HEART CONVERSION TALK SERIES Volume 1, Number 2 Religious Realism – Perpetual
“reality consideration” Instructions Given by Sri Da Avabhasa to a number of His
devotees on retreat and in residence at Sri
Love-Anandashram, on March 25, 1993 DEVOTEE: Sri Gurudev, as I understand Your Instruction to
us, You have already Given us the details of how to practice
the “conscious process” and “conductivity”, but what we must
now discuss is our application of those technicalities. SRI DA AVABHASA: Exactly. The practice of the Way of the
Heart is about “consideration”. You are in the listening
stages of the Way of the Heart, and the technicalities of
the process, once you have studied them, are not the subject
you must address. I have already Given you the technical
process. What you must address are all the things that must
be transcended, all the limitations that must be observed
and transcended. DEVOTEE: My tendency is to be too active, in charge, and
independent. I feel this is affecting my meditation. SRI DA AVABHASA: How could you be independent if you are
surrendering and forgetting yourself? DEVOTEE: In meditation and in practice in my life as a
whole, I feel a need to be in charge. SRI DA AVABHASA: Of what? DEVOTEE: Of the chaos of life. SRI DA AVABHASA: What does that have to do with
God-Realization? DEVOTEE: It has nothing to do with God-Realization. It is
just what arises as a tendency. It is a great liability. SRI DA AVABHASA: Why do you want to keep talking about
it? Why don’t you really take charge of the things you are
responsible for? DEVOTEE: On this retreat, I have been very sobered to
feel what I do need to be responsible for in my practice,
Sri Gurudev. The primary responsibility I feel to You is my
practice of the “conscious process” and “conductivity” and
my use of my energy and attention. I feel that I have been
Given a very strong moment to moment practice on this
retreat, and this has become very interesting to me. I feel
that there are levels of independence that are being
progressively revealed to me. SRI DA AVABHASA: What about it? DEVOTEE: There is an aspect of me that feels that I do
not need help. It does not describe me altogether, but I am
getting more in touch with that independent side of myself
that feels that I do not need help. SRI DA AVABHASA: What side is that? DEVOTEE: From somewhere, obviously not from You, Sri
Gurudev, I have received a strong message that I must work
it out myself. SRI DA AVABHASA: Work what out? DEVOTEE: Stave off chaos and death, basically. SRI DA AVABHASA: What does that have to do with
anything? DEVOTEE: I felt it was the summary of all my attempts to
control. Feeling into it more, however, I see it is really a
matter of egoic “self-obsession” and self-protection, and
the fear is almost a creation to justify that. SRI DA AVABHASA: Did you ever hear of the
self-contraction? DEVOTEE: Yes, the self-contraction is the bottom line.
That is what I meant when I said self-obsession and
self-protection. SRI DA AVABHASA: Self-obsession and self-protection are
the effects of the self-contraction. The God-Realizing
sadhana deals with the self-contraction directly. You are
talking about reactivity and desiring objects and others,
complications, all the things at the periphery. You are not
dealing with the self-contraction itself, or functioning as
if you understand egoity. You do not seem to get it. You are
always drifting back into your reactivity and your
conventional solutions and talking about them endlessly.
Your thinking and your dramatization are your search. The self-contraction is what is to be observed and
transcended in the sadhana of the Way of the Heart, and your
relationship to Me is about dealing with that. Instead, you
are always talking about practice from the point of view of
your dramatization, rather than from the point of view of
the understanding of the self-contraction. DEVOTEE: I don’t quite understand that. SRI DA AVABHASA: Self-surrender is the surrender of the
self-contraction, not the effort to stop dramatizing.
Self-forgetting is the forgetting of the self-contraction.
How can you practice self-surrender and self-forgetting if
you are not immediately aware of the self-contraction?
Instead of noticing and surrendering the self-contraction
itself, you are struggling with a dramatization, with
reactivity—your reactivity, your seeking toward objects
and others, your self-control game, and all the other
aspects of your dramatization. You are already dramatizing
separation, and you are pretending to surrender to Me. There
is no surrender without first observing the
self-contraction, which precedes all that seeking. You always have this look on your face as if you are
being fussy about something. You are always in the midst of
your dramatization. You do not seem to be noticing the
self-contraction, and surrendering and forgetting that
contraction in devotional Contemplation of Me. You always
look as if you are tasting something sour. It is the
whole-body chemistry of your reactivity. It is the
anti-nectar of your own displeasure. It is the look of
someone who does not understand herself. You are always
being that point of view, trying to figure everything out
from that point of view, instead of listening to Me,
observing yourself, understanding yourself, observing the
self-contraction, and surrendering and forgetting the
self-contraction in devotional Contemplation of Me. The “conscious process” and “conductivity” are just part
of the means of right devotion to Me. That devotion must be
based on self-understanding. You claim the right to be
reactively independent. What does that have to do with
self-understanding and devotion to Me? DEVOTEE: It has nothing to do with it. SRI DA AVABHASA: Because that is where you are at,
because you do not understand yourself, you are ineffective
at dealing with your own responsibilities, and you “guru”
yourself. In other words, you seek to replace My Work with
your own ego games. DEVOTEE: Yes, this is the barrier that I make in my
practice in relationship to You, Sri Gurudev. SRI DA AVABHASA: This is what you do in every moment. It
is a perpetual dramatization, because of a lack of
self-understanding. I cannot replace your responsibilities,
and neither can you replace My Work. You think I am here to
handle your responsibilities and that you are here to do My
Work! DEVOTEE: I understand that you are pointing out my lack
of understanding. I do not require any more dramatization,
and I must demonstrate my practice of what You are speaking
about over time. SRI DA AVABHASA: Of course. You not only dramatize
actively in what you do, but you dramatize in what you say.
