Hearing and self-Observation – Beezone

Being awakened from the sleep, the bondage, the problem,
the dilemma

. It is a matter of hearing, of being awakened from the
sleep, the bondage, the problem, the dilemma by which you
apprehend your present condition. In this hearing you are
awakened to the Condition of this moment without all the
concepts and contractions of energy and feeling.

When there is no obstruction to feeling-attention, then
what is Divine, without qualification, is completely
obvious. (TDT, 21-22)

Being revulsed by ordinary possibility is the beginning
of true hearing

… It is not “fun” to be alive. It is, ultimately, a
dreadful circumstance, a completely bewildered circumstance,
in which some things make you feel good temporarily, but,
essentially, apart from temporary pleasures, you do not feel
good. You are in trouble, and you are mortal.

Therefore, life is not “fun.” There are pleasures, but
even to the extent that there are pleasures a great
dimension of suffering also pervades one’s entire life.
Everything that might grant pleasure ultimately disappears.
Every relationship that one might enjoy ultimately comes to
an end, if not through immaturity and lovelessness then
through death. There is no fundamental happiness or
satisfaction in this life. Awakening to revulsion toward our
ordinary possibility is the beginning of true “hearing.”
(EWB, 103)

Characteristics of those who “hear” the Teaching
truly

Those who are serious in the commitment to this
Realization and who “hear” the Teaching truly, value such
Teaching and cultivate such Company above all. They quickly
achieve humor and responsibility relative to their own
conventions of self. They see through and beyond all
appearances, they delight in the Awakened Company of the
Adept, and they quickly transcend all false evidence and all
conditional distractions. (ISB, 20)

Continuous release of self and all experience into the
Divine Condition

[Hearing is] radical and continuous release of
self, knowledge, and all experience into the Transcendental
Condition of Divine Ignorance. (LTF, fn., 202)

Energy and attention are free for direct Intuition of
Divine Being

… Those whose “hearing” is (or at least eventually
becomes) most profound are stably founded in psycho-physical
equanimity (free of the distracting or binding power of the
lower and the higher functions of the manifest conditional
self), and their energy and attention are completely free
for the direct or unmediated Intuition of Transcendental
Being (beyond all objects and beyond inversion upon the
internal self-essence). (ISB, 19)

Hearing is based upon the discovery of the futility of
seeking

Having discovered in some basic sense the futility of
your ordinary or extraordinary living, you become capable of
listening to me and then hearing. The capacity really to
listen to the point of understanding depends on this
discovery. You cannot just be some bright-eyed character who
wants to take up this Way to find the ultimate Object, or
God, or have pleasurable mystical experiences.

This Way is based upon the discovery of the futility of
seeking. Having made that discovery, then you will be able
to connect with the thread of my Argument to the point of
understanding. (DGB, 272-73)

Hearing penetrates the tendency to absolutize
subjectivity

… Hearing penetrates the tendency to absolutize
subjectivity. We all tend to make absolute the subjective
sense of “l,” the sense of being inside the body, the bird
in the cage. Our subjectivity is what we communicate most,
not the process of its dissolution. We all have the tendency
to think that my moving, correcting, changing, focusing, or
somehow manipulating the subjective “I,” the being will be
free. Most of us, really, think that inwardness is the way
out of suffering. So do our traditions. The traditions tell
us that if we go inward far enough and long enough that
something spiritual will happen, that we will be changed. It
is true, the mind may become quiet and even be replaced with
lights and colors and sounds. But whether such phenomena
appear or not, in the course of your practice, they are not
Truth, and identifying with or searching for such phenomena
is not sacrificial or lawful and violates the primary
condition of service. (VM, ed., 20)

If you are wise you know the sun is shining a few feet
above the clouds

Why be dominated by the weather? Go up above the clouds.
The Sun is shining up there. Every day is a bright day of
fine weather. What you consider to be weather is so local it
almost does not exist. You let the superficial changes of
life control you, as your own hormonal changes do, whereas
really, in the larger picture, when you realize a little
depth, you see there is always Bliss. So you must control
the effect of the weather, if not the weather itself. That
is the art of life.

If you are wise, you know that the clouds are just a few
feet up in the air and the the Sun is shining above them.
The stars and the moon are up there all the time, too. The
Sun shines twenty-four hours a day, not just twelve. The Sun
is always shining. It never stops shining. It seems to stop
shining every day, the sky gets dark, it gets light, clouds
appear, it looks like bad weather is on the way. Changing
weather is the perspective of ordinary people, of the
provincial, local, childish, or adolescent character.

When you hear the Teaching, then you Awaken to the
ultimate Condition of things. You participate in the
constant Brightness of Real Existence. You must know the art
of that participation and you must grasp a certain
understanding. After all, until people could go up into the
air, they did not know that the Sun is shining all the time.
The fact that the Sun is always shining is not ultimate
knowledge, but even that fact had to be learned, you see.
The practice of spiritual life is another affair altogether.
It is obviously profound and ultimately consequential. But,
similarly, it is something that you must find out. You must
learn the art of associating with the Way and then you must
practice associating with it. (BSW, 135)

Is to submit spontaneously and voluntarily to
relationship

To hear the Teaching is not only to listen to its
conceptual logic, but to respond to its argument with
feeling, from the heart. It is to submit spontaneously and
yet voluntarily to the discipline of relationship. The
argument exposes your self-meditation and mere experiencing
or knowing in the “cave” of subjectivity. Hearing the Truth,
you must emerge into the True Condition of existence, which
is relationship. The principal condition of the Way of
Divine Ignorance is to live in constant, heart-felt
relationship to the Spiritual Master. The mature realization
of each stage of practice is generated and tested as a
process in relationship, not only to the Spiritual Master
but to all the arising conditions of experience, apparently
subjective and apparently objective. The paradox of
unqualified relationship confounds the mind. It obliges the
being to a Way of sacrifice, which is at once Truth and
Love.- (BN, 172)

It Is pure Feeling or Blissfulness without knowledge or
definition

That true Awakening, prior to the mechanics of the
body-mind, is what I mean by “hearing.” It is a moment of
the breakthrough of one’s Identity, one’s true Condition. It
suddenly Shines forth, free of the limitations of the left
and right sides and the mechanics of experience. It is pure
Feeling or Blissfulness, pure Consciousness or Happiness,
without knowledge, without any definition. It is free of all
of the limitations of experiential knowledge and conception.
It no longer has any such problems. Its fundamental
Condition is obvious, but not really speakable. From that
point of view of hearing, or Awakening, we are able to
practice this Way of Divine Ignorance, wherein all the
aspects of our lives become observable, and we can presume
responsibility for them and act whole bodily in our
relations in every moment, as God-Communion. In such
practice of Real Life, this body-mind becomes purified,
balanced, and clarified. It becomes healthy in the truest
sense. (EGP, 168, 170)

Occurs In case of those drawn Into the Company of the
Heart-Master

… “Hearing” … [is] spontaneous intuition in
which the pattern of subjective motions is interrupted and
its prior Condition revealed.]

Such “hearing” occurs in the case of those who are drawn
into the Company of the Spiritual Master; when attention is
moved to concentrate in the Spiritual Master’s demonstration
and argument, there is spontaneous awakening to true
“hearing” and the disposition of mere attention or intuitive
observation…. (EWB, 345)

Profound consideration, understanding, and easy
self-discipline

… Listen to the radical Argument of the Adept Spiritual
Master until there is true “hearing,” in the form of
profound consideration, understanding, easy self-discipline,
and spontaneous feeling-surrender of self. (LBR, 38)

Self-understanding via consideration of the Teaching of
the Adept

Practice of the Way of Divine Communion requires both
true “hearing” (or self-understanding through consideration
of the Teaching Arguments of the Adept Spiritual Master) and
true “seeing” (or reception and use of the tangible
Spirit-Blessing or Life-Baptism that is freely granted by
the Adept Spiritual Master). (FG, 144)

Signs of hearing

Once the argument has been considered, felt, and lived,
the devotee is convicted. He is convicted of his love for
the Teacher and he is convicted of the necessity of the
Teaching and of right action for the rest of his life. Then
he has heard the Teaching, he is prepared, and he approaches
the Divine Master in Divine Communion. (VMTWO, ed., 27)

Simultaneous understanding and awakening to Divine
Consciousness

“Hearing” is the intuitive understanding of the
self-contraction and simultaneous intuitive awakening to
Divine Consciousness that arise on the basis of disciplined
study of the Argument of the Adept. Hearing naturally leads
to “seeing.” (TDT, ed., 80)

The relational force of the whole bodily being Is set
into motion

… The “hearing” of the argument or Teaching of the
Spiritual Master is a process wherein the relational force
of the whole bodily being is reawakened and set into
fullness of motion. (LTF, 81)

The signs of true hearing In the devotee

The sign of true hearing in the devotee is an ease in
life-the disciplines become natural and clear, his life
becomes unclouded and responsive, he is capable of
functioning, speaking, thinking, acting, and loving, he is a
disciplined and religious person. He is not merely
disciplined in the traditional way of living according to a
conventional law-don’t do this, don’t do that, like the
traditional yamas and niyamas that we talked about
earlier-but he is disciplined as a natural response to
ordinary life. He enjoys a natural asceticism or easeful
economy in the midst of ordinary activities. He neither
exploits life nor limits it. The signs of preparation or
hearing are a natural approach to the Teaching and clarity.
(VMONE, ed., 20)

Those who hear me are not self-concerned anymore

Everyone who hears the Teaching enters into this
Enlightened disposition in some fundamental sense…. Those
who hear me are not self-concerned anymore. They already
possess the arms of wisdom. They already enjoy the Siddhi of
the Divine and deal with whatever may arise in the apparent
individual experience. They do that creatively and
responsibly, but they do not stand as fear. So, where is
their attention? Their attention is free. It deals freely
with personal circumstance and is not troubled. It is thrown
out of the sphere of the body into the environment of all
relations and all possibilities, the environment of total
existence, not merely of self-existence. (FG, 110)

To hear Is to enter into the mood of Divine Ignorance

Every moment of hearing is comprised of two simultaneous
events: 1) We see our suffering as our own activity
(un-Happiness or self-contraction), and understand that all
effort to overcome such action only amounts to more futile
and self-possessed activity. 2) We intuit the Divine Reality
and our inherent freedom prior to such self-contraction.

