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Can Guru's Awaken Individuals? Yes and
No Yes Shakti No "I am not trying
to communicate to you....should just tie yourself to me or
put some stickum on my big toe and hang on while I go to the
Ultimate Domain, dragging you behind me! I do not
communicate to you any sense that the Great Reality is in
any way separate from you at this present moment. I call you
to a consideration wherein you may Realize God in this
moment, and on that basis I voluntarily make myself
available to you." "That is the understanding that
is fundamental to the Way of The Heart, not seeking. Not
seeking union with me or seeking anything whatsoever but the
understanding of it. The understanding of it that transcends
that very act and makes you seek. Otherwise, you make it
into a moment of seeking for union with me." "Before you enter into this
Satsang with Me, you must transcend the self-contraction.
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." "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" "ultimately the character of my
work with people is such that these contents are eliminated.
They are absorbed, broken up, eliminated, returned to the
primary energy condition, and to the Ultimate Condition of
Transcendental Being. And so the spiritual life of devotees
in this Way is of this kind. It is lived out in this
Company, in the context of this Siddhi, and in this
relationship. It is necessary for devotees to hear, to
understand, to practice the disciplines of conductivity and
the conscious process. That is their part of this play. And
my part is to be present with them, to magnify this
influence in their company. And that influence inevitably
does the work as I've described it." QUESTION: Is
Self-Realization possible without the help of a
Guru? ANSWER: He alone can
realize the Self without a Guru's help in whose
mind queries like, "Who am I?, What is the world?,
Where was I before, and where shall I go? and Where
is Peace?" arise from his very birth and the
thought of the futility and transitoriness of the
world clearly manifests and awakens keen dispassion
and leads him to self-enquiry. Such men are very
rare. The first obstacle, and
the primary obstacle, to spiritual life is the
relationship to the Guru. It is also the
fundamental condition, content and source of
spiritual or real life.........spiritual life is a
relationship, a living demand. It creates an
obstacle from the very beginning. And that obstacle
provokes the crisis and fundamental sacrifice that
real life requires.
On reading the above excerpt from The Way That I Teach is seems like the answer is yes, but the full question of whether or not a Guru can enlighten individuals/devotees is more complicated and subtle than it appears. The question can be answered in both the afirmative and the negative. But in both cases the subtle aspects of the question still remain. "The devotee is constantly
given the intuition of the Absolute. But because
he, or she, adheres to the ego and to apparent
divisions of the body-being, he/she does not
recognize fully the significance of his intuition
of God. It is too ordinary an experience. He may
feel a little relieved, a little blissful, but
still he is unable to be completely given over to
the translating Force of the revelation of the
Spiritual Master. Therefore, his practice is a
matter of growth in the Divine Company of the
Spiritual Master. The initiation into Communion
with God is given constantly, but it is not fully
realized by the devotee. He is initiated piece by
piece. " The answers then can fit both common types of misunderstandings. One group of people will say 'yes' and then follow any teacher or guru in a child like manner. And the other more independent type of individual will say 'no' and try to enlighten themselves, or better yet, claim they are already enlightened! Can we address this question without the traps of childish beliefs or adolescent arrogance? Is there a mature approach that is not compromised by self-emptying nor self-assertion? "The Gurus" presiding
presence, the most powerful force, can do wonders:
save souls, give peace of mind, even give
liberation to ripe souls. Your prayers are not
answered by him but absorbed by his presence. His
presence saves you, wards off the karma.....The
jnani does save the devotees, but not by sankalpa,
which is non-existent in him, only through his
presiding presence, his sannidhi (Divine
presence).'' Ramana Maharshi A disciple and devotee of the Great 20th Century Indian Sage, Ramana Maharshi, Sidney Cohen asked this question to his Guru. He asked, "can the Guru make his disciples realize the Self", Sri Ramana answers it in this way: "...the Guru does not bring about Self-realization, but simply removes the obstacles to it. The Self is always realized. So long as you seek Self-realization the Guru is necessary. Guru is the Self. Take the Guru to be the real Self and yourself the individual. The disappearance of this sense of duality is removal of ignorance. So long as duality persists in you the Guru is necessary. Because you identify yourself with the body (and mind), you imagine the Guru to be the body. You are not the body, nor is the Guru. You are the Self and so is he. Th(is) knowledge is gained by what you call Self-realization". When I make the way of