You use speech to dramatize your lack of understanding. You
must understand yourself and purify your speech, your habit
of communication—which is reactive. DEVOTEE: I see that I need to do that. It feels very
primary. SRI DA AVABHASA: Very, very! Wash your mouth out with
soap! DEVOTEE: I will. Thank You, Sri Gurudev. SRI DA AVABHASA: When this conversation began, I reminded
you all that the Way of the Heart is “consideration”. Right
practice depends on self-understanding. If you do not base
your practice on self-understanding, then it is not
“consideration”. In that case, you reduce all your practice
of the Way of the Heart to mere observances—even the
“conscious process” and “conductivity”, even meditation,
become mere observances, rote practices. If your
life-practice is a real “consideration”, then you are always
observing yourself in My Company, you are always locating
the self-contraction and surrendering and forgetting that
contraction in devotional Contemplation of Me. This is how
you authenticate all the practices and avoid turning them
into mere observances. Often, when I ask for your questions, your real
“consideration”, you tell Me, in effect, “We are practicing
observances!” You are not thinking about anything, there are
no questions, there is no “consideration” going on—you
are just settling down into sleepy observances. Real
practice of the Way of the Heart is to be on the edge moment
to moment, always stepping back from reactivity, desires,
search towards objects and others, stepping back from all of
that, in the location of the self-contraction, that unique
sensation that precedes all the seeking. Having located that self-contraction in each moment, you
must surrender and forget it in devotional Contemplation of
Me. Apart from this, you are just going through the
institutionalized religious routines of mere observances and
mere talk. You are dull, then, settling into one or another
mode of your own reactivity and desire. In that case, you
are seeking and being comfortable again, instead of being
quick and clear with yourself. The search is not at all the
practice of the Way of the Heart. I am still looking for the signs that people understand
Me and have grasped the real principle of the Way of the
Heart. You always want to go back to the sleep of your
observances and your ordinary seeking. If you are really
practicing, then you are always in “consideration”. The
“consideration” never comes to an end. However, you are
always looking to go to sleep. You want the orderliness of
observances, the stimulation of seeking, rather than the
intensity of real “consideration” and real practice. “Consideration” is fundamental to the practice of the Way
of the Heart. It is the characteristic of right
practice—always dealing with yourself for real,
locating the self-contraction itself and surrendering and
forgetting that contraction in devotional Contemplation of
Me. Instead, however, every time I talk to you, you tell Me
about your consolation game and the stimulation of your
seeking, all your reactivity, and the rest. That is not
“consideration”. That is not practice of the Way of the
Heart. Every moment of real practice is a moment of real
“consideration”. Real practice of the Way of the Heart is
not the sleep of observances, and it is not the stimulation
of seeking. All of that is transcended by your locating the
self-contraction and surrendering it in
feeling-Contemplation of Me. This is worth living about! It
is time you all got down to it. DEVOTEE: Beloved Gurudev, over the years You have used
one particular phrase to address me. You have Said of me,
“She has her limitations.” I have been feeling the nature of
these limitations, and I feel that it is unbearable to go on
any longer without surrendering these limitations to You. I
can feel a mechanism of fear in my body constantly. I am
always trying to do things with it, but I never actually
release it. SRI DA AVABHASA: Is this basic to your seeking? DEVOTEE: I think it is the core of my seeking. I want to
surrender it to You. SRI DA AVABHASA: I see. Why havent you? DEVOTEE: Because I cannot seem to get in touch with
it. SRI DA AVABHASA: I thought it was the core of your
seeking. How could you not be in touch with it? DEVOTEE: I think it is because I keep laying something on
top of it that prevents me from feeling it fully. SRI DA AVABHASA: What form of practice are you involved
in? DEVOTEE: I practice self-Enquiry in the devotional Way of
Insight. I enquire of this fear mechanism a lot. I think my
error is that I keep looking for the mechanism to dissipate
and be gone. SRI DA AVABHASA: You are supposed to be enquiring of the
self-contraction. What are you doing instead? DEVOTEE: I am looking to release it and have it go
away. SRI DA AVABHASA: That is not the practice of the Way of
the Heart, then, is it? DEVOTEE: No, it is not. SRI DA AVABHASA: So why are you doing that? DEVOTEE: Because of this fear mechanism. SRI DA AVABHASA: What does that have to do with the
practice you have been Given? DEVOTEE: It has nothing to do with it. SRI DA AVABHASA: Then why are you doing it? Why should
you not do the practice you have been Given? In other words,
you are seeking. My Address to you is a Criticism of
seeking, is it not? I Criticize your seeking so that you
will understand it as a diversion, so that you will see the
self-contraction for what it is. Then the “conscious
process” and “conductivity”—the surrender of egoic self
in feeling-Contemplation of Me—takes place. Attending
to My Argument is called the listening process, but you are
seeking instead. You are not presently listening to My
Argument, then, are you? You are not listening to Me, not
examining yourself according to My Word and fashioning your
practice on the basis of this “consideration”. Instead, you
are carrying on with your oblivious search nonsense and
pretending that that is the practice. What do your search
and your feeling of fear have to do with self-Enquiry? DEVOTEE: They have nothing to do with it. SRI DA AVABHASA: Then why do you not “consider” what I am
actually saying to you? What is the object of this pursuit
you are involved in? Being free of fear, is that it? DEVOTEE: Yes. SRI DA AVABHASA: You are seeking to be free of fear. Do
you think that by practicing a few observances of the Way of
the Heart your search will be satisfied? DEVOTEE: That is my presumption. SRI DA AVABHASA: Have I ever suggested that the search
can be satisfied? DEVOTEE: No. SRI DA AVABHASA: But you persist in it anyway. You are
not paying much attention to Me. You all would not have come
to Me if your search had not been failing. You come to Me
and you continue your search anyway. What are you using Me
for, in that case? You are using Me to console you in the
midst of your failed search. Maybe there are things you are
afraid of that are worth being afraid of. DEVOTEE: Maybe. SRI DA AVABHASA: What about that? Are you afraid of
death? DEVOTEE: I think that I am being confronted by death. SRI DA AVABHASA: Are you afraid of it? DEVOTEE: I cant feel that. SRI DA AVABHASA: What are you doing? DEVOTEE: I am perpetuating my own fear. SRI DA AVABHASA: What are you afraid of? DEVOTEE: I cant get in touch with it. SRI DA AVABHASA: You are afraid but you do not know what
you are afraid of? DEVOTEE: Yes. I don’t know specifically what I am afraid
of. SRI DA AVABHASA: You are just plain old afraid? Your fear
is not associated with anything in particular? DEVOTEE: For a long time I thought I was afraid of being
criticized or afraid of chaos. I saw that I was trying to
know everything. But I cant get in touch with the specific
aspect of what I am afraid of. Many things trigger it off,
but I am just not in touch with what it is exactly. SRI DA AVABHASA: It does not seem to bother you very
much. DEVOTEE: I think it bothers me a lot. It creates a
limitation in my relationship with You, and that bothers
me. SRI DA AVABHASA: What about it, then? DEVOTEE: I don’t want to do it anymore. SRI DA AVABHASA: You do not want to do what? DEVOTEE: I don’t want to perpetuate this amorphous
fear. SRI DA AVABHASA: What do you mean when you say you do not
want to do it? You cannot stop it, and you do not know what
you are afraid of. What makes you think that you are doing
it, anyway? What makes you so sure it is fear? DEVOTEE: I am not even sure it is fear. That is the
mechanism I might put on top of it. I am not even sure what
it is. I just feel such a level of contraction in the bodily
base. I cannot necessarily get in touch with it. SRI DA AVABHASA: You cannot even get in touch with it. Do
you have anything to do with it at all? DEVOTEE: I react to it. SRI DA AVABHASA: To what? DEVOTEE: To the mechanism of this contraction. SRI DA AVABHASA: You just said you could not get in touch
with it. DEVOTEE: I cant get in touch with specifically what it
is. SRI DA AVABHASA: That is what I mean. You are not in
touch with it. What sensation do you have? DEVOTEE: I have the sensation of fear. That is what I am
struggling to describe. I just have the sense of being
locked up and I cannot grow as a result. SRI DA AVABHASA: An actual physical knotting? DEVOTEE: A physical knotting. SRI DA AVABHASA: In your lower body? DEVOTEE: In my lower body. SRI DA AVABHASA: This is chronic? DEVOTEE: Yes. And it is not just some physical ailment or
other? DEVOTEE: No. I have had moments when I have observed that
all of my activities are based on this particular knot. SRI DA AVABHASA: This physical knot? DEVOTEE: This physical knot, this assumption. I have been
Enquiring of this knot. SRI DA AVABHASA: How can you Enquire of a sensation? The
practice I have Given you is called “self-enquiry”. How can
you Enquire of a sensation of a merely physical kind? DEVOTEE: Because I identify with the physical knot. SRI DA AVABHASA: But how can you Enquire of this knot in
your body? DEVOTEE: I guess my Enquiry is part of my effort to
release this sensation. SRI DA AVABHASA: Yes. But you cannot properly Enquire of
such a thing, can you? Do you understand what self-Enquiry
is? How can it be self-Enquiry if you are asking a question
of some physical state? Self-Enquiry is an Enquiry of the
individual self. You Enquire of your separate and separative
self. You, however, are Enquiring of your physical
experience, of what you interpret to be your emotional
state, but, at the same time, you cannot get in touch it.