To hear is to enter into the mood of Divine Ignorance. It
is the Awakening of the intuition of the Divine. Such
hearing liberates energy and attention from the egoic
body-mind and to the Process that is the Way. Thus, those
who hear also begin to hear more and more. “Understanding
arises when there is true hearing and self-observation in
relationship.” 1) it is founded upon the process of
listening and hearing. 2) When hearing has become stable and
has naturally moved the being into continuous insight into
the self-contraction, allowing us to abide in the
disposition which is radically free of the self-knot, then
we have UUunderstoodUU. (LVONE, ed., VI-3-4)

To hear the Teaching means to be established In a
relationship with me

… To hear the Teaching means that you hear me, because
the Teaching did not fall out of the sky. I have
communicated this Teaching! And if you hear me, then you can
live with me in Spiritual terms. You cannot just hear the
Teaching, you see, and go off and be alone with it. To hear
the Teaching means to be established in a relationship with
me. Therefore, having heard, you must see me, you must live
with me, you must practice in my Company. That is the secret
of this Way of Life-not to be self-involved, not just to
have a mental understanding, but to live with me directly.
(GIEB, 96-97)

… To hear the Teaching means you hearUUmeUU, because
the Teaching did not fall out of the sky. I communicated
this Teaching. If you hear me, then you can live with me,
you can practice in my Presence. But you cannot just hear
the Teaching and then go off with it and attempt to practice
apart from me. To hear the Teaching means to be established
in a relationship with me. (LVONE, VI-11)

True “hearing” occurs when the soul flashes forward

… True “hearing” occurs when the soul flashes forward,
when it is Awakened. (EWB, 97) When devotee is not at odds
with Teaching, his intimates, and Teacher

. When the devotee is no longer at odds with the
Teaching, when he is no longer at odds with his intimates,
when he is no longer at odds with the Teacher, then hearing
is beginning. Then there is the possibility in him for
spiritual life. This process I am describing is what …
[Heart-Master Dal means by preparation. (VMONE, ed.,
20)

When you transcend the self-contraction and are restored
to Satsang

The root of true spiritual practice is in “hearing” the
Teaching of the Adept. You may have a sincere interest in
spiritual practice, you may have a real desire to take up
the Way, but until there is hearing, until the Argument
“makes its point in you,” practice cannot begin. In hearing
you transcend the self-contraction and are restored to
Satsang….

We come to such hearing by frequent and intense
“listening” to the Teaching, which is the process of serious
study and diligent application of its principles to one’s
own life….

When you are hearing, you discover that you are already
free, and Happy. Life is enjoyed from the point of view of
understanding. There are difficulties-as always-and practice
remains your test as well as your obligation. But in your
hearing, the “problem” orientation is undone and instead,
understanding is brought to the events of life. (LVONE, ed.,
VI-1-2)

Self-Observation

Be able to locate yourself on the “map” of the seven
stages of life

Every human being who approaches the Way is, in general,
a third stage neurotic. Those who take up the study of this
way must be able to identify in themselves their childish
and adolescent strategies and their vital, peculiar, and
solid characteristics. They must be able to locate
themselves on the “map” of the seven stages of life, to
locate themselves not merely in the third stage of life, but
in a failed version of the third stage of life. They must
see how they fail to exercise the will and how they collapse
into adolescent and childish, even infantile, modes of
emotion, particularly as they do under certain special
circumstances. They must be able to observe and identify in
themselves a conventional religious interest that may be
part of their motivation for taking up the study of this
Way, that has its basis in the neurosis of the third stage
of life, and that is a search for consolation based on the
collapse of the will and the desire to revert to infantile
dependence. (ISB, 82-83)

Concentration and Observation

• A thorough summary of the psycho-physical
principles of concentration and observation. (EWB, 340-49)
Consider your motivations, habits, activities, thinking, and
desires

.. The first thing to do is to observe yourself, consider
your motivations, consider your habits and activities,
beliefs, and desires. Consider your thinking. Consider the
thoughts that you find persuasive. Consider all the
traditions with which you are, or may become, familiar.
Consider the whole thing, to the point of understanding the
mechanism motivating you to seek Truth or Reality or God or
Enlightenment, because it is only if you will observe and
understand and transcend that mechanism that Truth or
Reality or God or Enlightenment becomes Realizable. Not
otherwise. Not ever otherwise. (DGB, 75-76)

… I call you to observe yourself, and you will see,
well, you’re grabbing your ass! You’re pinching your belly.
You’re ripping your hairs out. You’re biting your tongue,
you’re pulling out your teeth, you’re sticking your fingers
in your eyes, you’re causing yourself great pain because of
your motive to be independent.

You will never be independent. There is not even a
molecule of wood in this wall that is independent. Nothing
and no one is independent. All of us inhere in the Great
One, the Wonderful Lord, the Marvelous Starry Person, the
Delight of Being. (DGB, 32)

Generated on the basis of consideration of the
Teaching

In a sense you could say it just happens. It is not an
activity of the ego, of your deciding to analyze yourself.
This practice is not generated by my prescribing
self-observation to you. Rather, it is generated on the
basis of a consideration of the Teaching, a natural turning
to the Spiritual Master, accepting his disciplines on the
basis of understanding, and fulfilling these disciplines
from hour to hour, always making them the form of your
relationship to the Master. This is sacrifice in its natural
form. In the midst of that life there are real moments of
insight from time to time. And when such insight appears, it
is not in the form, “Oh, shucks! Will you look at that!”
That kind of information comes from self-watching. When you
find yourself out, that is self-watching. That is data. That
is images that you capture about yourself. All that analysis
is a natural product of self-watching. (ISB, 122)

Importance of Inspecting your Judeo-Christian mind

… You may have casually inherited your Western
Judeo-Christian mind without ever having been a very
profound student of it. It just filtered in, through a
little bit of church-going, a little bit of parental and
social influence. But you must become responsible for the
religious conventions you represent, through a very
sophisticated investigation of Judeo-Christian thought and
concepts, however casual your inheritance.

Although you are nominally associated with me, you are
actually trying to fulfill your destiny as Jews and
Christians and Moslems and Hindus and Buddhists and so
forth. (WYT, 91)

In a sense you could say it just happens

In a sense you could say it just happens. It is not an
activity of the ego, of your deciding to analyze yourself.
This sadhana is not generated by my prescribing
self-observation to you. Rather, it is generated on the
basis of a consideration of the Teaching, a natural turning
to the Guru, accepting his conditions with understanding,
and fulfilling these conditions from hour to hour, always
turning into the form of these conditions, making them the
form of one’s relationship to the Guru. This is sacrifice in
its natural form. In the midst of that life there are real
moments of insight from time to time. And when such insight
appears, it is not in the form, “Oh, shucks! Will you look
at that!” That kind of information comes from self-watching.
That is data. That is images that you capture about
yourself. All that analysis is a natural product of
self-watching.

But the natural product or expression of real
self-observation is radical insight. Where there is such
insight, all the things that you feel bad about on the basis
of your self-analysis or self-watching are undone. In a
moment of real insight, there is no obstruction, there is no
bad guy. The principle of the ego is not present in the
moment of real self-observation, but it is always there in
the moment of self-watching.

Understand that everyone engages in self-watching. You
are not prohibited from self-watching. However, you are not
asked to self-watch. You will simply and randomly notice
yourself self-watching, and you will begin to understand
this strategy in yourself. You will see what it represents,
why it is there. You will see what it really is. What is
self-watching? It is self-meditation. What is that? It is
contraction. You will really see it. You will know it to be
that. And in those moments, that is insight. That is
self-observation, that is understanding.

Essentially, the conditions are preventions of
dramatizations. They are simple, appropriate, natural,
life-supporting, and all of that, and from a certain point
of view they are good, harmonious, sattwic things to do. But
that is not their essential function. They are not true in
themselves. Their essential function in the way of
Understanding is to prevent the dramatization that you are
always enacting via your functions. When, in some functional
area, you are prevented from dramatization, you
automatically observe yourself. Dramatization prevents
self-observation because it gives you self-enactment through
energies of various kinds and provides you with the
consolation of unconsciousness. The conditions are all ways
of frustrating the intention to dramatize and be
unconscious. Therefore, self-observation arises. It appears
as cognition at the plane of the mind, and that’s how you
know you’ve observed yourself. But actually that is why this
self-observation is tantamount td Self-knowledge, knowledge
of Brahman, knowledge of the Heart or Real-God ultimately.
(NR, 212-13)

Insight where what you feel bad about based on
self-analysis Is undone

But the natural product or expression of real
self-observation is radical insight. Where there is such
insight, everything that you feel bad about on the basis of
your self-analysis or self-watching is undone. In a moment
of real insight, there is no obstruction, there is no bad
guy. The principle of the ego is not present in the moment
of real self-observation, but it is always there in the
moment of self-watching. (ISB, 122-23)

Inspect your activities, but don’t make all of that
content Into God

… You must inspect the activities of your life. You
must know them through your sadhana. Therefore, in the
stages of sadhana I have described there are degrees of
inspection of the functions and dimensions of existence.
But, having inspected them, don’t make them the principle of
existence. Don’t make all of that content into God. Love God
with these, in other words, sacrifice to God through all
your functions. (DHTHR, 25-26)

Investigate the real Import of your existence from moment
to moment

As a matter of practice it seems that people linger and
must be helped to inspect the conditions of their existence.
All of these disciplines and all the forms of help that you
are associated with in our culture are given to enable you
to inspect your existence. People do not tend to inspect the
actual conditions of their existence. They tend rather to be
moved by them, to be motivated by the pattern. And because
they tend to be the pattern, they do not enquire of
themselves, they do not examine themselves, they do not
investigate the real import, substance, or force of their
own existence from moment to moment. (YC, 37-38)

My experience was a single, fluid, psychic plastic

The process in which I was involved, however, ultimately
demonstrated to me that there was no distinction between the
internal, psychic, subjective world, so-called, and the
outer, objective world, that all states were essentially
psychic states and crossed over into one another. In some
sense the waking state affected dreams and the subtle,
psychic, and hallucinatory activity. But the opposite was
also true. Things that were going on in dreams and at a
purely psychic level crossed over into the objective world
of the waking state. A kind of story began to develop
wherein I would sometimes observe some character or event in
a dream or a flash on consciousness, and then I would
observe that event being played out in the phenomena of my
external life. The characters in the internal world appeared
in the external world. Pieces of the events being worked out
in the external world carried over into the internal world.
My experience was a single, fluid, psychic plastic.