the heart clear, my listening devotees begin to
understand. When they hear me, they truly
understand themselves. Therefore, the inclination
toward egoic "self-possession" becomes weak in my
hearing devotees, and they, by self-transcendence,
grow to feel me at the heart and to acknowledge me
from the heart. Then I become as if transparent to
them, and they begin to see the divine person in
and as my company. In that seeing, they are moved
beyond themselves, distracted by a "bright"
heart-vision. In their forms, mankind turns about
and begins to submit to me as the inherent
condition or transcendental, and inherently
spiritual, and necessarily divine self of all. And
their submission calls upon the infinite eternal
resource of who i am. In my openly ecstatic and
happy response to these, my seeing devotees, the
power and work and domain of who I am comes to meet
them, and their realization of my agency becomes
full. In this manner, I demonstrate to all my
listening devotees, and to all my hearing devotees,
and to all my seeing devotees that I am the heart,
who is the way, the root, the doer, the source, the
truth, and the self-domain of the process of
spiritual, transcendental, and divine
awakening. In his comments on this Cohen says, "Bhagavan does not recognize the possibility of transmitting a power to a person to make him realize the Self. In fact no such power is at all necessary. What is necessary for the cognition of the Real is not an addition but a subtraction - the removal of the sense of duality with covers the One consciousness."
It is clear that the Guru can awaken and individual who puts his or her attention on the Guru. Is this then a permanant change? is the devotee now awakened? Of course the answer is NO, the devotee is not awakened, permanently. As Cohen says, "All that the Guru can do is to help (the disciple) correct (his) false identification (with mind, body and self)." Destiny - Karma The Guru activates and initiates the student/individual/devotee. The Guru can't 'remove' karma's of lifetimes. The Guru can not permanently change the destiny of the individual, and magically change ones life into a divinely enlightened condition. In an early talk4 Adi Da (then Bubba Free John) says:"If your approach to me is wonderful and full of love and sacrifice, as it should be, then all the karma that must be seen, that must become your responsibility, can be shown to you easily. I am willing to it to be shown to you in a dream or in just a brief moment, some little circumstance that come and goes. I am perfectly willing for you to understand that dimension that you must understand in yourself on just such an occasion. I am willing for these karmas to pass in easy ways, in dreams and simple circumstances. But if you approach is not whole, not direct, not one of service, consciously lived all the time, to the degree that you do not live such sadhana in my Company, you must suffer your karmas as they stand. They will still be awakened in you by the force of this Company that you keep with me, but they will be awakened in gross ways, as they tend to appear outwardly in your life, outwardly in the waking state. Then the process has to be very dramatic and heavy." 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 a Transition through
the infinitesimal space of the Heart." "....it is not me putting my attention on you, it's you putting your attention on me". In a little phamplet put out by Kanya Samatva Suprithi called "Your Suffering Is Your Own Activity", Kanya Samatva describes her one aspect of the process of understanding and resource to the Divine One, in the form of Adi Da Samraj: "In this moment I heard the Teaching for the first time. I understood the difference between one who really practices the Way of the Heart and one who entertains the concepts and ideas of Spiritual practice. I also saw that the only real alternative to my suffering stood before me - in the Form of Sri Da Kalki. In the Way of the Heart, I only had to turn to Him and call upon His Grace, apply His Teaching, and relinquish my self-made efforts. Here we have a testimony to the 'process' of Spiritual Awakening in the context of the Guru and Disciple relationship. This process is a progressive one, over time (could be years or lifetimes) but still a process. Kanya Samatva Suprithi goes on to
describe the second aspect of this process, which is Grace,
or Divine Help. This Divine Help is necessary since
"Understanding" or True Understanding can not occur on our
own 'creature power'. Divine Help is absolutely necessary.