You are aware of a physical distress and you interpret it
emotionally to be fear, but you cannot get in touch with the
fear or any object for your fear. Basically, you are
Enquiring of this physical sensation. How does the Enquiry I
have Given you get to be brought to such a thing? How does
this process of self-Enquiry become, in your mind, something
to use to address a physical problem? DEVOTEE: I havent been viewing it as a physical problem.
I have been viewing it as a limitation. SRI DA AVABHASA: But you have not been locating your own
activity. You are addressing what could, perhaps, be called
the “result” of your activity. But you are not Enquiring of
your separate and separative self. You are not getting any
further than being aware of a physical sensation. Your
observation is not complete. It is not profound. It is not
self-observation. It is simply an awareness of a peripheral
result of your own activity. You must locate, you must truly
observe, your own action, that of which this physical
distress is a symptom. You have to find the cause, the act
that proceeds your physical distress, if self-Enquiry is
going to be of appropriate use. You, however, are not only not examining yourself to find
your own action but you are looking to discover the further
results of your own action in this physical sensation. You
are looking to find some emotional extension of your own
action perhaps. You are even looking to find some object of
your own emotion, of your fear. You are looking to go on and
on and on with something that is already a result of the
self-contraction. You are looking for further results,
analyzing yourself along those lines. But you are not very
successful, apparently. You are not getting much beyond this
physical sensation and some vague emotional awareness. But
regardless of your apparent success or not, you are not
addressing yourself or your own action. You are addressing
only a result, a symptom. Self-Enquiry is the ability to deal with your own action,
with the self-contraction itself. Self-Enquiry is not an
address to its symptoms, its extensions. It is not an
address to your reactivity, your desires, or your search
toward others, objects, thoughts, and this, that, or the
other thing. Self-Enquiry is not addressed to the search,
but to the self-contraction. The root of all seeking is the self-contraction. This is
My “Consideration” with you. The self-contraction is what
you must observe. The practice of self-Enquiry becomes of
use immediately when you discover your own action—which
precedes your seeking, which is the root of your seeking,
which is the cause of your seeking and all the symptoms
associated with it. You cannot Enquire of the results. You
can only Enquire of your separate and separative self in
this principle activity of self-contraction. You cannot
Enquire of your reactivity. You cannot do any of that
fruitfully, anyway, although you can try to do so. You
cannot fruitfully Enquire of your own reactivity, your
desires, your seeking, your game, objects, others, or your
life-play. You cannot Enquire of those things. You can
investigate them. You can observe them to the point of
discovering your own action, which is the self-contraction
that proceeds all these results. You are Enquiring of something that is not the point. You
are looking for more and more results. But you cannot deal
with results through self-Enquiry. Self-Enquiry can only
deal with the cause. The results are already happening. If
you address the results only, you are not in the
cause-position. Therefore, you cannot undo this dilemma. In
that case, you can be aware of your own dilemma and its
sensations and so forth. That is fine. That is a level of
observation. But is there a cause of all that for which you
are responsible? That is what I am “Considering” with you.
Your own self-contraction must be located. Then the practice
of self-surrendering, self-forgetting, and self-transcending
feeling-Contemplation of Me works. Then the “conscious
process” and “conductivity” are fruitful. But not
before. The practice of the Way of the Heart in My Company
requires self-understanding. Self-understanding develops
more and more, becoming most fundamental, and ultimately,
Most Perfect. All the processes of the Way of the Heart, all
the developmental stages of the Way of the Heart, develop on
the basis of self-understanding. To practice fruitfully,
therefore, there must be self-understanding.
Self-understanding is fundamental to the practice of the Way
of the Heart from the beginning. That is why the practice is
called “listening” from the beginning. It is real
“consideration”, from the beginning. To activate the
fruitful course of the Way of the Heart, you must function
on the basis of your best understanding, your real
understanding. The Way of the Heart is a reality
“consideration”, then, from the very beginning. It is
examining yourself in every moment to the point of
discovering the actual activity that is the
self-contraction. Discover that activity so that you can
surrender it, so that you can forget your separate and
separative self by feeling-Contemplation of Me, using all
the means of the “conscious process” and “conductivity” I
have Given you, using all the features of the practice of
the Way of the Heart. Without such self-understanding, you
are still the seeker. If there is no self-understanding, there is not much to
base the gestures of your practice on. In that case, you are
seeking in My Company and you are not practicing the Way of
the Heart fruitfully. You are listening, perhaps. However
profoundly, you are adapting, you are “considering” the Way
of the Heart, you are examining yourself. But fruitful
practice of the Way of the Heart begins when there is
self-understanding. Self-understanding is not merely
something that comes in the advancement of the Way of the
Heart or in the ultimate stages of life. It is not something
that is fundamental only in true hearing. In hearing,
self-understanding has become most fundamental. But fruitful
practice of the Way of the Heart requires
self-understanding, even at the beginning. You must observe
yourself to the point of discovering the self-contraction
that is the root of your seeking, the root of your perceived
dilemma. Then that understanding becomes the focus of your
moment to moment practice, rather than the search becoming
the focus of your so-called practice. In every moment when you are not practicing on the basis
of this self-understanding, this relinquishment of the
self-contraction itself, you are simply seeking. You are
functioning in the egoic fashion. You are addressing, or
otherwise involved in, forms of seeking, reactivity, desire,
searching toward objects, others, thoughts, whatever. You
are dramatizing the self-contraction, in other words. You
may perhaps be applying yourself to some aspect of the Way
of the Heart, or what you think is an aspect of the Way of
the Heart, in order to deal with your dilemma. But, in that
case, you are just using the means of the Way of the Heart
as tools for your own search. In that case, you are not
truly practicing the Way of the Heart. You are describing yourself as a seeker in My Company,
not as someone actually practicing the Way of the Heart
fruitfully, based on self-understanding. How could your
practice be fruitful in that case? The search is a
dramatization of the self-knot. The self-contraction or the
separate and separative self, egoic “self-possession” (or
self-absorption) itself, precedes all the aspects of
seeking. It precedes this discomfort you feel in your body.