As a result of this process, the phenomena of the
objective world began to achieve psychic force. They became
recognizable as states and signs of the psyche. The beings
in the objective world became psychically significant
beings. I became sensitive to my daily life as a psychic
process, even in the terms of the simple perception of
objective events. A psychic unfolding was taking place, much
as in dreams.

I began to become profoundly sensitive to certain
processes in the so-called natural or objective or material
world. I developed the ability to read them, to observe
them, to see dramas proceeding in the phenomenal world that
from our ordinary, verbal, self-abstracting, objectifying
point of view would not be observable. Thus, I achieved a
psychic inherence in world forces, forces of weather,
natural phenomena, and creatures of all kinds. I became
unusually associated with certain animals and patterns in
the natural world such as the weather and the ocean. The
ultimate outcome of this development was the awakening of a
state of brilliant equanimity and awareness of the
coincidence of all phenomena. And when this awakening
occurred,. there was a breakthrough in the process of my
sadhana, and I went on to find a human spiritual teacher.
(TDT, 221-22)

Observe how we are programmed entities

We must appreciate ourselves through
self-observation-observe how, as functional or manifest
beings, we are programmed entities. We are perhaps not as
mechanical as robots, but the metaphor of the robot is
usable, nevertheless. We are programmed through experience,
through stimulus-response learning, through social learning,
and through the trial of our own limitations and
difficulties, to use certain functions of the brain and the
nervous system and the functional being altogether. (DGB,
164)

Observe how you are alienating yourself from all people
and the Divine

You must understand yourself, you see. This is why it is
necessary to hear my Argument, not merely to believe it, but
to apply yourself to it, to see yourself in its terms, to
see if it is true. You will observe that you are a mechanism
of contraction. Yes, you are the body-mind, so you enjoy or
suffer an adventure of experience and knowledge, but you
also show the evidence of the self-contraction, the
self-possessed character, the dissociative character, this
other-rejecting character, this selfish character. In
addition you feel all the evidence in yourself of
alienation, confinement, captivity, emptiness, un-Happiness,
struggle, search, and despair.

Observe this mechanism and all its effects in yourself
and you will see that it is just this contraction, this
Narcissistic character, an activity alienating itself from
all of its relations. You will also begin to notice, through
understanding, through reception of the Spirit-Blessing,
through real meditation, that in effect, without your
wanting it, without even knowing what you are doing
precisely, you are alienating yourself from your native
Condition of Transcendental Union or Unity with the
Transcendental Condition. (FG, 157-58)

Observe your limits and deal with them very precisely and
practically

There is no alternative to practicing the Way. The logic
of consideration is not an alternative to practice. It does
not lead to Realization except in the case of practice. As a
listener to this radical Teaching you must understand
yourself. You must observe and appreciate your unique limits
and begin to deal with them very precisely and practically.
If you find yourself still full of the doubt of conventional
intellect, not naturally presuming that you are a spirit in
the realm of spirits in a great cosmos of many planes of
spirits, if you are not very naturally certain of the
survival of death, then you must transcend those limits
before you will be able to practice in the mature or
ultimate sense. (FG, 47-48)

Occurs in moments of self-forgetting when you are simply
doing things

Self-observation is that insight in which what you might
otherwise watch, or notice in yourself, is undone. It cannot
occur as a method, as a kind of practice. True
self-observation is not a matter of putting yourself forward
in some kind of witnessing point of view to see the things
that are occurring. Self-observation occurs when you are not
present as a self, watching. Self-observation occurs in
natural, functional moments of self-forgetting in which you
are simply doing things. In other words, basically when you
are fulfilling the conditions for sadhana that the Guru has
given you, when you are living them in the spirit of
Satsang, in the spirit of the Teaching, simply doing it in
ordinary terms, at random within such a process you suddenly
see or comprehend something…. When we are seated in the
dimension of consciousness itself, not in the seat of the
brain as a strategic position, we suddenly grasp the entire
play that is our humanity. When you are free of all
manipulative exercise, you are like a mirror to your own
event and the process of your life shows itself to you in
instant comprehension. (NR, 211)

Occurs when you are living the disciplines of
practice

Self-observation is that insight whereby what you might
otherwise watch, or notice in yourself, is undone. It cannot
occur as a “method.” True self-observation is not a matter
of putting yourself forward in a witnessing point of view to
see the things that are arising. Self-observation occurs
when you are not present as a self, watching.
Self-observation occurs in natural, functional moments of
self-forgetting in the midst of daily life; in other words,
when you are living the disciplines of practice that the
Spiritual Master has given you, when you are living them in
the spirit of Satsang, in the spirit of the Teaching, simply
practicing in ordinary terms. Thus, when you are seated in
the dimension of consciousness itself, not in the seat of
the brain as a strategic position, you suddenly grasp the
entire play that is your humanity. When you are free of all
manipulative exercise, you are like a mirror to your own
event, and the process of your life shows itself to you in
instant comprehension. (ISB, 121-22)

Once Satsang is established, patterns are observed from
that moment

… But in Satsang , the relationship to the man of
understanding, or the Guru, the Heart establishes a living
relationship with the individual, and then it no longer
makes any difference to him what the patterns are. The
patterns are simply observed from that moment. Another kind
of condition is lived, and so these patterns become
obsolete. They fall away, until only the Heart stands out.
From the point of view of the true disciple, there is no
significance to the patterns. There is no significance.
“Significance” is your dilemma. It is the pattern of your
own mind-forms….

Until a man truly enters into Satsang with his Guru, he
is very concerned about the way, about this pattern of his
own growth and experience, his own transformation, his own
liberation. But when he enters into the condition of
Satsang, his concerns, his path, his patterns become
obsolete. All of that is simply not supported. He simply
lives the condition and conditions of relationship generated
in his Guru’s company, and the patterns subside. They become
obsolete, without function. Therefore, concern for those
patterns is more evidence of the search, of this fundamental
dilemma….

We are always already “there.” This is it. There is no
dilemma. There is only one Reality, presently. It is not
somewhere else. It is not hidden within us, nor behind the
world. It is obvious. Satsang is the condition of Reality,
consciously lived. It is lived to you, within you, as you,
along with you. It is that real condition lived as life, as
a pressure upon the disciple. The Guru lives it to him,
until it begins to become obvious, until it begins to become
intelligent in him. But all he will have realized, after
all, is the obvious. The nature of the rising event, the
apparent condition, becomes clear. It becomes obvious to him
that his dilemma is his own activity. He sees that in fact
there is no dilemma. There is nothing about the present that
is not Truth.

Satsang is the real condition. It is the condition of
Truth. It is the condition of conscious relationship to the
Guru. When a person enters into it consciously, with any
degree of clarity, he has begun to live under the conditions
that are Truth. And that is the entire process. Thatis
spiritual life, real life. Everything else is an extension,
another reflection of a man’s search, his dilemma, his
dis-ease. When this real condition is truly lived, whatever
arises tends to be consumed. (MDS, 291-92)

Only when it becomes summary can it appear as real
responsibility

Observation, or insight, which is fundamentally the same
thing, lasts only when it is perfect, because only when is
is perfect does it include all other possibilities that
maybe observed, and therefore it goes on and on and on. Any
moment of self-observation cannot last, because something
else arises, and you must be present in the next moment. It
is only when the whole affair of self-observation and
insight becomes summary, conclusive, total comprehension of
fundamentally what you are as an activity, only then can it
appear as a real responsibility in consciousness. Although
it appears now at random, you do not forever from that
moment understand, but you have come to the point of
responsibility at that point, and you can enquire, and you
can enquire at random, and you must consciously initiate
enquiry and re-initiate it in random moments from
then…

… But you cannot initiate self-observation. Anything
you initiate that looks like self-observation is
self-watching.

There is the distinction. Self-observation is essentially
a random and passive moment in which no self is presented in
your fulfilling a natural condition of life in Satsang. The
whole affair of self-observation ultimately becomes summary
and conclusive. It becomes comprehension. Then you may
enquire. And since enquiry is founded in prior insight, this
real process, it can be intentionally initiated at random in
the formal setting of meditation or at any time….

In your life of discipline there will be times when you
observe something about yourself and in that moment also
comprehend it. But the other times when you see things and
watch yourself and get data about yourself are a different
matter. There are moments in which you see yourself and also
comprehend yourself. Real self-observation is of that
nature. You not only get information about yourself, but you
comprehend that area of drama in your life and are
fundamentally free of it on the basis of that very
observation or insight. (ISB, 126, 127)

Opposites: All arising is a Paradox of pairs In
opposition and play

… Therefore, always release everything, whatever the
conditions. The whole body, the whole world, all arising,
high and low, to Infinity, is a Paradox of pairs in
opposition and play, of contradictions demanding the logic
of futility, and of an eternally present and obvious
Condition which may always be Realized as Freedom and
Happiness, prior to the conceived necessities of body, and
mind, and self.

Find the Company of Truth. Hear the Teaching of Truth.
Become intimate altogether with the One that is Truth. (CNE,
219)

Opposites: Ali opposites are Identical In
Consciousness

Therefore, living beings, the actions of living beings,
and all the results of the actions of living beings are only
temporary and unnecessary modifications of the Radiant
Transcendental Consciousness. Good and evil, right and
wrong, pleasure and pain, positive and negative, top and
bottom, inside and outside, back and front, right and left,
excitation and passivity, desire and detachment, male and
female-all opposites arise in the same manner and are
ultimately identical to the same Transcendental Condition or
Radiant Consciousness. (EWB, 555-56)

Opposites: Observing the play of opposites

People like to play games with themselves, such as taking
up celibacy or a raw diet. They think that this will enable
them to bypass the crisis of life. They think that if they
can maintain a raw diet they will not have dietary problems
or crave food or want to drink and smoke or indulge
themselves in any way. They also think that if they can be
celibate they will not have any sexual problems…. But in
fact there are no games that are the equivalent of
self-transcendence. Ascetical games are not methods that
produce self-transcendence but only forms of
self-manipulation….

