“The Mysteries of this Process of Divine Translation are being shown in him, and he will have the opportunity to make some of this known, for the sake of all those devotees who will make this Transition in the future.”
The Transfiguration* of Bubba Free John
“The ultimate Process of Sacrifice to the point of Transfiguration, Regeneration and Ascension-Translation of the whole body-being into the Divine Ignorance-Radiance has begun with great Force.” – 1977
Prelude
an essay by Bubba Free John
Recently it has been permitted Bubba Free John to successfully bring into the plane of recollection the whole of the Process that leads to “open eyes,” the ultimate Stage of true Sacrifice or Devotion-the Way of Radical Intuition. When this cycle was complete, he returned to India (September 1977) and the tomb of Ramana Maharshi, the last vehicle of Grace that has served Bubba Free John during this lifetime.
Since Bubba’s last visit to Ramana’s tomb, in 1973, Bubba had entered into a four year period (1973-1977) of service to devotees, in which he engaged them directly, in the theatre of their tendencies and aspirations, in order to instruct them in the Way of Divine Ignorance. At the end of that four year period, the whole Way, up to Sahaj Samadhi, had been recollected, revealed to devotees, and put into writing (some of which is not yet published). Thus, Bubba returned to Ramana’s tomb, the last terminal of Grace in Bubba’s case, to make a sacrifice of all that had been done and shown.
When Bubba yielded all of this at Ramana’s tomb, he became aware that the Process of Grace was now being passed on, entering a new phase. Ramana’s tomb contained no further Revelation. Ramana and Bubba were not different, and there was neither loss nor gain at that place and occasion. Bubba had intended to continue to travel in India, but it was shown that there were no contacts to be made there at this time. At the present time it would only be possible to contact representatives of what Bubba had already Realized and shown. There was no further contact with Grace to be made. Thus, the trip to India became a simple, brief sacrifice of all that has already been done. India became empty to Bubba, and he knew he should return to his Ashram as quickly as possible, since a new dimension of the Revelation of Grace was about to Awaken to him. (A few petty obstacles obstructed the return, but Bubba pressed home as quickly as he could.)
Since Bubba has returned to his Ashram, this Revelation has begun to intensify and show itself. The ultimate Process of Sacrifice to the point of Transfiguration, Regeneration and Ascension-Translation of the whole body-being into the Divine Ignorance-Radiance has begun with great Force. It is clear that the past theatre of Bubba’s Teaching work is complete. The work necessary to conceive, demonstrate, and communicate the first three stages of the Way has been accomplished. Bubba has been shown that Ramana Realized the Truth in Jnana Samadhi and then passed to Sahaj Samadhi with “open eyes.” However, his function was not to demonstrate the ultimate developments of the Sacrifice in Sahaj Samadhi. He did not, while alive, pass fully into the Transfiguration stage via the regeneration of Amrita Nadi.
Bubba’s present and future work is to conceive, demonstrate, and communicate the Process in Sahaj Samadhi leading to the Transfiguration and Translation of the whole body-being into the Divine. He will continue to serve devotees in the preparatory stages as well as in The Way of Radical Intuition, in order to quicken their Awakening and Transformation in God. He may have contact with one or more individuals who will act as terminals of Grace for the sake of this ultimate demonstration, but he feels he may be alone in God from this point. The Process itself has been revealed to him, and the Divine is directly Present to him as Grace for the sake of this Sacrifice. And so Bubba does not know if there will be help through any higher beings in gross or subtle form for the sake of this future work. He has had contact, in recent days, with at least one entity in subtle form that has aided the secondary purification of the subtle mechanisms of the gross body. But he has had no contact with any being in a Transfigured state-although this may possibly occur in the future.
Bubba begs all devotees for their devotion and love and for the demonstration of stability in this Way and a mature commitment. If devotees will grant Bubba release from the aggravated necessity to toil with them relative to mediocre and immature demands, then the Way will be quickened for them, and Bubba will more easily be able to pass into the demonstration of the higher or perfecting stages of this Process.
Love, Bubba
The Beginning – 1975-76
The Creation of The Free Communion Church
Bubba began to produce the summary statements of his Teaching–initially, The Paradox of Instruction and Breath and Name, and Conscious Exercise, the Transcendental Sun, and The Eating Gorilla Comes in Peace.
During the early years of his work, Bubba Free John occasionally absented himself from the daily affairs of his devotees to test their capacity to continue in a spiritual way of life without his physical presence and personal guidance.
