Laughing Man Magazine, pp. 48-52, Vol 2, Number 1. A talk by Da Free John
DEVOTEE: You have said, Master, that the Adept’s ultimate
function is the enlightenment of the whole universe. DA FREE JOHN: Yes, that motive is the disposition of the
Divine, and once the Divine is realized, then that
disposition becomes apparently one’s own. But, on the other
hand, there already is no universe. All space-time is
spontaneous; therefore, all past is present, all future is
present, all possibilities exist, and their dissolution is
already true. It is a matter of what slice of possibility or
space-time one wants to fix upon or is made to fix upon or
is tending to fix upon. Even the philosophy of the
conventional physical sciences now recognizes that space and
time are relative conceptions. They each change dramatically
as you change your position in space and in time. There are
paradoxes like the observations that space itself is curved
and that all time is simultaneous and that time depends on
your position in space. It is all arbitraries, paradoxes,
and it is only by assuming a fixed position-which is not
really possible – that you make sense out of space and time,
you see. As soon as you become mobile, you are confronted by
nothing but paradoxes, and what you experience does not make
sense anymore. It is because we have this apparently fixed body
[slapping his body] that space is fixed, time is
fixed, and our point of view is fixed. We make philosophy
out of that fixation, and we conceive the necessity for
salvation because of that fixation. As soon as we cease to
be fixed in our manifest expression, it is not necessary to
be saved any more, and the dimension of existence becomes
one of paradoxes rather than fixed states. One can be of an
entirely different mind, and the human mechanism is in fact
structured to be of an entirely different mind than you are
all tending to be. Now you enjoy some intuition of an
expanded conception or realization of existence. But you
could be of an entirely different mind wherein that
intuition is the bare fact of your perception and wherein it
conditions or determines the conditions of life. Now you are
conditioned by conditions or circumstances in themselves.
Your spiritual intuition gives you a little distance from it
all somehow. But in another state of mind that intuition
itself could be the intelligence that conditions or
determines conditions. Now, since this state can be realized and has been
realized by various individuals in human form, it is
apparent that all human beings therefore are structurally
capable of such transformation. It is just that we are
adapted to a lower form or organization of our own
structure. We determine our experience and destiny based on
this lower organization, this lower adaptation, and our
state of mind reflects this lower state of adaptation. Thus,
an aspect of the spiritual process involves the evolutionary
transformation of the state of mind, the fixed presumptions
in the structural adaptation of the individual. These brain
cases here are filled with potential chemical alignments
that can make this brain into a much more extraordinary
instrument than it now appears to be. Now it is really a
very crude, low level of the brain that is in operation. It
is related basically to the lower vital mind, operating in
reaction to physical events in their conventional form.
Unfortunately, that crude brain activity is controlling the
chemistry of the total brain. DEVOTEE: Can you still talk about the process of
evolution within the paradox of simultaneity of the past,
present, and future? DA FREE JOHN: Yes. To be highly evolved in human terms is
to be capable (while remaining fundamentally present as a
human individual) of consciously, psychically entering into
a time-space framework that is profoundly expanded beyond
your present conception, which is a fixed space-time
perception. Now, if human beings in general began to adapt themselves
in all kinds of new ways along these lines, you might begin
to look different physically. Not only might you look
different physically, but part of your appearance could be
energy. Now we do not tend to see very much of the energy in
which we are all appearing, but the body is expressive of
energy, and that energy could become commonly visible. In
other words, it could be a convention of perception, not
just an uncommon occurrence seen in the case of somebody
extraordinary. This mind could be of a different kind, the
chemistry of the body-mind could be totally transformed.
Walking around, appearing among others, you would see the
light emanating from your own body and emanating from
others, and you would contact one another through
association at the level of energy and psyche. And that
dimension in which you function psychically would be visible
physically. You would see your own minds, in other words.
Now you can only see the body, but you would see the mind as
well. You would see the energy field in which mind is
operative, and you would observe that mind is not in the
body, but is in that field of universal energy and therefore
has no fixed location. In my own case, I have seen how this individual body-mind
arose. I see how it is arising now and what holds it in
place. This arising has nothing to do with a “me” deciding
to do it, requiring this life-experience to happen for my
own sake, you see. That is the significance of bodily life
for the usual individual, but not for those who are awake.
