that the
priesthood of science is simply materialistic,
as all ordinary men are. The problem is that this priesthood does not
account for any­thing beyond the world as it seems to be. As a
result, and despite the best work of our sciences, we still
do not understand our situation as human beings. We are limited by
our presumed knowledge, which has been given to us by our
religions and our sciences. We naturally assume that something of the
scientific dogma of evolution is true, but even so we cannot account
for Man in terms of what apparently preceded him in the scale of
evolution.

as the wilderness of Nature is the
realm in which animals adapt, so the realm of the higher conscious individual is the wilderness of Man.
The higher functions of the body-mind are our wilderness. The ordinary world of survival, of the
lower bodily functions of food, sex, and relationships, is the
do­main we should already have mastered.
It is our “civilization,” the part of our existence to
which we must already have brought order. The
truly human epoch begins when we bring order to the scheme of our daily existence in the world. Only then are we free
to wander in the wilderness of the higher functions
and of our true existence.

The
consideration of the higher evolutionary growth of Man rightly
belongs to the tradition of eso­teric
religion and spirituality. However, the true consideration of Man and
his relationship to the world
and to God has been locked away, obscured by the mumbo-jumbo of
metaphorical religious philosophy and exoteric dogma. True religious
and spiritual teachings essentially describe the evolu­tionary
and transcendental destiny of the human species. Thus, the visions
and symbolic descriptions of the traditional mystics describe
not God but the psycho-physiological structures of our own body-mind. We must demythologize mysticism
through our own experience of the higher processes of the evolution of Man. We must understand that the principle of
mystical experience is also the principle of
gross bodily experience. That principle is the Radiant Life-Current
that pervades and surrounds and
gives Life to the body-mind and all beings, and in which the entire
universe is arising, changing, floating,
and disappearing.

In
the midst of this consideration, however, you must realize that we
are still talking only about conditions of Man, conditions of our own
nervous system and brain. These higher centers seem marvelous
to us, and so we locate them in the realms of the cosmos beyond Man
and Earth. Halluci­nogenic
drugs also can give us an experience of expanded consciousness
(although the content of drug experiences is far exceeded by the
content of mystical experiences of the highest type). The states
of consciousness produced by mystical awareness and hallucinogens
seem, in either case, to be generated in a space beyond body and
mind, and so we make judgments about the total universe based on these experiences. But, after all, they are
developments of the brain, not of the cosmos. We are still only
investigating ourselves.

What
is truly marvelous is not realized within the realm of our
experience. We can experience only the
realm of Man. What is marvelous is not even symbolized in our
consciousness. It is beyond ourselves-beyond what is latent within
this nervous system, this brain, this genetic structure, beyond all
that we can investigate. What is truly marvelous is not even
contacted in our higher mysticism, which still contacts
“me,” the structures of Man. Although mysticism contacts
the higher centers of the
brain, nevertheless the skull is still the foundation and signature
of our sky. The brain is our vehicle,
our compartment, our limit. Thus, when you have finished exceeding
yourself and going higher
and higher in your being, you find that you must reach beyond the
body-mind, beyond knowl­edge, beyond the universe of matter.
Once you make that transcendental gesture, you cannot know what our destiny will be. You must simply take the gamble!

That
toward which we are evolving is present in us as an urge, not as a
vision. Enlightenment is an urge,
not an answer. It is the process by which we realize what is
marvelous, what no one has ever envisioned
or suggested. It has only been felt to be necessary! Somehow the
entire expanse of every­thing is sitting in a Room somewhere. To
break out of the pattern of the arising world and become identical
to its transcendental Principle is to enter that Room-whatever it is.
The Transcendental Domain
is beyond comprehension. It has nothing to do with our memory, our
repetitions, or our

possible
knowledge. We may acquire knowledge about the workings of the entire
universe, all the galaxies
and the totality of manifestation, and still not realize the
marvelous. The Domain toward which we have the ultimate urge to go
does not stop short of the marvelous. Thus, there is nothing to say about what is beyond the ultimate
stage of the evolution of Man. You can linger in that stage or you
can cross over. When you will do this is immaterial. It is a laughing
matter!

Thus,
I am here …. to demonstrate that the universe is a laughing matter,
so that you will transcend it. I
am here to tell the ultimate jokes – all seven of them. There are
seven eternal jokes, which are not revealed
in words – they are not quips or one-liners, but whole pieces of
existence, or stages of life. The
seven stages of life are the seven original jokes. When you transcend
them by fulfilling them, then you are able to see the
wonderment of God.