It precedes this situation that you are describing as fear.
It precedes your search to do something about that fear. It
precedes all of your stressful activities and all of your
dramatized reactions in life. It precedes the pursuit of
consolation and the pursuit of stimulation by means of
seeking. The self-contraction precedes all of that. The
self-contraction, the act of separation, causes the life
drama. This is what there is to discover. This is My
“Consideration” with you. It has always been so. I remember the time I first began My Work. The record of
My first “Consideration” is about this very matter. And this
remains the “consideration” that is fundamental to the Way
of the Heart. It is your necessary “consideration” as My
devotee, moment-by-moment. It is examination of yourself,
observation of yourself, to the point of discovering the
root-act, the unique sensation associated with the root-act
of self-contraction, so that the self-contraction itself
becomes the focus of your self-surrendering,
self-forgetting, and self-transcending practice. Instead,
you are already seeking and you try to surrender, try to
forget yourself, try to get rid of your symptoms. That is
not the Way of the Heart. Nor is the Way of the Heart the
dramatization of all that, dramatizing your reactivity, your
desiring, and your seeking. Merely wishing your dilemma
would go away is not the Way of the Heart, either. Merely
consoling yourself so that you will not experience your
self-created suffering, the stress of it and so
forth—that is not the Way of the Heart. Enjoying the
stimulation of the stress or the search is not the Way of
the Heart. Consoling yourself with all kinds of life
activities is not the Way of the Heart. Consoling yourself
through religious observances is not the Way of the Heart.
The Way of the Heart is as I have just described it to
you. You have to “consider” what I am Saying to you. You are
to listen to Me about it, examine yourself, and see if it is
so. Having discovered the self-knot, that is your business
in every moment—to re-discover that knot and surrender
it, forget it in direct feeling-Contemplation of Me, by all
the means of the “conscious process” and “conductivity” that
I have Given you. Instead of this, whenever you speak to Me, you are always
telling Me about your search. And what does our interaction
become then? It becomes My Calling you to address what
precedes your search. I Call you to understand and to
practice on the basis of that understanding, that awareness
of the self-contraction, that awareness of your own
activity. Having found your act, you can relinquish it—since
it is your own act. You are in the position of
responsibility when you understand. You are not in a
position of responsibility when you are dramatizing or
seeking, because all that seeking and dramatizing is under
the control of the self-contraction. Your seeking and your
dramatization will persist until the self-contraction is
transcended. Apart from understanding, the most you can do
is alternate forms of seeking, forms of consolation, and so
forth. But you cannot eliminate the stressful search itself,
the dilemma itself, until you are in a position of
responsibility for the action that generates all of that.
You are all busy enumerating your symptoms and dramatizing
your search, including your consolations and your interest
in being stimulated, but you are not talking to Me about
real practice of the Way of the Heart, based on real
self-understanding. You still have not gotten the point. You do not get that
point once and for all—it must be gotten moment by
moment. It is a continuous “consideration”. It does not end.
It is not a merely intellectual matter, wherein you grasp
something in a moment and after that you are okay because
you grasped it. The practice of the Way of the Heart is
constant “consideration” until there is Most Perfect
transcendence of the self-contraction. If you are not even
doing that basic practice yet, you cannot expect to
progress.
DEVOTEE: Beloved Sri Gurudev, I have always practiced
with the results of the self-contraction and have not
allowed myself to feel what was prior to the results. I have
felt a physical contraction in the heart area, and when I
talked with You about it, You reflected to me that this is
just the result of the self-contraction. SRI DA AVABHASA: To talk to Me about some sensation in
the heart area is like talking to me about some sensation in
the lower body. You must be in the position of the
self-contraction. That is where the sensation is realized.
You are talking about another symptom, apparently. DEVOTEE: After I spoke with You about this earlier, my
perception of this sensation in the heart region changed and
became a sense of separateness, a sense of being alone,
isolated, cut off. SRI DA AVABHASA: Do you see all the gestures you are
making? Alone, isolated, cut off—these are all “out
here” descriptions. The self-contraction is your activity.
It is the “I” itself. It is not some sensation that is a
result of that action. All the results can be observed, but
the unique sensation that is the self-contraction itself is
the “I”. It is the very gesture of separation, not the
feeling of being separate afterwards. It is the act, not the
result. It has its own unique sensation. But it is
coincident with the “I”-ness itself. Therefore, it is not
merely something in the periphery of the body. DEVOTEE: So, based on what I am describing it to You, my
understanding is still in the periphery. SRI DA AVABHASA: According to your description, clearly.
If you were to Enquire of some sort of sensation located in
the heart area, what would become of it is not self-Enquiry.