People tend to think of themselves as neurotics, as
people in trouble, as people who are obsessed and who know
they must go through a profound change in order to enter
into a higher disposition of existence. Thus, they are
fascinated by such possibilities as celibacy and raw diet,
even as they are fascinated by the opposites. They are
fascinated by the idea of a raw diet and by the idea of
eating nothing, but they are also casually fascinated by
extreme self-indulgence, drinking, smoking, drug-taking,
overeating, and self-pleasuring through diet. Their
fascination with both these things is a description of their
problem. They are not really motivated in any singular or
one-pointed way toward either extreme. They are motivated by
both extremes because they have come to realize that their
life is a problem and a dilemma, and they pursue extremes as
a solution in any moment. (ISB, 100-01)

Opposites: Radiant Love transcends the egoic dualities of
Good and Evil

But when the ego (or self-contraction) is understood and
transcended, then Nature is seen from the point of view of
Wisdom. And, in that case, the egoic struggle in Nature or
against Nature is also understood and transcended. Then the
Way of life ceases to be founded on the need to destroy the
dynamic of Nature via conventional knowledge, power,
immortality, or mystical escape. The world is no longer
conceived as a drama of warfare between Good and Evil. The
righteousness of the search for the Good as a means of
self-preservation disappears along with the self-indulgent
and self-destructive negativity of possession by Evil. In
place of this dilemma of opposites, a self-transcending and
world-transcending (or Nature-transcending) equanimity
appears. And in that equanimity there is an inherent
Radiance that transcends the egoic dualities of Good and
Evil (or the conventional polarities of the self in Nature).
It is the Radiance of Love. And in that Free Radiance,
energy and attention are inherently free from the ego-bond,
self-contraction, or the “gravitational effect” of
phenomenal self-awareness. Therefre, dynamic equanimity, or
the free disposition of Love (rather than the egoic
disposition in the modes of Good or Evil), is the “window”
through which God may be “seen” (or intuited)-not in the
conventional mode of Creator, Good, Other, or Heavenly
Place, but as the Real, or the tacitly obvious Condition of
all existence. (NRV, 85-86)

Opposites: The ultimate moment Is beyond the dynamics of
opposites

The ultimate moment in the play of Nature is not the
moment of egoic success (or the temporary achievement of the
apparently positive or “Good” effect). The ultimate moment
is beyond contradiction (or the dynamics of polarized
opposites). It is the moment of equanimity, the still point
of “eye” in the midst of the wheel of Nature’s motions and
all the motivations of the born self. The Truth and Real
Condition of self and Nature is Revealed only in that
equanimity, beyond all stress and bondage of energy and
attention. (NRV, 86)

Opposites: The world Is always a dynamic play of
opposites

… The world is always a dynamic play of opposites, a
process that should produce living harmonies, and absolute
singularity or “Oneness” is simply the Transcendental
Principle we intuit to be the ultimate Ground or Milieu of
the play of these processes.

If we conceive of the play of opposites as a form of
negative antagonism, then we are reduced to a negative
understanding and experience of the world and ourselves.
Then the world becomes like a married couple that can no
longer confess and express mutual love, so that divorce
becomes the only motive and only vision.

Indeed, the human structural or bodily origin of the play
of opposites in the world may be considered to be the play
of the sexual differentiation-or the mutual play between the
male character and the female character. Thus, the “feminine
character” has traditionally been associated with the East
(or the oriental disposition of sensuous and intuitive
inwardness), and the “masculine character” has traditionally
been associated with the West (or the occidental disposition
toward physical action and manipulation of physical
conditions via rational intelligence). (SPG, 125)

Opposites: When ego is transcended life is seen as a play
of opposites

When the mechanics of egoity are transcended in our
understanding, then it becomes obvious that life (or
manifest phenomenal existence) is simply a play of
opposites. Neither “Good” (or creation and preservation) nor
“Evil” (or destruction) finally wins. Nature, in all its
planes, is inherently a dynamic. The play of Nature, in all
its forms and beings and processes, is not merely (or
exclusively and finally) seeking the apparent “Good” of
self-preservation (or the preservation and fulfillment of
any particular form, world, or being), nor is it merely (or
exclusively and finally) seeking the apparent “Evil” of
self-destruction (or the dissolution of any particular form,
world, or being). Rather, the play in Nature is always in
the direction of perpetuating the dynamics of the play
itself-and, therefore, polarity, opposition, struggle,
alternation, death, and cyclic repetition tend to be
perpetuated in the characteristics of phenomenal existence.
Therefore, the play of Nature is always alternating between
the appearance of dominance by one or the other of its two
basic extremes. And the sign of this is the inherent
struggle that involves every form, being, and process. The
struggle is this dynamic play of opposites, but the import
of it is not the absolute triumph of either half. Things and
beings and processes arise, they move, they are transformed,
and they disappear. No thing or being or process is
ultimately preserved. But neither is there any absolute
destruction. Nature is a transformer, not merely a creator
or a destroyer.

To the ego (or present temporary from of being)
self-preservation may seem to be the inevitable motive of
being. Therefore, a struggle develops to destroy or escape
the dynamic of Nature by dominating Evil (or death) with
Good (or immortality). This ideal gets expressed in the
generally exoteric and occidental or more materialistic
efforts to conquer Nature via worldly knowledge and power.
But it also gets expressed in the more esoteric and oriental
or mystical efforts to escape the plane of Nature by ascent
from materiality (or the Evil of the flesh) to Heaven (the
Good God above the consciousness of Nature). (NRV,
84-85)

See your action prior to results and your motivation
prior to action

… You should know in general just what the life process
is, and begin to observe the results of your own action. See
the results of your action. See your action prior to
results. See your motivation prior to action. See the roots
of motivation or motion in yourself. This is fundamental
intelligence at the level of life. Usually people don’t
become sensitive to their own action until they see its
results. They always only see life fall apart or become
difficult, to the point of death. (MDS, 77)

Self-observation and self-watching

Simple awareness of arising conditions is not willful,
cool, detached, and self-involved. It is not
looking-watching, whereby neither the egoic, subjective
witness nor the witnessed objects ever change or become
obsolete…. Simple awareness is not true “observation” when
it is intended. When it is intended, it is at best a form of
concentration, or meditation. Mere observation is not a
condition in itself. It does not turn toward or in on
itself. It is tacitly disposed to whatever arises, if
anything arises, subjective or objective. It is not a method
that can be taken up in order to control or watch arising
events. It is not a strategy. It is not itself identified
with any problem. It is simply our natural, present
disposition when we are “hearing,” that is, when we are
simply at rest in the intuitive presumption of Ignorance,
rather than any subjective form, any experience, any
condition, any kind of knowledge.]

… True observation is present in random (not strategic)
self-observation…. It is not observation or simple
awareness if it is a willful strategy, without the
foundation of mere or intuitive observation or awareness.
Observation is not self-watching-which concentrates upon
events intentionally, notices them, and identifies with the
act and the data of noticing. Observation is true only in
the effortless, native moment, in which Divine Ignorance is
the obvious Condition of self and all conditions. True
observation does not merely confront or perceive a
condition-rather, it is priorly free of that condition, and,
therefore, intuitively recognizes it, feels it without
obstruction, and dissolves (through non-reinforcement) its
limiting and binding force. True observation is identical to
Divine Ignorance, and, therefore, it acquires no knowledge
by association with conditions, but abides as no mind, no
experience, formless, pristine, and void. Thus, from
observation, or free attention, which is identical to Divine
Ignorance, springs the force of love, or unobstructed
feeling, which is identical to Divine Radiance….

As the devotee persists in simple observation over time,
changes and new responsibilities appear in the realm of
subjective motion, concentration, action, and meditation.
The forms of the conscious process, founded in intuitive
observation, … do not reinforce the presently arising
motion or intention, and, therefore, the present tendency is
weakened. Over time, accumulated tendencies become obsolete
in this manner. It is simply that in every moment of the
conscious process, or mere observation, extended or
intuitive understanding, they are not in fact intended.
Thus, as irresponsible or automatic tendencies become
weaker, new intentions (forms of Lawful, sacrificial, or
more appropriate and responsible concentration) may be
established. Thus, new levels of sacrificial responsibility
constantly appear.as the devotee matures in the stages.
(EWB, 345-47)

How, then, does the reactive, subjective, egoic, moving,
impulsive, independent experiential drive itself come to
rest as a matter of ultimate responsibility? If the illusory
and irresponsible motion of subjectivity is to cease, it
must simply not be initiated! This way sounds simple, but
what will you do about it? The conventional response or
wisdom is to try to stogy thinking and motivated
existence…. But the effort to stop what is otherwise
already and irresponsibly initiated is only the way of
concentration. It does not radically cease to initiate the
motion of subjectivity. It only tries to stop or prevent the
already mysteriously initiated subjective tendencies or
motions.

The true or ultimate and native means is not the direct
one of concentration, which depends on the law that whatever
is set in motion tends to remain in motion. Rather, the true
means is the natural, free, or prior intuitive presumption
of mere observation, which depends on the law that whatever
is not used tends to become obsolete.

Whenever we are consciously present as simple awareness
of arising motions (or internal and external objects arising
to the egoic witness), we are not then principally active to
initiate, continue, or bring an end to any arising
tendencies. Therefore, we do not then reinforce the
presently arising pattern of subjective motion, nor do we
reinforce the pattern of subjective, egoic arising or motion
itself.