Living
the stages of life, …the seven stages are stages of laughter, each
of which must, in its turn, become a great laugh to you. You must be
able to feel total pleasure in the face of each stage of experience
before you can go on to complete the next stage. In your present
level of realization, however, you have not yet laughed at
any of the stages of life. You are still burdened by them, still carrying them around, still being
tested by them. You are not yet laughing.

The seventh stage(s) of life must
become a laughing matter, along with all the rest of your body and all its stages of growth. You must
get the seven(th)… joke(s), which is the body itself, the last
laugh. That joke is eternal and its Humor is
infinite Bliss.

Part
II

DA
FREE JOHN: The essence of humor is repetition. To make a joke is to
mimic and repeat what is ordinary.
Comics are constantly talking about what happens to everybody else
and imitating what everybody else does, but they are not
actually doing what everybody else does. They are repeating it. What is funny is to see what we do
repeated, to be permitted to laugh about it.

What is humor? If we can discover
what it is bodily, then we will have discovered the key to humor, because humor is a bodily matter.
Laughter is the signal of humor, the sign of getting a joke. We tend to associate laughter with good
feelings. We presume, therefore, that laughter is purely pleasurable.
But I have considered the origin of
laughter bodily, and I have observed that we laugh when we are tickled. Yet when we tickle somebody,
we are aware that although nothing is funny, we have stimu­lated precisely the reaction that we
bring to something that is funny. The key to humor, therefore, is to create laughter or to stimulate the
reaction to being tickled.

You
know very well that, although you laugh when you are tickled, being
tickled is not entirely pleasurable.
Laughter is your defense against that not-quite-pleasurable contact.
Joking is likewise a defense against contact with the
world, an escape from the realities of ordinary life. Thus, although humor or joking is a form of our play,
its origin is in the pleasure-pain reaction of laughing when being
tickled.

This
is why conventional joking or humor is not simply funny. It is a way
of dealing with pain, a repetition
of things that are painful but that are presented to us to create a
reaction of pleasure. That pleasurable
reaction, however, is a reaction to pain. Our conventional joking or
humor is a way to feel pleasure in the face of pain,
but it is not real humor.

Real
humor is a spiritual matter. It transcends even laughter, because it
transcends the pain of exist­ence.
Real humor is not associated with pain, and, therefore, it is not in
general associated with laughter or any other apparent mood.
Through true humor we transcend the seriousness of events by suddenly awakening to their Divine Condition. Suddenly, for
a moment, we glimpse the non-neces­sity
of everything, the humor of everything, the non-threateningness of
everything. Thus, true humor comes
with Enlightenment, or the transcendence of all conditions of
experience, both pleasurable and
painful.

Until
we are Enlightened and truly humorous, we use laughter or joking, our
worldly humor, to escape
from pain. We are not really happy when we are merely laughing. We
are addicted to joking and laughing, just as we are addicted
to orgasm. Both conventional laughter and conventional or­gasm are forms of reactive defense, ways of feeling good in
the midst of pain.

True
or free laughter is a product of real humor, humor that is associated
with the body and even with ordinary
events. But the reason that an enlightened and humorous being laughs
is not mere pain. It is recognition.
I, for instance, am not amused merely by repetitions. This laughter
arises spontaneously in the instant I transcend what I see repeated.
However, one can be just as full of humor without laughing.
One who is truly humorous, who transcends all the events of ordinary
life in every mo­ment, can appear to be in any mood,
but his or her humor, or enjoyment of the Divine Condition, is obvious.

You
must be able to find the humor, the joke, in all the events that you
now take so seriously. To become
capable of laughing at life-and even at the whole matter of
evolution-is to be able always to awaken
pleasurable feeling in yourself even though you have been born. You
must be able to be full of pleasure even though you may tend
to react to the events of your ordinary life.

At the present time, you see, you are
very serious about many things, so serious that you laugh only at clowns. You do not see that, like
the clown, you too are repetitious, that you are doing everything again. You do not do anything new-you
do everything again. Everything you do is an “again.”
Practi­cally nothing is new. If something new appears in your
life, it is new for only a fraction of a second, because
the instant you realize it is pleasurable, you start repeating it!
You rarely feel in relationship to
anything because you are too busy repeating everything. That is
clowning!

Therefore, you must engage your
repeating of life consciously. Then you can be mocked. Then you have
become a laughing matter and you are free. Then evolution and even
the body are a laughing matter. Then you realize true
laughter as bodily dissolution. The Spiritual Masters laughter is one
of his vague attempts to blow himself to
smithereens! True laughter is shattering.

