THE METHOD OF THE SIDDHAS   this is an excerpt from a talk 'The Avon Lady' published in the Method of the Siddhas, by Franklin Jones (Adi Da Samraj) in 1973. To see the full article go to: The Avon Lady on Beezone. DEVOTEE: Are all awakened men Gurus? FRANKLIN: No. Guru is not a kind of status. It is a specific function. There are some who awaken, but who simply live, without becoming active as the function of Guru. There are others who awaken and do in fact perform that function. Truth, not the "role" of Guru, is the enjoyment of all who are awake. DEVOTEE: It's hard to figure out what I have read. One "realized" man wiped out his father, another killed off his whole family. How can such phenomena be explained? FRANKLIN: There is a point where one's search becomes inappropriate. This is that point. All of the Scriptures a person reads, all of the remarks and experiences and traditions come to an end when the import of those Scriptures ceases to be academic. In the presence of the Heart, seeking is inappropriate. It makes no difference what those sentences meant. That's not the point. The universe devours billions upon billions of entities every second. If we were to judge by actions those to whom enlightenment should go the universe itself would be the last. Only the righteous fools within it would be enlightened, but the universe would have to wait until the very end on account of its crimes. It is not any kind of significance, any appearance, any suggestion, any implication of what we see that is the Truth. The traditions say that you can't find the Guru in his actions. In other words, it is not by watching how various people act and speak that you find the Guru. He is always a paradox. His action is a paradox, like the universe itself. The old texts that talk about realized beings killing others are allegories for spiritual transformations within a man. One of the classic statements of Vedanta is that once a man has realized the Self he could slay a hrahmin and it would not be a sin for him. It wouldn't affect him. All of these statements are simply suggesting or somehow trying to imply the freedom of the Jnani, the Self realized man. So it is that Self, that Reality to which these Scriptures are trying to turn you. If you miss the point, and the Self doesn't become your direction after reading such Scriptures, you are stuck with something you can't understand. You are stuck with something that seems to say what can't be true. So all of these old Scriptures are loaded. There are always two sides. But they only have one purpose, which is to create interest in the Truth, in realization. After the interest has been created, the Scriptures have served their purpose. They just serve to move you along and entertain you for a period of time until this whole possibility becomes significant enough that a crisis, a breakdown in your ordinary functioning begins to take place. And, hopefully, when this crisis begins, you will also find yourself in the company of a truly Self realized man, one who lives as the Self. When that contact is made, all of these suggestive sentences become obsolete. They lose their function at the point where that meeting takes place. The more you have accumulated before that moment, the more there is that becomes obsolete. And so also the more resistance there is. Truly, the Self is mad. The Self is unlearned. The appropriate foundation of human life is not an entity, a separate self sense, an ego, even a soul. Such is not the appropriate foundation for human life. The appropriate foundation for human life is the Heart, the Self. It is utterly mindless, utterly free, uncontained, unqualified. But, paradoxically, when the Heart is lived the human being becomes functional, usable, alive, moved. Such a one makes no complicated use of the things an ordinary man uses to survive. Like a child, he moves by delight. He is a man of pleasure, of enjoyment. Like a madman, he learns nothing from life. He doesn't helieve what he sees. He doesn't take it to have any limiting significance. He throws away all the things that seem to everyone so profound, so serious. He attributes nothing to them. So the realized man is like a madman and a child. But apart from actual realization, radical understanding, what I have just said is a form of entertainment. It doesn't affect your impending death. And your death is what interests the Guru. DEVOTEE: What about Lord Yama? FRANKLIN: Lord Yama, the storybook Lord of Death? He barely enters into it! He is only a symbol in consciousness. As if death were some entity, some being or other. But your death is your concern. It is not the concern of any "other." That "other" is your Self. So it is only the true Guru who is very interested in your death. Your death, not all the things you call your life. And he is very interested in bringing it about very quickly. He doesn't want a long engagement! He wants a sudden "death" for everyone. DEVOTEE: What if a guy's heart, breath and mind were suspended for twenty minutes. He'd be free then, wouldn't he? FRANKLIN: It depends on what has occurred during those twenty minutes. Many people have been in a coma for months, or even years, but they didn't wake up any less immune to death, or any more intelligent. The "death" I am talking about is not the death of which you suspect yourself. It is not simply that physical, that vital event. The death I am talking about is the turnabout, the dissolution of the principle by which you live, the fundamental activity that you are animating, dramatizing, considering to be yourself, living to others, your state. It is that death which is significant. DEVOTEE: Sir, would you like to compare that with, say, the physical act of suicide. FRANKLIN: The physical act of suicide is an impairment. It is an obstruction. It takes away from you the functions you have available for intelligence. So the mere act of suicide is not it, any more than extreme fasting, self immolation, deprivation of the senses, exclusive internal concentration. None of these psycho physical events is the crisis of Truth. They are all experiences. They are symbolic at best. They don't achieve the thing that is needed. We have talked about traditional yogic methods of seeking Self realization or God union. They are something like sitting in a room, breathing heavily, and looking at erotic pictures. You can generate something that is like passion, but you are never going to make love! It never becomes that. Just so, you can sit and breathe methodically, turning inward, contemplating Divine images or God ideas, but it is never going to become God union. God has never entered into it. It is a very hopeful practice at best. There is no God union until God is there to be unioned with. As a lover depends on his loved one, the God seeker depends on the living Presence of God before there can be any God union. And when God appears you are not going to have to do your spiritual breathing! It will all be very obvious. You won't have to think about what is necessary to be done to become one with God. It is only the absence of God, the suffering, the ignorant condition that gets you involved in all of this seeking. It is only where God is already not that all of these practices begin.

"The perfect among the sages is identical with Me. There is absolutely no difference between us" Tripura Rahasya, Chap XX, 128-133  All copyright materials are used under authority of the Fair Use statute. (United State Code, Title 17) Fair Use