You are asking an organ. DEVOTEE: A symptom. SRI DA AVABHASA: It is not self-Enquiry. It is not
Enquiry of the separate and separative self, not Enquiry of
the ego, of the act that is the ego. DEVOTEE: The action is the ego. SRI DA AVABHASA: Yes, the ego is the activity, not a
thing. It is this activity that I Call you to observe and
become responsible for. And there are many sensations that
could be said to be the symptoms of that activity that are
worthy of being observed in the process of locating the
self-contraction itself. You are talking about some thing,
some relation, some other. In that case, you are dramatizing
there, you are seeking there. What are you doing? You can
talk about some desire, some reactive emotion. Fine. But
what are you doing? You have to keep examining yourself until you locate your
own activity, of which all of that is a result. That is the
process of listening that becomes true hearing. You must go
on from the periphery, the outer results of your seeking, to
locate your own action. You may progress by degrees, if you
like, by steps, but you must get to the very core that is
your separate and separative self, in action as the
self-contraction. That is the process of listening and
hearing. You must keep going one step behind whatever you
are describing. You must get closer to the core action, the
root-action. DEVOTEE: I see it as the same action behind fear, sorrow,
anger, attention to objects, attention to things, behind all
that I have observed about myself. SRI DA AVABHASA: You can be afraid in one moment, you can
be sorrowful the next, you can feel lust the next. There is
just one action, however, that is the cause of that. It
cannot be any one of those emotions, because you can just as
well exchange those emotions, go from one to the other. So
what are you doing? What you are doing, what your activity
is, what you are responsible for—that is what you must
locate. DEVOTEE: I think maybe I am somewhere between the
periphery and the core because I know that this sensation is
more basic, deeper. SRI DA AVABHASA: As soon as you are talking about
yourself in any way at all that is not merely a relation,
you are closer to the core. But the psycho-physical persona
is very complex, and it is constantly changing. It also has,
in each persons case, a characteristic dramatization, a
rather chronic one that could be said to characterize that
person overall, even though he or she does many
things. True hearing, summary and most fundamental
self-understanding, involves the core. It involves being
responsible for that key dramatization. But it is a matter
of being most fundamentally responsible for the act that
precedes even that key dramatization. Therefore, it is also
a matter of being responsible for all the other kinds of
dramatization that are general tendencies of yours. True
hearing covers it all, because it deals with the root.
Hearing is not just a matter of dealing with fear or any
other particular emotion. It is not a matter of dealing with
any particular dramatization merely, nor of addressing any
particular sensation in the general complex of the
body-mind. It is a matter of dealing with the primary action
that is the ego, the self-contraction itself. The ego is an
action. Therefore, it has a sensation associated with it.
But it is a sensation made into egoity itself, and it is not
merely at the periphery. The self-contraction is not merely
the dramatization appearing at the moment. It is the core of
that dramatization, and of every dramatization. DEVOTEE: Let me ask You another question. Recently, as I
was meditating, I was dropping deeper into the sense that I
am doing the self-contraction and that “I” am the separate
one. I understood that I am always trying to improve
myself. SRI DA AVABHASA: This is just a generalized
self-examination, not locating what you were
doing—looking at the program in other words, but not
locating your action at that moment. DEVOTEE: But I felt that, prior to all of that, was this
action of the self-contraction. SRI DA AVABHASA: Of course it is, but locating it is
quite another matter. Presuming it is so is not to locate
it. Actually locating the self-contraction and surrendering
it is the practice. Locating it—not wandering in the
program, not spinning the software, but locating the mover,
the action itself that is the root of your search, actually
doing so—not thinking about doing so, not seeking for
it in some generalized, vague sense. You must really listen
to Me and understand by actually locating your own action in
that moment. Then you are in a position to surrender your
separate and separative self. It is not really self-Enquiry
as I have “Considered” it with you, until there is the
ability to locate the self-contraction. Locate the
self-contraction by means of self-Enquiry and feel beyond it
in that devotional practice with which self-Enquiry is
associated. DEVOTEE: I practice in the Devotional Way of Faith. SRI DA AVABHASA: It is the same practice. In the
Devotional Way of Faith, there is true surrender. Such
surrender locates the self-contraction inevitably, in one
who understands. And then the self-contraction itself is
surrendered, felt beyond, because you are moved by My
Attractiveness. DEVOTEE: This is what I feel occurred in that
meditation. SRI DA AVABHASA: Maybe it did, maybe it did not. But I am
Addressing you right now.
DEVOTEE: Beloved Gurudev, is locating the root
self-contraction the same as true self-observation? SRI DA AVABHASA: It is possible to say that true
self-observation has occurred only in that case, yes. Of
course, true self-observation is also a more general term.
It also means examining yourself for real. But that
observation is most consequential truly, in the most
profound sense, only if it locates the action that is
egoity. But that is just a clarification of terms. What
about it? DEVOTEE: During my last retreat, I felt up against my
“self” so profoundly that I had
an insight into my egoity. I noticed that my dramatizations
were my own activity, and I took responsibility for them. I
felt that that insight was profound, although I do not know
what it was exactly. I don’t know if that moment was an
actual moment of really sensing the self-contraction at its
root, but I did know that everything I was about was about
simply throwing the garbage on the purity. SRI DA AVABHASA: What about this? What have you been
doing since? What is your practice about now? DEVOTEE: My Lord, on this present retreat I have felt
Your Divine Criticism of my egoity. My egoity has been
“nailed” in a way that I have never felt before. And I have
been in touch with a feeling of great separation, a sense of
separation. SRI DA AVABHASA: That is hardly self-understanding, is
it? DEVOTEE: No, it is not self-understanding. SRI DA AVABHASA: It is dramatization. You are spinning
your wheels here instead of really practicing. You are being
the seeker. You are being the result of your own
contraction, being all the reactivity that is the result of
your own contraction. You are wandering in the mess of all
those emotions and thoughts. There is no effective practice
going on in that case, is there? DEVOTEE: No, there is not. SRI DA AVABHASA: So you are wasting your time. You are
not making significant use of the opportunity being Given to
you, if that is what you are doing. Instead, you are doing
the same old thing in life. You are wasting that
opportunity. That is what people do with their
dramatizations—they waste the opportunity of sadhana,
they waste the body-mind in destiny, in karma. The body-mind
declines more and more every day, and then it comes to an
end. When it does, you are full of regret. Then what?
Sadhana in My Company is to really do it, not just think
about it and talk about it and dramatize in the meantime. So
when you come on retreat, I expect you to be equipped to
really do it. This is why it is expected that you have a
history of real practice before you come here. This means a
history of really doing this practice, not merely a history
of belonging to the Free Daist Communion. I Call for real
preparation before you come here so that when you are here
you can effectively practice in My Company and grow thereby.
You must be prepared in order to benefit from this
Opportunity, so that you will be able to continue to use it
to intensify your real practice when you go back to the
community of practice that you live in from day-to-day. What
is the point of coming here unprepared? What is the point of
wasting your weeks here dramatizing? You look congenial
outwardly, and you are practicing the form of retreat and so
on. Nonetheless, in terms of true and effective practice,
you are basically wasting this Opportunity. What is the
point of that? When you come here, you should be really
prepared. You should have a real history of right practice.
That is how it is established that you can make use of this
opportunity. You are not supposed to come here otherwise.