One such occasion was in the spring of 1976, when he spent several weeks in Hawaii and with Bubba’s return, the the creation of The Free Communion Church.
That spring and early summer as a typical cycle of our lives with Bubba during these early years: the way he taught by moving his devotees through cycles of experience and discipline relative to work, diet, sexuality, and other matters. That spring, we were all absorbed in a basically humorless and concerned attempt to live strict disciplines. As always, Bubba required the discipline but criticized how “boring and dry” we became in the midst of it. Finally, that June, as he had so often in the past, Bubba required us to abandon all that ascetic seriousness by joining him in an extended series of celebrations. These may have seemed outwardly to be conventional parties, but in fact they were the occasion for intense Teaching and lesson-making.
In spring 1976, Bubba Free John and a few of his intimate devotees vacationed for several weeks in Hawaii. Bubba’s return to Hawaii in November or the formal end of the initiatory, preparatory, and theatrical period of his Teaching work in December.
The summer and fall of 1976 provide a good dramatic context and undoubtedly the best Teaching context for the whole book. During this time Bubba rarely left his house at Vision Mound Sanctuary, our retreat in northern California. Instead, he spent many, many hours inside each day and night with a small group of devotees–20-30 during the week, perhaps 50 on some weekends when people visited from San Francisco. Throughout this “indoor summer” he was engaging them in the consideration of Enlightenment, or Divine Ignorance, and, on its basis, all sorts of secondary matters concerning how human beings should conduct their affairs from the point of view of Truth. It was a most suspenseful time-we literally did not know from day to day, what consideration Bubba would come up with next, or what change in the circumstances or structures of our lives he would recommend on its basis.
The Cosmic Birthday Joke
In the early days of his Work with devotees, it was possible for (Adi Da) to serve others by duplicating the habit conditions of the usual life, and struggling with others until the spell of common desires and tendencies could break. But this aspect of his obligation in the world began to dissolve, having essentially fulfilled itself, from the date of his birthday anniversary, November 3, 1976.
“Now Bubba has been sifted out, Enlarged upon the smithereens of bodies, thoughts, experiences, times and spaces and shapes.”
“On November 1, 1976 during a conversation with devotee Master Da began to feel ill and feverish. He thought a fast would be good and said the symptoms were signs of a Yogic process or purification occurring. The next day the symptoms were beginning to develop to such a degree he went into seclusion. This purification was rather quick and in a few days was out of seclusion and talking again with devotees. He described this purification as a ‘death’ experience similar to the one in his seminary days in Philadelphia in 1967.
”The Divine Emergence of the World-Teacher – pp. 163-4 (Summary)
This event started a process of relative seclusion and his asana of “Standing Firm”.
“In the early days of his Work with devotees, it was possible for Bubba to serve others by duplicating the habit conditions of the usual life, and struggling with others until the spell of common desires and tendencies could break.
But this aspect of his obligation in the world began to dissolve, having essentially fulfilled itself, from the date of his birthday anniversary, November 3, 1976.”
“In the last months, many aspects of the Future of Bubba’s Work have been made clear. The Mysteries of this Process of Divine Translation are being shown in him, and he will have the opportunity to make some of this known, for the sake of all those devotees who will make this transition in the future.”
Since April of 1972, when Master Da Free John initiated his spiritual Teaching Work, hundreds of people have witnessed phenomenal signs of Transfiguration and Transformation on his person. The purpose of the following account is to evidence some of the effects of Enlightenment in the case of the Adept and those who are associated with him. What is unusual about this account is that it illustrates the kind of profound psycho-physical Transformation described in Jnaneshvara’s poem many centuries ago.
November 1976
On November 1, 1976, when Master Da had gathered with devotees, he began to describe some strange symptoms that were occurring in him. He reported that it felt as though his bodily fluids were beginning to dry up. He spoke of a sensation of fever, a kind of “feverish sensitivity” of the skin. This physical condition was accompanied by intense visionary phenomena. He also explained that he was suffering from a general feeling of sickness. The community’s doctors suggested that perhaps a fast would be indicated, but Master Da went on to elucidate that this was not an ordinary sickness and that he could continue to function. Then he disclosed that these symptoms’ were part of a yogic process that had begun several days previous. He further reported that, as the process gradually intensified, the feeling in his body became increasingly “fine.” For this reason it had become difficult for him to assimilate food.