The Way … in each of its … stages, is founded in the
process of free feeling-attention, or mere intuitive
observation of the whole process of the present arising of
gross, subtle, and causal objects to present awareness. The
conscious process in each stage is a version of this native
disposition, which is not in conflict with present
tendencies, but neither is it possessed by present
tendencies. It is the key attitude of every stage. True
observation, which is the foundation of the various forms of
the conscious process in the midst of experience, does not
create, intend, support, or oppose any arising, any
subjective tendency or motion, or any moment of
differentiation and objectification. Observation does not
intend [as does the process of concentration]. It is
not a form of subjectivity, but of prior intuition….

… In this Way, intuitive observation is always linked
to and presently combined with various forms of responsible
concentration of the whole bodily being. Thus, in every
stage of practice, free feeling-attention, or mere
observation, is linked with Lawful concentration, or
appropriate and responsible activity of the whole bodily
being…. There is no appropriate element of
irresponsibility at any stage of the process. It is always,
from the beginning, a matter of radical responsibility for
the whole affair of arising experience, through responsible
intention, or concentration, and intuitive responsibility
for attention, or mere observation.

… But true or intuitive observation cannot itself be
intended…. It is itself native to us at every moment. It
is mere or free attention, or natural awareness of all
events, within and without. It is always already true of us
and as us, but we are free to be present as such mere
awareness or mere presence only when we are intuitively free
of identification with all forms of subjective motion,
distraction or knowledge. (EWB, 343-44, 345)

Self-observation versus self-watching

• Description of the difference between
self-observation and self-watching. (ISB , 121-29)

• A summary chart outlining the difference between
self-observation and self-watching. (ISB, 129)

The call to see your own design or every jot of
self-possession

What is, is devastating. What is Real is to be
understood. What is good is obvious, and all the rest
belongs to mommy and daddy. I hate this indecision, this
ambiguity, this clitoral dissatisfaction, this prominence of
fifty-dollar consciousness. Do you know what I mean? I hate
it. I am weary of people who cannot see their own design.
How can they overcome anything if they do not see it? I have
been degraded to less than a nickel and seen every jot of my
self-possession. Why are you so incapable of self-estimation
when what you represent is totally obvious? Why are you so
possessed by self-protection? Do you fear to be judged by
me? I will be gone in a matter of hours. This flesh will
rot. This breath will catch, this brain, this mind, will
disintegrate. Then what will be left? “Ah, his Presence
surrounds us,” you will say, while I rot upon the weed of
your own mind. Do you know what I mean? (GNG, 53-54)

The importance of understanding our religious history

… Conventional religious culture or idealism tends to
be associated with certain positive moral values (such as
truthfulness, honesty, non-stealing, non-killing, and so
forth), but traditional religious culture is also always
associated with an ultimately negative evaluation of bodily
existence and the existence of Man within the realm of
Nature. As a result, religious acculturation, East and West,
always carries with it taboos against bodily pleasure,
sexual intensity, and even the will to live a long and
healthful life….

We are at the dead end of the ancient ways, and we are
suffering from the inability to move fully into our right
human, and immortal destiny. Only an enlightened and
liberated understanding of our old cultural and subhuman
presumptions will permit us to yield to Life bodily, in
love, and so move on in the Way of God.

I attest to this with every cell of my body. I affirm it
with all my heart. I plead with you to consider it fully and
resort to a new Way of Life. (SPG, 230, 231)

The. natural surrender from the heart that appears
without effort

Self-observation is that natural awakening in
Consciousness that occurs when you devote your life to the
Guru through practical conditions. Self-observation is not
sitting down and looking at yourself subjectively.
Self-observation is not a thing in itself that you do.
Self-observation is the natural surrender from the heart
that appears without your trying, without your concern, when
your life is turned in each moment through these conditions
to the Guru. (NR, 175)

The purpose of true self-observation

… I have met directly with this small group of you to
help you to observe yourselves, to consider the consequences
of everything you are up to, to consider your relationships,
your functional tendencies, your emotional, physical, and
mental characteristics, so that you could come to a point of
self-understanding that would be renunciation. It is not
that through our consideration you come to a point of having
a picture of yourself, as if you had gone through several
months of psychiatric analysis. There is nothing to hold on
to, no picture worth perpetuation. The purpose of true
self-observation is to become capable, on the basis of
self-understanding and self-transcendence, of releasing this
picture or this habit or this persona and also of releasing
all its characteristic games. (DGB, 180)

The unconscious controls conscious life

… If you are to live a free human life, you must become
sensitive to what is controlling you at the subtle level.
You must become not less conscious but more and more fully
conscious.

We allow so much to be unconscious because life is
already so difficult. We would just as soon not investigate
that of which we are unaware. But we are controlled by the
unconscious whether we are aware of it or not. This is
evident even within the framework of modern psychology with
its materialistic bias. The unconscious controls conscious
life. If we become aware of the unconscious, it still
controls conscious life, but then we have the possibility of
breaking the enchantment, the spell, and of permitting the
higher disposition of existence to animate gross existence.
(TDT, 329-330)

Understand the whole affair of your life before becoming
a devotee

… You must enter into the thorough and total
psycho-physical consideration of spiritual Truth, and you
must come to understand the whole affair of your life, or
religion, of emotion, and of consciousness before you can
truly become the devotee of the Living Personality of God.
Otherwise, to consider devoting yourself to God is nothing
more than a superficial religious idea. You must be truly
“serious” (and, therefore, profoundly and intensely free or
“humorous”) about this consideration, because you must
discriminate between your own limited experience and the
ecstatic intuition of the Transcendental Divine Reality.
Otherwise, you will never find your way out of the maze of
conventional awareness. You must find the spiritual
Reality-the Living Spirit, Person, and Self. You must be
devoted to the Truth that includes and transcends you.
Therefore, you must thoroughly investigate, consider, and
inquire into your actual circumstance, your born-situation,
your fundamental existence, the whole event of your
experience. And, ultimately, you must come to the certain
understanding that your entire existence is only summarized
in ecstatic love of the Living God. You must become
committed to a life of active, practical, and esoteric
devotion to God. There is no other way to live and be happy
and peaceful and sane. (TDT, 377-78)

Understanding begins In observing what is practically a
hindrance

… Understanding begins in … very practical
observation, in the real observation of something that is
obviously and practically a hindrance, an avoidance of the
condition of relationship. When real observation of that
kind has begun in you, this intelligence that is
understanding has a practical basis. To that degree, you are
able to respond with the intelligence of understanding to
the events that arise for you. (MDS, 22)

We must become more subtle in our ability to observe
patterns

There are cycles in consciousness. Some of the cycles of
experience are very difficult to observe, and people are not
aware of them. Generally, we are all aware of the seasons.
We are commonly aware of the cycle of climate. We are aware
of night and day. We are at least vaguely aware of the
phases of the moon. We are made aware of social cycles, such
as elections, holidays, weekends. But there are also subtle
cycles in the process of consciousness and conscious life.
The internal patterns may seem random. But everyone is aware
that they go through “phases,” or periods of “bad days” and
“good days.” Individuals know they do this. They know they
do this. They” know they have different kinds of
characteristic states. But they don’t commonly see a pattern
to these states. In fact there is such a pattern. There is a
characteristic pattern of conscious experience in everyone,
as regular as the seasons. But it is essentially an
individual pattern like fingerprints….

… Therefore, as this process of Satsang continues in
you, you will observe the movement of the pattern of your
existence. Its cycles are as much a functional manifestation
as your breathing. The “internal” life is as ordered, as
regular, as mechanistic, as organic as the “external”
universe. There is nothing arbitrary about our experience,
we have not become subtle in our ability to observe-what is
arising. But the more subtle we become in our capacity to
observe, the more we see the patterns, internal and
external. (MDS, 276-277, 278)

You must enter into profound self-study

Everything about you that falls short of the seventh
stage of life is simply an expression of bound energy and
bound attention. And in order to observe, understand, be
responsible for, and transcend the mechanism of the binding
of energy and attention, you must enter into profound
self-study. This is a great discipline. It cannot be
by-passed. No superficial magic or blessing can be given
that would enable you to by-pass this process. You must
endure it, and you will endure it only if you are truly
responsive and enjoy the impulse toward Realization based on
tacit intuition. (ETX, 69-70)

You must see yourself completely, take It all Into
account

You must see everything about yourself that would
otherwise be hidden by the rigid persona in its
arrangements. You must be able to understand what is hidden.
And the only way to understand what is hidden is to be able
to look at it. Sometimes in order to look at it you may have
to do something different-perhaps get exaggerated, get
silly. You must be in a position to see what you do and
think and feel and are, apart from the presumptions of your
conscious mind.

You must see yourself completely, take it all into
account….

.. We are here to understand ourselves and live a
pattern, more spontaneous than the conventional patterns of
life, that is inherently free, always free, more and more
the Power of Being. To do that you must be able to take a
much harder look at yourself than people commonly do. (DGB,
186-87)

You see the contraction and the great space in which it
is occurring

When that contraction is seen in the moment of
self-observation-not in the moment of self-watching, because
then there is a self and all you do feel is the
contraction-but when the contraction is seen, when it is
really observed, then you not only see the whole life
contracting through all of its mechanisms, but you see what
precedes it. You see contraction relative to the whole
pattern of existence. You do not just feel contracted. You
see this contraction, you see the great space in which it is
occurring, you see it as an event, and thus you realize what
is prior to that event. You become responsible for it when
you know it as an event, and you cannot do it anymore. In
consciousness you live as what precedes that contraction,
and thus through the Siddhi that is Consciousness you may in
every moment undo the limitation of your tendency. (ISB,
125)

You tend merely to experience (rather than to consider
and transcend)

Consider this.

From the point of view of the individuated self there are
apparently two principles in manifestation. There is
individual consciousness (or attention, the witness of
objects) and there is everything else (or the possible
objects of that consciousness).

You exist as consciousness, and as consciousness you
experience many kinds of objects (or relations and states of
consciousness). You tend merely to experience (rather than
to consider and transcend) those objects, relations, and
states, and so you develop a sense of identification with
some, a desire for some others, and a revulsion toward
certain others….