And the measure of real practice is not that, when you were
in your Region before coming here, you practiced all of the
observances and were not a pain in the ass. You tend to make
that the measure of your practice, however. You do the
observances, you are not a pain in the ass, and you think
that means you can come on retreat. That is not it. DEVOTEE: Sri Gurudev, this is very clarifying for me. As
I am listening to You speak, I am understanding how my vital
enthusiasm is one of the primary ways that I dramatize the
self-contraction. I can see now that I have not really
understood this before, even though You have pointed it out
to me, because that vital energy has been full of utility in
my life. It is what has made me successful, in conventional
terms. SRI DA AVABHASA: So you think that if it has some utility
in life, then it is not the self-contraction. DEVOTEE: Right. Because that particular strategy has its
utility in life, because it allowed me to accomplish what I
was looking to accomplish, because it consoled me, really, I
basically did not inspect it. And part of me was afraid that
if I really inspected my vital enthusiasm, I might not have
that capability any more. Since You pointed out to me some
time ago that my vital enthusiasm is a primary way that I
dramatize the self-contraction, however, I have been
Enquiring of it. I have seen that it is all-pervasive in my
character. When I would notice it, I would Enquire relative
to that strategy and bring my attention to the feeling of
what I perceive to be contraction, which is the feeling of
desperation. I observed that my vital enthusiasm springs
from that feeling of desperation. Listening to You tonight,
however, I understand that this was not the right approach.
Now I understand that self-Enquiry is used . . . SRI DA AVABHASA: If you are dramatizing the
self-contraction, whatever you are doing is a dramatization
of the self-contraction. But there are two forms of
self-Enquiry being practiced in My Company. One is
self-Enquiry based on real self-understanding and,
especially, on true hearing. In that case, self-Enquiry is
most fruitful, obviously, and it takes the form I have just
described. The other form of self-Enquiry is that which may
be used by any of My devotees, even from the beginning of
practice in the Way of the Heart, with little or no
self-understanding. In that case, you exercise self-Enquiry
relative to all kinds of things. You just described an
instance of how self-Enquiry is done in that case, in the
sheer beginners sense, with little or no self-understanding.
But, as you described, in the doing of it, you observed
something a little deeper behind this vital enthusiasm, a
sense of despair. So your practice of self-Enquiry had some
usefulness in the sense that it enabled you to observe
something more. Using self-Enquiry in this ordinary fashion
may serve self-observation, but, in that case, it is not the
exercise of self understanding itself. It is not true
self-Enquiry. What I am “Considering” with you is true self-Enquiry,
true practice altogether, whatever your chosen form and
manner of practice may be, whichever way you make use of My
Company. Your practice of the Way of the Heart, when it is
fruitful, is based on present self-understanding, present
awareness of the activity of self-contraction and the
relinquishment of it in Communion with Me. That true
practice is what I am moving you toward and what all of your
practice altogether should be moving you toward. There is no
reason why the day that you are practicing authentically
should be delayed. There is no reason why the listening
process must take a long period of time. The only reason it
would take an overly long period of time is if you do not
practice truly, if you dramatize or seek instead, if you do
not grasp the principle of right practice. It is preferable
for the day that you practice rightly and understand truly
to come quickly. The listening process is supposed to be a “quickened”
process, quickened by self-understanding, quickened by true
listening, quickened by true resort to Me in that context.
It should not be made over-long because you, individually
and collectively, agree to dramatize instead.
DEVOTEE: Sri Gurudev, I need Your Help in understanding
this Enquiry of the root-contraction. You Said that true
self-Enquiry is not registered in sensation in the body,
that it is prior to such sensation. SRI DA AVABHASA: The self-contraction is registered in
the general domain of the body, certainly. But it is
registered at the seat, the position of the separate and
separative self, of the ego, of self-contraction itself, the
primary action. DEVOTEE: When my Enquiry feels most true, I feel the
self-contraction as a general sense of coming in instead of
going out. I feel it as shutting down feeling altogether.
There is a general sensation of being closed in. Even
contraction, I am noticing, falls outward. To be surrendered
to specific things and thoughts and emotions, I notice that.
. . SRI DA AVABHASA: All results flow out from the position
of the self-contraction. DEVOTEE: When self-Enquiry is most true, I even forget to
do this activity. SRI DA AVABHASA: Which activity? DEVOTEE: That activity of contraction. SRI DA AVABHASA: You think you forget to do it? DEVOTEE: I do. SRI DA AVABHASA: Or you forget you are doing it? DEVOTEE: No, I notice that there is relationship that is
more attractive than the self-contraction, and the
contraction loses its force and I. . . SRI DA AVABHASA: What do you mean it does not exist?
Self-contraction exists even in the pleasurable moments. DEVOTEE: At some point, the observation of the
self-contraction becomes easier and simpler and more clear,
and the gesture to surrender it via my attraction to You
becomes more spontaneous. That is the difference I feel. Is
this a misuse of Your Instruction, by still only Enquiring
at the periphery? SRI DA AVABHASA: Your game is wanting to be at your ease.
You are talking about an event in which your practice seems
easier, or in which you feel more at ease about it. You are
talking about self-consolation again rather than the real
work that is without consolation. Something about what you
are describing may be so, but obviously it is not true
self-Enquiry. DEVOTEE: I do seek for that ease. SRI DA AVABHASA: Yes, you are seeking for a consoled
state, an undoubted state, that state where you are not
intruded upon. are doing this. This separate one has this
motive. The separate one is not a “thing”, a “being”. It is
an action. To pursue such consolation, then, means that you
are activating the self-contraction. DEVOTEE: When I feel most surrendered to You, I still
notice that there is self-contraction. It is not a consoled
state, it is just that the self-contraction is more clear
and simply surrendered. SRI DA AVABHASA: How can you have surrendered it to Me if
it is still existing? You are remembering yourself instead
of forgetting yourself.
DEVOTEE: I understand that the sense of that contraction
that is fundamental to my being, and that I move from, is
everything. The way I feel that is, of course, unique to me.
But, fundamentally, it is the sense of “I”. Is that the same
feeling that everybody would have? SRI DA AVABHASA: In that sense, yes, it is the same. DEVOTEE: Also, Sri Gurudev, in the use of self-Enquiry,
in the use of the “conscious process” in Your Company, when
I feel deep to my being, the core, then there is one
observation. . . . SRI DA AVABHASA: The self-contraction can look deep into
you, too. That is why even the advanced and the ultimate
stages of life can be ego-bound. There is a lot of deep
inwardness in egoity. The focus of the self-contraction can
be brought to any kind of object or state. Even death is not
a guarantee that you are dealing with the
self-contraction. DEVOTEE: It seems that if I become shallow, or when I
fail to “consider” all of the dilemma, then I don’t go below
my superficial dramatization to the fundamental contraction.