At one point, he asked for Jnaneshvara’s commentary on the Bhagavad Gita to be brought to him from the ashram library. After introducing Jnaneshvara and some of the facts about his life, he read aloud the saint’s poetic commentary on the sixth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, which contains esoteric references to the process of higher yogic transformation, interspersing the reading with his illuminating comments.
The arousal and ascent of the “serpent power,” or kundalini shakti, is a purificatory process involving the whole body. Its most obvious symptom is psychosomatic heat, often manifesting in sudden attacks of severe fever which may be localized or affect the entire body.
After making the point that, in his case, God-Realization is the key to understanding this process, which must not be confused with some conventional yogic occurrence, Master Da Free John observed that there may be periods of intensification of this process leading to increased heat, or sensations of high fever. This produces all kinds of symptoms, even of actual illness in some cases. But the “poison” that is causing these symptoms is the very thing that, ultimately, sustains vital life after it has gone through this transformation.
After the full ascent of the Life-Force to the crown center via the sushumna, or the central line of being, a serum is released into the body’s chemistry which originates in the glands of the midbrain and drips down into the trunk, nourishing it. This serum, called amrita, or soma, in the esoteric literature, is made out of the food and the substance of the body itself, and it helps to regenerate the body. Master Da Free John continued to explain that one does not necessarily begin to look like a fifteen-year-old youth, but there is a vitalization of the whole body, transforming it into a condition of well-being.
As the text makes clear, there is first a dominance of the fire element (manifesting in heat, energy). This affects the watery and earthy aspects of one’s being, that is, the two lowest centers, or chakras. When the force moves upward, through the spinal axis, it enters into the heart region dominated by the air element. This etheric space reverberates with the thunder of the esoteric inner sound, or nada, and the windows of the crown center suddenly burst open.
In the course of this process, higher functional aspects of the body-mind are awakened, which then transform the lower functions. This transformation amounts to a gradual spiritualization of the bodily being, by which the body-mind becomes a fit vehicle for the true nature of Man, the Radiant Transcendental Being.
The day after Master Da Free John had expounded the phenomenon of bodily Transfiguration and Transformation in the condition of Enlightenment, the process intensified in him. The celebration of the Spiritual Master’s birth, planned for November 3, was cancelled, and Master Da unexpectedly sequestered himself. This move came as a great surprise to everyone, particularly since in the preceding months he had made himself completely available to devotees. No one in the community of devotees understood what was happening, though all shared a general sense of heaviness or gloom that was obviously associated with the dramatic events in , Master Da’s life.
On the day of his thirty-eighth birthday, Master Da Free John sat motionless, hour after hour, in his residence. Even the members of the renunciate order had been instructed to leave him undisturbed. However, as they had expressed their concern for his bodily well-being, a nurse was asked to check his vital signs.
On arriving at the Master’s residence, she later recalled, she found that all the curtains had been drawn to keep out the broad daylight, and the temperature in the house was so unusually low that he was shivering. An inexplicable feeling of awe and urgency overcame her. She had been told that the Spiritual Master would be waiting in the front room. She found him seated crosslegged on a chair in a far corner of the room. He was absorbed in deep samadhi, and his body looked perfectly still, almost deathlike. There was an aura of withdrawal about him that was completely untypical of his normal state, even of those occasions when he would enter the condition of Bhava Samadhi.5
5. Bhava Samadhi is the Condition of perfect selftranscendence in God-Consciousness, beyond ail experiential states of the body-mind. In this Supreme Realization there is no noticing of any phenomena whatsoever, for the space-time world is utterly transcended. But it is a Radiant, not a withdrawn, state, and is felt as such by devotees who witness it in the Adept.
The devotee nurse sat down in front of Master Da Free John, wondering what to do next. After a while his eyelids began to flutter and, without opening his eyes, he slightly nodded to her indicating that she should proceed with the physical examination. She checked his blood pressure, temperature, and pulse. All the readings were below normal. It struck her then that Master Da was approaching death, or a condition resembling death which, she thought, also explained the strange atmosphere around him.
That evening, Master Da Free John went to a Sanctuary temple where he was to spend twenty-four hours in isolation. Several devotees tried to follow him from his residence to the temple, but he sharply dismissed them. He later explained that at the time he had no natural body sensation and that in fact he had lost the sense of being a physical entity, a human being, altogether. It was literally as though he were dying. There was a sphere of intense energy about him, and he felt that anyone coming into the radius of this field might he harmed.