Brightening Way Talk Series
The beginnings of the
spiritual process in a devotee are simply his being
lifted experientially into the non-conventional
order of perception and cognition, in which there
is no ego, no separated existence, no dependence on
the self-limiting perceptual drama, no confinement
to conventional forms of cognition. Then he seems
to come back, through the same media of
psycho-physical experience, to his ordinary humdrum
life......This going up and coming down becomes
ever more rapid, to the point where there is no
more apparent coming up and going down. Then there
is simply direct realization, happiness under
conditions of all possible functional states, high
or low. That is the perfection of the devotee. Chogyam Trunpga - The Role of a Teacher "In the vajrayana, it is absolutely necessary to have a teacher and to trust in the teacher. The teacher or vajra master is the only embodiment of the transmission of energy". In the Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa, Vol 4 (Shambhala Press 2004) is the first of three volumes that presents Trantric Buddhism, a subject Trungpa was reluctant to talk about in his early teaching years. He was reluctant because of the immaturity and materially based mind of the young American mind set. In Buddhism the role of the Guru is paramount, absolutely essential for one on the path of the Buddha. In fact the Guru is the principle by which the tradtion is kept alive, the lineage. Without the Guru there is no living tradtion. In the beginning stages the Guru is not called a Guru but a Spiritual Friend. Someone who works with the student in a manner of 'meeting of minds'. He describes it as the mind of the teacher expanded to include the mind of the student and vise-versa. And as the student advances the role and function of the Guru become more and more important in the development of the student and here is where the Spiritual Friend becomes Vajra Master. "Relating with the vajra master is extremely powerful and somewhat dangerous". "The vajra master could be quite heavy-handed; however; (s)he does not just play tricks on us whenever he finds a weak point". ".... the vajra master is a human being, someone who has a karmic debt to pay as a result of the intensity of his compassion. The dharma cannot be transmitted from the sun or the moon or the stars. The dharma can only be transmitted properly from human to human. So there is a need for a (Guru) vajra master who has tremendous power - power over us, power over the cosmos, and power over himself - and who has been warned that if he misdirects his energy he will be cut down and reduced into a little piece of charcol (burned up). It is extremely important to have a living vajra master, someone who personally experiences our pain and our pleasure. We have to have a sense of fear and respect that we are connecting and communicating directly with tantra". Practice (Without a teacher or a practice)...without having some sense of understanding the meaning of practice, there is no real communication that takes place in your understanding of buddhadharma. And it is equally important to have a great deal of devotion to your teacher, who actually embodies the symbolism or the concept of practice at the same time. Through practice, the guru has already achieved a higher degree of enlightenment. Moreover, the guru is the only person who can actually push you and who could become a heavy-handed friend, who can actually make you, sit a lot and go beyond your slothfulness and laziness. If you want to boycott and all kinds of things like that, only the guru can push you to make you sit a lot and practice a lot. A cosmic guru might send theoretical blessings and encouragements through your particular antenna, and tell you all kinds of stories and messages; but, according to the practicing lineage, such things are regarded as very fishy. We can always reinterpret our own interpretations. To begin with, our own interpretation received from the antenna is not so substantial, but on top of that we can actually reinterpret it according to our liking. So it is necessary to have an earthly person, born and raised on this planet earth to begin with, who regards himself or herself as a human being who we like to share, the love and hate sweet and sour, hot and cold whatever you have of this particular world. This person can communicate to you
man to man, so to speak, and as a mirror reflection in some
sense. He also provides some sense of real, genuine
communication, independent of politicking or over-indulging
in charitable kindness, and free from obsession with
masochiistic trips - somebody who is somewhat sensible and
reasonable, but at same time unyielding, who we "wise" in
the traditional sense; somebody who cannot be persuaded by
your side of your trip, and somebody who can actually be
clear about whole thing; somebody who buys your story with a
pinch of salt; but at the same time is kind and friendly to
a certain extent. Such a person is the teacher, who then
teaches you practice a lot, sit a lot.
