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read with
parentheticals – original version
My Great Regard for My Adept-Links
to the Great Tradition of Mankind, and My Realization of the
Great Onlyness of Me
CHAPTER 20 OF THE KNEE OF
LISTENING
The Seventeen Companions Of The True
Dawn Horse,
Book Four: – The Early-Life Ordeal and
The “Radical” Spiritual Realization Of The Ruchira
Avatar
by
The Divine World-Teacher,
RUCHIRA AVATAR Am DA SAMRAJ
l.
The Great Esoteric Tradition of
Devotion to the Adept-Realizer
Spiritually Realized Adepts are the
principal Sources, Resources, and Means of the esoteric Way.
This fact is not a matter of controversy among real
Spiritual practitioners.
The entire Spiritual Way is a
process based on the understanding of attention, or the
understanding of the inevitable and specific results of
attachment to, or reaction to, or identification with every
kind of conditional object, other, or state. This Spiritual
understanding is expressed in a simple traditional formula:
You become whatever you meditate on. Since the most ancient
days, this understanding has informed and inspired the
practice of real practitioners of the Spiritual Way.
Likewise, and on the basis of this very understanding,
Spiritual practitioners have affirmed that the Great
Principle of Spiritual practice is Satsang, or the practice
of life as self-surrender to the bodily Person, the
Transmitted Spiritual Presence, and the Realized State of a
Spiritually Realized Adept of whatever degree or
stage.
The traditional term “Guru” means
“One Who Reveals the Light and thereby Liberates beings from
Darkness”. This term is also commonly interpreted in a
general sense to mean “teacher”. Thus, Adepts have certainly
been valued simply as “gurus”. However, the function of
instruction can be performed by anyone who is properly
informed and, indeed, even the specific function of
Spiritual Instruction is secondary to the Great Function of
the Adept.
Adepts inevitably Instruct others,
but the function of Instruction is then passed on through
good books, and through informed others, and so forth. The
Great Function of the Adept-Guru is, however, specific only
to Adepts themselves, and this is the Guru-Function
supremely valued by Spiritual practitioners since the most
ancient days.
The specific Guru-Function is
associated with the Great Principle of Satsang. Therefore,
since the most ancient days, all truly established Spiritual
practitioners have understood that Satsang Itself is the
Great Means for Realizing Real God, or Truth, or Reality.
That is to say, the Great Means of Realization in the
Spiritual Way is to live in, or to spend significant time
in, or otherwise to give attention to the Company, Form,
Presence, and State of an Adept who is Realized in one or
another of either the advanced or the ultimate stages of
life.
The Essence of the practice of
Satsang is to focus attention on the Realized Condition of a
true Adept. Therefore, the practice of Satsang is the
practice of ego-transcending Communion with the Adept’s own
Condition, Which Is Samadhi Itself, or the Adept’s
characteristic Realization.
read with
parentheticals – original version
Based on the understanding of
attention, the Spiritual Motive is essentially the Motive to
transcend the limiting capability of attention. Therefore,
the traditional Spiritual process is an effort to set
attention Free by progressively relinquishing attachment and
reaction to conditional objects, others, and
states.
This conventional effort is profound
and difficult, and it tends to progress slowly. Therefore,
some few adopt the path of extraordinary self-effort, which
is asceticism. However, the Adepts themselves have, since
the most ancient days, offered an alternative to mere
self-effort. Indeed, the Adept-Gurus offer a Unique
Principle of practice. That Unique Principle is the
Principle of Supreme Attraction.
Truly, the bondage of attention to
conditional objects, others, and states must be really
transcended in the Spiritual Way, but mere self-effort is a
principle that originates in the separate self. Therefore,
the process of the real transcending of bondage to
conditions is made direct if the principle of independent
self-effort is at least progressively replaced by the
responsive Principle of Supreme Attraction.
On the basis of the simple
understanding of attention expressed in the formula: You
become What you meditate on the ancient Essence of the
Spiritual Way is to meditate on the Adept-Guru, and
(thereby) to be Attracted beyond the self-contraction.
Through sympathetic Spiritual Identification with the
Samadhi-State of a Realizer, the devotee is Spiritually
Infused and even Perfectly Awakened by the Inherently
Attractive Power of Samadhi Itself. And, by the Great
Spiritual Means that is true Satsang, the fully prepared
devotee of a true Realizer may Freely relinquish the limits
of attention in each of the progressive stages of life that,
in due course, follow upon that devotion.
read with
parentheticals – original version
Of course, actual Spiritual
Identification with the Realized Spiritual Condition of an
Adept is limited by the stage of life of the devotee, the
effective depth of the self-understanding and the
ego-transcending devotional response of the devotee, and the
stage of life and Realization of the Adept. And some
traditions may tend to replace the essential and Great
Communion that is true Satsang with concepts and norms
associated with the parent-child relationship, or the
relationship between a king and a frightened subject, or
even the relationship between a slave-master and a slave.
However, this Great Principle that Is Satsang is the ancient
Essence of the Spiritual Way-and true Adept-Gurus have,
therefore, since the most ancient days, been the
acknowledged principal Sources and Resources of true
religion and the esoteric tradition of Spiritual
Realization.
Particularly in more modern days,
since Spirituality has become a subject of mass
communication and popularization, the Spiritual Way Itself
has become increasingly subject to conventional
interpretation and popular controversy. In the broad social
context of the first three stages of life, self-fulfillment
is the common ideal. Therefore, the common mood is one of
adolescent anti-authority and anti-hierarchy, and the common
search is for a kind. of ever-youthful ego omnipotence and
ego-omniscience.
The popular egalitarian “culture” of
the first three stages of life is characterized by the
politics of adolescent rebellion against “authority”.