There is a perfect alternative to this bondage and
seeking, It is not a matter of egoic attainment of any
object, knowledge, or state of psycho-physical fulfillment
or release. Rather, it is a matte of entering into an
alternative view of experience. Instead of mereh
experiencing (and so developing the qualities of
identification, desire, aversion, fear, bewilderment, and
the search for knowledge, release, freedom, fulfillment, and
happiness), inspect and consider your own condition and,
from that point of view, examine and consider all of your
experience.

If you inspect and consider your own condition and all of
your experience, rather than merely submit to experience, it
should become clear that you are consciousness, and all of
the objects or varieties of experience appear to you only as
a play upon (or modification of) consciousness. Experience
(or the modification and limitation of consciousness) is not
the dominant factor of your existence. Consciousness is the
dominant and always prior factor, but you tend always (by
virtue of a mechanical involvement with experience) to be
submitted to and controlled by experience. Because of this
mechanical involvement with experience, you constantly
forget and abandon your basic position, and you suffer the
disturbances I have already described. (LBR, 42, 43-44)

Understanding

All talk like, “I’m really trying to understand,” is just
a lot of crap

All talk like, “I’m really trying to understand,” is just
a lot of crap. It’s not that you are trying to understand
and really can’t. It’s just that you are fundamentally,
presently committed to that thing that understanding would
make impossible. You hold that sense of vagueness and
mystery, and playfully indulge your commitment to that
state, that drama. (DHONE, 18-19)

At other times you feel full, love the Guru and love your
friends

When it really becomes difficult, you are willing to
become serious. It becomes very clear to you what you have
really been doing all this time. Just so, there are other
times when for some reason or other you are not concerned.
You are just happy. Those days when you get up and you are
all right. You don’t feel obsessed. You don’t have to curb
your desires, you don’t have to curb your thoughts. You
aren’t in mystery. There aren’t any concerns. You feel full.
You love the Guru, you love your friends. You realize that
there is absolutely nothing difficult about discipline at
all. (DHONE, 19)

Before understanding, you see the self-contraction as
outside yourself

Until you understand, you always relate to the
self-contraction as something outside yourself, a substance,
a thing, a machine, an object, something over which you have
no control, something you can only endure and put up with.
But truly, as I have mentioned a number of times, it is a
little bit like pinching yourself and not realizing you are
doing it….

I find you all to be a bunch of funny people! You come
around me, and I ask, “What’s happening?” and you give me
all your problems and your difficulties, and you are always
seriously rapping your view of it all to me and to one
another and being interviewed about it year after year. You
come and sit around me and I hear it or sense it, you
communicate it somehow or other in this solemn voice, this
serious, self-involved attitude. But to me you are very
funny. You are all sitting around here pinching your ass and
describing the pain to me! I see you pinching your ass, but
you are so involved with the pain and all your subjective
ruminations about it that you do not even realize what you
are doing, nor do you see that everyone else in the room is
sitting around pinching his or her own ass!

Ultimately I call your attention from this pain and all
your subjective gaming about it. I grant you sufficient free
attention so that you can see. “Look! Look!” That is when
you start laughing. That is the moment of humor. You see
what it is. You are no longer dwelling on the pain and
trying to get rid or it. You see that you are just pinching
yourself, sticking your nails in your ass. Well-stop doing
it! When you see what you are doing, it is a laughing matter
and you stop doing it. You are no longer involved in the
whole affair of the self-contraction. You are not pinching
yourself.

To say you are pinching yourself is to use a metaphor,
but what you are doing is just as obvious as that, just as
crude, just as foolish, just as laughable. To get the laugh,
however, you must be able to observe yourself, to move your
attention away from your subjective gaming and attachments
and self-meditation. Just to get your attention off all of
that is a trick in itself.

To say that I am functioning in a manner to interfere
with you is simply to say that I am breaking the train of
your attention from this sensation of pain and the mountain
of subjectivity you are building on it, in effect calling
your attention to the simple act that is the basis of all
this stress, all this thought, all this fake philosophy, all
this suffering, all this seeking. When you have observed
yourself to the degree that you are not merely watching the
sensations of pain and thinking about them, you can look
down and see your nails digging into your hip.

You can see the self-contraction just that directly. It
is even a laughing moment. Suddenly there is a resource that
you always have and that is always usable. You can magnify
it, and you must then live it, of course, but it gives you
the greatest arms there are, the greatest source of power or
release or freedom. You are associated then with this moment
of existence and every possible moment of existence in a
uniquely free manner that has nothing to do with the ego.
(FG, 107-09)

If you don’t understand, the genius of the Guru makes no
difference

… The fundamental life of understanding does not begin
until there is insight from the point of view of the
fundamental activity and proposition of your life, which has
you seeking always, but never fundamentally being
transformed, because that sensation, that quality, is the
principle of your seeking. No magic from without works that
transformation. The Guru serves that transformation, but if
you don’t become intelligent in Satsang, the genius of the
Guru makes no difference whatsoever. Understanding must take
place in your case. No shaktis, no philosophy, no marvelous
influence is greater than that, nothing transcends that. All
those experiences and occupations are just consolations,
distractions from falling in upon that fundamental activity.
When God becomes your condition, nothing you’re doing makes
any sense whatsoever. You become a happy person. You don’t
have any more seeking to do. You don’t have anything more to
accomplish. You just become already happy. You know that
nothing is going to make you happy, and you know very well
then that nothing is going to make anybody else happy
either. Either they are fundamentally and unreasonably
happy, or they are simply unhappy. Perhaps consoled,
occupied, distracted, but basically unhappy. (DHONE, 14)

in Master Da’s practice insight arose into the reactive
contraction

In the course of my own practice there arose a
spontaneous understanding of the source of the “problem”
that

_ was motivating my own search. It was a matter of direct
insight into the reactive contraction of the body-mind. As
this insight became more and more profound, the sense of
“problem” weakened. The presumed goals of religious,
mystical, yogic, and philosophical effort were understood to
be nothing more than attempts to solve the “problem”-but it
was clear that no such solution was more than a temporary,
conditional, or non-ultimate convention of the self and its
problem. What was ultimately necessary was understanding and
transcendence of the problem at its root (which was present
psycho-physical self-contraction) and thus transcendence of
the entire search for solutions built upon the problem.
Thus, in the Event at the Vedanta Temple, native
Enlightenment or Awakening to Truth was restored. (NRV,
211)

In understanding, Identification as a separate self
dissolves

… Where there is understanding, the limited
identification of consciousness, as the separate body or
separate self, dissolves spontaneously, not as a result of
anything being done to it, but by virtue of the spontaneous,
prior enjoyment of that in which it arises. (MDS, 157)

Is not a matter of watching what arises as if it were on
television

How long do you have to sit and look at that stuff in
yourself? Understanding is not a matter of watching this
stuff as if it were on a television screen and saying, “Oh
yes, what a dummy I am, one crisis after the next. Avoiding
relationship? Son of a gun.” That is the lazy man’s approach
to it. If you are just luxuriating in life, if you merely
have enough vitality to get it on with your basic goodie
from day to day, then you don’t bring much intensity to that
observation of yourself. A condition must be created in
which it becomes vital for you to understand. (DHONE, 4)

Is recognition of the self-contraction that motivates the
adventure

Through hearing of the Teaching of Truth we are Awakened
in radical understanding. True understanding is the
recognition of the mood of Narcissus, which is
self-contraction, as the fundamental neurosis that motivates
the adventure, or great path of attention in the dilemma of
life. You see, the foundation of the usual path of
experience, Eastern or Western, is the felt sense of
dilemma. The foundation of this Way, however, is the
prior

_ transcendence of dilemma. This transcendence is
awakened in the understanding that there is no inherent
dilemma, that the Divine Condition is always already the
Truth of this moment. (LVONE, VI-17-18)

Observe self-contraction to the point of realizing that
you are doing it

.. The Way begins only when you have thoroughly
understood the disease not as a symptom external to you, but
as a process with which you are thoroughly involved in this
moment and which you are capable of observing,
understanding, and transcending in every moment by entering
most fully into the prior presumption of Being. Then you
have the capacity to practice this Way, and not until then.
(DGB, 46)

Understanding prepares us for Spirit-Baptism. Without
Spirit-Baptism there is no spiritual life. Therefore, you
who deny me and are so self-possessed must understand that
the essence of my Teaching is the Transmission of Spirit.
This Transmission Intoxicates you, but if you have not
understood yourself, you cannot use my Spirit-Blessing. You
will shut It down. Therefore, you are only prepared to
practice in Truth when you have used my Teaching to the
point of understanding. Then you will receive my Baptism and
you will practice Communion with this Transmitted Sublimity
from moment to moment. That is the Way. Then you will change
your entire life, but not until then….

. If you will truly prepare yourselves by considering and
truly using my Argument, not as a doctrine, but as a means
for understanding yourself, then you will be able to Commune
with me not only during our occasions of Celebration, but
every day, because I Transmit the Spirit to you all the
time. (DGB, 358)

Therefore, you must prepare yourself to use my
Transmission by using my Argument-not just by listening to
it, but by combining yourself with it to understand the knot
of self-contraction, how it works as a mechanism

that shuts down the Beauty of Infinite Life. When you
have understood me to that degree, then you can receive my
Baptism truly and begin to practice….

The only thing that prevents the sublimity of
Spirit-Communion in every moment of existence is the simple
mechanism of self-contraction. You must hear me, therefore.
You must observe the self-contraction and understand it so
thoroughly that it is not happening to you anymore, so that
you recognize it as your own action, so that you can enquire
of it or meditate beyond it or feel into the Life-Current,
the Divine that is beyond it, in your daily life. That is
the capability you must regenerate in yourself. It does not
exist in you now because you have habituated yourself to
shutting out the Force of God. (DGB, 359)

Therefore, the first thing you must do is to hear me,
combine yourself with the Argument relative to Narcissus to
the point of relieving yourself of the arbitrary notion that
things are just happening to you and that you are succumbing
to limitation. You must realize that these limitations have
no force at all. Rather than just respond or react to them,
you must see the mechanism of contraction or reactivity and
know it utterly. The sense of self-contraction is just like
clenching your hand or getting a knot in your stomach or
tightening your eyebrows. You must see it as something that
you do in reaction to conditions of existence. (DGB,
360)

… You cannot receive me until you understand your
resistance to me. Understanding is the first gesture of
spiritual life.