But when I do, when I feel this fundamental contraction and
call upon You there, there is one gesture that happens. I
have noticed that if I am looking at a lot of things, a lot
of content, then I am not there in the place of the
self-contraction. But if I come to the place where I feel
that one fundamental activity, and when I understand that
activity, it does release. And I feel that that is the place
that You are talking about. I also see that sadhana
works. SRI DA AVABHASA: Yes. Moment by moment. It is not an
occasional thing when it is done for real. It is a perpetual
“reality consideration”. The Way of the Heart is religious
realism, not mere observances, not mere beliefs, not
consolations, not indulging in the stress of seeking or the
stimulation of life associated with your search and your
reactivity. Practice of the Way of the Heart is not any of
that. All of that is permitted in the general domain of
exoteric religion, even in much of esoteric religion. But it
is not the practice of the Way of the Heart. Real practice of the Way of the Heart deals directly with
the activity of the ego and transcends it with equal
directness. That must become your moment to moment practice.
You can use religious observances to avoid this very
thing—in a very consoling fashion, practicing another
model of life, a routine, in a circumstance that feels like
discipline to you, feels like order to you, even feels
pleasurable to you to one degree or another, consoling,
perhaps stimulating in some sense. At the same time there is
all the internal blah, blah, blah of reactivity and desiring
and seeking, dramatizations of one kind or another. DEVOTEE: Beloved Gurudev, I read a section of chapter
four of The Dawn Horse Testament where You say that Your
Wisdom-Teaching is simple. There, You say that first, we
would observe the different ways of contracting, being at
our best and at our worst, in all kinds of moments, and then
You go on to say that, eventually, we will be able to see
the activity of contraction underlying all of that. And it
is clear that, from the very beginning of that process, we
still Enquire. We could still Enquire of some of those
peripheral activities that You mentioned before we actually
get to the . . . SRI DA AVABHASA: But you should use that specific form of
pondering until it becomes true self-Enquiry. Before the
Enquiry “avoiding relationship?” is true self-Enquiry, it is
just one of the forms of pondering usable by my listening
devotees. It becomes true self-Enquiry only when the ability
to locate the self-contraction itself exists, by virtue of
true and most fundamental self-understanding. It becomes
true only when, along with that ability, the coincident
capability to transcend the self-contraction in devotion to
Me exists. That is what pondering develops into, that is
when it becomes self-enquiry. In the meantime, use of the
question, “Avoiding relationship?” is simply pondering. And
there are many other forms of pondering, other great
questions, that I have Given to you, as well as the various
activities associated with the Devotional Way of Faith. You
are to experiment with all of these. Use of the question “Avoiding relationship?” should not
rightly be called “self-Enquiry” until it is founded on true
and most fundamental self-understanding. For the sake of
convenient reference, I have called it “self-Enquiry”, but
at the beginning, in the listening stages of the Way of the
Heart, it is a form of pondering that serves
self-observation. DEVOTEE: I also studied Your Talk “The Meditation of
Understanding” in The Method of the Siddhas. In it, You
speak about the three activities—identification,
differentiation, and desire. It seems to me that those are
also addressed initially in the pondering process. SRI DA AVABHASA: True self-Enquiry does not require an
answer. It is a process based on most fundamental
self-understanding, one which locates the self-contraction
and feels beyond it. Pondering Gives you the same question
but you can have an answer of a kind. In other words, in
pondering, you observe something about yourself. You observe
some form, some result, of self-contraction. This is useful
in the listening process, in which you are Called to
“consider” My Word, to examine yourself, to progressively
enter into this “consideration” to the point of locating the
self-contraction itself, the very act. No mere observation,
no mere experience, is of ultimate consequence. It is all
part of a process of listening to Me, that process in which
you must locate the self-contraction itself. The practice in
My Company is not a matter of mere observances, carried on
forever to help you relax a little bit and feel consoled.
The practice in My company is a reality “consideration”. It
is about locating the action for which you must become
responsible. This is absolutely essential if Ultimate Divine
Self-Realization is to be the case. The reason why Ultimate Divine Self-Realization has not
become the case within the context of the Great Tradition is
that the Great Tradition always operates on the basis of the
self-contraction. The ego-knot is fundamental to all the
stages of life previous to the seventh. The key to the
transcendence of the psycho-biography of the ego has not
been grasped before now, and that is why there has never
been Ultimate Divine Self-Realization, or seventh stage
Realization, before. Because that is so, other states, which
are conditional in nature, or dependent on conditions, have
been proposed as God-Realization or Truth-Realization or
Reality-Realization. But they are not Ultimate Divine
Self-Realization, precisely because they are either
conditional in themselves or because they are dependent on
that which is conditional. They are founded on the
self-contraction, ego-bound, however great they may appear.
By comparison to lesser states, the advanced and the
ultimate stages of life in the Great Tradition are
great—but they are not Ultimate Realization. There is
no Ultimate Realization without Most Perfect transcendence
of egoity. DEVOTEE: Beloved Gurudev, You use the word
“discrimination” constantly in Your Wisdom-Teaching. I
understand how valuable that word is, because I see that I
tend to look for something comfortable and acceptable,
rather than use discrimination. I have seen when I have gone
beyond all the different levels of that dilemma, that there
is something much more profound. It is Satsang with You. SRI DA AVABHASA: Before you enter into this Satsang with
Me, you must transcend the self-contraction in Communion
with Me. You can be in My Company and still not truly be in
Communion with Me, even though you are feeling positive
about your practice and benefiting from My Company in
various ways. You can do all of that and still lack most
effective practice. DEVOTEE: I am so impressed by how the ego does everything
to avoid its own release. SRI DA AVABHASA: Just like you, body-bound, do anything
to avoid dying. Whatever is set in motion wants to remain in
motion, does not want to stop. Much of the disturbance you
feel in life is because of the conflict between some
programmed motion that is motivating you and something else
in life does not allow that motivation to fulfill itself.
You have a sexual desire or a desire for one thing or the
other, the desire to feel good or the desire not to be
bothered, any desire at all, but the conditions of life, the
whole sphere of the world, including your immediate
relations and the body itself, interfere with those desires.
When your desires are interfered with, you feel a reaction.