Indeed, a society of mere individuals does not need, and
cannot even tolerate, a true culture-because a true culture
must, necessarily, be characterized by mutual tolerance,
cooperation, peace, and profundity. Therefore, societies
based on competitive individualism, and egoic
self-fulfillment, and mere gross-mindedness actually destroy
culture. And true cultures are produced only when
individuals rightly and truly participate in a collective,
and, thus and thereby, live in accordance with the
life-principle of ego transcendence and the Great Principle
of Oneness.
In the popular egalitarian “culture”
of the first three stages of life, the Guru and the
developmental culture of the Spiritual Way are taboo,
because every individual limited by the motives of the first
three stages of life is at war with personal vulnerability
and need. However, the real Spiritual process does not even
begin until the egoic point of view of the first three
stages of life is understood and the ego-surrendering and
ego-transcending Motive of the fourth stage of life begins
to move and change the body-mind.
Those who are truly involved in the
ego-surrendering and ego-transcending process of the
advanced and the ultimate stages of life are no longer at
war with their own Help. Therefore, it is only in the
non-Spiritual “cultural” domain of the first three stages of
life that the Guru is, in principle, taboo. And, because
that taboo is rooted in adolescent reactivity and egoic
willfulness, “anti Guruism”, and even “anti-cultism”-which
denigrate, and defame, and mock, or otherwise belittle, all
“authorities”, and even all the seed groups of newly
emerging cultural movements – are forms of what Sigmund
Freud described as an “Oedipal” problem.
In the common world of mankind, it
is yet true that most individuals tend to be confined to the
general point of view associated, developmentally, with the
unfinished “business” of the first three stages of life.
Thus, in the common world of mankind, even religion is
reduced to what is intended to serve the “creaturely”, and
rather aggressively exoteric, point of view and purposes of
egoity in the context of the first three stages of life. And
even if an interest in the esoteric possibilities develops
in the case of any such yet rather “worldly” character, that
interest tends to be pursued in a manner that dramatizes and
reinforces the point of view characteristic of the first
three stages of life.
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parentheticals – original version
Until there is the development of
significantly effective self understanding relative to the
developmental problems associated with the first three
stages of life, any one who aspires to develop a truly
esoteric religious practice will, characteristically, tend
to relate to such possible esoteric practice in either a
childish or an adolescent manner. Thus, any one whose
developmental disposition is yet relatively childish will
tend to relate to esoteric possibilities via emotionalistic
attachments, while otherwise tending to be weak in both the
responsible exercise of discriminating intelligence and the
likewise responsible exercise of functional, practical,
relational, and cultural self-discipline. And any one whose
developmental disposition is yet relatively adolescent will
tend to relate to esoteric possibilities via generally
“heady” efforts, accompanied either by a general lack of
self-discipline or by an exaggerated attachment to
self-discipline.
Because of their developmental
tendencies toward either childish or adolescent
ego-dramatizations, those who are yet bound to the point of
view of the first three stages of life are, developmentally,
also not yet truly ready to enter into the esoteric process.
And, for the same developmental reasons, the principal and
most characteristic impediments toward true participation in
the esoteric religious process are “cultism”,
“intellectualism”, and “anti Guruism”.
It is not the specific Function of
the Adept to fulfill a popular Spiritual role in common
society, but to Serve as Teacher, Guide, Spiritual
Transmitter, or Free Awakener in relation to those who are
already moved to fulfill the ego-transcending obligations of
the Great and Spiritual Way itself. The only proper
relationship to such a Realized Adept is, therefore, one of
real and right and ego-surrendering and ego-transcending
practice, and that practice becomes Inspired and
ego-transcending devotion-not childish egoity, and not
adolescent egoity.
Of course, individuals in the
earlier stages of life who are not yet actively oriented to
ego-surrendering and ego-transcending practice may be Served
by Adept-Gurus, but those not yet actively oriented, or
rightly adapted, to truly ego-surrendering and really
ego-transcending practice are generally Served only through
the written Teachings of an Adept, and through the public
institutional work of the practicing devotees of an
Adept.
The Realized Adept is, primarily, an
esoteric Figure, whose unique Function Serves within the
context of the advanced and the ultimate stages of life. The
advanced and the ultimate stages of life are themselves open
only to those who are ready, willing, and able to make the
truly developmental sacrifice of separate and separative
self that is necessary in the context of the advanced and
the ultimate stages of life. Therefore, the necessity of a
Realized Adept is obvious only to those who are ready,
willing, and able to embrace the Ordeal of the advanced and
the ultimate stages of life.
Except for the possible moments in
which the Divine Person may Serve in a nonphysical
Revelation Form, the Realized Adept is an absolute necessity
for any and every human being who would practice within the
esoteric stages of life. Therefore, the necessity of a
Realized Adept is inherently obvious to any one and every
one who is truly ready, willing, and able to embrace the
esoteric Ordeal of Real-God-Realization.
Any one and every one who doubts and
quibbles about the necessity of a true Adept-Guru is,
simply, not yet ready, willing, and able to enter the
esoteric Ordeal of the advanced and the ultimate stages of
life. And no mere verbal argument is sufficient to convince
such doubters of the necessity of a true Adept-Guru -j ust
as no mere verbal argument is sufficient to make them ready,
willing, and able to truly embrace the ego-surrendering
esoteric Ordeal of the advanced and the ultimate stages of
life.
Those who doubt the Guru-Principle,
and the unique value and ultimate necessity of the
Adept-Guru, are those for whom the Great and Spiritual Way
Itself is yet in doubt. Therefore, such matters remain
“controversial” until the truly developmental and Spiritual
Motive Awakens the heart’s Great Impulse to Grow
Beyond.
read with
parentheticals – original version
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