And this individuated body-mind does not have an eternal
existence. It is just mocked up for a purpose that
transcends individuality, for a spiritual function. So it
may exhaust itself in this lifetime, destroying the seeds of
even enlightened rebirths. Or maybe it won’t! (Laughs) Thus, there is a different point of view in my existence
than that which animates people ordinarily. The usual
individual looks at death, for instance, as a possibility of
being personally disturbed and annihilated – and “who knows
what is going to come next?” I see death as just a drawing
back in of this extension here. My so-called death will just
draw this psycho-physical being back into the Position in
which I am already living. This body is not my position. It
is just an electronic appearance. What I am describing is a different event than a
subjective, personal dream. When you awaken from a personal
dream, you at least have the sense that all those
individuals you may have seen in that dream were emanations
of yourself. They were obviously animated by your own being
and energy. The appearance of beings and phenomena in the
waking state is somewhat different. It seems that all of
these others here are suffering from an independent sense of
their own existence. Even so, you could say that the same
thing is actually true of the dream as well. You know from
the point of view of the waking state that all those people
in your dream were in fact your own emanations. But in the
dream state itself, you encounter all those individuals as
others than yourself. That is why you are motivated to take
seriously everything that seems to happen in a dream. Thus, enlightenment wakes you up and frees you from the
seriousness of this appearance. As long as it persists,
however, you are like a person awake in this dream we call
the waking state. You act with the assumption that others
are taking seriously the appearance of their bondage and
their independence within the dream. So you play it as such,
at the same time realizing that there is really no one in
trouble here. There are no unenlightened beings and there is
no one in bondage, needing to be liberated. All of this appearing universe could vanish in a moment.
Just as one can wake up in the morning before one’s dream is
over, this world could vanish long before it has fulfilled
its projected term, you see. It does not have to wait to
disappear only after all beings get enlightened. It could
disappear because all beings are already enlightened. The
appearance of phenomena is the only suggestion of
unenlightenment. No appearance, no unenlightenment! Well, there is something very strange about all of this
here! I Laughter] If there could be a sufficient
awakening on the part of all of us, perhaps the universe
would disappear. There are psychic forces determining its
continuation, you see. There are states of mind that are
disturbing the universal Force and causing certain
appearances to arise and remain fixed. Once something comes
into being, once a certain motion is established, it tends
to persist until it is disturbed, in which case it changes,
or until there is complete awakening, in which case this
motion just vanishes. Then enlightened equanimity is
restored. So if there could be sufficient awakening to the
point that equanimity is established at the level of
universal Force, then all of this moving universe would
vanish. However, it does not have to explode or violently
disintegrate. Nothing has to explode for you to wake up from
your dream. The room that you saw just before you awakened
does not have to break up, it doesn’t have to explode in
order for it to vanish. Just so, the universe that we
experience in the waking state does not have to blow up, all
the stars do not have to collapse or blow up or blend into
one another again, none of that has to happen for this
appearing universe to vanish. Why, then, do we have to
presume in this waking state that the whole extended
universe must somehow fulfill its term before it can come to
an end? It could fulfill its term, it could also be mightily
changed, and it could also vanish in an instant. It could
become unnecessary, obsolete, and disappear altogether. Therefore, we can say that it is possible in the Divine
or real physics of manifestation for the entire manifest
universe to vanish suddenly and at any time. But there are
so many beings, so many events set in motion, so much
psychic or mind force establishing a disturbance in this
universal Energy, that such an event is extremely unlikely
in the near future. It takes more than an occasionally
awakened individual to transform the universe for others.
Any single individual can realize the transparency of the
manifest universe and enjoy the absolute condition of Light
or Radiant Being, and for that individual none of this will
exist, it will vanish. But he or she is thereby awakened
from the waking state like a single ordinary individual
waking up from a dream. The world of the dream that he left
has not been exploded or made utterly obsolete. Attention
and energy have just been transferred temporarily. Likewise,
individual beings can become enlightened, and are in that
sense then translated out of this universe and all of the
states through which experience arises waking, dreaming and
sleeping. For translation to take place in the highest
sense, the entire material universe would have to be
translated out of material existence. Individual beings can go up in light, but that is not the
same as Divine Translation. And an individual body can be
disintegrated without disintegrating the entire material
universe. I am not just talking about spontaneous combustion
where the body burns to a cinder. That has been known to
happen, apparently for various chemical reasons. But there
are also cases of yogis, for instance, who to the view of
others have gone up in a flash of light and disappeared.
Tukaram, the 17th century saint of India, was such a person.