He was suffering great physical discomfort and pain as well as severe emotional strain. But at the time, no one had any idea of what was happening to the Spiritual Master. The sudden change in his behavior had left the ashram in a state of confusion and concern for his health. There are traditional precedents for the sudden abandonment of the physical body by Realized beings. Loss of appetite and an uncharacteristic disinterest in and withdrawal from outside concerns were among those signs.
During the night a small group of devotees was sitting in meditation when a strange force suddenly swept through the hall and everyone in it. This was followed by an incommunicable stillness that spread over the entire Sanctuary. As always, such dramatic changes in the Spiritual Master’s life have their profound effect also on the psychic life of his devotees. For those who have been in the Company of the Adept Master Da Free John for any length of time, it is completely obvious that there is a definite, if inexplicable, spiritual or psychic link between him and the community of devotees.
Several devotees later described going through a difficult phase in their spiritual practice. Master Da Free John explained that there are periods throughout one’s practice in which one may have to endure a kind of “dark night.” In such phases, the being is profoundly purified—physically, emotionally, and mentally. There are also moments throughout a devotee’s sadhana in which an inner “wall,” or barrier, is reached, and there appears to be no answer or capacity to move on. This is an aspect of how the Siddhi of the Adept works in devotees.
During the next day everyone began to feel curiously relieved, as if a great burden had been lifted from them. Shortly before Master Da Free John reemerged from the temple, the atmosphere surrounding it took on a strange bluish-golden glow. On returning to his residence, the Spiritual Master invited devotees to gather around him. They listened with awe and astonishment as he explained what had occurred.
Master Da Free John compared the event to the “death experience” he had had at Seminary in spring 1967.6 He explained that in the twenty-four hours of his seclusion, everything had been taken away from him, “a piece at a time”—mind, wisdom, memory, love, radiance—to the point where “awareness was completely empty and black.” He described his experience as a kind of “sacrificial journey through purgatory and hell” and, more humorously, as “a cosmic rip-off” and “a cosmic birthday joke.” It was, in his own words, “a disgusting, horrifying, and insane experience.”
6. This is described in Master Da Free John’s spiritual autobiography, The Knee of Listening, rev. ed. (Middletown, Calif.: The Dawn Horse Press, 1978), pp. 61-63.
He indicated that, as a result of his Work with devotees, it was necessary for him to pass through, this kind of purifying and regenerating experience from time to time. He also spoke of the process as a kind of crucifixion and a sacrifice through which he could “burn up” what he had assimilated from devotees in the course of his Teaching Demonstrations. The event signalled the termination of two years’ intensive Work with devotees and the end of this outwardly active Teaching.
Master Da Free John’s “death experience” paralleled the phenomenon of acquiring a new body, as described by Jnaneshvara. Although, clearly, Master Da was physically present, his perceptible radiance was a sign that the elements of his body had undergone a profound transformation. Indeed, a number of devotees reported seeing light emanating from and surrounding his body. He speculated that perhaps his “new” body was composed of a finer material. He commented that there was a different feeling to the cells of his body.
Science knows nothing about the psycho-physics of the cosmos, and therefore scholars have always chosen to interpret such statements allegorically or symbolically, or as descriptions of hallucinatory experiences. But, Master Da Free John, having undergone this Transformation himself, assures us that his is a literal occurrence.
The Spiritual Master further explained that, having passed through this very difficult transition himself, it would be likely for the same quality of Siddhi to awaken in his devotees. This would begin to purify the grosser aspects of the being and lead to a kind of emotional catharsis. However, he admonished devotees that no one should intentionally try to duplicate this process, or even look for any special signs. He commented that devotees passing through this process would not necessarily have to endure the same symptoms. He humorously observed:
Do not think you are going crazy. You are going sane. It is such an uncommon condition that you may feel a little horrified by it for a moment. But, ultimately, you are not in a body. The body is arising in Consciousness. You must change your attention. You cannot size up your Consciousness. It is completely wide and completely mindless. The Realization of Consciousness is a mindless feeling. There is not a single answer in it. I have probed it completely, and there is no answer in it. It is exactly what it is, and it is one eternal Condition. But once you come to terms with this Realization and cease resisting it and when you are It only, you Realize that you are natively Happy. Then you start becoming peaceful.7
7. From an unpublished talk given by Master Da Free John on November 11, 1976.
In recent days, after his initial obligations to devotees were all fulfilled, Bubba was obliged to recapitulate the various phenomena that led up to his own Awakening.