Function of the Spiritual Master "One who lives as the
function of Guru transcends, reduces, transforms,
assumes, consumes and otherwise masters the various
karmas or states, subtle and gross, of his
disciples in his own body. And that "body"
is the whole mechanism or range of functions,
usually called "bodies" in the esoteric literature.
Wherever a form arises in or as the disciple, it is
communicated and transformed in or as the Guru in
the corresponding and appropriate function.
Therefore, the relationship between Guru and
disciple is the spiritual process". In The Whole Body of Enlightenment, Adi Da (Da Free John) writes "The human Spiritual Master is an agent to the advantage of those in like form". If a disciple enters into the company (not just the physical presence, but the spiritual presence of the Spiritual Master), then the 'literal physics' of ones existence begins to change. Here is the key to understanding this complicated and paradoxical question. We begin to see and hear, that this is not a 'one time', 'do it and get it over with deal'. It is a process that has transformative powers far beyond any possible logical or scientific explanation, yet absolutely true. This fundamental understanding must ultimately rest in Ignorance. Because the summation of our existence is Mystery, absolute, unqualified confrontation with what we cannot know. Any movement to 'know' is a contraction of mind on feeling, a feeling of fear and the action of 'grasping'. Enlighenment is, in the end, an private and isolated matter. He makes no assumptions on
a lower level. So when he enters into relationship
with you, (the) perfection tends also to be
generated in your case, because his assumption of
your true nature manifests as power to
transform. It is only by 'hearing', 'seeing' and practicing can the Spiritual Master be of help (enter into the sphere of his transmission) to the devotee. Only by continuing to practice that the transmission can be effective. Only by submission to the process can the Spiritual Master be of True Help to the devotee. You don't need a Spiritual Master beyond a certain point. If you only want to read books or aquire a philosophy. But to practice and enter into a spiritual practice there is no other souce of help. In the case of rare individuals that Living Agency may be brought concretely, but not through the apparent agency of another human being. But such individuals are rare, but they still enter into the sphere of Help. The Help is simply given outside the agency of a grossly manifest human being. it may be given through the help of a deceased Adept, or some disincarnate source or it may be given directly from the Eternal Source Itself. But these cases are very rare. 5 The point is the ego or self contraction cannot by its own efforts release itself from its own bond. So for those who practice, there is no question that the Company of a True Adept is essential for the fulfillment of the Way and it is not possible to enter into the Enlightened condition with the Help of the Transcendental Agency.
2. Adi Da Samraj, The Parential Deity and the One to be Realized, Feb 7, 1983 3. Sidney Cohen's book, Reflections on Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi (1959, p.96) 4. The Dawn Horse (Vol 1 Number 2, Dec 1975), entitled "Lay It At My Feet" 5. What Is the Conscious Process, Da Free John, unpublished talk, Oct 28, 1982.
The Conscious Process if the Epitome of This Way - Adi Da - 1982
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 -
The
Great Esoteric Tradition of Devotion to the
Adept-Realizer DEVOTEE: Does proximity to you, closeness to your body, have any relation to the intensity or the effects of Satsang? FRANKLIN: What is your experience? DEVOTEE: It doesnt seem to have that much to do with the body. It seems more to be how much I am in felt contact with you and how open I am to you. FRANKLIN: It all depends on the quality of your relationship. Everything is its medium, because everything is it. The body seems to be a very potent source for some, whereas for others the process seems to take place mainly or only in very subtle ways. Neither one is superior to the other. A person must discover the quality of Satsang for himself. The Method of the Siddhas,
CHAPTER 10, The Path of the Great Form
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