But this kind of event is not the same as Divine Translation
in the highest sense. It is a kind of translation that can
be coincident with the enlightenment of that individual, but
it is basically a manifestation of the yoga of the
Life-Force in the body. For perfect Divine Translation to
take place, rather than mere disintegration of an individual
physical body, the total physical universe would have to be
translated. This is why Translation in the ultimate sense
that I have described relative to the seventh stage of life
is not likely to happen in physical terms, at least not in
these times. DEVOTEE: Master, why is the ultimate Translation of any
individual dependent on the Translation of the whole
physical universe? DA FREE JOHN: Because it is not simply an event that
occurs relative to one individual physical being. It is an
expression of awakening in terms of the absolute Universal
Force. Therefore, it is an event that must take place
universally. Now there is a yoga of translation that can
take place with an individual body. As I have said, this is
a possibility. There is a kind of yogically significant
individual experience in which the body disintegrates in a
flash or dissolves in a light form. This has no implications
relative to the universe for others, though the event in
your personal case could perhaps be perceived by others.
Your body could be seen to disappear in a flash, or it could
become sort of illusive, illusory, and just disintegrate.
This is a kind of translation, just as enlightenment itself
is translation into Divine Existence inherently. So the kind
of translation that is apparent to others can indeed be
developed as a yoga of individual translation whereby the
body dissolves in light. I have written in The Enlightenment of the Whole Body
that this kind of individual translation can occur in yogis
or devotees who extend themselves into the higher, mystical
stages of human evolution. This potentiality has been proved
by certain individuals in the past. But the ultimate event of most perfect Transfiguration or
Translation signifies truly the translation of the entire
material universe and all beings. It is rather the
disposition toward which we are all moving, the potential of
all beings, than it is something to which you, as an
individual beings, should look forward. It is not an
individual kind of experience. It is something toward which
bodies of this kind are universally moving. But to take
place in the highest sense, that translation would have to
be coincident with the enlightenment of all beings. Thus, Divine Translation is the process of ultimate
significance. Everything else, you see, is preparation.
Spiritual work, for an Adept, is a matter of preparing
people for that realization, so that they can exercise
themselves in enlightenment. First they must be established
in that enlightenment bodily, not just philosophically. The
total body-mind must be established in that ultimate
Light. All of the complex disturbance that you represent
individually must be undone. Until that time your spiritual
life is basically an exercise for sake of your own
enlightenment. But what of enlightenment itself, what of the
process that is spontaneously expressed in enlightenment?
Well, that is yet to be considered and engaged by us
together. It is to be seen whether we will ever do it
together. In the meantime it is a matter of my engaging you
in a consideration that relates to the level or quality of
energy and attention that you represent habitually. You see, if I talk with you, you all tell me about
presumed limitations. You all think in the conventional
terms of being a physical personality, an individual being
or entity with fears and emotional complexes, and with
various desires that are obsessive and difficult or that
demand to be fulfilled. Right? Is this true? Is anybody not
involved in any of that stuff? Everybody close your eyes.
(Laughter). Okay. Anybody who’s not involved in all that
dreadful stuff I just listed, raise you hand. Aha! (Someone
has apparently raised a hand.) Anybody else? (Laughter) Well
– you see what I mean? DEVOTEE: You are saying, then, that Divine Translation
would include objects to the extent of the dissolution of
very atoms. DA FREE JOHN: Ultimate Translation, yes. It is something,
therefore, that no single individual realizes. Perfect
Translation is something toward which all beings and every
body-mind are disposed, and therefore such Translation
really, is recognition of an ultimate enlightenment of all
beings, the Divine translation of the material universe. Looking at objective nature, science only conceives of a
scenario for this physical universe that can involve a
collapse backward of all material energies, and then perhaps
another creative Big Bang following it. The scientists see
things in terms of these outward cycles. From a spiritual
point of view we should say that the ultimate event is not
that energy collapse but the translation of the material
universe, so-called, into at least the domain of
light-energy that is superior to material existence. DEVOTEE: Master, lately I have been considering your
teaching on the Divine as the universal or Transcendental
Person or Personality. It just occurs to me as you were
talking that the spontaneous motive you speak of is the
motive of the Divine Person not really individual
beings. DA FREE JOHN: Yes – and so to speak of Translation in the
ultimate sense, we are speaking of that Destiny which is in
God relative to all of this material existence and,
therefore relative to any and every individual’s material
body-mind. You can transcend personal karma, then, and this will
change your condition. It can even in yogic terms involve a
kind of dissolution of the physical being. But that will
simply move you into a destiny coordinated with the
universal pattern of manifestation. Ultimate realization is
to coincide with the Divine perfectly. Then the universe as
we know perceive it truly disappear.