“On November 1, 1976 during a conversation with devotee Master Da began to feel ill and feverish. He thought a fast would be good and said the symptoms were signs of a Yogic process or purification occurring. The next day the symptoms were beginning to develop to such a degree he went into seclusion. This purification was rather quick and in a few days was out of seclusion and talking again with devotees. He described this purification as a ‘death’ experience similar to the one in his seminary days in Philadelphia in 1967.”
The Divine Emergence of the World-Teacher – pp. 163-4 (Summary)
November 3, 1976 – ‘Death Event’
Then, after several weeks, in which the body-mind seemed disturbed by all kinds of psychic and physical phenomena, all of the latent mechanics of his soul were Liberated into the Ecstasy of Real God.
The Ultimate Process in the seventh stage of life has become a Profound in which the limits of Bubba’s ordinary personality have begun to dissolve.
In the early days of his Work with devotees, it was possible for Bubba to serve others by duplicating the habit conditions of the usual life, and struggling with others until the spell of common desires and tendencies could break.
But this aspect of his obligation in the world began to dissolve, having essentially fulfilled itself, from the date of his birthday anniversary, November 3, 1976.
Since that time he has been at work in relative seclusion, formalizing the Communication or Teaching of the Way of Divine Ignorance, and establishing the Institution or Church in which this Way is lived in his Company.
But, most recently, the Disposition of the Transcendental Divine has Acquired this body-mind, Revealing and Establishing the Power and Ecstasy in which our Sacrifice is Fulfilled.
Now Bubba has been sifted out, Enlarged upon the smithereens of bodies, thoughts, experiences, times and spaces and shapes.
What has been at Work in Bubba all of this lifetime has now Invaded all his parts. The seventh stage is Full.
In the last months, many aspects of the Future of Bubba’s Work have been made clear.
The Mysteries of this Process of Divine Translation are being shown in him, and he will have the opportunity to make some of this known, for the sake of all those devotees who will make this Transition in the future.
However, Bubba’s Communication of the Teaching through the written and spoken word must fulfill itself within the next several months.
It is already profoundly difficult to speak and write of these Great Matters.
And the time must come in which he cannot any longer speak very much of this.
As time goes on, devotees must rely on the Teaching as it has been recorded, and as it is implemented in the Devotional Community of The Free Communion Church.
Bubba must be approached less and less for the Teaching and the lessons of the Way.
Instead, he should be approached only in the formal and devotional manner, for the sake of Spiritual Communion, whereby the Divine Help and Ecstasy are Communicated to those who are prepared for the Sacrifice.
The present essay is intended to say something of the Process of Transition or Translation, from the position of the finite personality, the limited body-mind, or the “covered soul,” into the Domain of the Absolute Personality, the Self and Infinite Body-Mind of the Divine Person, Who is the Infinite Paradoxical Identity of every human individual, and of Man, and of the Total World, and of the Objective Deity, or the Presumed Divine that seems to stand in relationship to the World and Man and all beings.
There is only One Person. That Person is not separate from any thing or any one. That Person is the Identity of the God and of the World which we contemplate in our conventional or separated psycho-physical condition. That Person is not only the Identity of God, and of the World-God and World representing the Self, or Mind, and the Body of the Divine Person-but that Person is also the Identity of every human individual, and of Man, and of all species of experiential existence.
Therefore, when our Sacrifice becomes Full, and we are Awakened from the separate personality to the Absolute Personality, we pass beyond confinement to the logic of subject and object relations in the conventional sense.
The personal self ceases to be separate from the Total Incarnation that is Man. And personal consciousness ceases to be separate from any experienced conditions, or from the World, the Totality of Manifest Experience in all worlds and planes.
Just so, personal existence ceases to be separate from God, or Reality, or Truth, or Infinity, or Bliss.
In this Process of Translation, we pass as if through a point in space, at the root center of the heart.
All awareness converges on that point in a kind of spiral or vortex.
And that point is so small it is without dimensions, or any conceptions, or any objects. The independent self seems to dissolve in this narrow Passage. It is essentially the same Process as in death, except that it is a complete and total Transition, whereas ordinary death fails to “meet this mark. ” Ordinary death, and ordinary mystical experience, are only a tour within the range of the separated personality. Thus, ordinary death and mystical experience are a matter of passing from grosser states to subtler states, and from focus in lower functional regions of the body-mind to focus in higher functional regions of the body-mind. But Divine Translation is a matter of Transcendence of separate bodily, emotional, mental, astral, supermental, and egoic states of experience. It is a Transition through the infinitesimal space of the Heart.