Unless
you transcend yourself, you repeat yourself, and repetition without
enlightenment is karma, or bondage to fixed destiny. If we simply
realized this moment completely and fully, there would be no bondage, but we tend to repeat this moment and hold on to
it. We do not live this moment in the Infinity
of Life. We live it for its own sake, and we hold on to it
desperately, afraid to lose the plea­sure
and consolation it offers. Out of fear we repeat everything. We even
repeat the things we choose not to repeat, by avoiding them. Thus, we
are karma-laden, burdened by the urge to repetition. But to the
Enlightened man or woman karma is a joke. You too must see that your
own limited life of tendency
is funny. You must become truly humorous about your life. You must
transcend the repeti‑

tion that is
your present way of life by entering into delight and becoming a
laughing matter.

Presently
you are afraid to experience anything directly-simply because you are
afraid, not because you
truly are afraid of experiencing anything directly. You are turned
away from experience. You are recoiling upon yourself. You are full
of fear. You are protecting yourself. Laughter and all the other things to which you are addicted are
the methods you use to protect yourself, ways of trying to trigger the emotion, the bodily sense, the clarity of
feeling good under stress. You must go beyond that game of repeating
pleasurable moments. You must have humor about all the things you are
presently taking so seriously. The first step toward
spiritualizing your existence is to become humor­ous
about the ordinary things of life, and therefore free. Transcend the
animal, therefore, and become truly human.

Laughter
is the root of transfiguration, and the tickle is the original urge
to God-Realization. Pain and
death, which are the root stimuli of the tickle, are the origins of
the motive to be free. But most people
are not urgent enough in that motive. At some point they stop
growing. They adapt just enough to console themselves in their
fear and they do not grow any more. They do nothing for the rest of their lives except to repeat
themselves. I have seen a great deal of the world, and it seems to be
repeating itself. It is even beginning to repeat itself everywhere in
multiples, like an image in a hall of mirrors! More and more of the
same thing is happening all of the time. Have you observed this? I feel somewhat in the mood of the old monks and
ascetics who left the world having finally gotten
that joke. I really am possessed by the realization that the world is
immovable in its karma. Paradoxically,
that realization, like death, is one of the goads to real, creative
life.

QUESTIONER:
The possibility of saving the world is a goad to your Teaching Work?

DA
FREE JOHN: Yes, and the impossibility of saving the world creates
laughter. There is the urge to Enlighten
every being, and then there comes the realization that it is
impossible to do. That is the joke.
The impossibility makes a joke of spiritual Teaching. Spiritual
Teaching is a primal urge, like sex, you see, but it is bound to be
laughed at. It must become a laughing matter so that the Teacher can go on to something else.

This
Teaching is also a kind of joke, an expression of my sense of humor.
I am a clown, dont you see? I do everything for the sake of good
humor. You are able to see the Brightness of God only through
responding properly to his fool-in other words, by getting the
“jokes” of the Teaching of the Adept,
by transcending the world in his Company. If you do not laugh at Gods
fool, then you do not see God. The way to God is through Gods fool,
Gods clown, one who has already transcended the world.

Thus,
I am here to make a mockery of the universe, to demonstrate that the
universe is a laughing matter,
so that you will transcend it. I am here to tell the ultimate
jokes-all seven of them. There are seven
eternal jokes, which are not revealed in words-they are not quips or
one-liners, but whole pieces of existence, or stages of
life. The seven stages of life are the seven original jokes. They too
are the fool of God. When you
transcend them by fulfilling them, then you are able to see the
won­derment of God. When you have
fulfilled the Teaching of Truth, then you get the joke of human existence.

Living
the stages of life, though a profound and necessary gesture, is
ultimately foolishness. The

seven stages are stages of laughter, each of which must, in
its turn, become a great laugh to you. You must
be able to feel total pleasure in the face of each stage of
experience before you can go on to complete
the next stage. In your present level of realization, however, you
have not yet laughed at any
of the stages of life. You are still burdened by them, still carrying
them around, still being tested by them. You are not yet laughing at
Gods fool. You yourself will become Gods fool as you incarnate and laugh at each of the stages of
life. Even the seventh stage of life, you will see, is a colossal lot
of foolishness. The only way to move
through the seventh stage is to laugh your head off. The seventh stage of life must become a laughing
matter, along with all the rest of your body and all its stages of growth. You must get the seventh
joke, which is the body itself, the last laugh. That joke is eternal and its Humor is infinite Bliss.

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Da Free John

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