But observing that reaction is not the discovery of the most
fundamental self-contraction. The observation of that
reactivity is just awareness of the ordinary dis-ease,
awareness of your intention to persist and to be fulfilled
in that desiring even though your desires are frustrated by
conditions. The self-contraction itself is that intention. You cannot
talk the self-contraction out of its desires. Look at all
the trouble you have had giving up any kind of a desire
whatsoever. You are not interested in volunteering for
death. Anything set in motion wants to persist. That is how
conditions work, that is how conditional existence itself
works. Only you who are the one making that act that is the
self-contraction can be responsible for it. You cannot
appeal to the self-contraction, when it is still only an
object to you, when you are still addressing its mere
results, which are all objective to you. You only transcend
egoity in the action place, the original place, which is not
merely in the past. It is in this moment, it is always in
the present. DEVOTEE: Sri Gurudev, I am confused about the root of the
self-contraction that You are pointing to. SRI DA AVABHASA: The root is the self-contraction. DEVOTEE: Are You talking about the fundamental root of
the conditional self as it is located in the right side of
the heart in the sixth stage of life or are You talking
about the characteristic way that we dramatize the ego in
the first three stages of life? SRI DA AVABHASA: I am describing the self-contraction as
it may appear in any context or stage of life. It is still
the same contraction. DEVOTEE: Is it the same for each person or is it unique
for that particular individual? SRI DA AVABHASA: The manifestation of the
self-contraction and its results are unique to each
individual, but the fundamental action is the same. The
ego-“I” is the same gesture in all cases. The center
associated with the heart on the right is just the ultimate
domain of this activity, which is uncovered in the ultimate
stages of the Way of the Heart. The act is the same. The act
is there in any moment or stage of life. And you are the one
responsible for it. It is you. It is your very conditional
existence. DEVOTEE: Beloved Lord, self-contraction, if I understand
it correctly, is the activity that we are presently doing at
all times. It is a constant activity until it is Most
Perfectly transcended in the seventh stage of life. Am I
correct in saying that the practice, at our level of
practice, which is in the first three stages of life, is
about . . . SRI DA AVABHASA: And the beginnings of the fourth. DEVOTEE: . . . is about everything we have accumulated as
egos in these first three stages and the beginning of the
fourth? SRI DA AVABHASA: Those are the results. DEVOTEE: Those are the results, yes. So this is the work
that must be done. Transcending the self-contraction . .
. SRI DA AVABHASA: You understand and transcend the
self-contraction by entering into a “consideration” of your
sphere of experience. In your case, at the moment, that is
experience in the context of the first three stages of life
and the beginnings of the fourth. When you are examining
yourself, observing yourself in the context of practice,
this is the sphere of experience that you are observing. At
your present level of practice, you are not inspecting the
kinds of experiences that are associated with the further
advancement of the fourth stage of life or the fifth or the
sixth or the seventh stage of life. That is not your sphere
of experience, although here and there there can be some
unusual experience. Fundamentally, you are dealing with the
beginnings of the fourth stage of life and all of the first
three stages of life. That is the sphere of your
observation. The contraction is the same, in any case. It is
the same self-contraction that is present in the fifth stage
of life, or the sixth. It is the same act. The ego has no features other than that very act. It has
an apparent personality, it has all of its experiences, it
has all of its associations. All of this characterizes the
stage of life of the individual or the complex of stages of
life in that apparent individual. But the ego itself is the
primary act at the root of all the stages of life, the
self-contraction itself. It is not a person. It is an action
that suggests a person, an independent or conditionally
manifested person, as a result. DEVOTEE: Our experience at each stage of life integrates
with the self-contraction to confirm the sense of separative
self. So as we grow, we have additional experiences that the
ego accumulates . . . SRI DA AVABHASA: You can be a bigger ego as you advance
in the ordinary evolutionary course—bigger in the sense
that there is an enlarged sphere of the experiencing of the
self-contraction as a conditionally manifested being.
DEVOTEE: Sri Gurudev, this programmed motion that You
were speaking of is something that I am becoming more and
more sensitive to. I see that it is a constant activity and
that whatever my dramatization happens to be in the moment,
at the root of the dramatization is that programmed motion
that feels unstoppable. SRI DA AVABHASA: It is the software, not the jolt that
spins it. DEVOTEE: I become more sensitive to that automaticity
when I feel Your Attractiveness. In feeling Your
Attractiveness, there is more of a sense of restedness. But,
at the same time, there is that activity, that sense of
separate self, of feeling that it is my activity and I am
doing it but, yet, at the same time, I cannot stop it. SRI DA AVABHASA: You have not truly understood unless you
are in the position of the self-contraction, responsible for
feeling beyond it. You are talking like others here tonight,
suggesting some kind of awareness of the self-contraction,
some understanding of it or presumption about it, but you
are still at the periphery, full of mind-business. DEVOTEE: It occurred to me that I am not locating the
self-contraction itself. SRI DA AVABHASA: Right. You all even think of the Cosmic
Mandala as a kind of flat plane, as a mere tier of visionary
states that appears before the field of vision. It seems to
you to be a flat image, much as it appears to be in the
picture in The Dawn Horse Testament. You are, from a
separate point of view, located in the body-mind,
envisioning the Cosmic Mandala in cross sections, so to
speak. It is not a flat plane. It is a sphere. It is
concentric spheres, in fact, not a flat plane of circles. If
you envision it from a separate position however, it appears
to be a flat plane. It is “out there”. You get the notion of
going “out there” to get to it or going “up there” to get to
it. In some sense, that is so, “considering” the
experiential point of view of the perceiver. Rightly
understood, however, rightly entered into, it is not “out
there”, it is not a flat thing. It is a sphere. When the observer is transcended, where is the core? It
is not “out there” or “above”—it is at the very center,
at the point of the conditional self, the position of the
self-contraction itself. To penetrate the spheres of the
Cosmic Mandala is to enter into the depth of the conditional
self so that there is Realization of the Very Self. It is
not to go out from the ego-position, but to penetrate it at
its core. The dissolution of the Cosmic Mandala is the
magnification of the Inherent “Brightness” of Being Itself,
Which, of course, shows Itself at the Core of the Cosmic
Mandala perceptually. To be in that Position, Shining
“Bright” as the Divine Self, is the mechanism of Divine
Translation. In that Process, the Cosmic Mandala is
Outshined from a Position at its very Core. Divine
Translation is the Process of Expanding that Divine
“Brightness” to the point of no-noticing—not by
dissociation, but by Outshining. The Great Heart-Light
Itself, magnified Perfectly, Outshines this sphere of
apparent conditionality, which is merely Its apparent
modification. So it is with all that you are dealing with,
then. True practice of the Way of the Heart is always a
matter of standing in the cause-position, the
self-position—at first, in the conditional sense, the
egoic sense. You must locate the position of your own
causing, your own search. You are in that position when you
notice the very sensation of your own act, the gesture of
your own act. That is what real practice of the Way of the
Heart is about. This is the practice that all My listening
devotees are adapting to and growing in. You do not grow by
mere observances, but by this “reality consideration”. The
process of real self-observation becomes the locating of the
self-contraction so that, from that position of the cause
itself, you can truly surrender and forget your separate and
separative self. When you engage one another in the context of your daily
practice, when you enter into practice “consideration” with
one another, this is what you are supposed to be
addressing.