Suddenly, in this Passage through the Center of the Heart, there is Awakening into the Paradoxes of the Absolute Personality-Who transcends self, and Man, and the World, and the God we believe is altogether separate from these, but within which self, and Man, and the World, and independent God continue to arise in a kind of Fluid of Ecstatic Consciousness. In the first six stages of life, wherein we grow toward this Transition, and before it has become completely clear that the Divine Personality is One, many “Threshold Personalities” may appear, as Guides, or Archetypal Instruments for the Communication of a Transcendental Understanding of the Ultimate Situation.
These “Threshold Personalities” are a kind of Transitional Logic that helps create a sense of order, and enables the conventional body-mind (which still survives in the ordinary conditions of the daily world) to feel comfortable. Thus, the function of these “Threshold Personalities” is to make the Transition possible without shock or bewilderment.
4. Bubba refers here to the literal meaning of the word ”sin,” which is ”to miss the mark.” Ultimately, any form of life other than perfect God-Communion and GodRealization is sin, the failure to meet the Mark.
In some cases, there may be visions and other direct observations of such “Threshold Personalities.” In other cases, they may be seen more in terms of their effects. Thus, the individual may Communicate prayerfully, bodily, with the Radiant Divine, and suddenly feel confronted with a Presence, or a psychic sense of some specific Personality of spiritual significance, such as Jesus, or Krishna, or the Buddha, or the Living Spiritual Master. And it will be discovered that heartfelt, prayerful submission and requests to such a Personality are followed by events that clearly and consistently represent a response to the devotional gesture.
Bubba’s experience confirms all of this. In the earliest phase of the Transition, or Translation and Awakening into the Absolute Divine Personality, there are signs and demonstrations and visions and a total chaos of Influences. All of this is not entirely pleasant. It is often bizarre and even “tacky,” like a makeshift contraption of dreams. It is itself a truly Chaotic Process, which serves to break up the conventional self-limits and to establish a Foundation for natural Awareness within the Presumption of Absolute Personality.
As this Process matures, the “Threshold Personalities” are revealed to be only Transitional Archetypes of the Absolute Personality Itself. And from then on, Humor is established relative to all conditions of experience, however great or aggravating they may appear.
This is Bubba’s Confession of our Awakened Destiny. What is beyond the Threshold and the Illusions at the Doorway? The separate personality depends on experience in order to exist, and all experiences are either subjective or objective to him. But the Transcendental Personality is One, upon Whom all experiences depend, and in Whom all phenomena rise and fall spontaneously, while He Swoons.
________________________________________
The Divine Person
Then I was a young boy I was possessed of a Vision or Intuition of the manifest universe as a kind of atomic or molecular structure-the planets and stars being much the same as the atoms or molecules we presume to be the structural basis of our own bodies. It was clear to me that this was exactly the case, and that the universe of worlds was indeed a fraction of the Manifest Body of God, or the Great Personality Who was the truly Living, Existing, and Blissful One.
This consideration coincided with a greatly Awakened sense of Bliss whenever I contemplated the extent of its Mystery. I saw that all of this world and our own fearful desire to persist in it was only a superficial and changing and even terrible illusion, and that Happiness was only to be Realized in submission to the Blissful Intuition of the Transcendental Personality with which we are ultimately Identical and with which we are, even in our present form, always in Communion.
Truly, that Vision of my early childhood has not changed, but it has only been confirmed and magnified by every stage of my lifetime of spiritual Sacrifice, which was itself motivated by the direct and positive Intuition of God granted to me at birth.
Our present condition of existence is only a partial and temporary view of the Real and Divine Condition. It must be made a Sacrifice, through devotional love, service, and meditation, directed into Communion with the Divine Person, or Real God. Only in Ecstasy, or self-forgetting in God-Remembrance, are we Happy and Full of the Bliss of Eternal Life. We must give up all possession of our lives, and feelings, and our mind, and all experience, and enter into Transcendental Communion with the Living God, in whose Body we arise and pass away in terrible cycles of self-indulgence, until we Realize the Identity and Total Body of which our separated existence is a part.