Please understand what I am telling you. I will give you
everything, but you must understand yourself. You must!
Apart from that understanding, Who I am or What I bring to
you makes no difference. You cannot accept It. You cannot
receive It….

The thing that makes you un-Happy is your own
contraction. That is it! Absolutely! Have I always said
this? That is it entirely. (DGB, 362)

… You must know the self-contraction and you must see
it. You must observe it to the point of realizing that it is
not happening to you. You are doing it, just as you are
moving your mouth and blinking your eyeballs. Like the
movements of your intestines, it is a rhythm to which you
have become habituated. It is really very simple, but you
must observe it, and you must understand it. This is the
first office of spiritual life. (DGB, 363)

. The essence of practice is this capability for
self-understanding. Have I not told you this? You must
become responsible for this mechanism of contraction. There
is no other way to enter into the sublimity of
God-Realization….

. The reason you shut It down is that you have not
participated in my Argument to the point of understanding
that the mechanism of self-contraction is your own activity.
It is just like the tightening of the iris in the eye. It is
just an ordinary mechanism of reactivity in the body-mind.
(DGB, 360)

… You must become responsible for this
self-contraction…. Until you are responsible for the
mechanism of separation from the Spirit-Presence, you cannot
taste It, you cannot love It, you cannot know it, you cannot
be swooned by It. And we should exist in a swoon of
Intoxication. To do that really is our nature. (DGB,
361)

You must understand the self-contraction in terms of the
mind, in terms of emotion, your psychology, your complexes,
your neuroses, your social attitudes, your chronic physical
tendencies…. The technical exercise must be engaged as
real practice over time, based on real self-understanding,
real self-observation, and real self-knowing, so that you
develop the equipment or the capacity to conduct the Force
in the frontal line. (DGB, 319)

One who understands knows we are the food source for one
another

One who understands and becomes free of the necessity of
his own life of Narcissus begins to live among men in an
entirely new way. What he requires is the communication of
love, of presence, because he knows that we are the food
source, the life source, for one another. The force of his
presence begins to become a demand for that life, that love,
that Truth, the lightness, that happiness. This alone is the
proper condition of a human society. The more he experiences
of himself, the more he also sees in the world. The more he
becomes responsible for all of his own activities, the more
that responsibility begins to extend to the activities of
others-his intimates, his household, devotees in the Ashram,
and in varying degrees all those whom he contacts. (DHFOUR,
38-39)

The obviation of contraction and the dwelling in Divine
Communion

Understanding is simply the quality or intensity of your
availability for Satsang. In every moment of understanding
there is the obviation of contraction and the dwelling in
Divine Communion. (GRG,146)

The Way is based on a thorough understanding of the ego
as contraction

… In our examination of ourselves, we do not begin on
the basis of belief in our existence as an immortal soul or
belief that we are identified with an extremely inward part
that we should dissociate from all the outward parts. We do
not begin on the basis of the conventional ego-presumption.
Rather, we begin on the basis of a thorough understanding of
the ego as an activity of contraction.

Thus, the Way is that process wherein we transcend,
moment to moment, the conventional gestures of the being
whereby we are defined in conventional terms-the process of
reactive contraction, self-separation, Narcissism. In the
Way of life we understand that process of conventional
self-conception, of self-contraction, and transcend it
moment to moment through the disposition of perfect
Ignorance, wherein all the features of mind or knowledge are
inherently, priorly transcended. If the Way is pursued in
such a disposition, we do not merely escape, but we
transcend the conventional sense of self in every moment and
Ecstatically inhere in the Transcendental or Ultimate
Condition of conditions. The Way, from the beginning and in
every moment, is established in such Realization. It is
simply that the fullest maturity of such a disposition, the
ultimate propositions of spiritual Realization become
perfectly obvious. (SSC, 21)

The Way is the radical Way of always present
understanding

The Way of Truth is the radical Way of always present
understanding and transcendence of the self-contraction and
its conventions of knowledge and experience. The Way of
Truth is not itself a matter of the inversion of attention
upon the inner self, nor is it principally a matter of
“conductivity” (or surrender to the Spirit). The Way of
Truth is principally a matter of present self-observation
and active understanding or transcendence of the
self-contraction. On that basis, the Transcendental Divine
is intuitively “Remembered” or Realized. And on the basis of
the conscious process of such Realization, the Life (or
conductivity) of the Spirit is inevitable, natural, and
Real….

If we found ourselves in the conscious process of always
present understanding-or the present transcendence of the
self-contraction that is sin itself-then we will also and
naturally be moved to Live in the Spiritual Divine. Our sins
will begin to be purified and fall away once we begin
actively to transcend the act and presumption that is sin
itself.

Therefore, understand. Attend to me and hear the
Arguments about Narcissus and Ignorance. Practice that
hearing or understanding as true “Remembrance,” and so let
real meditation develop. Receive the Spiritual Blessing that
is Radiant in me. Be converted in your heart to the
Spiritual Divine. Then practice the science and art of real
meditation and Spiritual discipline….

The Way that I Teach does not involve the strategic
negation of either the functional self or the Realm of
Nature. The self-contraction is simply to be observed,
understood, and transcended, so that the Divine
Self-Identity is Revealed. (The Divine Self-Identity is not
within, the self. It is not an interior subjective essence.
The Divine Self-Identity is that Radiant Consciousness from
and in which the egoic self-consciousness is contracting.
Therefore the Realization of that Self-Identity is not a
matter of the inversion of attention within the body-mind,
but it is a matter of direct understanding and transcendence
of the contraction that is the conscious self.) And every
aspect of Nature (including every phenomenal state and
relation of the body-mind) is simply to be observed and
ultimately recognized in and as the Radiant Divine
Spirit….

… Therefore, the Way is not a matter of believing in
God or seeking for God. The Way is simply a matter of
observing and understanding and so transcending the
self-contraction-and on this basis the Obvious is directly
Revealed and naturally engaged….

Therefore, understand. Transcend the self-contraction and
all of its effects. Awaken from the sleep of alienation.
Realize and Incarnate the Love-Bliss or Spiritual Joy of
Transcendental Being, until self and Nature are themselves
Outshined in the Happiness that is God. (FG, 193, 194, 195,
196, 197)

Understand your childish, adolescent, neurotic craving of
consolation

You cannot merely be your craving self and consider or
practice this Way. You must understand the nonsense of being
yourself, the absurdity of this self-knot of your
persistent, childish, adolescent, neurotic craving for one
or another kind of consolation or distraction. You must wake
up to a fundamental appreciation of the absurdity and pain
of such craving. Your self-contraction is your
responsibility. No one can withdraw it from you. I can
absorb all kinds of garbage from you-and when people
casually come into my Company, I always wind up being ill in
one fashion or another by merely putting myself in contact
with unprepared people-but there is no ultimate value in
doing so, because even my capacity to absorb your karmas
cannot take away from you the burden of your own
understanding. You must observe yourself and understand. You
must transcend your situation. (YC, 69-70)

Understanding is all about happiness, not about
self-improvement

The process of understanding is all about happiness, not
about heavy things like self-improvement. Self-improvement
is so easy, anyway. To improve yourself is so simple and
matter-of-fact. Anybody can improve himself. You do not
become happier by improving yourself, as we all know. The
process of understanding is not about improving yourself,
nor is it about the happiness that comes from what happens
to you, or what makes you feel good, or the good-happening
things that make you feel good for a long time.
Understanding is about realizing the principle that is
happiness. It is about realizing that you are happy, that
you are only happy, that you are Happiness, that Happiness
is your Condition and that it is totally independent of any
kind of karmic realization, from the Divine Vision to the
dog shit on the sidewalk. And you are only happy. that is
what I’m talking about. That is understanding….

… All of the life-level things that the student is
asked to do are so normal and so ordinary that they are
offensive. They are all circles, whereas his life was at
least great big ellipses, eccentric circles relative to the
natural or sattvic order of life. Thus, simply by confining
the student to these little circular, sattvic patterns, he
is offended, he is upset. Whenever his motion toward
eccentricity appears, his reactivity breaks through that
circle of mere conditions, and he sees it. That is
self-observation. At random moments he sees it, and at
random moments the pressure of his eccentricity smacks
against his ordinary life of practice, and he sees it. (ISB,
123-24)

Understanding is Insight into the action that makes
existence a torment

… Understanding is insight into the very mechanism of
your existence that is duplicated in all your actions and
experiences. Through such insight you inherently transcend
the lie or the binding power of that mechanism. This insight
into the mechanism of Narcissus, or awakening into the
attitude of Ignorance, is the fundamental Teaching, and the
fundamental practice is the “conscious process,” whereby
insight is expressed moment to moment. You must enjoy
insight into the mechanism, the action, the presumption that
makes existence into a torment. You must remember That which
you are always denying. (LVONE, I-11)

Understanding will not necessarily have anything dramatic
about it

… Understanding itself won’t necessarily have anything
peculiarly dramatic about it. how dramatic is it to wake up
in the morning? You don’t go, “Wowwwwwww!!!” You don’t go
screaming, “Fantastic! Oh, Revelation!” All you do is open
your eyes and live. You just wake up. The moment of the
realization that you are not stuck in the dream has a
certain pleasure associated with it, but it is not usually a
fantastic sort of fireworks. It is a natural, already happy
event. (MDS, 171)

Until there Is understanding, man is exploitable

Until the common individual begins to grasp some basic
understanding of his ultimate Condition, he is exploitable
by individuals who arbitrarily assume a creative power and
authority beyond his own. So the usual man or woman, who
works in a factory or an office and listens to the News
faithfully, is constantly exploited by all kinds of shrewd
people who are really in charge of his or her political,
social, and intimate life. (SPG, 90)

When dreaming, you take it seriously-When awake, you do
not

When you are dreaming, you take the dream very seriously.
You assume your role within it, your drama within it. You
respond to the condition that seems to be so, whatever the
particular circumstances of the dream. If the gorilla is
chasing you up the beach, you feel all the threat. All the
emotions become involved, all of your strategies of
survival, or non-survival, become involved. If it is a
sweet, enjoyable, astral sort of dream, with all kinds of
friends and voices and colors and movements, you assume that
to be so. You float around in it. You take it seriously. You
assume it to be so. You assume it because you have no other
point of view from which to enjoy or suffer the dream except
that of the dreamer. But when you wake up in the morning,
the gorilla that was just about to bit off your head loses
all significance. All of the implications of that are
already undone in one who is awake. it no longer has any
real significance, it no longer has any implication for
life. it no longer is a genuine threat to life. It no longer
is anything except that appearance. And the only difference
is that you are awake. Nothing has been done to the dream
itself. You have only awakened, and therefore the dream is
obviously not your condition.