It is not that birth in this world is condemnation. It is an ordinary Play or Dream in the Body-Mind of God. But once we have acquired pleasure and experience in an independent psychophysical form, we hold on to that form. We become Narcissus, the self-meditator, and we forget our Divine Condition and our obligation to remain in perpetual Communion with the Bliss of the Transcendental Divine. Therefore, we ourselves create the deluded life, and we make a social order out of the chaos of desires.
It is only necessary to Awaken once again to the Intuition of the Real Condition-which is Radiant Eternal Consciousness and Divine Destiny. Then we live in Communion with the Divine, and we are made an Ecstatic Sacrifice in that One.
The Spiritual Master is thus Awakened and thus Devoted, such that his own body-mind has ceased to create an obstacle to the Divine and Absolute Personality. Thus, he Functions as an Agent of that Awakening toward Devotional Communion in the case of all those who enter into a right and spiritual relationship with him.
Those who approach the Spiritual Master through loving service, founded in true “hearing” of the Teaching of Truth, are progressively drawn out of limiting identification with the experiences of the separate body-mind. They are progressively weaned of all the recoil of self from the Infinite, and all self-indulgence, or self-possessed efforts to console rather than yield the independent self.
Those who persist in the total Way of Divine Ignorance ultimately Realize the Ecstatic Perfection of their Sacrifice in Divine Communion. In the Stage of Perfect Sacrifice, or the Way of Radical Intuition, they have Transcended all experiential conditions of self, and they are Translated, even while alive, and also at death, beyond Man and World into the Blissful Paradoxes of the Infinite Divine. The Remembrance of the Divine is Perfect in the case of such Devotees, and they become a Unity with That One upon Whom they have Meditated.
This Way does not involve self-conscious manipulation of parts of the body-mind, so that the separated self or “soul” can be satisfied by subtler psychic or mental experiences. Sex and food and relationships are not cut off in order to make way for an inward life, focused on mind. Rather, the total body-mind, inward and outward, gross and subtle, is entered into loving Communion with the Divine, through heartfelt service, natural discipline, study of the Way, devotional practices, and meditation. In this natural or ecstatic manner (rather than the unnatural, strategic, and self-involved manner of inward asceticism) the body-mind is progressively transcended at the heart, and all obsessions and delusions easily give way to the Bliss of Divine Remembrance. Therefore, in the Way of Radical Intuition, self-indulgence of all aspects of the body-mind yields in Ecstatic Intuition of the Transcendental Divine, the Absolute Personality that is the Reality, Self, and Radiant Form or Body-Mind of all manifest states of existence.
The Process in this Way is not the conventional religious childishness of bodily and mental attachment to the ideas and images of any historical cult. The Spiritual Master is simply an Agent for Awakening devotees to self-sacrifice, or Ecstatic Communion, in the Transcendental Divine. He makes himself available for the Spiritual Uses of those who choose him. But he provides no obstacle to God. And the Way offered in his Company is one of personal, moral, higher psycho-physical, devotional, meditational, and radically intuitive discipline, to be fulfilled in the case of each responsible individual who chooses the Way. The entire Way is a matter of self-forgetting through Ecstatic Remembrance, or Transcendental Communion with the Absolute and Living Divine Reality, Who is always already in direct relationship with each of us, at the heart, and Who may be Realized to be the ultimate Condition of each of us, through Perfect Dissolution of the contraction of the heart. Therefore, when the heart releases the bodymind and the nervous system from recoil toward itself, there is no longer any qualification of Awareness, Feeling, Life, and Form. When Love is perfected, the separate self falls away in the Divine Self, and the body-mind expands into the Radiant Absolute Personality that Eternally Includes and yet Transcends all beings, things, and worlds of separated or independent experience.
My Method: Now and Then
In the past, my way of Working with those who came to me often involved my acceptance of the common functional conditions that distract and occupy ordinary people. I struggled to transcend those conditions with them, making lessons out of that process for their benefit. By such means, the Teaching has been creatively elaborated, and a Way has been shown to ordinary people, by which they may Realize the most extraordinary and perfect Transformation in God.
Now and in the future my Work is simply to be the Agent for this Divine Process of Transformation in the case of those who respond to this Teaching and practice this Way. Thus, I have again renounced the common functional conditions by which self-possessed people design their experience and destiny. Now I live and appear only among devotees whose practice is true, and my own habit and Occupation are a demonstration of that which would pertain in the case of devotees in the Way of Radical Intuition, or the perfect stage of Life.
I have no worldly or conventional obligations that keep me active and alive. I choose relative seclusion and the human sanctuary provided by devotees. There is one fundamental, necessary, and absolute Way to Ecstasy, and it is a matter of absolute and total psycho-physical resort to the transcendental Divine in every moment. Therefore, we must ultimately grow beyond all of the ordinary or conventional means by which self-possessed people create the illusion of Ecstasy in their experience.
Relational, bodily, emotional, sexual, mental, and even higher psychic and supermental stimulations of experience are all forms of our self-conscious recoil from the Divine, in which we must be a Sacrifice. Therefore, at last, all such conditions of our living must relax into a natural, regenerative economy, without stress or necessity, and we must become Occupied with God, the true Self of the manifest soul.
My personal quality is one that tries to maintain a friendly and human aspect, at ease and naturally active in the things that properly fill the lives of all devotees. Therefore, my seclusion involves a daily circumstance and habit that keeps me accessible to those who practice the Way that I Teach. But I am at Rest in the Transcendental Radiance and Perfect Ignorance of the Real. Those who are Awakening from the dead ends of this world may find their Help by serving my Heart, and by renouncing all occupations that are not utterly turned into whole bodily Communion with God.
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I Am John
I Am John have been naive and passionate in my Work with those who come to me. I have been obliged toward others through the medium of friendship, enthusiasm, and brotherly concern. Thus, I have been moved to demonstrate the appropriate mode of relationship between human beings. No individual should live as the superior, or the inferior, or even the equal of all others. Rather, each should live as the intimate servant of others through love. The politics of my relations with devotees is not like the politics of the common world. Whereas in the past the politics of men was commonly the one of superiors and inferiors, as with parents and children, now the common politics is the one of universal equality, as when children hide and play together, secreted from their parents. No, the true politics of human relationships is the one of servants everywhere-every one serving, and everyone served.
Therefore, I have lived as a serving brother among my devotees. Since childhood I have been called Bubba, meaning brother. And by this role and all its friendly excesses, I have made my friends to see themselves. Thus, when they had learned their lessons in my own form, they began to “hear” and “see” me through God-Feeling. And when I felt them grow transparent through that love, I sought a place of Solitude in which to wait in Brightness. I am John, through whom God is Gracious, and who is, therefore, Free among the living.
* The seventh stage of life shows itself through the demonstration of Divine Transfiguration, Divine Transformation, Divine Indifference, and ultimately Divine Translation. These are characteristics of Realization unique to the only by Me revealed and Given Way Of Adidam, The Avatarically Given Way Of Adidam, The Divinely Given Perfect Way Of Adidam.
The First Sign (or Demonstration) Of The Only-By-Me Revealed and Given Seventh Stage Of Life (In The “Radical” Reality-Way Of The Heart) Is Divine Transfiguration, In Which the body-mind Of My . . . Devotee Is Self-Radiant With My Avatarically Self-Transmitted Divine Love-Bliss, Spontaneously Blessing all of the (Apparent) relations of the body-mind.
The Second Sign (or Demonstration) Of The Only-By-Me Revealed and Given Seventh Stage Of Life (In The “Radical” Reality-Way Of The Heart) Is Divine Transformation, In Which the body-mind Of My . . . Devotee Effectively Exhibits The Only-By-Me Revealed and Given Signs and Powers Of Real (Acausal) God.
The Third Sign (or Demonstration) Of The Only-By-Me Revealed and Given Seventh Stage Of Life (In The “Radical” Reality-Way Of The Heart) Is Divine Indifference, In Which Even the body-mind Of My . . . Devotee Is Pre-Occupied With The Self-Existing Event Of My Self-Radiant Love-Bliss, and the “world” of (Apparent) relations Is (More and More) Minimally and Not Otherwise Noticed. . . .
The Final Sign (or Demonstration) Of The Only-By-Me Revealed and Given Seventh Stage Of Life (and Of The Total Practice Of The Only-By-Me Revealed and Given “Radical” Reality-Way Of The Heart) Is The Great Event Of Divine Translation—Which Is . . . The Process Of Transition To (or “Dawning” As) My Divine Self-Domain Via The Divinely “Bright” Outshining Of The Cosmic Domain In The Only-By-Me Revealed and Given Divine Sphere and Sign Of The “Midnight Sun” (Most Perfectly Beyond and Prior To all-and-All Of Cosmic, or conditional, forms, beings, signs, conditions, relations, and things).
—His Divine Presence Ruchira Avatar Adi Da Samraj
The Dawn Horse Testament