Understanding is very much this same kind of thing.
Understanding is to the waking state what the waking state
is to the dream. In the ordinary waking state you assume all
conditions to be so: my life, my symptoms, my knot in my
stomach, my headaches, my fear, my everything else, my
circumstances, my poverty, my need to do this and that, my
death, the news, the way, and all that appears in life, we
all take it very seriously. here we are, in this spiritual
place, this Ashram . We are very seriously here to get out
of all of this. Everyone has come here very seriously for
this very serious spiritual purpose. Now since you have come
here to such a purpose, if I were to tell you to go home and
recite “harry-umpty-ump,” concentrate on the inner green
light, or believe in Master Gumbo, what would I be doing? I
would be offering you an alternative within the dream
itself. I would be asking you to remain within the condition
of dreams. I would only be telling you to dream another kind
of dream. “Don’t worry about your headaches.” “Recite the
mantra all the time.” I would simply be exploiting the dream
itself, which in this case is the ordinary waking state. I
would be recommending experience to you as the path of
Truth. But all of that is more of the same thing. It is only
another condition for you to take seriously and assume to be
your own.

Understanding is not a form of philosophy. It is not a
method. It is not something within the “dream” itself, It is
like the waking state as opposed to the dream. The man of
understanding, the true Guru , the heart, is radically
conscious, real, alive, free by his very nature from the
implications of the ordinary waking state, of all states.
But the ordinary yogi , the usual teacher, the philosopher,
is a role within the “dream” of waking. He operates from its
point of view. he is identified with it, suffering or happy
within it. His dilemma is there. His realization, however
extraordinary it may appear, is an artifice whose roots are
in the condition or point of view of the “dream.” He is only
recommending some distraction to you, some occupation, some
solution within the “dream” itself. But the Heart,
understanding, is simply awake. Understanding is the true
waking state, the Self, Reality. It has no philosophy, no
subtle vision, no peculiar state associated with it. Like
one in a dream, one who understands is not presently
affected by the waking state. But, unlike one who dreams or
appears within a dream, he is always, already, consciously
free.

The waking state is simply a radially different condition
from the dream. That is why you feel free of the dream upon
waking. The Guru appears in the midst of the dreams of
ordinary waking life like sunlight in the morning. When you
are still dreaming, still asleep, the sun comes up. It gets
brighter and brighter, and the light comes into the room. At
last, the light, the day itself become sufficient to wake
you, and then, all of a sudden, you are not dreaming, and
everything is all right. The Guru is simply that sunlight
process, that intensification, rising on you always, without
any other special activity. his relationship to you, your
condition of relationship to him, just that relationship is
sufficient. There is only sunlight on the pillow until that
intensity is sufficient to wake up up. It is the kiss of the
Prince and Sleeping Beauty. Such is understanding.

But the teachings that are generated in the great search
are all exploitations of your dream-state. They take it
seriously, they assume it to be the present condition, even
if it is regarded to be only temporary. And that is the
fundamental error of all traditional and remedial paths.
They are all generated from the point of view of your
suffering. They serve our suffering, and they reinforce it
in spite of themselves. Therefore, to the seeker, to the man
suffering in dreaMDS, the teachings of the ordinary yogis
and philosophers seem very hopeful. They seem to represent
something very desirable. (MDS, 165-67)

When the self-contraction Is transcended, the “l
dissolves

. In every moment of active understanding, the
independent “I” dissolves-by becoming identical to the
body….

When the self-contraction is transcended on the bases of
understanding, the knowing “I” is replaced by Ignorance, or
the consciousness: “‘I’ does not know what anything_is.”
Consciousness is Ignorance, or That which – is intuited
prior to all knowing. (ISB, 22)

The Argument relative to Ignorance follows naturally upon
the Argument relative to Narcissus. When there is presently
active understanding, it is obvious that “I” does not know
what anything is, “I” is not “living” or responsibly,
intentionally, and independently creating itself and its
world, but “I” is the body, surrendered into the Universal
Spiritual Radiance, and made continuous with all beings and
things and processes via the ecstatic and Life-positive
disposition of love, self-giving, or service….

If there is understanding (expressed in the present via
enquiry), there is the Awakening of the disposition of
Divine Ignorance. And on the basis of these two there is the
artful bodily practice of equanimity (expressed in the
present via the life-disciplines, true service, and the
technical exercise of conductivity). (ISB, 23, 24)

When there is no understanding there Is the illusion of
separation

Understanding cannot be understood. There either is
understanding or there is not. All else is, in the Adept’s
words, seeking and suffering. When there is no understanding
there is the illusion of separation from the Happiness or
Bliss that is Reality. But we experience this illusion as
absolutely real. In fact, it is the very fabric of which our
ordinary lives are made. We feel isolated from one another,
alienated from the world, and separated from God. Whenever
we suffer this apparent separation more acutely, we make
feeble or at times even heroic attempts to break out of our
self-generated insularity: We fall in love, we struggle to
unite families, races, and nations, and we turn to the
Divine in sudden desperation. (CP, ed., 7-8)

Where suffering Is known, what It prevents Is suddenly
enjoyed

… Where suffering is thus “known,” what it prevents is
suddenly, spontaneously enjoyed, not as the “object” of
enjoyment, but as the enjoyment itself. The, prior to
effort, motivation, or attention, there is only the “Self,”
Reality, the Heart. Where there is this re-cognition of
suffering, the whole structure of experiences, concepts,
searches, strategies, that is our ordinary life, our search,
ceases to be obsessive or even particularly interesting. It
loses its significance, its capacity to qualify what always
already is. This undistracted state, this natural enjoyment
prior to the activity that is our suffering, is called
realization, jnana, understanding. (MDS, 29-30)

Whether you wake up feeling good or wake up feeling bad,
understand

You have to understand though, that the life of
understanding is only like those good days. It doesn’t
necessarily always carry that sensation, but it is like that
in terms of the condition which is enjoyed, that quality of
prior freedom. Until there is that quality of prior freedom,
fully enjoyed, whether you wake up feeling good or wake up
feeling bad, you had better understand. In both cases, you
are obliged to understand, because beneath those two
qualities of experience is the same commitment, the same
fundamental contraction. (DHONE, 19)

You can understand most radically and directly In any
stage of life

However your practice develops, you must ultimately
understand most radically and directly. And you can do that
in any stage of life. You need not wait to be in the sixth
stage of life before understanding can be true of you. Not
everyone who has entered into this Awakening has had to pass
through all the phenomena represented by the elaboration of
the fourth and fifth stages of life. Most of them have at
least come to a certain point of human maturity, in the
third stage or so, in order to develop the equipment to
understand what they were about. (YC, 37)

You must understand, but you need not stop the mind

There is this continuous sense of dilemma, of suffering.
Therefore, there is always a subtle motivation to do
something, to be distracted, to indulge oneself, to make the
mind stop or to make it incredibly beautiful. All these
motivations arise out of what fundamentally is always felt
as dilemma. And it is only insight into that whole affair,
not indulgence in all the possibilities of one’s
motivations, that permits consciousness to become the
principle of one’s existence. You must understand, but you
need not stop the mind. The mind is one of the ways by which
you picture this sense of dilemma. Then what if you were to
stop the mind? You would still be the same guy. So stopping
the mind has not served anything in that case.

It is better to be disturbed. It is right to be
disturbed. In your condition, one should be disturbed! To
regret being disturbed is like saying disease is wrong.
Disease is perfectly appropriate, absolutely lawful. And so
are all the functional difficulties that you experience.
They are all timed to the second, and all are based on the
nature and purpose of your relationship to things.
Therefore, it is quite correct for you to be disturbed,
because in fact you are disturbed. To be disturbed and yet
not to feel disturbed would not be appropriate… It is much
more intelligent to realize that you are disturbed. That is
the beginning of sadhana. At least that sensitivity affords
the possibility of sadhana. To become sympathetic, however,
with all kinds of remedies to remove the symptoms of
disturbance is to commit oneself to the same game that
already is one’s suffering. (NR, 179-180)

You must understand now and change your life

If you had half a wit, reading The Knee of Listening
would have changed your life! But you do not like the
implications of The Knee of Listening because it indicates
that you must change. You cannot pursue your consoling
religious ideas and realize understanding. You must
understand now, and if you live on the basis of that
fundamental understanding, you will change your life. You
will become involved in real disciplines, meditation, and
God-Realization, and your whole life will become consumed by
spiritual practice. (LVONE,

1-8)

If you had half a wit, reading The Knee of Listening
would have changed your life! But you do not like the
implications of The Knee of Listening because it indicates
that you must change. You cannot pursue your consoling
religious ideas and realize understanding. You must
understand now, and if you live on the basis of that
fundamental understanding, you will change your life. You
will become involved in real disciplines, meditation, and
God-Realization, and your whole life will become consumed by
spiritual practice. (LVONE,

1-8)

You must understand the action that is your suffering

Instead of all your self-possessed impulses and
motivations, and all the programs you would like to
superimpose on your life to console you, you must directly
and immediately understand, moment to moment, the structure
of your own existence, the contraction that you are. You
must presently understand sin, in other words. You cannot
live a life of discipline and eventually do away with sin.
You cannot believe and have your belief be the transcendence
of sin. Rather, you must presently understand the action,
the presumption, that is your suffering, that is sin, and
not try to create the Way based on suffering, problems,
imbalance, un-Enlightenment, un-Happiness. They Way is
founded on Happiness, on prior Enlightenment in the most
fundamental spiritual sense. (LVONE, I-10)